Mateusz Perkowski | April 4, 2008
As slaughter drops off in U.S., attention shifts to live exports
A "puntilla" boning knife stabs the horse in the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord.
Rendered immobile, the animal nonetheless remains conscious as it's hung by its hind legs and its throat is slit.
"It's an older, more barbaric practice" that is probably common in Mexico, said Keith Dane, director of equine protection for the Humane Society of the United States.
These methods were filmed by an investigator in a Mexican horse slaughterhouse, and the group is now using the footage to gain support for a federal ban on slaughtering horses or exporting them for slaughter.
"We're very confident we've got the votes," Dane said, referring to the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act currently before the House and Senate.
The irony is that more horses are now being shipped to Mexico as the result of horse slaughter bans in several U.S. states, said Tom Lenz, a veterinarian, past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners and chair of the Unwanted Horse Coalition.
"What's going on today is exactly what we predicted," he said.
Horse slaughter isn't banned at the federal level, but bans in Illinois and Texas effectively shut down the last three remaining plants in the U.S. last year. Since then, exports of horses for slaughter have surged, Lenz said.
About 10,900 horses have been sent to Mexico for slaughter so far in 2008, up from about 4,900 at the time last year—more than a twofold increase, according to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service.
"Once they cross the border, they're no longer under our federal veterinary supervision," said Lenz.
That is exactly why the Humane Society wants Congress to pass the federal ban, said Dane. Since there are no horse slaughterhouses left in the U.S., passing the act would not change the situation in this country, he said.
"The only real impact of the bill is to stop the export," said Dane. "The ban is the answer."
Groups that oppose the bill, including the AAEP and the American Veterinary Medical Association, may be counting on new horse slaughter facilities starting up in states with no horse slaughter ban, he said.
However, this isn't likely to happen even if the federal ban fails in Congress, he said. The ire such plants would draw from the society and other animal rights groups would scare investors away, Dane said.
"It's probably not a wise business move to open another one in another state," he said.
The AVMA is not "pro-slaughter," but the association also doesn't believe slaughter bans are realistic, said Angela Demaree, a veterinarian and assistant director of governmental relations for the group.
"There's no quick fix to the problem," she said.
Just because the Congress prohibits horse exports for slaughter doesn't mean the animals will cease traveling to Mexico, Demaree said. There's a possibility that horses sent to that country supposedly for breeding or showing will actually be processed for meat, she said.
"The point is nobody has looked into exports under false premises," said Demaree.
Export statistics cause Demaree to suspect this may already be happening. At 1,100 horses, the number of animals sent to Mexico for breeding so far in 2008 is 10 times greater than at this point last year, according to AMS.
"Our concern is, if the bill passes, we could see those numbers escalate even further," said Demaree.
Proponents of the bill discount this argument, since existing rules could be subverted as well, said Dane.
"There's always the possibility that someone will lie and break the laws," he said. "That happens every day on multiple levels."
Federal oversight would need to be stepped up to reduce the prevalence of sham horse exports, Dane said. The society would also launch investigations to ensure the law was enforced, he said.
What troubles veterinary groups like the AAEP and AVMA is that the bill doesn't provide any funding for the care of unwanted horses, said Lenz.
Owners of the 100,000 or so horses that are usually slaughtered each year would need to seek out other options, he said.
Wealthy horse owners can afford the $60 to $100 it costs to euthanize a horse and the $200 to $300 more it costs to dispose of the carcass, he said. For poorer owners, selling the animal for slaughter is often the only financially feasible choice, said Lenz.
"There's a lot of people at the lower end of the horse business that are having a tough time right now," said Lenz, noting that the high cost of hay, feed and fuel aggravates the problem.
"Those are the people who are on the borderline economically," he said.
With so many unwanted horses, Lenz worries that the animals would be neglected, abandoned or abused.
Such concerns are not backed up by the facts, according to Veterinarians for Equine Welfare, a group opposing horse slaughter. The horse slaughter industry depends mostly on healthy animals, not old or sickly ones that need to be euthanized, the group said in a white paper earlier this year.
"No increase in the abandonment or neglect of horses has been documented since the closure of the three domestic slaughter plants in the earlier part of 2007," stated the paper.
It is true that many horses headed for slaughter are outwardly healthy, but many have temperamental problems or become lame only when subjected to weight, Lenz said. Otherwise, it wouldn't make economic sense for owners to sell them for slaughter, given the much lower selling price for meat horses, he said.
"Nobody is raising horses in this country to be processed. ... These are just discarded horses," said Lenz. "If there were no longer horses being discarded, there would be no horse slaughter in this country."
XP—You won't stop the export of horses for slaughter by criminalizing it, you'll drive the market underground, but as long as there is still a demand for horsemeat, there WILL be slaughter. We were better off when we could control the conditions here in the U.S. and had government oversight—it was a more humane end for unwanted horses than what the ban has created.
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