Horses abandoned to wild suffer

Equestrian community still saddled with slaughter debate [link]

Anita Zimmerman | July 16, 2008

The last horse slaughterhouse in the United States has been closed for more than a year, but the bitter debate over horse slaughter rages on.

Beginning in the late 1990s, animal activism organizations, including the National Horse Protection League and the Humane Association, and celebrities as varied as Bo Derek, Willie Nelson and Paul Sorvino, threw considerable weight against slaughterhouses, ultimately succeeding in convincing legislators, state by state, to ban killing horses for human consumption.

The last horse slaughter facility in the United States, the Cavel plant in DeKalb, Ill., owned by a Belgian company that shipped horse meat to Europe, closed after an Illinois law made horse slaughter illegal. Cavel International appealed the ban in federal appeals court and lost; the Supreme Court refused to hear the case last month, thus rendering it judicially dead.

But what sounds like a triumph for horses, owners and equine aficionados everywhere is actually a far more complex issue, because the question of how to deal with unwanted horses, including debilitated, dangerous and abandoned animals, remains unanswered.

In the equestrian community, the subject is so sticky that while everyone is talking about it, no one's using names.

One area veterinarian who wishes to remain anonymous believes the emotional arguments against killing "pet" horses fail to confront the realities of starvation, neglect and death from untreated ailments.

"For some reason, our culture came to view horses not as work animals and later ... food, but pets," the vet explains, noting that animal rights organizations lobbied for the ban against the wishes of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, whose statement reads, "The AAEP recognizes that the processing of unwanted horses is currently a necessary aspect of the equine industry, and provides a humane alternative to allowing the horse to continue a life of discomfort and pain, and possibly inadequate care or abandonment."

Baldwin rancher Buddy Rievard, who keeps around 35 riding horses at his ranch, summarizes the situation. Without slaughterhouses, "a lot of neglected horses are going to get neglected even worse," he remarks.

Time magazine's May 28 article "An Epidemic of Abandoned Horses" corroborates the claim. Its author Pat Dawson reflects on the growing number of horses whose owners, unable to afford their care, released them into the wild "to die cruel and lonesome deaths."

That's not ethical, either, says one area horse owner.

"I'm the biggest bleeding heart, the softest person," begins Georgetta Brown, of Cornell. "I have an extreme amount of empathy for them [horses]."

But that doesn't mean Brown supports the ban on horse slaughter.

"None of us like to think of it, but I believe there's a place for it," she says. The rising cost of feeding animals—hay bales have doubled in price—is creating a "financial burden" for owners, especially since horses have such a long life span, she says.

"To tell me I have to support an animal for thirty years—that's not a viable solution," Brown argues.

Brown believes that "well-intentioned, misguided people" were responsible for passing the legislation, and she feels the current situation "needs to be improved."

The legislation has wreaked havoc on the horse market, adds one local rancher who doesn't want to be named.

Ranchers face the same economic challenges dairy farmers do. Feed prices are high. Gas prices are up. And, unlike farmers, ranchers can't just sell animals at the local livestock auction house.

There is no horse market anymore, confirms Barron Equity Livestock Auction manager Dick Murray.

"Economically, the market for slaughter horses is nothing," he reports.

Undoubtedly that will have lasting effects on the country's horse population. But for now, whether horse owners support or oppose the ban, one word keeps resurfacing: humanity.

For supporters of the ban, the issue is simple: killing horses and selling them for meat is inhumane.

Opposers of the ban say abandoning horses to starve, suffer and die alone is inhumane.

Horses are currently sold to either Mexico or Canada, usually Mexico because it's less expensive, and opposers argue that horses are treated far worse in Mexico than in the United States, where slaughterhouses were monitored by the Department of Agriculture.

Some horse owners straddle the fence.

Although she opposes the ban, Brown says she's seen the footage from slaughterhouses on the news, and she wants changes to be made in the way the animals are handled.

She believes horses should be treated with compassion, even in death.

"It should be done a lot more humanely," Brown says.

XP—We're seeing a rise in neglect, shelters full and owners desperate to find affordable hay ... what happens to the horses when the option to sell or even give them away is gone?