Showing posts with label Animal Law Coalition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animal Law Coalition. Show all posts

8/1/13

BREAKING! EWA & ALC Issue Press Release With Proof That GAO Report On Horse Welfare After Closing of Domestic Slaughter Plants FRAUDULENT BREAKING1


2013.07.30 Press Release: Evidence to Prove GAO report FRAUDULENT


    July 31, 2013    

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    


    Contacts:    


    John Holland, President, Equine Welfare Alliance


    540.268.5693


    john@equinewelfarealliance.org    


    Laura Allen, Executive Director, Animal Law Coalition


    425.419.7301


    lauraallen@animallawcoalition.com  

    
    EWA and ALC produce evidence showing GAO Horse Welfare report was fraudulent    

    EWA (Chicago) - The Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) and the Animal Law Coalition (ALC) announced today that they have irrefutable evidence showing that the Government Accountability Office fraudulently misrepresented horse abuse and neglect data in their report GAO 11-228.    


    The GAO report blamed falling horse prices and increased abuse and neglect on the closing of the domestic slaughter plants in 2007. Shortly after GAO issued the report, a conference committee reinstated funding for horse slaughter inspections, opening the way for slaughter to return to the US. Widely quoted in the media, the report is also provided as evidence in the lawsuit filed by Valley Meats against the USDA.    


    The EWA and ALC have provided both a video and a white paper showing how the fraud was committed. The ten minute video, How the GAO deceived Congress about horse slaughter was released on YouTube, and shows step by step how the GAO hid information in its possession showing abuse and neglect was in decline and misrepresented the data as showing it was increasing.    


    The fraud was discovered by the EWA while collecting data for equine abuse and neglect rates across the country. "We were looking for the correlation between various factors such as unemployment, slaughter and hay prices on a state by state basis," explained EWA's John Holland, "and when we looked at the Colorado data, we were reminded of its mention in the GAO report."    


    The GAO claimed in the report to have contacted state veterinarians across the country and to have been told that abuse and neglect was increasing everywhere in the wake of the closing of the US plants in 2007. These were the same officials EWA contacted looking for states that kept records.    


    The EWA found data from six states; Oregon, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Georgia and Colorado. The records showed that abuse and neglect had been in decline between 2008 and 2010 (the last year of the GAO study), and that the GAO had used the wrong dates on the Colorado data to make it appear abuse had increased 60%.    


    "We had accepted that abuse was probably increasing as the result of the bad economy," says Holland, "so imagine our surprise when we found it had been decreasing." The EWA study finally showed the reason: drought. Drought and the subsequent increases in hay prices correlated tightly with the abuse and neglect numbers, and outweighed the influence of the recession and other factors.    

    "Not only did the GAO misrepresent the data, they completely missed the importance of hay prices and availability." said Holland. The EWA filed a FOIA request for the data used by the GAO and the request was denied. The EWA also filed an IG complaint, and finally had a conference call with the GAO to request the report be withdrawn. The GAO refused any response except to say that their reports were flawlessly cross checked.    


    Victoria McCullough, owner of Chesapeake Petroleum and internationally known equestrian, said "Acceptance of lower standards results in failed policies and most significantly failures of public interest. Special Interest encroachment within Washington must not be allowed to erode public trust."    


    - # -

White Paper: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/How_the_GAO_Deceived_Congress-final.pdf

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6/17/11

Equine Welfare Groups Ask Congress To Save American Horses From Slaughter



We won this round in the House. The full House passed the Budget with the Moran Amendment intact. Still, this must pass in the Senate without alteration for it to become law.

Also in the Senate, American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011 (S. 1176) needs all the support we can muster. Let's DO IT THIS TIME! Let's make this baby pass! The points against horse slaughter in this statement to the House will be just as relevant in the Senate. Let your Senators you want horse slaughter banned in the US once and for all!
Amplify’d from rtfitch.wordpress.com
Equine Welfare Groups Ask Congress To Save American Horses From Slaughter
Agricultural Appropriations Bill to defund USDA Inspections for Post Mortem Inspections of Horses Slaughtered in the U.S. for Human Consumption to be voted on June 15th 2011
  Dear Congressman,

We, the undersigned Organizations urge you to consider the following when voting on the Agricultural Appropriations Bill that currently contains Congressman Jim Moran’s Amendment to De-fund USDA Inspections for Post Mortem Inspections of Horses Slaughtered in the U.S. for Human Consumption.

The major market for horse meat from this country is the EU. FDA and EU standards ban Phenylbutazone in all food animals. After 2012 it will require lifetime documentation proving that they have not received a prohibited substance.

Since our American horses are not bred for slaughter, no record is kept of medications they have received and the EU is currently depending on affidavits from their previous owners. Killer buyers come by these horses at auctions where sellers are supposed to fill out the affidavits.

Advocates were able to photograph 23 of these affidavits (called Equine Identification Documents) at the New Holland auction and found none that had been filled out properly. Most had simply been signed and left blank for the kill buyer to fill in. A subsequent report by the EU [Ref.Ares(2011)398056]found that 27 horses had tested positive for prohibited substances and all 27 were carrying falsified affidavits.Horses that are slaughtered include former pets, riding horses, racehorses, performance horses, wild horses and work horses. Most of them have received the toxic substances like phenylbutazone (bute), de-wormers and inoculations that are not approved and illegal for use in animals intended for human consumption. It clearly states this on the labels of these drugs. Bute is so commonly used in the US that it is sometimes referred to as horse Aspirin.

By allowing American horses to be sent to slaughter, we are encouraging illegal activity and sending a possibly harmful product to other countries for human consumption.

If we were to fund USDA inspection of horse meat, we would put the USDA in charge of verifying eligibility and verifying false documentation in order to keep the banned substances out of the food chain. It will be far more costly than 5 million dollars. It will only benefit foreign corporations and consumers; Americans don’t eat horse meat.

By allowing our American horses who are not bred for slaughter, to be slaughtered anyway, we in fact become responsible for compromising the health of unsuspecting consumers in other countries. The future ramifications of this could be extremely serious.

You will hear from those few with a financial interest in slaughter, that ending horse slaughter will destroy the horse Industry. Their arguments are easy to see through. They are NOT speaking for the horse industry (WE are the horse Industry, millions of responsible horse owners), they are speaking for the Horse Slaughter Industry.

It is an outright fabrication that the horse industry has been negatively affected because horse slaughter is not available, it is available at every auction in the country and they know that. The horse industry has taken a fall because of the state of the economy and because it has damaged itself through over-breeding, in the same way the housing market and the banking industries damaged themselves by overcrowding the market.

Horse slaughter promotes over breeding and creates the overpopulation problem we have today.

Home builders have stopped building homes, because there is no market for them. While breeding has slowed some in recent years it is still being supported by the slaughter market. Some breeders are responsible breeders breeding for quality all around. However many are not. They can still breed 100 horses, pick out the million dollar winner discarding the rest to slaughter. It’s like buying 100 lottery tickets, cashing in the 5 winning tickets, and getting your money back for the loosing 95 tickets.

We need to slow down breeding until the market balances out again. We need to bring back the population of horses to a population that America can sustain, so that they all can have good homes.

Dear Representative, an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the slaughter of horses for human consumption for the many obvious reasons, which we have not even mentioned here.

We stand firmly together as Respect4Horses Organization (R4H), Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA), Animal Law Coalition (ALC), Habitat for Horses Advisory Council, (HfHAC), Animal Recovery Mission (ARM), The Cloud Foundation (TCF) and Americans Against Horse Slaughter (AAHS), representing our combined almost one hundred thousand supporters, members and volunteers when we urge you to;

Please vote against any amendment that may be presented on the floor (possibly from Rep.Cynthia Lummis) that would appropriate funds to the USDA to inspect horse meat. Please vote to keep Congressman Moran’s amendment in the language of the bill to keep horse slaughter OUT of the business of the USDA and illegal in the United States of America.

Sincerely,

Simone Netherlands, Director, Respect4Horses Organization, (R4H) (928) 308-6718

John Holland, Director, Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA)

R.T. Fitch, Director, Habitat for Horses Advisory Council

Laura Allen, Director, Animal Law Coalition

Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director, The Cloud Foundation

Richard “Kudo” Couto, Founder/Investigator, Animal Recovery Mission (ARM)

Debra Lopez and Shelley Abrams, Directors, Americans Against Horse Slaughter (AAHS)

Read more at rtfitch.wordpress.com

2/9/10

An Open Letter To President Obama

Please read this and spread it as far and wide as you possibly can.

I did vote for you. I was intrigued by your call for "change". You signaled a dramatic new course, one of openness and inclusion.  Certainly I applauded your choice of Joe Biden as vice president, a staunch animal welfare advocate.


The promises

During the 2008 campaign you said, "Federal policy towards animals should respect the dignity of animals and their rightful place as cohabitants of our environment. We should strive to protect animals and their habitats and prevent animal cruelty, exploitation and neglect.... I have consistently been a champion of animal-friendly legislation and policy and would continue to be so once elected." You announced that you had co-sponsored legislation to stop the sale for slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros. During the election you signed on as co-sponsor to the bill to ban horse slaughter for human consumption.  When asked specifically during the campaign, "Will you support legislation ...to institute a permanent ban on horse slaughter and exports of horses for human consumption", you gave an unqualified "Yes". (HSLF questionnaire)

Today, in January, 2010, you are presiding over one of the deadliest, most cruel and unnecessary government roundups of wild horses ever documented by BLM. 

As of this writing, more than 2 dozen horses have been killed by helicopters used by your administration to run them off their legally protected herd areas and corral them in long term holding pens. The hooves of two little foals have literally torn off as they ran for their lives from the BLM. BLM's Richard Sanford DVM reported on one, "Multiple hoof sloughs were noted and the foal was euthanized for humane reasons. The cause of these hoof abscesses/sloughs was most likely hoof trauma from the gather operations."


Several mares have also aborted spontaneously or miscarried. This after being forced to run miles from a helicopter and trapped in a corral, terrified, traumatized and forever separated from their herds, their families. A long time BLM official whom you promoted to the job of Assistant Director for Renewable Resources and Planning in the BLM, Edwin Roberson, claims the spontaneous abortions are "the result of the poor condition of many of the older mares and ... directly related to lack of forage on the range." Except that they weren't miscarrying on the range and didn't do so until after they were forced to run hundreds of miles, extremely afraid, and lost their families and freedom forever. Your administration would have us believe that the mares all miscarried in the past few days because of years of eating the forage on the range and it had nothing to do with the severe trauma of the roundup they had just endured?
wild horses
The nearly 2,000 horses that have now been removed from their herd areas are contained in an open, dirt arena, basically a feedlot, with no windbreaks or other protection from the weather. Visit Saving America's Horses - A Nation Betrayed, for more information on this deadly roundup. Also watch the video below taken by a humane observer of the Calico roundup. 
 Wow, your words about respecting animals as co-inhabitants and protecting them in their habitat really ring hollow, don't they? Not to mention I do not see that your administration has lifted a finger, let alone "championed", for "animal-friendly legislation and policy" as promised.   
Thousands of citizens have gathered at dozens of ongoing protests of
BLM's policy of extermination towards our wild horses and burros.  Tens and even hundreds of thousands more have written and called your administration and Congress, asking you for a moratorium on wild horses and burro roundups, an evaluation and change in policy, like the one you promised. But you seem to have dug in, your attitude reminiscent of President Richard Nixon, refusing even to acknowledge the outcry, let alone the cruelty.  

Taxpayer money - the budgets

Calico is only the latest of the roundups of wild horses that have actually accelerated during your administration.  In FY 2008, the cost of rounding up and holding these animals was approximately 81.3% of the $36,201,000 budget for the total wild horse and burro program. The BLM wild horse adoption program consumed another 13% of the total budget, leaving a meager 5.8% for monitoring and managing herd areas, census, and compliance inspections. (BLM report - 2010 Budget Justification)

The 2009 budget was $40,613,000 with the increase used for more roundups and holding costs. (BLM report - 2010 Budget Justification)

Then you proposed for FY 2010 a substantial increase in the budget for the wild horses and burros program for a total of $67,486,000 with the entire additional $26, 873,000 to be used for rounding up 12,000 horses and holding what will be a total of about 40,000 horses in pens. (BLM report - 2010 Budget Justification)

Now for FY 2011 you have requested an additional $12 million apparently to defray the costs of holding wild horses and burros in corrals and long term holding facilities.

How do you explain to laid off workers, unemployed fathers and mothers, struggling businesses, and taxpayers shouldering substantial government debt in this worst of economic times, why you want to continue, even step up, round ups of nearly all of the wild horses and burros and put them in costly holding facilities? 

What's next - deer, elk, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons? 

You appointed Ken Salazar to be the Dept. of Interior Secretary. Sec'y. Salazar supports horse slaughter; he is an avid supporter of taxpayer subsidies of livestock grazing on public lands which BLM has given priority. It has been said that grazing livestock on public lands is a "$132 million loss to the American taxpayer each year and independent economists have estimated the true cost at between $500 million and $1 billion dollars a year."  Another burden for the taxpayers.

Sec'y. Salazar also supports oil and gas development so this appointment probably made Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) happy.  He conspired with then Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) in 2004 to legalize slaughter of wild horses and burros and has through special laws and otherwise, facilitated removals of large numbers of these animals from lands in Nevada his contributors want for development, oil and gas drilling and production, mining, recreation and the like.  The cattle and even sheep would be allowed to stay and their numbers increased. Whatever is profitable at the expense of the American people's public lands.


Horse slaughter

Needless to say, since your election, you've not said a word about supporting legislation to ban horse slaughter. I guess if you were planning to keep that promise, you would not have appointed Ken Salazar or Bob Abbey. Your BLM Director, Bob Abbey, is a long time BLM employee who as director of the Nevada BLM office signed off on numerous wild horse and burro roundups and sales for slaughter.

Mr. President, the issue is not one of balancing interests, the wild horses and burros, the ranchers, energy development. The issues are integrity, compliance with our laws, and humane treatment of animals. 

wild horsesSec'y. Salazar has disseminated the outline of a plan, really a culmination of Bush era BLM meetings, that will basically mean moving wild horses and burros to pastures, even feedlots in the Midwest and East, from herd areas and ranges in the west where they are supposed to be "free roaming", managed at the "minimal feasible level" and protected from "capture", "harassment" and "death". 

Not only is such a plan contrary to the promise of the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, 16 USC §1331 et seq., Nena Winand, DVM, has advised such a move makes no sense because taking horses from their native habitat to pastures in the Midwest or East with different nutrients is likely to cause them to suffer metabolic syndrome.  This is one reason why there is an effort to protect "animals and their habitat", recognize "their rightful place as co-habitants" of the earth. (Do you remember that you said that?)

But this, like the explanations for the miscarrying mares, is typical of the lack of science underlying BLM's management of the wild horses and burros. Secy Salazar has asserted as his premise for this plan that exploding numbers of wild horses are responsible for the degradation of the range and must be removed. He adds that this is for the horses and burros' own good because they are also starving. Secy Salazar has asserted this over and over as if repeating it will make it true.

President Obama, your administration has used newspapers and its own websites to try to convince the American people of this. One blogger would remind that it is illegal to use appropriated funds to hire publicity experts. 5 U.S.C. 3107 "Appropriations law "publicity and propaganda" clauses restrict the use of funds for puffery of an agency, purely partisan communications, and covert propaganda."  BLM fails to include "Letters in Opposition" to the agency's action, and also does not in its "News Releases and Editorials" any news reports or editorials critical of the agency's actions. 

The truth

In 1990 the GAO found the range was in the best condition it had been in during the past century. The GAO found any degradation was the result of livestock grazing and suggested removal of cattle, not wild horses and burros. The removal of wild horses at that time was something done largely to appease ranchers.

Since 2001, however, over 74,000 wild horses and burros have removed from the range, and now one year after you took office and stepped up the Bush era removals, there are almost more wild horses in holding facilities than roaming free. As of October, 2009, BLM was holding 32,000 animals in holding facilities. More now since the roundup of the Calico horses that began in late December, 2009. 

Even though two federal judges have warned BLM that driving horses from their historic herd areas and ranges into long term holding facilities as a means of managing them, may not be legal even if they are deemed "excess", your Secy Salazar and your BLM director, Mr. Abbey, have pushed ahead to remove more than 12,000 wild horses and burros this year alone.

wild horsesThe truth is there are fewer free roaming wild horses now than in 1974.  Wild horses make up only .5% of grazing animals on public lands; they are outnumbered by cattle at least 200 to 1. The BLM manages more than 256 million acres of public lands. Cattle grazing is allowed on 160 million acres, while wild horses are restricted to 26.6 million acres of land that is shared with cattle.

Take as an example the BLM's zeroing out or eliminating 12 herds in Lincoln and Nye Counties in Nevada in September, 2009. BLM estimated there were 1,357.43 acres per wild horse in one herd area, about 350 horses; and 3,377.38 acres per horse in another herd area, about 270 horses. The BLM zeroed out all of these herd areas, known as the Seaman including Golden Gate, and White River Herd Areas and the Caliente Herd Area. Not one wild horse will be allowed to live anywhere in these herd areas despite that in 1971 they were designated for the wild horses and burros.

In the Calico Mt. Complex, site of the current roundup of 90% of the estimated 3,100 horses living there, there are approximately 175 acres for each horse. 

Hardly an overpopulation of wild horses and burros. But that's not all. BLM's population numbers simply don't add up. 

In 2007 BLM said there were 700 horses there and in 2008, there were said to be so few horses that BLM decided not to monitor them further. BLM then authorized what amounted to a 300% increase in cattle in one allotment of this area. Just a few months later in 2008 BLM decided the numbers of horses in this area had exploded and were degrading the range. In 2009 BLM employees responsible for monitoring the wild horses and burros in this area testified they were "surprised" to hear about an exploding population of wild horses in the Calico herd management areas, that they believed the range could adequately support the number of wild horses. The idea seems to be to exaggerate the number of wild horses to justify removal of more and more of them until there are no more?

BLM would like everyone to believe the agency is just really bad at counting wild horses. According to Cindy MacDonald at American Herds, BLM is also claiming "hundreds and hundreds of wild horses moved outside the [herd management areas] when the choppers arrived in 2004-2005 - but after the choppers left, the mustangs snuck back inside", thus accounting for the population increases.  
 
It is highly questionable that these horses, however many there are, should have been declared "excess", meaning BLM determines there are too many for the range to support and they must then be removed under the WFRHBA. BLM specialists tasked with monitoring wild horses in this area didn't seem to think as of the spring, 2009, there was any reason to remove wild horses; these specialists actually testified that the range could support the numbers of wild horses.  

wild horsesAlso, the environmental assessment for the Calico removal was a sham. Anyone could see very dated studies of the range condition were used. And, your administration would have the public believe that wild horses too few to bother monitoring as of 2008 somehow destroyed the range but thousands of cattle and oil and gas development had nothing to do with it?  For more....

Just like for the Pryor Mountain, Caliente and Seamen/White River roundups in 2009 where BLM claimed without any current assessment or real proof that the range was degraded because of the horses and never mentioned the tens or even hundreds of thousands of cattle and even sheep also occupying those areas that trample the land and foul the water. 

In all of those cases, wildlife ecologists and other witnesses offered substantial proof there was no real evidence of degradation of the range and a dwindling number of horses, not an overpopulation.  Regardless, rounding up wildlife and putting them in holding facilities is hardly an ecologically sound method of conservation or preservation.

What about the law?

And what of the law, the requirement that the BLM "shall maintain a current inventory of wild free-roaming horses and burros... to... make determinations as to whether and where an overpopulation exists and whether action should be taken to remove excess animals; determine appropriate management levels [AMLs] of wild free-roaming horses and burros on these areas of the public lands"   §1333(b)? 

Does it matter at all that the BLM's wildly fluctuating census, obviously made up, and unsubstantiated or outdated claims of "range degradation" violate the law?

wild horsesBy the way, Mr. President, we have seen no evidence of starving horses.  Instead, we have seen  horses killed, injured and terrified by helicopters BLM uses to run them down and corral them, their families destroyed, their anguish, suffering and fear. 

How do you and your DOI and BLM simply ignore the mandate against inhumane treatment of wild horses under the WFRHBA? 

Why have you not stopped your administration's disregard of the law, called for the Justice Dept. to investigate and prosecute criminal violations of WFRHBA? 
  
BLM has also basically thumbed its bureaucratic nose at the National Environmental Policy Act, The BLM is required by National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321, et seq., to prepare Environmental Assessments or EAs or, if indicated, Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) or Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), for any proposed changes to public lands that may have a significant environmental impact.  The law directs the agency to identify environmental concerns, consider alternatives including no action at all and take a "hard look" at the problem and minimize significant environmental impact. A significant environmental impact includes actions that are likely to be highly controversial or have uncertain effects on the quality of our lives and that affect cultural and historical resources. 40 C.F.R. §1508.27(b).

These evaluations as well as land use plans are full of words but have little substance when it comes to stating why wild horses must be removed from their homes. They are all cookie cutter, cut and paste, blaming the wild horses and burros for unspecified "range degradation" without mention of thousands of livestock or other wild animals that share these areas.

BLM's plan for non-excess horses and presumably for healthy unadoptable excess horses is what Ginger Kathrens, founder of Cloud Foundation, has decried as "managing the wild horses to extinction".  Secy Salazar's plan, again, not the "change" we were promised, calls for aggressive sterilization and creation of herds that are all geldings or all mares or not in sufficient gender ratios or numbers to maintain genetic viability. Those left after these Frankenstein-like machinations will be placed in those Midwest or East Coast pastures. Forget pastures. The BLM team thought feedlots would be sufficient.

wild horses
How is that maintaining free roaming behavior as required by WFRHBA? Even BLM agrees herd behavior would be "out the window".  

It is evident that BLM's preference for the horses it has captured is to kill them or send them to slaughter. Is that really the long term plan for these horses? During the Calico roundup, for example, no one seems to be keeping track of the horses, many have not been freeze branded as required by law. The BLM is strictly controlling access by the public, treating us as if we are terrorists instead of citizens trying to protect our animals and uphold the laws we passed to protect them.

During its Bush era discussions BLM considered ways to keep the public away from round ups and the killing and sales of healthy horses and burros and planned to brand protests as "eco-terrorism".  This was all to be done in secret. Unless you step up and stop this rogue agency, Mr. President, it looks like BLM's plan may succeed.

BLM eroded the protections WFRHBA is supposed to provide for the wild horses and burros long before you took office, Mr. President. That is why the change we are looking for is not more of the same, but a moratorium on these outrageous abuses, an investigation, a new direction.

BLM, for example, has long ignored the limitations on the "multiple use" concept under the WFRHBA and Federal Lands Policy Management Act.  BLM issued a regulation that effectively rewrites WFRHBA to say the "objectives of these regulations are management of wild horses and burros as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands under the principle of multiple use". 43 CFR § 4700.0-2 Yet, the WFRHBA says only that wild horses and burros "are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands". 16 U.S.C. §1331.

WFRHBA mandates "[a]ll management activities shall be at the minimal feasible level". 16 U.S.C. §1333 BLM's regulation says "[m]anagement shall be at the minimum level necessary to attain the objectives identified in approved land use plans and herd management area plans." 43 CFR 4710.4. Two very different laws.

FLPMA makes clear that the protections under WFRHBA take precedence. FLPMA, 43 U.S.C. § 1732 (a) Yet, despite this, BLM has issued a regulation that provides "[w]ild horses and burros shall be considered comparably with other resource values in the formulation of land use plans." 43 C.F.R. §4700.0-6(b).

Indeed, BLM has not managed herd areas as required by WFRHBA only to "maintain a thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands" and "protect the natural ecological balance of all wildlife species which inhabit such lands, particularly endangered wildlife species", or to "protect the range from the deterioration associated with overpopulation". BLM has also ignored the law requiring ranges to be "devoted principally" to use by wild horses/burros. Instead, BLM has used a "multiple use" approach under which the wild horses are generally treated as nuisances to be removed from their own herd areas and ranges.

wild horseThe BLM has authorized itself to divide herd areas into "herd management areas", something not authorized by WFRHBA. 43 CFR 4710.3-1. In this way, with no statutory authority at all, BLM has limited wild horses and burros' access to thousands of acres that were historically their herd areas. This is done without thought about the horses' seasonal migration patterns or available resources. The BLM then removes wild horses and burros from the artificially created "herd management areas" on the basis there is insufficient forage, water or habitat! BLM also targets them for removal if they cross the artificial boundaries into their original herd areas.  The creation of herd management areas has resulted in the loss of more than 20 million acres of historical herd areas. For more.....

What you can do, Mr. President

Mr. President, you can stop the roundups, the cruelty, and you can do it now. Put a moratorium on the roundups, order the Justice Dept to investigate BLM's wild horse and burro program and work with Congress and the public to determine the best course for conserving these animals in their habitat and at the same time meeting the country's energy needs.

What we can do

1. There have been a number of protests of BLM's actions in rounding up and removing these horses, and more are scheduled to take place. Join one of the protests now scheduled or plan your own!

2. Animal Law Coalition along with The Cloud Foundation and Equine Welfare Alliance have called on the public to continue to call on the Obama administration and Congress to put a moratorium on the Calico and all BLM wild horse and burro roundups until Congress can decide the best course of action for these animals.
 
Send a letter (please be polite) to President Obama in the web form found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/. Urge President Obama to put a moratorium on the Calico and all BLM roundups of the wild horses and burros until Congress can decide the best course of action for these animals.

Follow your email with a phone call to the White House (both numbers) to appeal to the President to halt the BLM's cruel Calico and other wild horse roundups.

Phone: 202-456-1111 or 202-456-9000; Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Forward this message to five friends and family and ask that they take a couple of minutes to help the horses - every public comment and phone call counts. You can help us increase the number of active wild horse advocates.

Please write or call your U.S. representative and senators and urge them to join in this effort to put in place a moratorium to stop the gathers, the roundups and removals pending Congressional action on the future management of the wild horses and burros.  Also, ask your representative and senators to hold a hearing on the course of the wild horses and burros program. 

Urge your representative and senators to vote for de-funding of the roundups for FY 2011.

Information contributed by Equine Welfare Alliance





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2/1/10

A Study of Equine Slaughter/ Abuse Patterns Following Closure of Horse Slaughter Plants in US

Joyce Jacobson, researcher; John Holland, senior analyst AAHS; and Darrell R. Charlton Jr., researcher, © All rights reserved

Introduction


Horse slaughter has become a hotly contested issue in the United States in the past year. A large number of articles have appeared in the print media claiming that the closings of the three US based horse slaughter plants, all of which were foreign owned, in 2007 caused crisis levels of horse abuse and neglect and even wide scale abandonment of horses. None of these articles, however, cites any evidence for these claims beyond opinion or the occasional anecdotal story.
The purpose of this study is to document trends that have occurred in the wake of the closing of horse slaughter plants in the United States, to include the numbers of horses slaughtered and where they were slaughtered during the study period. This period was selected to include one year before the first closings to provide a baseline. The further goal was to establish what effect, if any, the closings of the US based plants might have had upon the frequency of abuse and neglect.

Background

All three of the foreign owned horse slaughter plants operating in the United States were closed under state laws during 2007. On January 19th, 2007, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court decision and ruled that a 1949 Texas law prohibiting the sale of horse meat was constitutional and valid. Although the two Texas plants continued to slaughter for some weeks under an appeal to the Supreme Court, they ceased operations in February when the airlines refused to ship horse meat to their customers in Europe.
The Texas plants had been responsible for more than half of all the horses slaughtered in the United States. Within weeks of their closings, the Cavel plant in Illinois increased their production to take advantage of the opportunity.
On May 24, an Illinois law prohibiting horse slaughter went into effect. After closing briefly, the Cavel plant appealed the decision and reopened under a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order).
At the federal level, an amendment to the 2006 Agriculture budget had been passed with the goal of closing all US horse slaughter plants by removing USDA funding for their required ante-mortem inspections. This amendment, which should have taken affect in March of 2006, was sidestepped by the USDA when it instituted a pay-for-inspections program.
The USDA program was the immediate subject of a law suit but the plan was allowed to continue under another TRO as the suit worked its way through the court system. The lower court decided against the USDA as did the appeals court. The result was that the Cavel plant closed briefly on several occasions before slaughter ended there on September 20th of 2007 under the new Illinois law.

Data sources

Several data sources were used for this study, including the Illinois Department of Agriculture, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (ILDA) and the online database http://www.pet-abuse.com/.

Limitations

There are several complicating factors in gathering and analyzing the data available. The most comprehensive data available is from the USDA and the CFIA. While these statistics give accurate numbers for horses slaughtered in the US last year, as well as exports by country, the US numbers are not differentiated between the three plants that were operating in January of 2007. These were the Cavel plant in Dekalb, Illinois, the BelTex plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Dallas Crown plant in Kaufman, Texas.
The biggest challenge is in obtaining and properly interpreting data on abuse and neglect. The first problem is that there is no way of knowing directly how many equines are being abused or neglected. The only metric available is the number of cases of abuse and neglect that are charged. Additionally, not all cases charged result in a guilty verdict, and the fact that a case does not result in such a verdict may be for reasons other than culpability.
Another issue in regard to charged cases is that they can take months or years to work their way through the court system. Therefore, this study uses each case on the date it was charged, whether or not it results in a guilty verdict, with the assumption that this metric will average out to be roughly proportional to true abuse levels over time. The study period is sufficiently brief that significant changes in law enforcement vigilance over its course are unlikely and the data should be valid for determining trends.
Moreover, very few states keep centralized data on equine abuse and neglect cases charged, and those that do keep it in a variety of formats. This study will look at one such state and analyze the correlation between its data and other metrics including slaughter rates and economic conditions for reasons that will become clear in the analysis.
The only centralized database that tracks all states is http://www.pet-abuse.com/. There are significant limitations to this data source and they will be discussed in a later section. Since these limitations could draw doubt as to their validity, a significant effort was made to verify and otherwise test the data extracted from the database. This will be discussed in more detail in the section dealing with that analysis.

Historical Perspective

Before looking at the data for 2006 and 2007, it is useful to gain a historical perspective on horse slaughter. While it is widely known that horse slaughter was at much higher levels in 1990 than in recent years, it is less well known that the United States has been exporting horses to slaughter in Mexico and Canada for this entire period, and to Japan since 1999.
Canadian and Mexican horse slaughter operations are quite different in nature. Canadian horse slaughter plants ship most of their product to Europe with a smaller fraction being consumed domestically. In Europe the meat is considered a delicacy and it brings relatively high prices. The plants tend to be similar to US plants because they must meet EU (European Union) approval.
Horse slaughter is more common in Mexico than in the US. There are two types of plants in Mexico; EU suppliers and domestic suppliers. There are two EU supplier plants located in central Mexico at the towns of Jerez and Fresnillo. In contrast there are dozens of smaller local plants throughout Mexico that are owned by the municipalities and that supply horsemeat for local consumption. Unlike the European consumers, the Mexican consumers view horsemeat as an inferior substitute for beef and it is often used as filler.
Figure 1
                                                                           Figure 1
Figure 1 shows the number of US equines slaughtered and exported for slaughter each year since 1989, as well as the countries to which they were exported. There are several notable features about this data. The most often referenced feature is the famous steep decline in total slaughter between 1990 and 2002. There were over ten slaughter plants in the United States in the late 1980s and only three by the 2000.
Anti-slaughter proponents have long found this decline their most unassailable argument against the claim that slaughter protects horses from abuse and neglect. They argue that since slaughter decreasing by 81% did not bring about a crisis of horse neglect, ending it would not have such consequences either. This argument has yet to be countered in a meaningful way by those who espouse the theory that only "unwanted" horses are slaughtered. The question remains, however, whether the decline occurred because of supply limitations, legislation, market demand or other causes.
The possibility that the decrease was caused by limitations of supply is easily discounted by horse population studies1. During this period the horse population of the US grew by 3 to 5% per year.
The effect of legislation on this decline is minimal but should be mentioned. Between 1989 and 1998 there were no legislative restrictions on the slaughter of horses in the United States. In 1998, after slaughter had already dropped from over 400,000 equines a year to under 100,000, California passed proposition 6 which banned the slaughter of horses and the export of horses from the state for purposes of slaughter. Since there were no slaughter plants operating in California at the time, there was no noticeable impact on the total slaughter in the United States. Despite many legislative initiatives, no other legislation affected slaughter until early 2007.
We can see from the export curves in Figure 1 that the overall decline was almost entirely driven by the decline in US slaughter and a parallel decline in exports to Canada. This parallel tracking phenomenon can be seen more clearly if we change the scale on the exports to Canada as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Exports to Canada tracked US slaughter during the precipitous decline of the 1990s in stark contrast to exports to Mexico. Since US and Canadian slaughter plants share the same customer base in Europe, this leads to the implication that slaughter and export to slaughter are driven primarily by market demand and not the supply of "unwanted" horses. If supply had been driving the market we would have seen similar patterns in exports to Mexico.
Finally, an Italian study6 of horse meat consumption confirms that it followed the same trend as US slaughter during that study period between 1995 and 2001. This further indicates that demand in Europe was likely the strongest determinant of US slaughter levels. Interestingly, this study will show that there may have been yet another component to the famous decline of the 90s.
The only other notable non-market influences on the reduction of slaughter were the burning of Cavel West in Redmond Oregon by arson on July 21st, 1997 and the burning of Cavel East in Dekalb Illinois by accidental causes on Easter Sunday of 2002. Cavel in Dekalb was rebuilt and was back in operation by the summer of 2004.
The burning of Cavel in Illinois came just as slaughter had ebbed and was beginning an upward trend that has continued to date. The relationship of abuse and neglect to slaughter during the period surrounding the burning of Cavel East was the subject of an earlier study2. Ironically, the burning of Cavel appears to have saved approximately 50,000 horses while we will see later that the closing of all of the US based plants in 2007 saved only about 22,000 horses from slaughter.
The other two features of interest in the graph of Figure 1 concern exports to Mexico and Canada. Much has been made of the "unintended consequences" of driving slaughter over the border to Mexico and Canada, and later graphs will show that has indeed been the case. However, Figure 1 exposes the little known fact that these current export levels are not historically unique.
Particular focus has been placed on Mexican exports because of the barbaric slaughter methods used in some of their local plants (as documented by undercover videos by HSUS and others). While Mexican exports accelerated dramatically after the plant closings in 2007, they also spiked in 1994 when domestic slaughter in the US was at levels over 100,000 horses per year. Likewise, exports to Canada were higher between 1991 and 1994 than in 2007.
Thus while it is true that the closing of the US based horse slaughter plants in 2007 drove American horses over the borders to Canada and Mexico, the converse is not true and domestic slaughter has not historically protected American horses from going to these countries in similar numbers.

Slaughter trends following US plants closures

As previously mentioned, all three slaughter plants in the US were closed during the year 2007. The two Texas plants ceased operations in February and the Illinois plant in late September. Figure 3 shows the resulting slaughter patterns from January of 2006 through March of 2008.
Figure 3
                                                                                 Figure 3
As can be seen from the red curve in Figure 3, the overall slaughter of US horses (domestic slaughter + exports) did not drop as dramatically as might be expected following any of the closings, even though domestic (US) slaughter did decline steeply following both the Texas plant closings in February and the Cavel closing in September.
The two temporary interruptions in Cavel operations discussed earlier can clearly be seen in the dips in April and again in July. Despite this, the industry had completely recovered to its peak slaughter levels by late September when Cavel slaughtered its last horse.
Two things happened during this period. First, Cavel ramped up its operations from its design capacity of 500 horses per week to well over 1,000. There is evidence that this ramp up had already begun well before the closings and was simply accelerated. This volume offset losses during the two interruptions and from the Texas plant closings. Secondly, Cavel management began making arrangements to move their operations over the border to Canada. When they were finally closed in September it took only weeks for Cavel to begin slaughtering operations at the Natural Valley Farms in Wolseley (SK) Canada.
The curve of Mexican exports (blue) shows an interesting and little known fact. Mexican exports had already been increasing since mid-2006, well before the Texas plants were closed. During the months following the Texas plant closings these exports continued with an even more rapid increase. This increase was boosted for a period of several months as BelTex dumped thousands of horses from its feedlot in Morton, Texas to slaughter plants over the border.
By September of 2007, the glut of horses from Texas feed lots had been exhausted and the exports to Mexico had begun to decline. This decline was partially offset by the continued strong flow of horses to Canada. By March of 2008 exports to Canada were approximately 50% higher than those to Mexico.
Figure 4 demonstrates how incredibly quickly Canada slaughter houses absorbed US horses. Remarkably, Canada more than doubled its equine slaughter in a single month. This was done by converting existing beef processing plants that had been struggling to compete with US beef slaughter plants. Some of these facilities had been built in response to the closing of the US border to Canadian beef due to an earlier mad cow outbreak in Canada. The number of slaughterhouses processing horses in Canada rose from three at the beginning of 2007 to seven at the end of the study period.
Figure 4

Figure 4
We can see from Figure 4 that Canada now depends on the US for the vast majority of the equines it slaughters. Before the closing of Cavel about 50% of the horses slaughtered in Canada were from the US, but between the closing and the end of the study period, 79.5% of all the equines slaughtered in Canada came from the US. (It should be noted that USDA numbers for horses exported to Canada for slaughter are considerably higher than the US import numbers released by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. The USDA numbers appear to be the correct ones given their correlation with CFIS slaughter statistics as shown in Figure 4.)
To help illustrate what happened with the slaughter of American horses, Figure 5 provides a year to year comparison of the total slaughter of US horses for 2006, 2007 and the first quarter of 2008.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The 2006 (yellow) line represents the baseline year before any of the slaughter plants were closed. The blue line represents the slaughter rate during 2007, and the magenta line represents slaughter for the first quarter of 2008. This method of comparison is commonly used in accounting and government reporting because it provides year to year comparisons that take into account seasonal trends.
There was a significant but largely temporary drop in the 2007 slaughter level following the closings of the Texas plants in February. The slaughter rate then lagged below the 2006 levels until September when it reached parity just in time for the closing of the last US based plant (Cavel). Although slaughter again fell below 2006 levels in the last quarter of 2007, by the first quarter of 2008 it had returned to the same levels as both the previous years. The gap between the 2006 and 2007 curves represents the temporary reduction in slaughter and thus the number of horses spared from slaughter.

Summary of slaughter trends

While the slaughter of US horses and other equines dipped during 2007, it quickly returned to the same levels as before the plant closings. There were 122,459 US equines slaughtered or exported for slaughter in 2007 compared to 142,720 in 2006, a reduction of only 17% for the year. By the first quarter of 2008 the exports to Mexico and Canada had entirely replaced the reductions in US slaughter.
Returning to the stated purpose of this study, the desire was to determine whether the closing of the slaughter plants was a possible causative factor in any subsequent increase in abuse and neglect. The only mechanism by which this could have happened would have been if the closings caused a significant and sustained change in slaughter volumes. Since the resulting reduction in slaughter was quickly replaced by exports, there is no ongoing volume impact from the closings, and therefore no possibility it could significantly affect abuse levels.
The only increase in abuse caused by the closings has been the longer trips and more brutal slaughter conditions that the horses are subjected to.

Abuse, Neglect and Abandonment

At this point it has been established that any increase in equine abuse and neglect must be the result of factors other than the slaughterhouse closings, such as economic and weather (forage) conditions. The year 2007 saw declines in the economy, especially in the second half of the year and serious increases in feed and hay costs. The question is whether these factors did indeed cause a dramatic increase in abuse and neglect.
As discussed in the introduction, quantifying abuse and neglect is a much less exact science than tracking slaughter. Fortunately, there is no need to put too fine an edge on any conclusions drawn from the available data. The stated purpose of this study is to simply establish whether or not a "tsunami" or even a significant increase in equine abuse had occurred as has been claimed by some articles.

Abandoned Horses

If reliable data quantifying abuse and neglect is difficult to find, data concerning "abandoned horses" is even more problematic. This is largely because state and local governments do not recognize such a category. The closest data is on "Estray" horses, which reflects the fact that it is almost impossible to determine whether a horse was intentionally released or simply escaped, and only a few states track even this data. As a result, almost every story must be tracked down individually.
The first story about abandoned horses appeared in the mainstream press just weeks after the closing of the Texas plants. The story titled Kentucky, Land of the Thoroughbred, Swamped with Unwanted Horses, was written by Jeffrey McMurray, a college basketball stringer for the Associated Press (AP). The piece was based on horses seen free grazing on a reclaimed strip mine in Eastern Kentucky and claimed they had been abandoned because of reductions in horse slaughter forced by animal rights activists.
However, the slaughter rates shown in Figure 1 contradict McMurray's claim of decreasing slaughter in the years between 2002 and 2007 and the Texas plants had been closed for only a month when the story appeared. More tellingly, it was determined that the "abandoned" horses were in fact owned by Trish Hayes of Breaks Riding Stables in Breaks Virginia. The horses had been the subject of an earlier AP story when teenaged boys were charged with shooting some of them. But by that time the story had gone international and many writers still reference the story as if it were valid.
In October a second AP story appeared in the Oregonian titled Abandoned Horses a Dilemma for Ranchers. That story claimed nine horses had been abandoned on the ranch owned by a Mr. McKenzie, but the Malheur County Incident Detail4 (police report) later showed that the incident had involved only one horse reported by Mr. McKenzie's granddaughter and it was determined to be unfounded.
To this day stories continue to surface in respectable publications that contend there is an abandoned horse crisis in America. Yet research into individual cases3 has determined that very few are accurate and even then they involved fewer horses than reported.
Only a few sparsely populated western states even keep records of estray horses. Of the states that do keep accurate records, the trends are mixed but largely flat. The largest documented increase found in Estray horses was in Arizona5 which reported a 16% increase from 2006 to 2007. As a matter of reference, that translates to an increase of only about 16 horses statewide or 8 more than the three-year average.
The picture that emerges for horses is very different than that for dogs and cats, where abandonment is common. Any owner who would simply release a horse from its pasture is aware that there is a significant liability if that animal causes a traffic accident, and dropping a horse off at a distance from its home requires the ownership of a horse trailer or the collaboration of someone who does own one. It is not an easy crime to commit or conceal.
As a result, true horse abandonment appears to be rare. The more common method of abandoning a horse is to simply leave it to forage in its pasture without medical care or supplemental feed. Thus it was determined that the focus of this study would be on abuse and neglect where there is at least some statistical evidence.

Abuse and Neglect

Again, the analysis of trends in abuse and neglect was complicated by the fact that data is not available in a consistent manner from different sources. The picture that emerged, however, was that while some areas had indeed seen significant increases in abuse and neglect cases, others had, in fact, seen declines.
For example, there was a severe drought in much of the South during 2007, which drove hay prices up in some areas by 100% and more. Texas on the other hand, which had experienced several years of devastating drought, hay shortages and wildfires, enjoyed an abundant hay crop in 2007. More over, there have been significant fluctuations in the economy during the study period.
One of the states where good data was available and where a notable increase in abuse and neglect cases had occurred was, ironically, Illinois. Illinois was the only state in the US where slaughter occurred for most of 2007. In 2006, a study of the relationship between abuse and neglect in Illinois and total slaughter in the US 2 found that on average more slaughter was accompanied by more abuse. The variation was so great year to year, however, that the study concluded there was no meaningful relationship between the two.
Figure 6 revisits this comparison with the hindsight of two additional years of data. If a reduction in slaughter caused an increase in abuse and neglect, we would expect the two curves to be mirror images of each other. Looking at the two curves in Figure 6, it is clear that there is no consistent correlation between the sets of data.
There are two notable features to the curve of abuse cases (blue); a remarkable increase in abuse between 2000 and 2002, and another steep increase in 2007. The Cavel plant in Illinois burned on Easter Sunday of 2002. The next year the abuse rate flattened. Had this slaughter been preventing abuse we would have expected the curve to increase in steepness. The original study done in 2006 speculated that the changes in abuse were more likely the result of economic or weather conditions, but did not attempt to establish this correlation partially because the data set was limited at that time.
Figure 6
Figure 6
If, however, we now look at the abuse and neglect data from Illinois with respect to unemployment in the state, we see a very interesting correlation between upward trends in the two sets of data (Figure 7).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Although the upward slopes of the abuse and unemployment data have an uncanny correlation in the periods between 2000 and 2002, and in 2007, the downward trend of unemployment between 2003 and 2006 does not appear to be mirrored by a corresponding downward trend in abuse and neglect.
At first this lack of downward correlation appears to cast doubt on just how strong the relationship is, but that is due (at least in part) to a distortion in the way the government tracks unemployment.
A person is only considered to be "unemployed" while he or she is receiving unemployment compensation. People whose benefit period has expired before they get a new job are removed from the "unemployment" roles and from the statistics just as if they had found a job.
This trick of accounting biases the numbers by amplifying downward trends (good news) in unemployment. In other words, the downward trend in unemployment is exaggerated and may in fact be nonexistent. For example, if nobody at all got a job, every large increase in unemployment would be followed by an equal downward trend as benefits ran out.
Therefore, in reality, the shape of the true unemployment curve would probably be even more like the shape of the abuse and neglect curve.
The Illinois data supports the obvious conclusion that bad economic conditions lead to more abuse and neglect. This should come as no surprise, but the fact that slaughter does not affect abuse and neglect in a positive way (if any at all), may be surprising to the advocates of the "unwanted horse" theory about slaughter's beneficial contribution to the negation of abuse.

Measuring Nationwide Abuse and Neglect

The final question that remained to be answered was whether or not there was a major increase in abuse and neglect nationwide in 2007. The only source of such data nationwide is the online database of pet-abuse.com.
The data on this site is well organized for research, but there are significant limitations to its use. Data is entered as abuse cases are flagged from other media sources. If a case is not mentioned in the media immediately, it might not be represented in the data until months or even years after charges are first placed. The data thus has a tendency to "back fill" and one can safely assume that the more recent the data is the more likely it is to be understated.
The usefulness of this data becomes lower as one attempts to determine recent trends or to determine trends over shorter periods. Additionally, in any given month the data may consist of only a dozen or fewer cases, making short term trends more difficult. These difficulties and assumptions will be discussed further when the data is presented.
Several tests were performed to determine the data distortion caused by latency and backfilling of the data in the database. The period between September 2007 and January 10th 2008 was initially analyzed within days after the end of the period. It was again analyzed at two occasions a few months apart. Based on this comparison it was determined that the backfill issue was statistically insignificant after three months. Final data collection was performed three months after the end of the study period.
The journalistic nature of the data also presented issues. For example, some cases did not include the exact number of equines, but instead used variable terms (e.g., "several"). For purposes of uniformity, these descriptions were converted to numbers using a defined constant. For example, the word "several" was replaced with the number 6 and the word "dozens" was translated as 24. In any event, these cases were not common enough to significantly skew the results.
Both the number of cases and the number of equines involved in those cases are presented. It can be seen that the two roughly track each other. Again, the analysis of abuse was only used to determine if there had been a dangerous rise in abuse and neglect overall.
Finally, only cases of owner abuse and neglect were included in the statistics. Cases involving third party abuse were not included as the motive for such abuse is outside the purposes of this study. The results of this search yielded the graph in Figure 8.
Figure 8
Figure 8
As expected, the data was somewhat inconsistent on a month to month basis, but one obvious conclusion can be drawn. There clearly was NOT a catastrophic increase in abuse and neglect during 2007. Other conclusions that might be drawn are a bit more risky since they might possibly be putting too fine an edge on the analysis. There appears to have been a slight drop in abuse after March and a slight upturn at the beginning of 2008.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Finally, it is useful to test this graph against the nationwide unemployment rates to see if the unemployment rates could have predicted something close to what we saw from the pet-abuse.com database. Figure 9 shows that comparison. A drop in the unemployment rate is apparent in late 2006, and from June onward there was an upward trend to unemployment.
There are obvious reasons why the nationwide unemployment number is a less than perfect barometer for nationwide equine abuse even if the two are closely correlate on a regional level. For example, the average unemployment does not take into account the fact that some states have larger horse populations than others and unemployment varies significantly between states. Weighting each state was beyond the scope of this study.
Even so, there are some interesting similarities between the unemployment curve in Figure 9 and the abuse case rate as determined from Pet-Abuse.com. A drop in unemployment occurred slightly before a similar drop in abuse. (Note that a drop following a relatively flat period is less likely to be an artifact than one following a recent up surge). Except for a spike in cases that occurred in March, the comparison would have been even clearer, but as previously stated the abuse data is very noisy when observed short term. Similarly, a general upward trend in unemployment later in 2007 seems to have preceded the upward trend in abuse during the last quarter of the study (first quarter of 2008).
The Illinois comparison was performed on a year to year basis which did not expose this lag of a few months. The identified lag is logically to be expected since most neglect cases take several months to become apparent (horses don't starve overnight) and then to be acted upon by authorities.
The fact that unemployment is a general barometer of trends in equine abuse and neglect is not surprising as it has long been known to have the same relationship to domestic abuse and child abuse. In the case of horses, however, it gives us a historical view into the probable number of horses that were at risk of neglect and thus "unwanted" by the definition of slaughter advocates. Unemployment is thus also an approximate barometer of the number "unwanted" horses and this fact allows us to see if slaughter has historically increased when this barometer was rising.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Figure 10 explores the relationship between horse slaughter and the unemployment barometer of abuse and neglect. To have a beneficial effect, slaughter would have to rise following increases in unemployment but during this decade it has done just the opposite. The same antithetical relationship existed in the 1980s and until about 1993.
However, from 1993 through 2000, the unemployment rate began a continuous decline during a well known period of prosperity. It is entirely likely that this decrease, combined with the increasing number of horses being kept in the population put supply side pressure on the slaughter industry just as demand was faltering. There were plenty of horses, but their owners were not willing to sell them at slaughter prices, and new owners probably outbid kill buyers for surplus horses from racing and other horse industries. The result was a "perfect storm" for the horse slaughter industry which produced the famous long decline.
The implication is that the horse slaughter industry may operate on a thin margin on supply side price. This implication was recently tested when Pure Thoughts Horse Rescue (PTHR) attended the famous Sugar Creek slaughter Auction in Ohio. At most their weekly auctions the bulk of the horses go to slaughter, but PTHR, financed by a benefactor, was able to outbid the kill buyers on every horse. The average price paid was $432, not significantly above the average price seen for slaughter horses.

Conclusions

Despite the difficulties posed by the data limitations discussed, several conclusions about slaughter and abuse and neglect trends can be stated with confidence:
1. While the supply of low priced horses is essential to the slaughter industry, it does not determine the number that will be slaughtered. That number is set by the demand for horse meat in Europe. Slaughter therefore is useless as a tool for controlling the unwanted horse population and instead simply creates a low end market that competes with potential buyers of low end horses and encourages a continuous supply.
2. The rate of slaughter of US horses was only temporarily affected by the closings of the US based slaughter plants in 2007, and the slaughter rate has since returned to its previous levels. There was therefore no mechanism by which these closings could have impacted abuse and neglect.
3. There was clearly no epidemic of abuse and neglect in 2007 following the closings of the US based horse slaughter plants. None was predicted by the unemployment numbers and none was found in the database of cases. In other words, on the question of whether the closings were the cause of a pronounced increase in abuse we find that neither the cause nor the effect actually happened.
4. While US slaughter rates are clearly driven by the demand for horse meat in Europe, it appears the industry operates in a relatively narrow window of supply price. If we are to accept that horses sent to slaughter are "unwanted" then we can define an unwanted horse not as one with zero value but one whose value is greater to the slaughter industry than to a potential owner and that average value is probably under $500.
5. Abuse and neglect is largely determined by economic conditions. An upturn in unemployment seen in late 2007 appears to have translated into the beginning of an upturn in abuse and neglect in early 2008. As of the end of the study period, abuse and neglect did not appear to have exceeded norms for the baseline year of 2006, but to the extent that the economic conditions continue to deteriorate, this trend may become more worrisome in the months to come.

References

1.      Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service Study, David W. Freeman, Oklahoma Horse Industry Trends, Historic Estimates of Horse Numbers in US and OK. http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2087/CR-3987web.pdf
2.      A Study of the Relationship Between Horse Slaughter and Reported Cases of Abuse and Neglect. John M. Holland, 23 January 2006
3.      Deleting the Fiction: Abandoned Horses http://www.commonhorsesense.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=1 Terry Torrence, John Holland and Valerie James-Patton
4.      Malheur County Sheriff Office, Incident # 01-2007-05662, Wolfe, Brian E, 11/27/2007
5.      Email correspondence with Ed Hermes, Public Information Officer Arizona Department of Agriculture
6.      Characteristics of Horse Meat Consumption and Production in Italy, F. Martuzzi, A.L. Catalano, C. Sussi

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12/24/09

Judge Friedman Denies Preliminary Injunction But Questions BLM Policies


from  Animal Law Coalition

wild horses

Update Dec. 23, 2009: Judge Paul L. Friedman has denied the motion by plaintiffs In Defense of Animals, Craig Downer and Terri Farley, for a preliminary injunction to stop the roundup of up to 2,736 wild horses from the Calico Mountain Complex herd management areas in Nevada.

But the judge has also rejected that BLM can continue to keep unadopted wild horses and burros in long term facilities. The judge agreed with the plaintiff that BLM has no authority to transport healthy unadoptable horses and hold them in long term holding facilities especially in places where they were not located previously, Oklahoma, Kansas or South Dakota.

The judge, however, found the plaintiffs did not raise this argument until their reply brief and it could not be the basis for a preliminary injunction. The judge said the defendants had not had time to brief the issue fully. The judge did reject the BLM's contention that Congress had ratified its policies of putting unadopted wild horses and burros into long term holding facilities by approving appropriations bills.

The judge suggested the agency postpone the roundup scheduled for December 28 but declined to issue an injunction at this time. The judge reasoned that if the BLM proceeds with the gather, knowing that long term holding may not be an option and with no funds under the Appropriations Act, FY 2010, for euthanization or sale for slaughter, the agency must come up with another solution for the horses it will have removed from the wild. The judge said that once removed as excess, the horses could not at that point simply be returned to the herd areas.

The judge found "untenable" the plaintiffs' other contention that BLM cannot round up and remove horses en masse. The court rejected the plaintiffs' interpretation of the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1331 et seq, (WFRHBA) that BLM must determine on a case by case basis those horses deemed "excess" or causing an overpopulation, and then remove them under a tiered approach with the old, sick and lame taken first and then the healthy adoptable horses. The judge said such a process would put the BLM in "an impossible Catch-22"  because the agency could not really evaluate the health or age of horses without capturing them first. The judge found the WFRHBA did not prohibit the BLM's current method of rounding up horses, separating them, sterlizing and returning some and placing others in short term holding facilities for adoption or sale.

Judge Friedman did also say the public and BLM's interest in controlling the overpopulation of wild horses could be negatively impacted by a delay. He said "issuance of an injunction at this stage might lead to substantial growth in already overpopulated herds" in the Calico Complex. The judge said that, according to BLM, a spring roundup could result in more injuries for the wild horses.

This ruling does not end the case. With this ruling, judge rejected the motion for a preliminary injunction to keep the status quo pending a final decision. It is a serious warning to BLM that the judge does not think its policy of keeping wild horses in long term holding facilities, is legal. But, unfortunately, unless BLM takes the judge's advice, the Calico roundup will proceed on Dec. 28.

At this point, the best course of action is to call on President Barack Obama and BLM to stop the roundups. Urge Congress to take action, too, and demand a stop to these roundups!  Go here to find out how you can join the call for a moratorium on BLM roundups of wild horses and burros

For more on the plaintiffs' allegations, read Animal Law Coalition's  original report.
  


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"From my earliest memories, I have loved horses with a longing beyond words." ~ Robert Vavra