ASPCA Research Confirms Americans Strongly Oppose Slaughter of Horses for Human Consumption

SPCA urges people to support the American Horse Slaughter Protection Act

NEW YORK, Feb. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today announced in a newly released poll conducted by Lake Research Partners that 80 percent of American voters are opposed to the slaughter of U.S. horses for human consumption. The nationwide survey reveals that Americans oppose horse slaughter overwhelmingly regardless of their gender, political affiliation, whether they live in an urban or rural area, or their geographic location. Further, it confirms that a vast majority of horse owners are also against the slaughtering of our nation's equines.

"The overwhelming majority of Americans are not just against horse slaughter but are intensely opposed to this cruel practice. As more people learn that we are allowing our horses to be shuttled off to a gruesome death all for the sake of foreign gourmands, they are outraged and opposition for this grisly act is growing," said Nancy Perry, senior vice president of ASPCA Government Relations.  "Anyone who has been to the movies lately knows the price horses have paid by carrying us to war, building our nation, and serving our entertainment and companionship needs.  Americans have a responsibility to protect these intelligent, sensitive animals from being butchered."

Horse slaughter is inherently cruel because the biology of horses makes them difficult to stun and they often remain conscious during their slaughter. In addition, horsemeat can be toxic to humans, as horses are frequently administered drugs that violate the safety regulations mandated for food animals. Furthermore, the majority of horses killed for human consumption are in good condition and could go on to lead productive lives in loving homes. They just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – and this means that any horse, no matter how loved, is just one bad sale away from the slaughterhouse until we ban this practice.

"As a lifelong horse lover and rider, I believe that horses deserve to be treated with respect, and I recognize that horse slaughter has no place in our country as horses are not raised as livestock here, but as companion animals," said Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La. "I will continue working with my colleagues in Congress and other advocates to ensure that the American people are heard and that we stop this inhumane practice once and for all."

The last U.S. horse slaughterhouses were closed in 2007, and despite the fact that Americans do not consume horse meat, Congress recently failed to continue defunding horse meat inspections, making it legal for horse slaughterhouses to reopen. The ASPCA urges all caring Americans to support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 2966 and S. 1176 ), which would prohibit the sale and  transport of horses for slaughter in the United States, as well as across the border to Canada and Mexico. The passage of this critical legislation would end the current export and slaughter of approximately 100,000 American horses each year.

"Using tax dollars to fund this inhumane and controversial practice is a wildly unpopular decision, as our research confirms, and has fueled the fire for a complete ban on horse slaughter," added Perry.

For more information on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, please visit www.aspca.org/AHSPA.

Lake Research Partners designed and administered this telephone survey, using professional interviewers, with 1,008 registered voters. The nationwide survey was conducted January 9-12, 2012. The margin of error for the total sample is +/-3.09 percentage points, and larger for sub-groups. The data were slightly weighted by gender, race, age, and region to ensure a comprehensive representation of registered voters in the U.S.

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The Last of the Real Cowboys

 

 

Indy Grazin'

This post originally appeared in Jerry Finch's "Habitat for Horses" blog. Habitat for Horses is one of the most highly regarded rescues in the country, giving homes to not only horses but other animals as well. In his blog, Jerry regularly writes articles of this caliber. Go see for yourself ~

The Last of the Real Cowboys

21 Jan

I’ve known a lot of ranchers in my life; good, honest men with a work ethic born of pride in the job they do, men who think nothing of rolling out round bales of hay in minus 20 degree weather, who would go out in a rainstorm and bring an abandoned calf into the barn and bottle feed it for days on end because, “he deserves a chance.” On the flat plains of north Texas, life on the range could destroy the weak, but for those who persevered it could turn them into the very best of the human race. 
 


Cowboy's way of life

Back in the early days of my youth, I thought that all real men held those values. I was proud to ride horses beside them, to be considered one of them, even if it meant an occasional joke about me being just a kid. I’m sure there were bad guys, I just didn’t know them. I knew there was horse slaughter back then, too, but the cowboys I knew would have nothing to do with it.

One hard, thin old man called me over one day and, holding a horse, said, “Look at this horse and tell me what you see, boy.”

I’m sure I said something half hearted, but his response is still with me. “If you have a clean heart, when you look into his eyes you will see the face of God. You respect what’s inside that horse, boy, and the horse will always respect you.”

A few weeks later, when school was out for the summer, he offered me a job. Being a new teenager, I thought I knew a lot, but the bottom line on horses is that talking doesn’t account for anything. It’s the doing that gets the job done.

The first day I walked up and met the ranch foreman. He was a weathered old cowboy that could cuss more in 30 seconds than most sailors could do in a lifetime. The day I started he pointed to the corral holding about 10 horses and said, “Whatever horse you catch is the one you ride.” Nine other cowboys walked out with me to the corral, each caught a horse within a few minutes, saddled up and headed out to work the cattle. I was left alone with a mare that had absolutely no love for humans.


Trying to catch a horse

The old man did nothing more than stand on the porch, watching. Not a word escaped him as I followed that horse around the corral for what seemed like two hours. Once I sat down, fed up with the horse, mad at myself and disgusted at the world.

“I guess you think that horse is gonna’ put the saddle on by herself?” he said, leaning against the porch post. I stood up, dusted myself off and started again. Another two hours passed and, to my complete surprise, the horse walked over to me and stood still as I put the lead rope over her neck, put on the halter and led her to where I had the saddle. Another five minutes and I was sitting on her, fully expecting to hear the old man laugh at me and tell me that he didn’t need me anymore.

He didn’t. Instead he opened the gate to let me through and said words that I carry with me to this day, “You didn’t give up. That’s the kind of person we need.” That was the first day of my first real job at age 14, a cowboy, working with men who had been doing it their whole lives. I value those memories as if they were gold. And those men? They are rare today. I’m sure a few still exist. I might see one or two a year, but it’s a dying breed, replaced by the white hats, white starched shirts and bolo ties of citified “cowboys” who work at the American Quarter Horse Association, headquartered in Amarillo, the town where I grew up. What few still exist gather on occasion at the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raiser’s Association, an organization designed to “Honor and Protect the Ranching Way of Life.”

Both of those organizations promote the commercial slaughter of horses. Neither organization ever polled its members to see if they agree.

Neither has the American Veterinarian Medical Association or the American Association of Equine Practitioners. No votes, no poll, just those in power taking the position that they know what this country needs more than the membership and thus will dictate what is to be believed.

The Cattleman’s Association spread the word that giving in to those “damn animal activist” and stopping horse slaughter is the start of a “slippery slope” that will lead to the end of all animal processing in the US and the total and complete destruction of the “American Way of Life.” Ignoring the fact that 80% of the population is against horse slaughter and could thus be considered as “animal activist,” and that the vast majority of that 80% of the American population drives the market for beef, pork and chicken. The ranchers somehow bought the story because the Association told them so.

Same with the “personal property” argument. “Those horses are your personal property. Are you going to let those left wing sickos tell you what you can and can’t do with your own property?”

And the reason they spend so much time and energy trying to convince the ranchers and the rest of the public that horse slaughter is necessary is because ….

… neglect and starvation are increasing because the slaughterhouses closed down and we need horse slaughter again.

… massive numbers of horses are being abandoned all across the nation.

… old horses are left in pastures to starve to death.

… the trip to Mexico and Canada is too long and they are concerned for the welfare of the horses.

… too many horses are untrained and dangerous and we need a way to get rid of them.

… no one wants old, sick, injured horses so the best way to dispose of them is to send them to slaughter.

… the American public needs our help to rid ourselves of all the unwanted horses.

One after another, the stories continue. Without any factual basis, stories made up in the boardrooms and promoted throughout the network to end up as facts in newspapers and magazines and discussed in the annual meetings.

Don’t dare dig too deep, don’t disturb the cover story, because under all that glitter of authority is something very ugly, something that doesn’t do well in daylight, something never even whispered. It crawls through the slaughter industry like fat maggots, feeding on the putrid lies and deceit of pure evil.

The face of horse slaughter is uncontrolled abuse, naked hatred of living animals, lust for money no matter how much it is soaked in blood and guts.

Here’s something you should listen to, the words of a trucker who got stuck hauling horses to the border to be slaughtered.

A quote from a killer-buyer, ““We shoot them full of steroids to beef them up so we can get more for them at the slaughterhouse.”

From another killer-buyer, “If they start kicking, we poke their eyes out. That calms them down real fast.”

“We don’t need paperwork. We have a ton of it.”

“We travel at night so we don’t get stopped. We’re suppose to have health certificates going into Texas but hell, they never stop us.”

“The reason you see skinny horses wandering around? We dump them on the way. They only want fat, young horses. Taking something old or skinny is a waste of time.”

So this is the best that the horse slaughter industry has to offer. These are the only logical, valued, bold statements the industry can produce, and that I’m sure they make one proud enough to stand up and say, “I believe in horse slaughter!” in front of the kids, in public.

In the darkness of the night the horses are crammed into trucks – shocked, beaten, terrified. We trained them to respect us, to trust us, to believe that we will protect them, yet in their final hour we betray them, we turn our backs to their screams. In the horror of their death, we count the bloody dollars we’ve crammed in our pockets. This is what the American cowboy has become. All for the love of money.

Now I ask you this – who is destroying the “American Way of Life”? Is it the 80% of us who are against horse slaughter because we value an animal that is so unique in God’s world? Or is it those who value the crumpled dollars in their pockets more than they value any connection to another living creature?

Is it the politicians who support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, who have ignored the pledges of the lobbyist and the pats on the back of the big organizations who want a way to dispose of their horses, or those politicians who accept the “donations” and agree that horses need mercy killing and do everything they can to kill the bills in the Senate?

A few months ago I was at the vet clinic with one of our horses. There was a stereotypical old cowboy before me, weathered face, worn-out body, bowlegged, holding on to an aged horse that was obviously in pain. Doc did the usual, but the belly was swelling fast, a sure sign that the intestines just ruptured. Doc looked at the cowboy and shook his head.

That old cowboy heaved over in tears. He loved that horse. It was his friend, his best buddy, his partner, and letting go was just as hard as it would have been letting go of a child. That was one of the last real cowboys I’ve seen.



The Old Cowboy

As the old saying goes, “Real cowboys don’t eat their horses.”

If you want to rant and rave about how horse slaughter is necessary because of X, Y and Z, face up to the fact that we both know the truth. It’s only about money. It’s about the 1% of the horses in this country that the wealthy in Europe want to eat and for which they are willing to pay, and it’s the very small number of people in the US who are hell-bent to provide the horses and feed the slaughter machine, all for the love of money.

There is nothing else involved.

Related articles

• The $2,000.00 Horse Slaughter Challenge (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Texas Mayor Paula Bacon Kicks Some Horse Slaughter Tail (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Horse Trainer Sold Over 100 Horses To Canadian Slaughter House (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Treachery of Congressional Horse Slaughter Cabal Exposed in Ad Campaign (goldendays-suzanne.blogspot.com)
• Congress considers ending horse slaughter for human consumption: please contact your congresspeople (our-compass.org)
• Trucker tells chilling account of driving horses to slaughter (rtfitchauthor.com)

Treachery of Congressional Horse Slaughter Cabal Exposed in Ad Campaign

January 1, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

John Holland

540-268-5693

john@equinewelfarealliance.org

Vicki Tobin

630.961.9292

vicki@equinewelfarealliance.org

Treachery of Congressional Horse Slaughter Cabal Exposed in Ad Campaign

Chicago (EWA) – Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) launched a major campaign on December 30 to expose the underhanded move by Rep. Jack Kingston (GA) and Sens. Kohl (WI) and Blunt (MO) that reinstated horse inspections and opened the way for horse slaughter to return to US soil.

On a must pass bill, the three legislators in a tiny committee, quietly removed the language that prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars to fund horse inspections. The action effectively legalized horse slaughter in the US without a debate in the full house and senate, where a straight vote would have failed.

The ad campaign was launched in major theaters running the War Horse film in the legislator’s districts and also reached out to Montana and Wyoming to cover Sen. Baucus and state Rep. Sue Wallis who has become the face of horse slaughter as well as Wallis’ Representative Cynthia Lummis of WY.

Featured in the ad is a remarkable Korean War hero; an equine named Reckless. The ad uses this one remarkable equine and her war time heroism to make the point that horses are our animal partners and not just “livestock”, explains EWA Vice President Vicki Tobin.

Sgt. Reckless hauled supplies to Marines, carried wounded off the battle field, was wounded twice, and performed many of her duties without a handler. Staff Sergeant Reckless was a beloved legend of the Marine Corps. She was promoted to sergeant in 1957 and then to staff sergeant in 1959 by the Commandant of the Marines. She was retired in 1960 to Camp Pendleton and when she died in 1968, she was buried at Camp Pendleton with full military honors.

Rep. Jack Kingston excused his action saying horses were “just like cows”.

If the funding move was designed to deal a death blow to the anti-slaughter movement it appears to have had the opposite effect. “We were able to raise the funding for the campaign and produce it in just two weeks”, explained Tobin.

If the funding move was designed to deal a death blow to the anti-slaughter movement it appears to have had the opposite effect. “We were able to raise the funding for the campaign and produce it in just two weeks”, explained Tobin.

The move has not been popular with Congress either. With an all time low approval rating, members did not need such a blatant example of pandering to special interests. Over 50 Congressmen and Senators signed on as cosponsors of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 2966 / S. 1176) after the language was removed.

John Holland, president of EWA stated “This is not the end. We want to send a message that if you betray our horses we will haunt you to the ends of the earth. We will continue to attack these individuals as long as we have resources and they are in office.” When asked why the EWA was attacking Senator Kohl, given that he has announced he will not run for reelection, Holland said “We want his successor to have an example.”

The funding action is seen by the EWA as just one more example of how special interests are running our country and through the ad campaign, the EWA is joining the growing chorus shouting“enough is enough”. Legislation should be enacted because of its merits, not the deep pockets of Big Agriculture or any other special interest group. Our horses belong in the horse industry, not a foreign meat business.

EWA and equine advocates across the country are calling on President Obama to stand up against special interests as he promised and issue an immediate executive order to ban the slaughter  to slaughter of America’s domestic and wild horses.

Link to the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlv7P6xWekE

Link to ad referral site: www.realwarhorse.com

Link to EWA site: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/Real_War_Horse.html

The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 210 member organizations and hundreds of individual members worldwide. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. www.equinewelfarealliance.org

Investigation on Horse Meat Entering Europe From America

Italian Horse Protection Association

Investigation on horse meat entering Europe from America

In the USA there is no differentiation between FPA (Food Producing Animal) and non-FPA equidae; horses are simply not considered as part of the food chain. US' horses are slaughtered in Canada and Mexico (and perhaps in the USA re-starting in 2012). Horse meat is exported primarily to Europe (France, Belgium, Italy and Germany are the main horse-meat eating countries). The significant point here is therefore that any horse, not being considered part of the food chain, can be treated with any and all drugs which the vet - or indeed simply the owner - considers necessary, with no formal requirements to observe or fulfil.

The European Union, quite rightly severe (although in our opinion not sufficiently) with its own producers, from whom it demands a strict record of all drugs administered to animals destined for human consumption in the name of the health and safety of the consumer, accepts a mere declaration by the owner of the horse that no drug which is inadmissible in Europe has been administered to the animal, or that due time has elapsed between the administration of drugs, and slaughter. This document should also contain all the necessary information for identification of the equine.

Volunteers from the Equine Welfare Alliance (an alliance of animal rights associations, with members in 18 countries among which Italy, represented by IHP) travelled to New Holland in Pennsylvania, USA to a market for horses destined for slaughter in Canada, to see just how these declarations worked. The volunteers photographed as many declarations as they could manage to get their hands on for a moment: they were all actually blank with just a signature and then just stuck onto any horse, indiscriminately. In one case, there are two pages, one with just a signature and no further details about the horse, the other a blank piece of paper with the name and address of the vendor, plus a comment on how strong and healthy the horse is, and the phrase ‘no drugs'. The practice begs the question, even if the forms were filled in correctly, as to what guarantee there is that the vendor is telling the truth? The Equine Welfare Alliance immediately sent their photos to the competent authority in the EU but has to date received no reply.

Take a look at the certificates.

Given the situation, some university researchers (Nicholas Dodman, Tufts University, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Massachussets; Nicolas Blondeau University of NIce “Sophia Antipolis”, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology , France, and Ann M. Marini, University of Bethesda, Department of Neurology, Maryland) put to the test a theory, cross checking the data of some of the animals sent for slaughter with the data banks from racecourses where the horses had run. Those data bases contain the records, required by anti-doping laws, of treatments with phenylbutazone (commercial name: Bute), a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug commonly used on horses but which is prohibited in Europe for horses destined for human consumption.

By means of a complex procedure, the researchers uncovered information about the data of races of 16 horses out of 50 of those under study. The result of the study is that all the horses whose data was located had been treated with Bute, some of them only one week before slaughter. However the data uncovered was relative to race dates, while not all treatments administered are logged if they are not close to the date of a race. Horse meat exported to Europe, therefore, is very likely indeed to contain traces of prohibited substances, and not only of fenilbutazone.

Read here the full text of the article by Dodman, N., et al. Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk. Food Chem. Toxicol. (2010), (doi:10.1016/j.fct.2010.02.021)

After having read the results of this research, we looked further and found a shocking list of drugs and hormones, in every day use on horses in America but severely restricted (or indeed actually prohibited) in Europe because they are dangerous, some very dangerous, to human health. Some hormones permitted in the USA but prohibited, or at any rate strictly regulated in the EU, can be considered so dangerous that some transatlantic health organisations advise, for example: "It is recommended that pregnant women do not handle this product and that the person carrying the container for the oral administration of the product should wear at least two pairs of disposable gloves and be assisted by someone who can open the doors for them, in order to avoid the risk of contamination”.

Digging even deeper we came across something that we would never have wanted to find. Two inspection reports of the EU dated autumn 2010, one in Canada, one in Mexico, following an EU inspection to ensure that horse meat produced there reached an acceptable standard for European public health.

The results of the two inspections are chilling: two slaughter houses in Mexico are completely inadequate, yet anyhow authorised to export meat to the EU. The Mexican authorities “promised” the inspectors that they will not issue export certificates for meat from those two abattoirs. Other slaughter houses “ONLY” had the problem of non-drinkable water, hygiene issues, and, naturally, no check on the veracity of the certificates about drugs. The inspection concluded that the slaughter houses, even though authorised to export to Europe, are not in line with the set standards. Imports to date have not ceased. The situation in Canada is slightly better but even there, apart from some hygiene problems there is absolutely no check on the presence of drugs, apart from the ridiculously inadequate declaration of the vendor.

Read the Canadian inspection report.
Read the Mexican inspection report.

This situation is not only very serious from the point of view of public health, due to the amount of dangerous or very dangerous drugs the consumer is ingesting, but is it totally scandalous, if we think that the authorities who are supposed to watch over these things are perfectly aware of what has been going on since autumn 2010, quite likely even earlier, and who not only have photographs showing how the ‘certificates' are produced, but also have the word of their very own inspectors, who declare in writing that there can be no guarantee for the public health.

As if this was not enough , it is a common myth in some Countries that horse meat should be given often to children and pregnant women, and to cure anaemia. In other words to all those who should be the object of increased health protection. Health protection that the EU fails to give.

Related articles

• The True Cost of Canada's Horse Meat Industry (goldendays-suzanne.blogspot.com)
• Mr President, You Promised! (goldendays-suzanne.blogspot.com)
• Author of Bute Article Blasts Wallis' Letter as "Nonsense" | Horse Back Magazine (goldendays-suzanne.blogspot.com)