Today I had a booth at the Equine Expo/Sale at Topsfield, Mass. They say 1000 people attend this expo each year. Great used and new horse stuff and horse training demos all day, even a horse crooner who sang to the horses. (they responded to her) Anyway, lots of horse people. I decided to conduct a survey on who was pro and anti slaughter, asking people why their choice and what they thought were the biggest reasons for their vote. These are horse people from all over the place and they love their horses. Here are the results. Many people walked by and displayed their disgust of the slaughter business and where too upset about it to actually write a comment, shaking their heads in disbelief that American could let this happen and how sad they were for the horses. Most really believed that horses going to slaughter were sick or on their last steps of old age. They could not believe that the slaughterhouses choose fat healthy horses to harvest the horse meat for the European & Japanese markets. Of the 254 written votes, all were anti slaughter except one on the fence out of not knowing all the facts and hearing the pro slaughter people need deem it necessary in order to control population. Here are more comments I heard today… Most people do truly blame the breeders, whether large breeders or the backyard mare that the owner must have a baby from to maybe sell, that chances are won’t have the status to be of high price value, so probably adds to the unwanted horse list. The best solution is to have a registry for breeders, that includes everyone that breeds a horse in every state. This fee would help pay for problems of unwanted horses and fines would hopefully slow the desire for backyard breeders and overbreeders. One woman was so upset when a friend of hers in Maine actually fed her horsemeat as a joke several years ago that she became a vegetarian on the spot. Many people at the show also became vegetarians because of what they found out about the slaughterhouses, either first hand visits or public information. One 17 year old did a class paper on slaughter and visited one business in Mass. and took photos. She, her teacher and whole class were so upset they had to stop talking about her paper and she is going to continue the filming when she goes to college. Stay tuned for future reporting if she does! The subject of teaching kids came up often. The overall opinion is that 100% school kids hate the slaughter business, so there is hope for the future to change what our generation has allowed to happen and must keep fighting to stop. One or 2 people were on the fence out of ignorance of what is actually being reported by investigators on both sides. Bleeding a horse out when slashing their throat while they are still alive, just to have better tasting meat is a sinful, shameful, horrible fate for the beloved family pet that almost made people start to cry today. continued in next email..
One of my most interesting conversations today was with a woman from Belgium. She said eating horse meat in Belgium has gone out of style. She has eaten it because it is available there. She said it is the worst meat you can eat, tough and grisly and like the worst and cheapest beef you could buy. The reason to eat it is because it is cheap, nothing else. She said that the Belgium slaughterhouse meat dealers buy it from N. America is to sell it to Japan and China and Germany because they are willing to eat cats, dogs, horses, anything that is available. She hated the thought of slaughtering horses and said that it is ridiculous that Americans would want or need horse meat because of all the other food available in this country. All of the crowd definitely believes all or the business of horse slaughter is about money and greed and not one person I talked to today would ever send their horses to a slaughterhouse. Several knew cases of horse theft, even in Mass. they were warned to lock barns at night and install cameras and take precautions of who was caring for your horse and checking in routinely to see if they were even still there. Many lease their horses out to pay for bills or when a college student is away at school, etc. but try to visit or check in on their welfare. I met people from Wisconsin where there is a horse in every yard, Texas, Maine, Florida, Kentucky, Calif and many other states. Not one was 100% proslaughter. Not one believed that it is necessary to start up in the US again. They were all worried about transport to Canada and Mexico because of inhumane treatment. One that lived near a slaughter house in Texas said it was all Mexicans that worked there because Americans would never want those jobs. It was quite clear to me that the U.S. is not ready to allow slaughterhouses to start up again. Most felt the politicians are confused and uneducated about the whole thing. All of this is an opportunity to educate horse people and non horse people, politicians and children that there are better ways to breed horses, register horses, foster home horses, dispose of and sell horses. Transportation across borders needs 100% regulation against sending them to slaughter. The mustangs must not be ‘harvested’ in a second hand chain of buyers that end up in the kill buyers pipeline. If the breeders cannot be responsible on there own, then they need more education and monitoring and strict registry of all horses with taxes and fines. It was an eye opening day listening to people and opinions. One person there used to be pro slaughter and has changed to anti slaughter this year. So there is hope for those that need more convincing that the 100,000 horses need to not go to slaughter and mankind must be better caretakers on this earth of ours.
I am convinced that every pro slaughter excuse can be examined and found a better solution to why it is not acceptable in the US or Canada.
I did hear a lot of folks worrying about the cost of owning a horse, but they feel the horse owner should choose to euthanize a horse, not sent it to slaughter and that you can’t use the excuse of not affording it. If you have been spending money on a horse for years, you must find a way to pay for a humane end of life solution for your horses.
So I guess, the pro slaughter folks can keep throwing excuses at the anti group, but the pro slaughter will lose in the long run. The future has no place for this crime against the horse by people who just want to make money at the horse’s expense with total disregard for what the majority of America is saying.
Dorothy Robertson • Given your strongly and sometimes erroneously informed anti slaughter stance, one should not find your results surprizing…..the comment about a horse being bled out while still alive is one serious example of the kind of misinformation put out there to elicit a knee jerk response and then claim that people are anti slaughter. If you selectively inform people of only the negative aspects of slaughter as done in some other countries or in times as much as 20 years past and not how it is done in some countries (Iceland for instance) or in contemporary slaughter plants then you do those people a disservice and are disrespectful of the abilities of people to make up their own minds. It would be interesting to see what info you had (was it objective, or inflammatory?), what questions were asked (verbatim) under what environmental influences (banners, posters, T-shirts?). Since you feel that breeders should have to be registered and licensed and pay fees that would be applied toward care of unwanted horses I am going to assume that, in the interest of fairness, this would apply to the BLM and the mustangs as well since the BLM is the single largest breeder in the country?
Here is a Pro slaughter response to this blog: by pro slaughter Dorothy Robertson: • Dorothy said, “Having eaten horse meat and discussed it with a number of people, perhaps your friend from Belgium isn’t getting good quality meat. What I had was tender, slightly sweeter than beef and drier, needing more fat or a slow cooking process as it was not marbled as is beef. I’ve heard the same comment from a number of people who have and do eat horse meat. Why would it be considered something of a delicacy around much of the world were it as you described. It is certainly healthier as a red meat than beef with higher protein levels, lower cholesterol and better Omega fatty acid balance. BTW…it is my understanding from several people involved in horse shipping that the horses going to Japan are shipped live via ship out of Vancouver, BC and are slaughtered in Japan.”
Denise Brown response to Dorothy: • “I had my horse paintings on display, no banners, tshirts about antislaughter just a “Survey: please vote if you are pro slaughter or antislaughter and if you have a reason, please write it down.” No one was swayed or prodded either way, just asked the question” After they voted, I asked them if they wanted to explain more why they voted that way. I told them about this linked in group and that I would tell the group their answers. Here are a few more of the answers: ”Because it is torture and abuse to the horses.” ”Cruel practices” ”Because I value life of all living creatures and the treatment of them.” ”No person or animal deserves this” ”Disgusting” ”Disgusting” ”Too inhumane” ”Innocent good horses are being killed” ”Don’t eat meat, love horses” ”Inhumane, Torture!” ”Cruel and not necessary” Listening to people all day who understand the horse business, it just proves to me that the 80% survey was wrong, it is more like 99.9% don’t want it, especially for their horses. Most did blame the breeders and backyard breeders. Unfortunately, if anyone is in this group, and you are offended at all, you must understand and know why registry is so important for the future welfare of horses in this country and why education will play the biggest role, not just making the highest profit. And yes capitalism is wonderful, but suffering at an animal’s expense is not wonderful, just disgusting and not necessary in the modern age of civilization where eating horses in not necessary.
I believe shipping live horses to Japan to kill for meat sounds even more disgusting and even worse treatment of horses being transported across the ocean to an even more prolonged suffering just to make money selling horses for meat in a fancy restaurant that can charge high prices and market it as a delicacy. that sounds absurd.”
If they said eating my cat was healthy, it would not make me eat it. If they said manure was healthy, I would not eat that either.
Horse slaughter must be banned in US.