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Editorial against horse slaugter

Posted by on February 5, 2014

Advocate for Horses

It’s partly a cultural thing in the US-but it’s also much more than just that. Domestic food animals have been bred for calmness and docility over many generations.They are taken to slaughter in the company of the herd they grew up with, and they don’t look to people to help them.

Horses, on the other hand, besides being prey animals with their ancient flight reflex entirely intact, usually are already trained and taught to trust people and look to them for help. Because horses are SO fractious and panic-prone it is impossible to humanely slaughter them in the fast paced assembly line structure of the modern mass kill slaughter plants. They panic in the knock box, making it virtually impossible to stun them with one blow from a captive-bolt pistol as the law requires. Many-if not most-require more than one shot-some several shots.

Horses are much harder to stun than cattle in the first place because their skull is much harder and their brain is recessed and in a different position. Also, the mandatory head restraints cannot be used with horses. They would eight rip them out of the wall, or break their necks trying.

NO horses anywhere are raised for food. It’s too expensive. They are also NOT excess or unwanted. No matter what the pro-slaughter advocates say, there are not nearly that many horses whose owners abandon or abuse them. Besides, if these people wanted to take their horses to slaughter, they have always been free to do so. We’ve had unrestrained access to horse slaughter since the mid-1970s. If slaughter is the answer for excess/unwanted horses, how is it possible we are still seeing them after 40 years of slaughter? Slaughter is the problem, NOT the solution. Slaughter enables massive over breeding and irresponsible ownership by giving these people a dumping place for horses they decide not to use and don’t want to pay for having them euthanized as normal horse owners have always done.

It is not legal to sell our wild horses to slaughter, no matter that the BLM is doing it, it’s still not legal. The BLM has pulled thousands of our wild horses off the ranges Congress designated for them for NO reason but to make more room for their buddies, the welfare ranchers who get to graze our Public Lands for virtually nothing and cost tax payers millions of dollars MORE per year than the Wild Horse & Burro Program even with so many horses in holding. These horses need to be put back on their legal ranges and managed in the field. The BLM has driven most of our wild herds to the bring of being genetically nonviable, and still the roundups go on. The cattle are what is infesting our Public Land, NOT the horses. There are millions of cattle and a few thousand horses. http://www.adventure-journal.com/2009/05/grazing-is-razing-the-big-bad-impact-of-livestock-on-public-lands/

Our wild horses are definitely NOT overpopulated, no matter what the BLM and their rancher buddies say. Besides, the BLM has freely admitted that they have given the horses medications that are banned from the human food chain, just like domestic horses. They’ve given bute to many over the years, they worm them, and the contraceptive they use is experimental and certainly NOT cleared for pregnant or nursing women to consume.

Along with all the above, there are extremely few American horse owners who would even think of sending their horses to slaughter. The kill buyers must acquire them from various places using any and all means possible. Many horses ARE stolen – something I know a LOT about from being in Texas with two horse slaughter pants for 15 years. My own horse barely escaped being stolen, and at least four of my personal friends were not so fortunate. There is no way to describe how devastated and heartbroken we all were. The situation was so bad that the state of Texas stepped in and tried to find ways to help horse owners protect their horses. Nothing worked but shutting those horror chambers down.

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