• by Karrie Allen

CHATHAM — Jan. 17 was a good day for Equine Advocates President and founder Susan Wagner and the hundreds of organizations and supporters who have lobbied to end horse slaughter in the United States. On this day, President Barack Obama signed the $1.1 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, which included language to defund horse meat inspection, thus ending horse slaughter in the United States for two years.

While grateful to Obama for signing the bill, Wagner also thanked Vice President Joseph Biden “for spearheading the effort to insert the language into the Omnibus bill.”

She also credited Florida State Sen. Joseph Abruzzo and equine advocate Victoria McCullough. “It is because of their tireless and dedicated efforts that horse slaughterhouses will be prevented from opening in the U.S.” due to passage of the bill.

The summit

In 2012, Wagner hosted the first American Equine Summit at her horse rescue and sanctuary in Chatham with two objectives: To come up with a strategy to reverse the damage done by Congress and move toward a federal ban on horse slaughter and to empower the “80 percenters” who are against horse slaughter and give them the tools to be able to effectively make their voices heard and inspire change. Among the speakers was McCullough, CEO of Chesapeake Petroleum and an accomplished international equestrian.

At this summit, McCullough announced that she would take on the challenge of ending horse slaughter in the United States, stated Wagner. “She took the lead from the experts speaking at the summit, each of whom had invaluable information and experience and helped contribute to the resolution of this hard-fought issue.”

The expert

One of the experts was John Holland, president of the Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA), who was also a speaker at the summit. McCullough used much of his research and information from published papers and studies to make her case against horse slaughter to Vice President Biden, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and others in the Executive Branch, noted Wagner.

One such case was the 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that blamed falling horse prices and increased abuse and neglect on the closing of domestic slaughter plants in 2007. Texas and Illinois closed the last three plants in 2007 and that was the last time horses were slaughtered in the United States.

From 2006 through 2010, horse slaughter shifted to Canada and Mexico and exports increased from 148 to 660 percent, according to the GAO report.

“That GAO report was like a fixed race,” commented Wagner.

The EWA and Animal Law Coalition (ALC) set out to prove the report was fraudulent — and they did. “Our EWA research looked state by state at trends in abuse and neglect and at the factors that might have been responsible for the trends, such as unemployment, the rate of slaughter, the price of hay, etc.,” stated Holland in an email. “What we found was that the rate of equine neglect was largely determined by the price of hay and that the price of hay is largely determined long term by land use policies and short term by weather.”

Slaughter proponents used the results from the GAO study to push for the reinstatement of inspections funding, he added, but research by the EWA proved the study “had been completely misrepresented. This became ammunition for reversing the reinstatement.”

According to an EWA press release, funding language was passed by both the House and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committees in 2013, but neither budget reached the floor for a full vote. It was the key support of Vice President Biden and congressional leaders that pushed for the language in the bill.

McCullough “was the one who made this happen,” Holland stated in the press release. “It was the fact that Victoria … was spending her own fortune without regard for any personal gain that I believe gave her the credibility to accomplish this.”

He later added in his email that McCullough, who had already gained a ban in Florida, felt the information she got at the 2012 summit “showed that slaughter of horses is in no way justified.”

The bill

Language in the bill states exactly that: “None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to pay the salaries or expenses of personnel to: 1. inspect horses under section 3 of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 603); 2. inspect horses under section 903 of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 1901 note; Public Law 104-127; or 3. implement or enforce section 352.19 of title 9, Code of Federal Regulations.”

On Jan. 15, the House passed the legislation with a vote of 359 to 67 and on Jan. 16, the Senate passed it, 72-26.

“Ten years of studying equine welfare and the impact of horse slaughter has convinced me that horse slaughter is an incredibly dangerous industry and should be abolished. It promotes crime in the communities it touches, it provides unsafe meat for unsuspecting customers abroad, it exacerbates the rate of horse theft and it is a cruel betrayal of a species that has given and is giving so much to ours,” said Holland in his email.

“The next step is to pass a strong permanent horse slaughter ban, which would also prohibit the transport of equines from the United States across our borders into Canada and Mexico for slaughter or to any other country for that purpose,” stated Wagner, following passage of the bill. “The legislation will need to include stiff fines and severe penalties for anyone trying to ship any equine from the U.S. across our borders for slaughter.”

Wagner noted that the Executive Branch has never really been involved in this issue before, so she called this a great start.

“There are so many reasons why horses should not be slaughtered and as someone who as been involved with this issue for 20 years, I feel confident that we are finally on the road to a permanent ban,” she said.

McCullough and Holland returned to Chatham for the 2013 Equine Summit, along with Abruzzo. Equine Advocates, 3212 Route 66, Chatham, will host this year’s summit on April 26 and 27.

“We anticipate this year’s summit to be our most important as we hear once again from the most highly-respected equine experts in the country as to how we move toward our ultimate goal” to end horse slaughter for good, said Wagner.