Does anyone think that is ok? It’s basically the same argument for defending horse slaughter. Just as dogs and cats are not bred in our society for food and fur, neither is the horse! Horses are companion animals in our society and should be treated as such. Humane euthanasia is the answer, not a horrific journey to the end.

Your command of the English language lends credence to Mac’s observation that in the TB industry, those who support slaughter as a way to dispose of unwanted horses tend to be the bottom feeders at low end tracks.

‘Humane horse slaughter’ is an oxymoron tossed about by ox-witted morons with a vested interest in a disgusting practice. Period. End of subject.

The Fans of Barbaro (FOBs) have contributed over $1 million dollars to save over 2600 horses by working with various rescue organizations including ours. Most recently the FOBs and the Exceller Fund helped CANTER purchase and retire Mighty Wind, a 14 year old TB with 92 starts. We did this not because of our devotion to Alex Brown, but because Mighty Wind earned a peaceful retirement in spite of the fact that none of the people who made money off of him were responsible enough to provide for him.

Thoroughbred racing is in the forefront of providing alternatives to slaughter, and they aren’t doing it because it’s a female-dominated industry manipulated by Alex Brown. Groups like CANTER work with racetracks in many states to help horses transition. Finger Lakes has their own on-site adoption facility. Most tracks now have “no kill” policies and in spite of opposition are enforcing them.

In my experience, most people in Thoroghbred racing, men and women are anti-slaughter. Those that aren’t tend to be the bottom feeders at low end tracks who run injured horses into the ground then ship them off to be killed to hide the evidence of their abuse. These are the people who bring shame to the world of horse racing and if outlawing slaughter puts them out of business we all benefit.

“May 26, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Duane Burright

duane_burright@yahoo.com

We can’t slaughter our way to horse welfare by Duane Burright

CHICAGO, (EWA) – By now everyone is familiar with the subject of horses being neglected or starved, along with the claims from those in agricultural circles that slaughter is “necessary” to prevent horse neglect and that it is a way to dispose of unwanted horses. I’ve been hearing that litany from all of the agricultural publications and blogs, the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA), the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), various state Farm Bureaus and from a group of clueless politicians including Illinois’ Rep. Jim Sacia, Sue Wallis of Wyoming and former Texas congressman and paid slaughter lobbyist, Charles Stenholm.

I find it odd that they see slaughter as being the solution for horse neglect, but when it comes to neglected or starving cattle, they are stumped. In this USA Today article Starving cattle amid high prices for feed in Neb, Steven Stanec, executive director of the Nebraska Brand Committee, a state agency that helps police the cattle industry stated that “Neglect cases are on the rise, and what’s causing it, I’m not sure. We’re having whole herds of hundreds of cattle being neglected.”

In doing a simple Google search I found other related headlines which show that cattle starving to death is a fairly widespread problem – Officials raid farm with 30 dead, 100 plus starving cows, Starving cows rescued near Paisley on road to recovery and Starving cattle seized in Lake County.

According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, 34.4 million cattle were slaughtered in 2008, that’s an average of 94,247 cows slaughtered per day. According to Cattle Network, beef production is up over last year.

Now with all of those cattle going to slaughter, one would wonder why cattle neglect is happening. Using the logic that the AQHA, AVMA, NCBA, Farm Bureaus and the other proponents of the horse slaughter industry apply to starving or neglected horses that “slaughtering prevents neglect”, one would think that we wouldn’t have problems with starving or neglected cattle. Yet guys like Steven Stanec aren’t sure why cattle neglect cases are on the rise.

What further weakens the argument that “slaughter is needed to prevent horse neglect” is that while all of these articles have been written about neglected and starving horses, the option of horse slaughter has been available in the United States. Horse owners can take the horses they no longer want to keep to the local livestock auction and the neighborhood friendly kill buyers will happily take the horse off their hands. According to statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 134,059 American horses have been slaughtered at the European owned plants in Canada and Mexico in 2008. American horses still continue to go to slaughter as you read this, so the slaughter pipeline continues to function despite the claims to the contrary.

The reality is that slaughter has nothing to do with animal welfare. Since slaughter apparently doesn’t magically solve the problem of starving and neglected cattle, it is fallacy to think that slaughter will solve the problem of starving and neglected horses. The problem of cattle being neglected is due to the current economic crisis, that same economic crisis is making it difficult for horse owners.

In fact, a study released in June of 2008 showed there was no correlation between horse slaughter and neglect, but a clear linkage between unemployment and neglect. Prophetically, the study warned in its conclusions that if economic conditions continued to deteriorate an upward trend in neglect could be expected.

The AQHA, AVMA, NCBA, Farm Bureaus and all of their political allies put a lot of time, energy and money into supporting horse slaughter. If these special interest groups were to focus all of those resources on solving the nation’s economic problems rather than supporting a foreign owned industry that doesn’t even pay their taxes, we might be able to get something done.

It is a pity they are so narrow minded.

Duane Burright is a software engineer by trade, aside from horses and their welfare he’s also interested in American musclecars, vintage electric fans, computers and software design. He has been involved in the campaign to make the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (AHSPA) law since 2003 and is a supporter of a nearby wild horse sanctuary.”

The reason is because you don’t care. You know it can’t economically be made humane. In other words, humane slaughter costs too much.

You are the ones with your heads in the sand, refusing to admit that your “salvage value” comes from abusing your horses.

I am a horse owner, I have a horse racing tomorrow at Arlington. You emphatically do not speak for me, or for the other owners I know. We are the ones working to end horse slaughter for human consumption.

acording to AP investagation- our own gov. employees take mustangs that cost taxpayers 1000. each. to capture and sell them to slaughter..
“……… The Associated Press matched computer records of horse adoptions with a computerized list of federal employees and found that more than 200 current BLM employees have adopted more than 600 wild horses and burros.
Some of these employees, when contacted by the AP, could not account for the whereabouts of their animals. Others acknowledged some of their horses were sent to slaughterhouses……..”………..
” Asked about the AP’s findings, Tom Pogacnik, director of the BLM’s $16 million-a-year Wild Horse and Burro Program, conceded that about 90 percent of the horses rounded up — thousands of horses each year — go to slaughter.”

Your open hosility for women makes me think your wife must have kicked your thick-skulled self out of the house and wiped you clean in a divorce.

Deal with the issues and not your obvious need to pass the buck on responsible behavior.

FACT: horse slaughter numbers are entirely driven by demand in Europe, not by so-called unwanted horses here in our economy. Slaughter is a business in the business of buying meat at 30 cents a pound and marking it up to $15-25.

The fact that many thousands of companion horses are stolen from their rightful American owners and rushed to slaughter in Canada or Mexico, or that horse killers routinely lie to sellers about where the horse is really going, speaks to the character of this predatory, cruel, greedy business.

Fact: may thousands of horses are dismembered while awake, after a grim, frightful journey to the kill box. When slaughter happened in the US with USDA licenesed inspectors, too.

People who want to stop this brutal, greedy business aren’t hurting horses. That makes no sense at all. It’s the pro-slaughter minority, buying into the nonsense portrayed as truth by the self serving ag lobby, who are irretrievably stuck on stupid.

Nobody in the pro-slaughter camp has offered any plan whatsoever to make slaughter humane, despite thousands of pages of evidence proving its brutality beyond all doubt. Sure, you hear, “maybe if it was regulated” — but it WAS regulated in the US, and still horses were strung up and dismembered alive by untrained, mostly illegal workers. Foals born - and dumped alive - on the kill floor, against Federal law. Slaughter had its chance in the US and it was kicked to the curb right where it belonged.

Luckily, history teaches us you don’t need 100% enlightenment to change how we behave towards the environment or its inhabitants.

Horse slaughter is an outmoded, wrongheaded way to deal with a horse. Most Americans know that. For $25 worth of chemicals the animal can be put down humanely if need be. Stop the problem at its source - puppy mill style overbreeding.

As it stands now, drugs that cause cancer and are banned from the food supply are in the horse meat being sold to our trading partners overseas. That’s as morally wrong as the treatment of the horses themselves.

Our elected officials are well aware that animal abuse is one thing the American people have very little patience for, and that we pay attention to their records come election time.