The Horse (Yummy...Horse Meat)

It's time I sling the baskets off this overburdened horse
Sink my toes into the ground and set a different course
Cause if I were here and you were there
I'd meet you in between
And not until my dying day, confess what I have seen

This Needs to Stop. 1,794 Protected Wild Horses Sent to Slaughter After Government Oversight.

The Interior Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently  released a report confirming that between 2009-2012 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sold 1,794 federally-protected wild horses to a Colorado rancher and noted horse slaughter proponent, Tom Davis, who sold them to slaughter. The sale of the horses for slaughter violated BLM policy and a Congressional ban.
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The report reveals that the agency continued to sell horses to Davis even after receiving information that he was sending horses to slaughter. The employee who sold the horses to Davis received performance-based “monetary awards” based on the number of horses she sold or adopted out.

Despite these findings, the OIG does not hold any BLM officials accountable for wrongdoing.

“It took more than three years for the OIG to confirm what we’ve always known – that the BLM sold 1,795 federally-protected wild horses to a known kill buyer who sold them to slaughter,” said Suzanne Roy, Director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC). “Unfortunately, there will be no justice for these mustangs, who suffered brutal deaths in Mexican slaughter plants.  No one at the BLM is being held accountable for this betrayal, and Tom Davis is not being prosecuted for violating his contractual obligation to not sell the horses for slaughter.”

Among the report’s key findings:
  • “BLM did not follow current law while managing wild horses and burros. BLM also failed to follow its own policy of limiting horse sales and ensuring that the horses sold went to good homes and were not slaughtered.”
  • Davis said that “in selling him so many loads of horses, BLM had to know that the horses would end up at a slaughterhouse.”
  • Taxpayers paid $140,000 to deliver truckloads of horses to Davis. Davis paid $10 a piece for the horses, or less than $18,000 total, and made as much as $154,000 by selling them for slaughter.
  • BLM employees never attempted to verify the information that Davis provided regarding his intentions for the horses, despite the unusually large number of horses being sold to him, and never stopped selling horses to Davis despite receiving information that Davis was sending horses to slaughter.
  • The “marketing specialist” who sold the horses to Davis received monetary awards and superior performance appraisals based in part on the number of horses she sold during the period she was selling horses to Davis.
  • This marketing specialist “said she never had any reason to doubt the information on Davis’ applications, even after he refused to tell her who he sold the horses to . . .”
  • The OIG declined to investigate alleged ties between Davis and former Secretary of Agriculture and fellow Coloradan, Ken Salazar.

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“The solution to wild horse management is not selling horses and burros for slaughter,” Roy concluded. “It’s time for BLM to stop rounding up wild horses and burros, stop stockpiling them in holding facilities and start managing them humanely on-the-range using the safe and effective PZP fertility control vaccine, as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences.”

The vast majority of Americans oppose horse slaughter and support protecting wild horses and burros on public lands in the West, so why this is allowed to continue is completely unknown.

You can take action to oppose this horrific practice by following American Wild Horse Preservation and adding your name to their petition calling on Congress to end the senseless slaughter of these American icons. Lead image source: Sam Gower/Flickr

Act Now to Ban Horse Slaughter!


Every year, more than 100,000 American horses are crammed into livestock trailers and trucked to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico—and we may again see slaughterhouses opening here in the U.S. Many of these horses are former companions or were used for sport and have been treated with drugs that are not safe for human consumption.

PETA investigators found Royale With Speed—the grandson of Triple Crown winner Secretariat—in a crowded "kill pen" at a livestock auction in Iowa. Royale With Speed, who was sick with a contagious disease known as strangles, was sold to a meat buyer for just $350. PETA followed a trailer from the meat buyer's property in Iowa to a slaughterhouse in Québec and witnessed how the 33 horses endured this 36-hour ordeal in subfreezing conditions and were never given food, water, or a chance to unload. Undercover footage taken inside the Québec facility revealed that at least 40 percent of the horses were still conscious after receiving a captive-bolt shot to the head. PETA was able to save Royale With Speed, but tens of thousands of other horses continue to be sent to slaughter every year.

Please use the form to urge your legislators to co-sponsor the Safeguard American Food Exports Act of 2015 (H.R. 1942) and the John Rainey Memorial Safeguard American Food Exports Act (S. 1214), which would prevent horse slaughter in the U.S, end the transport of American horses to foreign slaughterhouses, and prevent the public from consuming horseflesh laden with drug residues. If passed, this legislation would effectively end the slaughter of American horses for food—both here and abroad.


Stop Killing America’s Wild Horses.

Target: Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze

Petition: Click Here To Sign.

Goal: Protect wild horses from terrifying, deadly round-ups on public lands.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) claims that it gathers wild horses and burros each year to maintain the ecological health of our nation’s public lands. They also maintain that the horse gathers are to protect the animals from factors such as drought. In reality, common results of the gathers are abortion, trauma, injury, and death.

The BLM asserts that the mortality rates during the round-ups are merely 0.5%, and they attribute most of the injuries and deaths that occur to natural causes. However oftentimes, fatalities and injuries are not reported at all. Statistics for animals that later die or are euthanized due to injuries sustained during capture are omitted entirely.

During a round-up, wild horses are chased by helicopter while they are galloping for their lives. Many of the captured animals suffer from “capture myopathy,” a condition in wild animals caused by the stress of capture. BLM horses, those that survive, remain terrified of helicopter noise long after capture.

As the animals are captured, they are driven into holding pens where foals can be separated from their mothers or left behind on the range to care for themselves. BLM will liberally euthanize any horses with physical defects, even if they had been able to thrive on the range..

According to American Wild Horse Preservation, there has been a 98% reduction in wild horses that used to roam the west since the 1900s. Over 270,000 wild horses have been removed from public lands since the 1971 passing of the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burros Act, which designated public land for their protection. Despite the BLM’s assertion that they are trying to maintain the ecological health of public lands, private livestock outnumbers wild horses and burros 50 to 1. More wild horses are captured annually than are adopted out, leading to a stockpiling of horses in government holding facilities. The cost to the taxpayer for stockpiling these horses is over $100,000 every day, leading to pressure to sell these horses for slaughter.

70% of the budget for wild horses and burros is spent on capture and stockpiling. Only 6% is spent on safe and humane fertility control and keeping horses on the range. By signing the petition below, you will urge Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze to refocus the BLM’s wild horse and burro management plan to one of safe and humane fertility and away from the capture and stockpiling of these beautiful animals.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Director Kornze,

The Bureau of Land Management needs to shift their wild horse and burro program resources to safe and humane fertility control and away from capture and stockpiling. Private livestock consumes more of the resources on public lands than wild horses and burros and these animals deserve to live their lives free.

The numbers of wild horses and burros are declining and too many are stockpiled or euthanized annually. Selling the stockpiled animals to a slaughterhouse is not a viable option. The stress and terror inflicted on these animals while they are being rounded up by helicopter is inhumane and needs to be stopped.

If the BLM deems capturing the horses absolutely necessary, the contractors used need to be reputable, humane, and non-abusive. No fee should be paid for a dead animal, to further discourage the brutality and negligence. Additionally, BLM should not euthanize any wild horses or burros that are captured with physical defects. If they had been able to survive and thrive in the wild, then they should be returned to the wild if the BLM determines that they are not adoptable.

I urge you to stop the terrorization of wild horses and burros. It is inhumane and a violation of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burros Act. Please don’t allow any more torture and violence to befall our nation’s wild horses and burros.

Sincerely,

[Your Name Here]

Photo Credit:  SashaS

Ban Cincinnati Horse Drawn Carriages.
For many, horse-drawn carriages conjure up images of fairy-tale romances.  Some think of the beloved Disney classic Cinderella, and some may even have their own fond memories of celebrating their engagement or wedding anniversary with a scenic evening ride around the downtown streets.  Now, I want to implore you to envision something entirely different, and far less idyllic.  Picture a group of horses crowded into a cramped pen, far too small for the number of animals it contains.  They have no room to run.  There is no grass on the ground, but only dirt, waste matter, filthy clumps of hay and pieces of garbage left by passing pedestrians. This pen is not located in the country, but rather, in a rotting,  industrial section of Cincinnati’s West End.  Because the conditions in which these animals are kept are so visibly deplorable, the owners have plastered blue tarps around the perimeters of the enclosure, so that people don’t realize there are live horses inside.

The only time the horses are allowed to leave this wretched excuse of a habitat is when they are put to work pulling carriages on the street.  Unprotected from the elements, they work out in the freezing cold and in the sweltering heat, lugging carriages that weigh between 1500 and 1800 lbs.  Working horses to the point of utter exhaustion is pretty standard for carriage owners, as in recent years, there have been numerous cases across the US of carriage horses collapsing in the street.  In order to keep the horses from thrashing around too much, their harnesses and bridles are fixed so painfully tight that they can barely move their heads.  Many animal welfare groups have collected photo documentation of carriage horses in the US showing severe scarring on their faces, left by these excruciating constraints.

As the Humane Society of United States points out, horses are prey animals by nature, and have a highly developed flight drive that is easily triggered when they are startled by an unexpected or threatening stimulus.  This reaction can happen to even the best-trained and well-mannered horses, and is often the cause of accidents for horse-drawn carriages.  In the year 2014, there were at least 24 reported traffic accidents in the US that resulted from horse drawn carriages.  Two of these were in Cincinnati, with one particularly bad crash resulting in a motorist nearly being thrown from the Taylor-Southgate bridge.         

If horses are lucky enough to survive their stints pulling carriages, they are still destined to die a brutal, premature death.  It is industry standard for carriage horses to be sold to slaughter once they are retired, and most wind up as dog kibble, as feed for zoo animals, or are shipped overseas to be consumed by humans. 

This is not a pretty picture, but tragically, the suffering of these animals is an undeniable reality.  The idea that horse-drawn carriages are romantic and innocuous, on the other hand, is sheer fantasy.  It is time that residents of Cincinnati quit living in this dangerous fantasy, and acknowledge the blatant animal abuse occurring right under their noses. 

If we can persuade the members of Cincinnati City Council to vote on the matter, we can get an ordinance passed which will officially ban the operation of horse drawn carriages within city limits.  By signing this petition, you will be showing our elected officials that you care about the wellbeing of horses, and that the residents of Cincinnati are too good to allow such a reprehensible industry to exist in our community.  Other American cities, such as Salt Lake City, UT, Camden, NJ, Biloxi, MI, and numerous municipalities in Florida have successfully banned horse drawn carriages through ordinances like the one we’re proposing.  Cities such as Philadelphia and New York are currently engaged in heated battles over the issue, as well.  Let’s show the country that Cincinnati is progressive enough to stand up to animal cruelty. 

Click Here to Help!

The Horse Lyrics by Phish are written by Trey Anastasio and Tom Marshall © by Who Is She? Music, Inc (BMI)