Ex-N.M. chief vows to halt horse slaughterhouse ruling

[Judi Lynn]

Source: USA Today

Ex-N.M. chief vows to halt horse slaughterhouse ruling
Gary Strauss, USA TODAY 2:43 p.m. EDT November 2, 2013

Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson vowed Saturday to fight a federal ruling that will allow U.S. horse slaughterhouses to operate for the first time since 2007.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo tossed a lawsuit by the Humane Society and animal protection groups seeking to block horse slaughter, contending that federal officials had failed to assess the environmental impacts of slaughterhouses. Her ruling could allow Roswell, N.M.-based Valley Meat, Responsible Transportation of Sigourney, Iowa, and Rains Natural Meats of Gallatin, Mo., to slaughter horses and ship meat to countries where it's consumed by humans or used as animal feed.

Currently, most domestic horses destined for slaughter are shipped to Canadian and Mexico processing plants.

The hot-button issue has split animal rights activists, ranchers and Indian tribes for years. Richardson and actor Robert Redford have been the animal rights groups' most visible supporters, saying the slaughter of an iconic animal is cruel and inhumane.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/02/former-nm-gov-richardson-vows-to-fight-horse-slaughterhouse-ruling/3383629/

[zeemike]

1. Good for him.

Richardson was first my Representative and then my Governor and he is a good man.

[gopiscrap]

4. welcome to DU

[skepticscott]

3. Ok…make this make sense

"the slaughter of an iconic animal is cruel and inhumane."

How is it any different than killing a pig, a cow, a chicken or a turkey, as far as being cruel and inhumane? Horses being "iconic" may get some human's shorts in a knot, on a vicerally emotional and irrational level, but a lot of those people are perfectly happy to wolf down burgers or chicken wings without caring two hoots whether the animals they're eating were raised or killed humanely.

[MrYikes]

5. .

our culture declares that the slaughter of horses is not proper. Same with dogs and cats, just distasteful to our society.

[skepticscott]

8. Uh, well duh..what's your point?

My question stands…how does that societal attitude make the killing any more "cruel and inhumane" than the slaughter of any of the other animals I mentioned?

[Vincardog]

6. If you have a problem with meat eaters, make your point.

[skepticscott]

7. If I had a problem with meat eaters, I would

But I don't. I have a problem with hypocrites, the willfully ignorant, and political grandstanders.

[Vincardog]

9. OK what do you want to happen? 1 Stop killing horses. 2 Kill beef and chickens humanely 3 stop

Killing Beef and chickens.

[skepticscott]

10. I'm not advocating for any of the above, necessarily

Though #2 would be nice. I'm advocating for people like Richardson and Redford to stop trying to win political points with hypocrisy, grandstanding and playing off of people's irrationality and cognitive dissonance.

[fasttense]

12. Slaughtering horses to eat is different from slaughtering steers or pork because

Corporations can pass off horse meat as beef and pork. Because in America, horse meat is so much cheaper (because no one wants to eat it) than beef, pork or lamb. If a corporation can disguise the meat and lie about the contents of the processed food, they could make hundreds of millions of dollars. Much like they currently do with pink slime.

Like not eating pork or cattle among some Jews, Muslims and Hindus, not eating horse meat (or cat or dog meat) is socially frowned upon in most American households. You can not equate meat to meat. A meat eating society must place controls on meat eating somewhere, or else the populace will start eating each other. By placing a restriction on eating certain animals, it becomes easy enough to restrict the consumption of human flesh. Soylant Green anyone?

[bread_and_roses]

13. Differences in cruelty in horse and food livestock slaughter

I realize that most people don't know anything about this, naturally. I would not either, but as a life-long horse lover I learned about it through following TB racing.

According to luminaries like Temple Grandin, slaughter of - for instance - cattle and pigs - can be done "humanely" - though anyone who follows animal rights issues knows that is not always the case. There may be a way to do so for horses too, but if it has been designed, as far as I know it has not been implemented. Because horse slaughter is not done on the giant agra scale of beef cattle, it has been particularly cruel when legal in US - and the horror stories from abroad are unbearable.

Rather than using equipment and processes designed for horses, they were often transported, for instances, in vehicles designed for cows, which have a totally different body conformation, resulting in terribly cruel conditions during transport and often injury. Similar in the slaughter process - I am sorry, but you will have to go read it for yourself - it is really too painful to revisit, and I seem to have wiped the details from memory.

In addition, cattle and horses have a different temperament, which is a huge factor in how much fear the animals feel in different surroundings. Horses, unlike cattle, are bred to be alert, interested, quick - for speed and fast reactions. This means that the processes of slaughter that use the natural behaviors of cattle to keep them calm and unafraid during the slaughter processes do not have the same effect on horses, which are in a sense "wilder" due to different sort of intelligence and reactions. This results in terror and injury during the slaughter process. In a final cruelty, if the actual kill mechanism is one designed for cows - again that different body design - it sometimes fails to do the job, resulting in more unspeakable cruelty.

They are also accustomed to handling by humans, many (not all) are trusting of humans, and in many cases are raised and treated as companion animals. Most people find something repellent about throwing away a companion animal like a broken appliance, and sending it off to what is often a very cruel last few days or weeks and a cruel and hideously painful death.

Finally, for those who care about what is in their food, because horses are not raised as food animals, they are given medications, etc., that would not be permitted - or at least would be regulated as to timing of administration, etc., in animals raised for food.

It is true that humans have eaten horse since humans could hunt and kill large animals. If horses today were raised for slaughter then the logic of pig-cow-horse would apply. However, this is a different day, these horses are not raised for slaughter, nor is the process anything that an ethical human would support as acceptable, once they knew about it.

I hope that answers your question about consistency.

[skepticscott]

17. That's very good information

Thank you for a very informative response.

[we can do it]

11. One animal is no more valuable than another....No human is of more worth than another.

If you eat meat then you really should not care.

[OmahaBlueDog]

14. There are no good answers here

Prior to the 60s, it was commonplace for horses to be slaughtered. If' you are over 45, you probably remember all of the "glue factory" jokes that would be made about race horses not performing up to standard. In this country, a lot of horsemeat was used to feed dogs.

Since the 60s, attitudes have shifted in thinking of horses as work animals and livestock to thinking of them more like pets.

The problem is that in the US, there is a rapidly declining market for horses. There's been no horsemeat market in this country for 4 decades, and fewer horses are used on ranches - ranchers having turned to 4-wheeler ATVs to do much of the work that used to be done on horseback. Fewer suburbanites have their sons and daughters take riding lessons. All of this leads to people who have horses they don't need/want, and for which they don't have a clear end-of-life strategy.

Currently, your choices are:

1) Find a sale barn for aging horses. The animal will mostly be sent to a feedlot, and then transported to Texas for eventual transport to Mexico. In Mexico the animal will be slaughtered. Canada is also a possibility.

2) Send your horse to a horse rescue. Some are run by well funded, knowledgeable individuals. Others are run by folks who got into it meaning well, but had no real idea about the kinds of costs involved.

3) Euthanize the horse. Burial is a nice idea, but for most folks, the carcass will go to a renderer.

I lean toward allowing horse slaughter here. I realize that's not a popular view, but as it stands now, we're doing nothing more than sending the work out of the country. Simultaneously, I understand that US horse slaughter facilities are the bottom rung of the US ruminant slaughter industry. We are not talking Tyson or Cargill here, and these are actors who are not necessarily using best slaughter practices. At the end of the day, I'd prefer that it be done here, done legally, and done under the supervision of the USDA.

[bread_and_roses]

16. I think there's another option ...

... pie in the sky, I know, but it is the same option as for dogs/cats. Make a deposit for end-of-life provision mandatory as part of the breeding/selling process, as well as making it VERY expensive to breed any companion and/or working animal - horses/cats/dogs/probably others I'm not familiar with. Require liscensing and fees for breeding that are VERY EXPENSIVE and require and same for owning - fees high enough fund adequate animal cops/shelters for those that are abused/mistreated.

I realize this is not a popular notion. But 4-6 million per year (or whatever the appalling # is) dogs and cats put to death in shelters every year, and now with the recession an abandoned horse problem, tell me that it's the only answer. Yes, it would make owning a companion dog or cat prohibitively expensive. Oh well. It's that or keep letting people get throw-away pets.

And actually, for horses, which are not bred in the numbers that dogs and cats are and which VERY rarely breed "by accident" making a provision for humane euthanasia a mandatory part of the sale is not so far-fetched. Not to mention requiring that part of the "take" on racing gambling can and should be set aside to assure that no racehorse goes to slaughter - it should be a % of the total bet to provide for those horses who win nothing. A % of the winnings of any racehorse as well to retirement and rehoming - sums above what is needed for one horse go into a pool for others.

It takes some out-of-box thinking and I'm sure others could come up with ideas too (as long as those ideas do not amount to "people should" - people "should" do a lot of things but without regulation they don't in all too many cases, and animals should not be at the mercy of the luck of the draw), but we do not have to accept cruelty and treating companion animals like commodities or throw-away toys.

[christx30]

15. The ruling against horse slaughter was struck down

the same week that the McRib is back. I don't believe in coincidences.