By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent LEXINGTON, Ky. — It seems inconceivable that a state known around the world for its love of the horse, has seen a dramatic increase of those animals that are starving and being turned loose due to owners’ inabilities to care for them or send them to a slaughter house.
A recent release form the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA) reports just that is happening once horses are too old to work or perform. The Alliance points the finger at animal activists groups including the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS.)
“This sad state of affairs is the direct result of the anti-horse slaughter movement led by the vegan-led HSUS and other animal rights organizations,” said Kay Johnson, executive vice-president of the AAA. “These groups claim to care about animal welfare, but when faced with an avoidable animal welfare disaster caused by their efforts, they callously insist that the market will sort itself out or, worse yet, coldheartedly dispute that the crisis exists, while leaving seriously under-funded local animal rescue operations to save animals. It is time for the federal government to intervene and stop these American icons from being used by vegan groups as political pawns in the quest to impose their vegetarian agenda on our nation.”
The Alliance statement pointed to an Associated Press report that focuses on conditions in Eastern Kentucky where many horses are being turned loose into the wild, but the problem exists all across the nation and is mostly blamed on anti-horse slaughter legislation around the country.
“With new laws making it difficult to send horses off to the slaughterhouse when they are no longer suitable for racing or work, auction houses are glutted with horses they can barely sell, and rescue organizations have run out of room,” the AP reports.
Those laws are intended to protect animals but realistically in other parts of the world, horse meat is a regular staple of everyday diets.
Charles Stenholm, a former U.S representative from Texas and current spokesman for the Horse Welfare Coalition (HWC) said the slaughter of horses for foreign human consumption is a viable alternative to a growing problem.
According to the website Common Horse Sense.com, the HWC consists of more than 200 organizations, including the nation’s largest veterinary organization, the nation’s association for horse vets, the National Association of Counties, and many local, state, and national agriculture and horse organizations.
“We in no way advocate the human consumption of horses in the U.S., but worldwide, eight million horses are consumed each year and we think this is an acceptable and humane alternative way to treat euthanized horses,” said Stenholm. “We respect those who don’t feel this way. This is an emotional decision but unwanted horses are a major problem all across the U.S.”
Stenholm also said that nearly 32,000 horses are currently being held in feedlots across the west at a cost of $50 million annually to care for and feed. He also emphasized that when horses are euthanized for the slaughterhouse, it is always under the watchful eyes of veterinaries.
The only slaughterhouse that is permitted to process horses for human intake in the United States is the Cavel International slaughterhouse located in DeKalb, Illinois. It is there USHS efforts are focused on legislative initiatives to end that practice. In January, two remaining slaughterhouses in Texas were ordered to stop by a federal court of appeals decision to uphold a longstanding state law banning the practice.
House Bill 1711, introduced in the Illinois General Assembly by State Rep. Robert Molaro (D-21st), makes it “unlawful for any person to slaughter a horse if that person knows or should know that any of the horse meat will be used for human consumption and that any person who knowingly does so shall be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor.”
“It’s time to close the doors permanently on the shameful business of the Cavel horse slaughter plant and its industry partners in Texas,” said Diane Webber, regional director of the Central States Regional Office of the HSUS. “We applaud Representative Molaro for introducing H.B. 1711 and urge Illinois legislators to support this important humane legislation to end the brutality of horse slaughter in our state.”
In Kentucky, the horse industry leads the state agriculturally to the tune of more than $1 billion annually or 25 percent of total yearly cash receipts with the majority of that money coming from the heralded thoroughbred industry.
A unique way of dealing with unwanted race horses was developed over 20 years ago that re-trains the animals and places them in adoptive situations.
The Thoroughbred Retirement Founda-tion (TRF) has a mission “to save Thoroughbred horses no longer able to compete on the racetrack from possible neglect, abuse and slaughter.” The TRF is the oldest and largest thoroughbred rescue agency of its kind. TRF facilities are located across the country including many correctional facilities where inmates provide the day to day care of the horses.
Mimi Davis is the farm manager at the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center, a TRF facility in Lexington named after the famous triple-crown winner. It is there she works with thoroughbreds to ready them for a new life, along with feeding, cleaning and even fund raising chores she said.
“The Foundation is feeding about 1300 horses right now and we keep about 15 to 20 horses here,” she said.
“We have a strict process of approval. You have to have a proper place to keep them and the horses have to be regularly checked by a vet. We just don’t let anyone adopt an animal. We are very careful about that. We want them to find forever homes.”
It is unfortunate that many unwanted horses won’t find a forever home and the debate on what is best to do with these animals is far from over.
For more information about unwanted horses in Kentucky, visit www.trfinc.org; wwww.hsus.org or www.commonhorsesense.com This farm news was published in the March 28, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
