Horse Meat

For several years now, there have been more wild horses removed from the open range than there have been people interested in adopting them.  Thus, the government has been paying ranchers to keep the excess horses alive (previous blog here). 

Late last year, Congress revised the laws governing wild horses.  The slaughter ban was lifted, and no longer do the new owners of excess horses have to wait a year to receive ownership title; now they get it immediately.  As some folks had feared, a few of the excess horses have already ended up at the slaughterhouse.

The BLM is investigating how the mustangs ended up at an Illinois slaughterhouse, but the government has "no legal recourse" to prevent such slaughters since a 34-year-old law was changed in December, agency spokeswoman Celia Boddington said.

The BLM sold the six horses that had been rounded up in Wyoming to a private owner in Oklahoma earlier this month, the agency said.

The sale was authorized under the change in law in December. The amendment by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., directs the agency to offer for sale any excess mustangs that are older than age 10 or that were unsuccessfully offered to the public three times under a separate, long-running adoption program.

"Although it was six wild horses whose blood was spilled, it could easily have been 60 or 200," said Trina Bellak, president of the American Horse Defense Fund.

We struggle with the concept of euthanizing feral horses much more than we do with feral cats and dogs.  Maybe it's that most of us see strays and feral pets and understand some of the impacts of not spaying and neutering animals.   While we don't like it, most of us grudgingly accept the need for killing millions upon millions of cats and dogs that overflow most animal shelters.  However, no-kill animal shelters are becoming increasingly common. 

In most cases, it's local or state policy that determines what we do with feral cats and dogs.  Wisconsin has been making headlines with its proposed legislation to legalize the killing of wild, free roaming cats (any cat without a collar).  It's already legal to do so in South Dakota and Minnesota.  The major concern with cats is the amount of wildlife--especially songbirds--they kill. 

With most wild horses living on federal land, it's understandable that there would be a number of federal policies on their management, including on euthanizing them.  When most people hear about them overgrazing the land, they think of the native wild horse competing with ranchers' non-native domestic cattle.  However, our wild horses are descendents of escaped domestic animals from another continent (previous blog here).  They and cattle and sheep are eating our native flora and competing with our native fauna...in many cases very successfully.

Some people evaluate the health of the ecosystems in sagebrush country based in part upon the land's carrying capacity for cattle, sheep, etc.  Others focus on the species they're displacing, like pronghorn, some perennial forage, mule deer, bighorns, etc.  Wild horses can show up in either category.  This article noted that there are currently about 37,000 wild horses in the U.S., an estimated 9,000 more than the natural forage can withstand without damage.  Think of the human preferences and politics behind that scientific conclusion.

The BLM might step up its screening process for potential horse buyers, Boddington said.

"We regret this incident occurred, but these horses were private property," she said.

"We certainly do our best to vet those potential buyers to make sure they have a real interest and intend to provide long-term care to these animals," she said.

BLM won't release any information about the person who purchased the mustangs, but Nancy Perry, vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, said the purchaser was an Oklahoma man who claimed to be a minister who wanted the mustangs for a youth camp.

The Oklahoma man lied.  One does wonder though that if he intended to sell the horses for slaughter, why he didn't buy more of them? 

Officials at the processing plant defended their disposal of the mustangs in a "humane manner" while recycling them into food for foreign markets.

"We don't feel the government should be deciding for livestock owners how they dispose of their animals. This just gives the BLM the same options that a farmer or rancher has," said Jim Tucker, general manager of Cavel International Inc. in Dekalb, Ill.

Tucker said Cavel "euthanizes the animals in a humane manner" -- with a gun-like "penetrating captive bolt" shot into the forehead. It's the same method used at cattle slaughterhouses and approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association, he said.

"We always felt here that we are recycling a resource and producing food," he said.

Cavel typically pays 47 cents a pound for usable horse meat, or about $300 for a 1,000-pound horse that produces about 600 pounds of horse meat, Tucker said.

The Cavel International plant is one of only three in the U.S. that slaughters horses.  This plant, opened in 2004, is designed to process 100 horses per day and employs about 40 people (the old plant burned to the ground in 2002--suspected arson).  The plant prepares cuts of meat as one would for beef and exports them to Europe, predominantly to Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium.  Horsemeat is considered a delicacy by many in France, Belgium, and Japan.  Cavel International is a Belgian company.

Overall, about 55,000 horses are slaughtered in the U.S. for export each year.  That rate is well below numbers in the late '80s and early '90s, when sometimes over 300,000 horses were slaughtered in a year.  Most of the horses processed are older workhorses, animals not valued for breeding, pets, and probably some stolen animals.  The other two slaughterhouses are in Kaufman and Ft. Worth, Texas.  The former is also Belgian-owned, while the latter is French-owned. 

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Reps. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., have introduced legislation to repeal the Burns measure.

S. 576 and H.R. 297 are the bills designed to repeal the Burns amendment.  But whether it's repealed or not, there will continue to be excess horses, and some of them will continue to be killed in slaughterhouses (though likely later in life).  Even the horses that the government pays ranchers to keep alive are euthanized if it doesn't look like they'll make it through a winter.

Managing wild horses is never going to be simple or cheap.

Comments

[BETH]

HELLO THERE

I'M RAY FROM FLORIDA AND I WAS BORN WITH POLIO AND IN MARCH 2005 I WAS TOLD BY MY DR. THAT I HAVE BONE CANCER.
I'M LOOKING FOR SOME PLACE WHERE I COULD ORDER SOME HORSE MEAT FROM.

CAN ANYBODY TELL ME WHERE I COULD ORDER HORSE MEAT FROM ?

PLEASE EMAIL ME AT: iambeth60@wmconnect.com

THANK YOU

[Jenny]

Hi, everyone.

Three foreign-owned horse slaughter plants here in the USA are killing American horses. They kill the horses, harvest the meat, and then ship it overseas. Me and some friends are asking people to send an email to their senators asking them to push this bill through and vote to end horse slaughtering.

Go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ and type in your zip code. Send an email to both of your US senators and tell them to stop horse slaughtering. The vote is coming before the Senate in early October so please do it NOW! :-) Thanks!!!

And here is a blog that we set up so you can read more information about it:

http://www.horsesarefriendsnotfood.com