Issues and initiatives covered at the 2012 American Equine Summit this past weekend at a horse welfare education center in Chatham, NY, ranged from developing a tactical agenda to persuading Congress to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, to Paula Bacon's recounting of her successful effort to shut down the Dallas Crown horse slaughterhouse when she was mayor of Kaufman, Texas. Over 100 horse advocates convened, coming from as far as California and Texas, to as close as the next hamlet over.
The stories -- most had heard similar before -- were accompanied by documenting photographs and videos. In a single photograph or video, the claim that captive-bolt horse slaughter is humane is refuted. In fact, the most conclusive photos (please heed warnings, photos and videos are graphic) were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and were taken at American slaughterhouses prior to their closure in 2007. (Federal legislation was passed and signed in November 2011 that enables the reopening of horse slaughterhouses in the United States.)
Much time during the two days was spent examining the allegations of horse slaughter proponents -- that the conditions for horses in America have declined since domestic slaughter was banned, because a surplus of horses has resulted, they claim. In fact, roughly the same number of horses have been exported annually to Canada and Mexico for slaughter that were being slaughtered prior to the shutdown of domestic slaughterhouses. Unfortunately for American, Canadian and Mexican horses, the big-ag industries of horse slaughter in Canada and Mexico are as inhumane as in the U.S..
John Holland of the Equine Welfare Alliance, using public data, plotted the number of horses going to slaughter (spanning years including both domestic and cross-border), reported cases of horse abuse and the unemployment rate. Looking at the following chart, the relationship between horse abuse and unemployment in this snapshot of the American heartland of Illinois is clear.
Paula Bacon, the fifth-generation, former mayor of Kaufman, TX, where Dallas Crown operated for over 20 years, outlined the harm that the slaughterhouse inflicted upon her community, including serial environmental violations, litigiousness, no overall contribution to the tax-base and a booming crime rate. In 2006, when the Dallas Crown slaughterhouse was in full swing the crime rate was 331.8 per 100,000 residents, in 2007 when the plant shut down the rate was 314.6, in 2008 with no slaughterhouse operating in the community, the rate was 173.3; the crime rate has decreased slightly since then.
Rock impresario and Live Nation chief Ron Delsener and former Congressman John Sweeney called the assembled group to take the issue to Congress in an organized and funded manner. Just like the "Big Ag" backed opposition to the federal ban of horse slaughter, a constant presence in the halls of Congress will eventually bring the slaughter prevention legislation to a vote in both houses.
The front man for the pro-slaughter lobby is 70-year-old, former Texas Congressman Charles Stenholm, who is now a Senior Policy Advisor at the Washington D.C. lobbying and law firm Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC, that describes its sphere of influence, "At OFW Law, we have daily contact with agencies throughout the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Our attorneys and Senior Policy Advisors have worked with officials in, and have themselves served at, the highest levels of the Department."
Talking about his work in returning domestic horse slaughter, Stenholm was quoted on April 2, 2012, at length in the Abilene Reporter News, outlining that he is "currently working with the Appropriations Committee to make sure they keep a rider off new farm policy..."
To counter the entrenched relationships that Stenholm and his ilk access in Congress, participants at the American Equine Summit agreed that there are challenges ahead. On their side is the knowledge that a recent independent poll confirmed that the majority of Americans are against the slaughter of horses for human consumption.
A February 2012 statement from the ASPCA says:
The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today announced in a newly released poll conducted by Lake Research Partners that 80 percent of American voters are opposed to the slaughter of U.S. horses for human consumption. The nationwide survey reveals that Americans oppose horse slaughter overwhelmingly regardless of their gender, political affiliation, whether they live in an urban or rural area, or their geographic location. Further, it confirms that a vast majority of horse owners are also against the slaughtering of our nation's equines.
Now, the challenge is to induce Congress to listen to the will of its constituents, rather than the dulcet tones of agri-industry contributors loosening the purse strings of their campaign coffers.
Education is the key in this issue. The costs of this industry are absolutely something that need to be addressed before this can be a working and efficient industry, but in the eyes of many, it is something worth investing time and energy in, as the output may outweigh the input.
The environmental costs and inhumane treatment of horses sent to slaughter is something that can be regulated given federal priority, and therefore slaughter is not necessarily something that needs to be banned in the U.S. In my opinion, banning horse slaughter in the U.S. will only worsen conditions for U.S. horses that will be in turn sent to neighboring countries that do not require or enforce humane treatment of horses before and during slaughter. If horse slaughter were to be allowed in the U.S., but new regulations were put into place, environmental costs, contamination of meat for human consumption (like phenylbutazone), inhumane treatment of horses, etc., could all be eliminated, providing a safer and more beneficial industry.
Another thing to remember is that when analyzing data from polls, often times the questions can be misleading. The fact that "American voters are opposed to the slaughter of U.S. horses for human consumption" (ASPCA, 2012) is most likely because it is a food that is rarely consumed on U.S. dinner tables. Some of these Americans may not understand its value in other countries and its potential for providing an economic benefit for the U.S.
In addition, hosting a local slaughter plant has been proven to reduce local property values, halt local development and increase municipal financial burdens for sewage treatment and emergency health care. It also increases local crime rates, including violent crimes, and employs 95% foreign (and often undocumented) workers, as admitted recently by the Belgian slaughter plant operators. Nothing there provides "economic benefits".
And claiming we can make horse slaughter in the US humane is fantasy. We have the budget for two - only two - people to oversee the entire country and horse slaughter pipeline from auction to transport to feedlot to plant operations. There is neither the taxpayer money to waste, nor the will of Americans to subsidize a notoriously inhumane foreign-owned industry. Even the state-of-the-art Temple Grandin-designed plant in Canada showed gross humane infractions from recent undercover footage. It is simply not possible to make factory horse slaughter humane. That claim ignores emotional and physical characteristics of horses and the extent of inhumane practices in the slaughter pipeline.
The U. S. agricultural community has not been well served by the involuntarily retired by his constituents Texas Representative Charlie Stenholm.. The former representative has told potential horse slaughtererser that it is difficult to find someone you can pay to talk about horse slaughter. So perhaps the involuntarily retired by his constituents representative should accept the will of the American people, pack up his horse slaughter schtick, and high tail it back to Texas. Horses fared no better under the USDA than they do now in Mexico and Canada, and history is the best predictor of the future. The involuntarily retired by his constituents representative has no magic wand to sterilize what cannot be sanitized. Stenholm cannot shorten the necks of horses or reset the horse’s brain. It does not deafen the horses’ keen sense of hearing nor can he calm the horse’s overpowering instinct to flee when from danger. All the money in the world would not buy the souls of humans with both the skill and temperament to stun beautiful, young, healthy horses with a skull crushing gun. Charlie Stenholm has no spell to make toxic meat safe, and just because he refuses to talk about it “until we get slaughter back,” he cannot change the fact that as many as 94% of U. S. horses sold for slaughter have been treated with drugs forbidden by the FDA, EU, and the CFIA to be used in any animals intended for human consumption.
That said, I grew up with horses and the very idea of industrial horse slaughter sickens me. Unfortunately, all the ban in the USA did was make sure that horses destined for slaughter get a hellish ride into Mexico before being slaughtered in even worse conditions. As much as I hate to say it, I would rather have USDA regulated horse slaughter here in the US than continue to let horses take that ride into Mexico. There is no such thing as a "good death" for the vast majority of horses.
Also, American horses going to Mexico are going to EU certified plants that use the identical kill process to the former American plants (captive bolt). The problem with re-opening the US plants is they were notoriously inhumane before, and there's no reason they would be improved now. Too much of the systemic abuse is due to abusive handling throughout the slaughter pipeline, which has no oversight (nor $$ for oversight). And it would be much harder to shut them down again, once the sordid trade was back in the US.
The crime rate could also be due to having the type of people who kill horses for their livelihood living in your area. Horse slaughter is a business that attracts the under belly of society. If you live in a small town where murder is nonexistent, one murder in a year is a big deal. How can you view the pictures of the USDA’s report into itself that are included in this report and still believe that horses are slaughtered more humanely here than in Mexico or Canada. If you did not know that it was a USDA report of the USDA, you would believe you were looking at horses slaughtered in a foreign plant. What is APHIS doing about the kill buyers transporting horses to slaughter in Mexico when the horses are rejected and then turn lose around the border without food or water? Horses can neither be transported or slaughtered humanely in part because of the nature of the horse and his physiology and in part due to the nature of the human beings that make money in this business.
I also attended this wonderful summit that was very well organized and informative. We must all do everything in our power to stop the brutal assault on our American horses. Horse slaughter is not humane and it promotes and enables abuse and cruelty. That has been proven. We have the truth on our side and the truth will prevail.
Marlene Murray, President
R.A.C.E. Fund, Inc.
"Now, the challenge is to induce Congress to listen to the will of its constituents, rather than the dulcet tones of agri-industry contributors loosening the purse strings of their campaign coffers." Well put.
I was also at the event, and was pleased with some of the developments. And I'm more committed than ever to utilize my network of advocates to create concerted legislative pressure and end this sordid industry once and for all.