The American HORSE SLAUGHTER Crisis

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress

can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated."
- Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), the Mahatma

The main cause of Horse Slaughter in America ... is over-breeding of captive horses by people !

Regarding the operation of horse slaughterhouses in the U.S., where most public sentiment, practice and prior years' legislation has been that: We don't eat our dogs; We don't eat our cats; And, we don't eat our horses. Yet, there are three horse slaughterhouses in this country, two in Texas and one in Illinois, all foreign owned, where horses are killed to become meals for diners in certain foreign countries. This is what is meant by horse slaughter, the killing of horses to become food for humans, not for dog and cat food. And, because the killing is done for this specific purpose, the horses are stunned, not killed, by blows to their foreheads, often screaming what have been described as sounds that most humans have never heard, hung upside down and have their throats slashed, reportedly while many of them still are very much conscious, so that their still beating hearts can pump out as much blood as possible from their suspended bodies, before their hearts finally stop beating.


There is a significant amount of further information, including photo and video material, on other websites that can be linked to from this page, below, that may help you decide if you agree or disagree with opponents, who charge that this method is killing horses is exceptionally torturous and barbaric. Like the first, above mentioned situation, this one is nothing new.  You easily can find lists of recent years legislative activity in this matter, revealing decades of what we think is an almost incredibly high incidence of very apparent legislative pandering to various special interest groups, in regard to the horse slaughter issue.


A HUGE PERCENTAGE OF THE HORSE SLAUGHTER IN THE U.S. IS THE END RESULT OF OVER-BREEDING BY SO CALLED "BACK YARD BREEDERS", WITH THE SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF VARIOUS BREED ORGANIZATIONS!

The comments in this section very much reflect my own, personal views on this particular issue. Some of these views are significantly different from opinions and suggestions found on most other horse slaughter prevention web sites that I have accessed.
John Brian
 

Please pardon my sarcasm , little horse. But, I am just so damn angry over the appearance of hopelessness in this situation, that is going to mean a brutal and savage end to your young life, here on this earth which I have been sharing with you. I have tried saying some of these things, that I think need to be said over and over again, in a nice way, but always with the impression that nobody really cares or is listening. So, now that it's come down to this, for you, I won't worry about making some people angry. To hell with them! That's how I feel, right now.


So, WELCOME TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, little horse. This is what you get for trying to be nice and trusting with humans, including so many americans, who call themselves animal lovers. Yeah, you know what happens, because it probably happened to you. They go out and buy a horse, having no real idea of the responsibility that they're taking on, or how much there is that they need to learn. And, then, because they're really stupid, where horses are concerned, and have no idea how to really communicate with you, they always say it's the horse's fault, not their own lack of understanding and experience, whenever things go wrong. And, before you know it, they get you so confused that you don't have any idea HOW they want you to behave. But, they think you're some kind of mind reader and get all upset when you're not doing what they want you to do,  Well, before you know it, they have you so screwed up, that they start yelling things like, "How did I ever get such a stupid horse?", not realizing that they're the ones who are stupid. Maybe, they even start beating on you and jerking you around. Then, you wind up being sold to another buyer, probably another really stupid buyer. And the situation repeats itself, over and over again, until there are no other buyers to be found. At that point, you officially become known as an "unwanted" horse and, eventually, here you are at the damnable slaughterhouse.


Of course, you might have gotten lucky, along the way, and been one of the very few to be resold to a really caring, loving and much more knowledgable human, who really wanted to take the time to learn more about you (as well as learn still more about horses, in general), while trying to get to really understand your feelings and help you out of the mess that these other humans created in your life, just for a reward of the love you could share. But, the odds were against you, on that one, because, those kinds of people are only a very tiny percentage of the humans who own horses these days.


So, here you are, like millions of others before you, arriving at a horse slaughterhouse. And, its probably of no comfort to you, at all, to say that at least you made it through the trip alive. The situation concerning the trailer transport to these places is so bad, that a lot of horses just plain don't survive the trip, let alone get anything to drink or eat. I can tell you how this probably works. You see, human beings like to play a so called "numbers game", when it comes to such things as, for example, figuring out how many young soldiers can be sacrificed in a war, while still permitting a claim of victory. And, where horses heading for slaughter are concerned, because the horses have to still be alive at the time of the actual slaughter, the same kind of mentality exists. The humans figure that they can afford to sacrafice a certain number of horses in transport, and still make more of an overall profit on the smaller number of horses who survive the trip, than if they managed to get the full number of horses shipped safely, thereby increasing the overall income from the group's slaughter, but had to subtract the cost of taking better care of all the horses, enroute. I wonder which is worse: Dying in transport or the death by slaughter that you're about to face?

 

 

Oh, I see there are some new arrivals. This one doesn't exactly appear to be sick or skinny, either. Maybe he's been to one of those places where they fatten up you guys, for slaughter. Well, if it makes you feel any better, which I guess it won't, let me tell you about a conversation I had the other day with a fairly well known veterinarian at a Michigan university, who talked about your simply being in the same boat as so many dogs and cats in this country, who are killed off each year. She had just returned from an annual meeting of the AAEP, in Denver, Colorado. AAEP: That's the Association of Equine Practicioners or, as we call them, the horse veterinarians. And some of their spokespeople at the meeting said the organization needed to take some kind of stand on the pending legislation before Congress, which could outlaw all horse slaughter in this country, but which an awful lot of so called "insiders" say is doomed to failure. And, can you believe that the AAEP took a stand against passing that bill, saying it was too "full of holes" and wasn't a good enough solution to the problem? At the same time, the AAEP spokespersons said that the group was not supporting horse slaughter, 'though.   Well guys, as I see it, this is another case of "White man speaks with 'fork-ed' tongue." Does the AAEP have a better idea, than what's in the proposed legislation?   Not that I know of.   Could the AAEP and that other veterinarian's lobby group have a profit motive in all the over-breeding of horses, which supplies their customers with new patients all the time? Now, who could think that a group of professional caretakers would ever entertain such a consideration?

Now, this veterinarian from Michigan, whom I talked with, did say some things that made at least some kind of possible sense to me. She pointed out that you guys all don't have the same reactions to drugs and that some animals have what appear to be very violent and painful responses to being euthanized. Also, she argued that, if any of you were WILD horses and were injected with some kinds of drug(s), while still living at your wilderness homes, and then died, a bald eagle, or some other wild creature, might eat some of your remains and then possibly spread the effects of the drug(s) to other wild creatures. So, if tranquilizer guns were used to shoot sterilization drugs into wild horses, for example, could it result, ultimately, in damaging the birth rate of eagles? Damn if I know. Although it does seem far fetched to me. But, could it happen?


The veterinarian suggested that probably the most 'kind' way to keep down your numbers, both in humand captivity and in the wild, would be to have a highly accurate marksmen put a bullet through your brain, so you would never know what hit you and death would be instantaneous. And, I wonder is that really is true.
 

Well, I have seen some pretty horrible photos of what is going to happen to you guys and ladies, now that you're here in the slaughterhouse. The photos, as well as the several videos that I have seen, just make me terribly sickened and upset, both physically and mentally, each time I see them. And, I have decided not to include them in the information that I, personally, want to get out to as many people as possible, on my web site.  I figure there are just to many people who are too messed up in their heads, who just plain enjoy seeing that kind of thing.  That's just the way a lot of people are.  But then, you already know how a lot of people are and, that if it weren't for such people, you wouldn't be here in this slaughterhouse.

I know it's too late for it to do you any good. But, I just feel I have to keep trying, for the sake of your brothers and sisters who will survive you, whom I think of as also being MY brothers and sisters on this earth and who may be the next ones to be sent to this horrible place, which should not be permitted to exist anywhere in the world, let alone in the United States of America.

Maybe, someday, somehow, the people finally will learn that they should stop the overbreeding of horses and, instead, devote their efforts and concerns to caring about and living with the ones who already are here. But, then, there would be less money coming in for people who are breeders, breed organization officers, horse trainers, veterinarians, horse transporters, slaughterhouse operators and lying, corrupt and crooked politicians. Now, wouldn't that just be too bad ?!!


For now, I pray that, somehow, your deaths will be as painless as such deaths possibly can be. And, I pray that you find peace and comfort, at last, in a special and very wonderful new home for your spirits, a place where the people responsible for your fate here on earth, with all its suffering, will find they have no admittance.

John Brian

 

(While there are a number of additions that we hope to make on this page, in the near future, our website hardly is what we, ourselves, would consider to be a comprehensive source of information on horse slaughter.  Mainly, we have been more intent in presenting highly detailed information concerning problems of preserving America's truly wild horses, key aspects of which we believe are not correctly and/or fully enough presented in any central location on the internet.  Details of this are found on our WILD HORSES PRESERVATION SITE.

While the horse slaughter problem does, in fact, greatly and adversely impact the wild horse problem, it mainly is a problem concerning DOMESTICATED animals, in terms of numbers of horses involved.  And this information already is fully covered on numerous other web sites, many of which are published by operators of varius horse rescue activities and sanctuaries across the nation.  Our own goal, then, simply has been to attempt to attract more attention to the horse slaughter problem, in hopes that people not previously aware of the situation will take note and subsequently learn more from the vast amount of information already posted on other sites.  This information contains some extremely shocking and heartbreaking video of horses actually being brutalized in U.S. horse slaughterhouses.

ALTHOUGH HARDLY A COMPREHENSIVE LISTING, WE REFER YOU TO WEB SITES AT THE FOLLOWING THREE INTERNET ADDRESS LINKS, FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HORSE SLAUGHTER:

http://www.ahdf.org/  -  http://www.saplonline.org/ - http://www.fund4horses.org/

Still other web sites, including some that contain video material, are located near the bottom, right row of links on this site's LINKS PAGE.