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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.
Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.
Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years.
Horse meat has to be labeled as such for human consumption.
It is 'sweeter' than bovine, and slightly stringier.
Horse meat has been eaten for centuries. I may not want to eat my current companion, because she does so much more than provide transportation, but that doesn't mean that I won't eat horse meat, any more than I won't eat the steer we just took to the butcher, or the roosters we are butchering this weekend. Yes, he was our first steer and yes he was hand-raised on our property, as were the chickens - but he and they were raised specifically for food.
Too many folks have romanticized notions about animals that are simply not true. Horses, for example - all of the artwork showing them running wild and free doesn't show the gritty and hard truth - that between broken bones, infections, starvation, hoof problems, predator attacks, and insect infestations, wild horses' lives are simply awful for the most part. Not only that, but if a mare has a foal every year, they graze on cattle land - and they don't merely eat the tops, as cattle do, so that the grasses can regrow, they eat down to the roots, which kills the grasslands. Tame horses bred for riding can fare badly; if Hobbo doesn't like to be ridden and throws 12-year-old Sammie at riding camp, he becomes a liability. If folks buy horses thinking that they or their kids will "ride him every day!" they soon discover that kids grow up and go to college, and horses are expensive lawn ornaments to keep for 20 years or more. With the recession, literally hundreds of horses have been turned loose to wander as people can't afford to feed them any more. There aren't enough places for horses to go, healthy and rideable or not. Not to mention that we are still feeling the effects, here and in Canada, of the "Premarin" breeding, where that medication made from pregnant mares' urine, caused an immense increase in horse breeding for that product. Once it was off the shelves, where were all of those colts going to go? Sad but true, many ranchers are also dying off and leaving their horses to their kids - and all those kids want to do is sell off the property to developers or hunting properties, and the horses are not wanted or needed by either.
So why not slaughter them, and use them for everything from human food to animal food? Since the ban, people have been sending truckloads - literally - of horses to Mexico to be slaughtered just to get them off of their hands. We can wring our hands and say "Why doesn't someone DO something?" but in the current fiscal extreme, particularly in rural areas, those who are able to do something are doing it, and it simply isn't enough. Would a current food bank or shelter turn down legitimately slaughtered horse meat, when most of their increased clientele are living on ramen or worse? I hardly think so; any more than they turn down the deer that hunters in every state provide their "Deer for the hungry" programs. At least we aren't eating cats, dogs, or mice in this country... for the most part, anyway. Practicality is often painful and uncomfortable, and all of the "shoulda woulda couldas" are too late to matter now.
I think I'll go out and talk to Gracie now before I go to work and tell her again how beautiful she is, and feed her an alfalfa cube or two...
Horse meat has to be labeled as such for human consumption.
It is 'sweeter' than bovine, and slightly stringier.
Horse meat has been eaten for centuries. I may not want to eat my current companion, because she does so much more than provide transportation, but that doesn't mean that I won't eat horse meat, any more than I won't eat the steer we just took to the butcher, or the roosters we are butchering this weekend. Yes, he was our first steer and yes he was hand-raised on our property, as were the chickens - but he and they were raised specifically for food.
Too many folks have romanticized notions about animals that are simply not true. Horses, for example - all of the artwork showing them running wild and free doesn't show the gritty and hard truth - that between broken bones, infections, starvation, hoof problems, predator attacks, and insect infestations, wild horses' lives are simply awful for the most part. Not only that, but if a mare has a foal every year, they graze on cattle land - and they don't merely eat the tops, as cattle do, so that the grasses can regrow, they eat down to the roots, which kills the grasslands. Tame horses bred for riding can fare badly; if Hobbo doesn't like to be ridden and throws 12-year-old Sammie at riding camp, he becomes a liability. If folks buy horses thinking that they or their kids will "ride him every day!" they soon discover that kids grow up and go to college, and horses are expensive lawn ornaments to keep for 20 years or more. With the recession, literally hundreds of horses have been turned loose to wander as people can't afford to feed them any more. There aren't enough places for horses to go, healthy and rideable or not. Not to mention that we are still feeling the effects, here and in Canada, of the "Premarin" breeding, where that medication made from pregnant mares' urine, caused an immense increase in horse breeding for that product. Once it was off the shelves, where were all of those colts going to go? Sad but true, many ranchers are also dying off and leaving their horses to their kids - and all those kids want to do is sell off the property to developers or hunting properties, and the horses are not wanted or needed by either.
So why not slaughter them, and use them for everything from human food to animal food? Since the ban, people have been sending truckloads - literally - of horses to Mexico to be slaughtered just to get them off of their hands. We can wring our hands and say "Why doesn't someone DO something?" but in the current fiscal extreme, particularly in rural areas, those who are able to do something are doing it, and it simply isn't enough. Would a current food bank or shelter turn down legitimately slaughtered horse meat, when most of their increased clientele are living on ramen or worse? I hardly think so; any more than they turn down the deer that hunters in every state provide their "Deer for the hungry" programs. At least we aren't eating cats, dogs, or mice in this country... for the most part, anyway. Practicality is often painful and uncomfortable, and all of the "shoulda woulda couldas" are too late to matter now.
I think I'll go out and talk to Gracie now before I go to work and tell her again how beautiful she is, and feed her an alfalfa cube or two...
sad truths.
Excellent Post. Take away the emotions, and they are just another one of God's creatures. Really don't see how it is any different than Beef, Chicken or Pork. This is really just a tug on your emotions.
I'm involved in equine rescue, on the Board of a group that, among other things, pulls Morgan horses from the slaughter trucks and finds them good homes. (Harder than you might think, even for the small number - 40 a year or so and growing - we manage to do this for.)
I am constantly outraged at the people who cry "ban slaughter" without thinking it through. By banning slaughter without FIRST addressing the real issues, and without insisting that any slaughter ban make funded and workable provision for the lifelong care and eventual humane euthanasia of the horses that will not be going to slaughter due to the ban (what, they're going to go "poof!" in a puff of fairy dust?), they are making things (and have made things) WORSE for the horses, not better, though they will deny their own responsibility to their dying breath. Makes me crazy.
If one wishes to get rid of equine slaughter, here's what one needs to do:
FIRST, enforce, beef up, and pass, where necessary, humane transport and slaughter laws (for ALL animals we eat, by the way - you may not be an animal lover, but do you know what adrenaline from a frightened animal does to the taste of meat?).
SECOND, educate people on where all these horses are coming from and on the concept of considered breeding, not the "I've got a mare and there's a stud down the road and wouldn't a foal be cute" or "if I breed 50 mares each year, maybe I'll hit the jackpot and get a really great foal out of one of them" philosophy of breeding. Educate them on what owning a horse really means so they don't get in over their heads as newbies. Set up mentoring programs for new horse owners for the same reason. Heck, there's got to be lots of ideas out there to solve the problem - think about them.
Of course, that's a lot harder than yelling "Ban!" and doesn't get anywhere near the sound bites. Plus, it involves thinking and taking responsibility for the easily predictable consequences of your actions. Can't have that.
Granny, for the record, a mare having a foal every year and grazing on "cattle land" aren't automatically cause and effect. ;-) Though that one sentence I think told me where you're coming from, which is an entirely different argument - are they our lands as citizens, do they "belong" to the cattle raisers who lease them, what's the most appropriate use of them? (I come from cattle country and have a few head myself.) Though the old "ranchers versus the sheep herders" wars do come to mind.
Instead of USDA Select, Choice, or Prime, it'll be Win, Place, or Show.
(I'll get me coat.)
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