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Are horses being slaughtered for pet food?

Question from Chris:
I read somewhere that horses in the United States are slaughtered for
human consumption. I always thought horsemeat was used in dog food.
Why is it necessary to have a horse slaughter industry in this
country when no one here eats it?

Response from Susan Wagner:
Horse slaughter is one of the major issues with which we are involved
and we deal with it one way or another on a daily basis. The horse
slaughter industry took off in the early 1970's when foreign
interests saw the great potential of opening equine slaughter plants
in the United States due to the massive equine over-population
problem which existed here.

French, Belgian and Japanese owned and operated slaughterhouses
opened for business to kill and butcher horses here and then export
their meat for human consumption aboard. Horsemeat was and still is
a delicacy, costing between and per pound. This became a
secretive industry which most Americans knew nothing about. It
flourished because while Americans have always had a love affair with
horses, most were unaware that horses were being over-bred by many
factions of the horse indusry which resulted in hundreds of thousands
of surplus equines.

By 1990, there were fourteen equine slaughterhouses operating in the
United States with the majority of them in Texas...which is still the
case, only today there are three remaining U.S plants with two in
Texas and one in Illinois. U.S. bred equines were and still are being
shipped live over the Canadian and Mexican borders for the purpose of
slaughter. Horses from the northern part of the country are often
shipped to Canada. Shelby, Montana is the site of one of the
largest and worst equine feedlots in the nation. Horses are fattened
and stockpiled there before being shipped to Canada for slaughter.
In the northeast, Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds coming off the
tracks in New York and New England, also often end up being shipped
to Canada or sometimes they will go as far as Texas, depending on the
killer buyer who purchases them.

Killer buyers are middlemen for the slaughter plants with quotas to
fill. Every unwanted equine in this country is in danger of ending
up at a slaughter auction and being sold for meat, including camp
horses, race horses, Amish work horses, buggy horses & mules, urban
carriage horses, donkeys, PMU mares & foals, former show horses,
Arabians, ponies...they come from every possible backround and from
every state in the nation.

It is a myth that horses are being slaughtered for pet food. Very
little is used, and all of it comes from horses who are slaughtered
for human consumption. There are no plants operating in the U.S.
that slaughter horses for dog food. In fact, the companies that
produce dog and cat foods, make a very big point in their advertising
to assure the public that the contents are only "pure beef" or
"pure chicken." Americans are so repulsed by the thought of eating
horses that they won't even feed it to their pets.

To answer the last part of your question, there is no need to have an
equine slaughter industry in the United States and the fact is that
the majority of Americans are strongly opposed to this vile practice.
This is a cultural issue. Americans do not eat horses. They view
their horses just as they do dogs and cats and strongly believe that
a horse is entitled to a peaceful end through humane euthanasia, the
same as is done with dogs and cats. If an election and vote on this
issue were held today, horse slaughter would be banned without the
need for a recount. We know this because every major state and
nationwide poll that has been taken show that Americans are strongly
opposed to this practice.

In 1998, a historic state initiative was passed in California
prohibiting the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Since
1995, horse slaughter in the U.S. was on a steady decrease until
recently when the numbers started going up again. The people who
want to keep it legal are those involved in agri-business and some in
the horse industry who want to be able get rid of their unwanted
equines quickly and for a profit.

Sadly, two of the largest veterinary organizations in the nation are
in favor of horse slaughter. Those organizations are the American
Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) and the American
Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). The American Horse Council
(AHC) was once pro-slaughter, but now claims to be neutral. However,
the fact is that many of the subsidiaries of the AHC, are strongly in
favor of horse slaughter and are quite vocal about it. The American
Farm Bureau Federation, the American Quarter Horse Association, the
California Cattlemen's Association, the Professional Rodeo and
Cowboys' Association, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the
American Welfare Council and a small group of other organizations are
fighting to keep horse slaughter legal. However, there are thousands
of organizations that oppose horse slaughter. It is just a matter of
mobilizing and unifying the support of all of those groups and the
American public in order to outlaw horse slaughter once and for all.
Please write to your Senators and Representatives in Congress and let
them know how you feel.

Posted on SHARE Yahoo group Jan. 14, 2005