The History of the Regulation of Horse Slaughter in the United States

For my senior project, I decided to write about the connection of U.S. slaughter auctions and Mexican slaughterhouses.  Below is one of the sections of my paper translated into English.  These posts are better read in order.  This is Post #1.

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In 1958, the United States Congress passed a law named "The Humane Slaughter Act."  This law protected animals against mistreatment when slaughtered for human consumption.  However, the law did not specifically mention horses.  In 1978, a change was made to the law that said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) could enter slaughterhouses and respond to accusations of animal cruelty without warning.  In this revision, slaughterhouses that slaughtered horses were excluded because of economic reasons.  Horse meat is very popular in Europe and Asia, creating a market that the U.S. could participate in (Sherry, 2009, 108).

Therefore, the slaughter of horses for meat remained legal in the United States.  There were American slaughterhouses in many states, including Texas and New Mexico.  However, in 2006, Congress decided to stop the funding for inspections of slaughterhouses that slaughtered horses.  The reason to stop funding was that if there wasn't federal funding for slaughterhouse inspectors, the slaughterhouses wouldn't be able to kill horses and there wouldn't be any export of horse meat for human consumption (Riggs, 2011).  However, slaughterhouses could pay for their own inspections if they chose to (Motavalli, 2006).  Due to this law, many slaughterhouses closed; the last one closed its door in 2007.  In 2009, horse slaughter was prohibited in the United States (Riggs, 2011).

However, the closing of the slaughterhouses and the prohibition of horse slaughter had secondary effects.  The price of horses in auctions dropped because of the lack of meat buyers.  Also, abandonment, neglect and abuse of horses rose because, for the horse owners, there was no other option for old, sick and poorly behaved horses (Riggs, 2011).  In addition, there was an increase of horses exported to Mexico and Canada where the same regulations against cruelty and the maintenance of the health of the horses do not exist.  One year before the prohibition, 104,899 horses were slaughtered in the United States.  However, in 2010, 138,000 were sent to Mexico for slaughter (Jonnson, 2011b).  Even though slaughter was prohibited in the United States, the number of American horses that died for horse meat increased.

In 2011, the USDA re-established the funding for the inspection of U.S. slaughterhouses that slaughtered horses  (Jonsson, 2011a).  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was in agreement.  PETA said that the prohibition had created more suffering for the horses but hoped that there would be a prohibition of the export of horses to other countries (Jonsson, 2011b).  Other critics said that this motion was made to protect horses from the dangers of exportation (Whitcomb, 2012).  According to Powell, many organizations, like PETA, agree with the necessity of using humanitarian ways to deal with abandoned or extra horses and the protection of horses who face the cruel transportation to Mexico (2014).  In addition, there was not an increase of taxes after the re-establishment of funding because when the funding was revoked in 2006, no inspectors lost their jobs (Whitcomb, 2012).

In response to the re-establishment of funding, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (AHSPA) was created and called for the prohibition of the slaughter of horses for human consumption as well as the prohibition of the exportation of living horses that are slated for slaughter (Whitcomb, 2012).  Although the re-establishment of funding occurred in 2011, the USDA did not give permission to companies to slaughter horses until 2013 (Rayman, 2013).  Slaughterhouses in New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa made plans to begin the slaughtering of horses after this re-establishment (Knickerbocker, 2014)

Congress passed another law in 2014 that re-established the prohibition of horse slaughter in United States slaughterhouses.  The American Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) celebrated this law and thinks that the next step should be the prohibition of the exportation of living horses to other countries where horses are consumed or prepared for export to Europe and Japan for consumption.  In addition, there is a proposal that has not been passed by Congress that is named the Safeguard American Food Exports Act (SAFE) that prohibits exportation (Knickerbocker, 2014).  There are senators that oppose this act.  Senator Jim Infole says that "Without these facilities, aging horses are often neglected or forced to endure cruel conditions as they are transported to processing facilities across the border" (Knickerbocker, 2014).

Now, in 2018, the prohibition of slaughterhouses that slaughter horses for human consumption still stands.  However, there is not a prohibition of the exportation of living horses nor the regulation surrounding slaughter auctions.

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There are thousands of horses that go for slaughter each year and the numbers aren't slowing.  If you would like to donate to save horses, please go to this link: Gofundme.com/saved

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References:

Jonsson, P. (2011, November 29). Way cleared for horse slaughter to resume in US after 5-year ban. Christian Science Monitor, 1 

Jonsson, P. (2011, November 30). Lifting horse slaughter ban: Why PETA says it’s a good idea. Christian Science Monitor, 1.

Knickerbocker, B. (2014, January 18). Saving horses from slaughter. Christian Science Monitor, 1.

Motavalli, J. (2006). The high-stakes battle over horse slaughter. E: The Environmental Magazine, 38.

Powell, S.M. (2014, April 5).  More horses being shipped to Mexico, Canada for slaughter. Retrieved from: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/More-horses-being-shipped-to-Mexico-Canada-for5379495.php.

Riggs, M. (2011, October). Slaughter horse horror. Reason, 13-14.
Sherry, C. J. (2009). Animal rights: Second edition. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Whitcomb, R. (2012, January). Horse slaughter for meat could return to the United States: language barring USDA inspections of slaughter plants removed from new appropriations bill. DVM Newsmagazine, 30+.

Auction Trip 3/23/18

On Friday March 23rd, I went to my first slaughter auction at Sugarcreek Livestock Auction in Ohio.  We left Eden, NY at 5:30 in the morning and it took over four hours for us to get there.  Once off the thruway, we drove about 15 minutes into downtown Sugarcreek, also known as Little Switzerland.  It was a very quaint down and Main Street looked as if there were little Swiss shops and houses.  Not even a mile away was the livestock auction.  It was surrounded by houses.

The interior of the auction was darkly lit and the stalls were made of wood beams.  A catwalk stretched across the stalls.  There were very few horses at Sugarcreek that Friday.  The auction could easily hold 100 horses but all of them were crammed into one tiny part.  Four horses shared a stall made for one.  The floors were made of concrete and there were no shavings in the stalls.  The horses did not have access to hay or water for the day.  There were at least 20 healthy and well-kept standardbreds who were not broke to ride.  In the back, there was a small pen for the leftovers (a cow, a black mare and a Belgian) from last week's auction that didn't sell.  Leroy Baker, the own and operator of Sugarcreek, kept his two healthy and fit horses with them.  While they did have hay and water, they were standing in a couple inches of manure.

We tried out several horses, including a middle-aged chestnut gelding named Buddy.  He was standing alone in a stall, pacing and bobbing his head.  He was chewing on the wood.  He had a cut over his left eye.  He was well-trained and rode fairly nice but his owner was there and told us not to buy him.  Apparently, Buddy had broken his foot and that he wasn't sane as he had rarely been outside previously.  While he was sweet and loving, we could not take him because of the danger he could have been to the kids at the farm.  He went to a meat dealer.

While I did not witness large displays of cruelty toward the horses, one man, however, was not afraid to whip horses or cows with his flag for little reason.  At one point, a horse was not entering a pen packed with other horses and he yelled at it and slammed the door on the horse's rear-end.  The auction was slightly dangerous as you could be in the aisle ways and they would send horses running down it.

According to a horse trader, there was a dead horse at the auction.  He was out back and had looked like he had been there was awhile.  However, when we went to look for him, his body had already been removed.

The fate of the horses didn't hit me until the actual auction.  At this point, I truly realized that most of these horses would be dead by the end of the week.

We sat down for the auction around one and they showed one or two horses at a time.  The bidding commenced and horses were going from as little as $100 to as high as $800.  I felt sick the whole time.  These men only saw these horses as money and not as companions with kind and gentle souls.  We got two out of the three that we wanted but we were outbid on another gelding.  His fate is unknown.  However, we were able to save the black mare from the leftovers from last week's auction.

During the auction, a skinny Belgian gelding entered the pen.  He was looking all around and was moving slowly.  You could see the warmth and fear in his eyes.  He broke our hearts.  We knew that we had to take him home with us.  He was sold to a meat dealer for $100.  After the auction, we found his buyer and bought the Belgian from him for an additional $100.  Next we had to find him.  We did not know his auction number so we tracked him down from sight.  He was with three other skinny Belgians but we found him based on his halter color and the look in his eye.  The worst part was that the meat dealer didn't even remember buying him or even that he bought a horse for $100.  These are lives.  These are lives that shouldn't be bought or sold as if you were buying and selling car parts.  They have feelings.  They feel pain.  Their lives aren't to be taken lightly.

So we brought home four horses.  Jasmine, the one who is left over from the week prior, was bought for $650.  She is underweight but generally healthy.  She is an older been-there-done-that kind of horse.  Layla, a middle-aged Arabian, is also a little underweight but very well-trained.  We were taken aback by her the instant we laid our eyes on her.  Something about her just clicked for us.   Charlie, a pony, wasn't our first choice as he was not broke but ended up on our trailer just the same.  He is not even 5 years old.  Jake, the Belgian, is severely underweight but is otherwise young and healthy.

As we were loading our trailer, a truck owned by a meat dealer pulled up and started to load.  It was the truck that Jake would have ended up on.  At this point, a week after the auction, he probably would have been dead if we didn't buy him.

We saved four lives last Friday.  Even though I think of Buddy often, we would not have been able to take home the four that we did if he had ended up on our trailer.  We saved four beautiful lives on Friday; four lives that would have ended if we had not been there.

However, there are still thousands of horses that go for slaughter each year and the numbers aren't slowing.  If you would like to donate to save horses, please go to this link: Gofundme.com/saved

All photos are courtesy of Happy Tails Farm & Rescue Center and Thunder Ranch Horse Rescue Project.