Re: R.I.P.Barbaro
Date: November 28, 2007 05:34
hi Kick; this from the FAQ section from the link provided above in my last post...i hope it gives a bit of perspective as to your question re: why don't people (i don't know about Sorvino's efforts) just outbid the slaughterhouses...
actually, I'm going to send that link to Shirley Watts, long time pro breeder and horsewoman extraordinaire...
i am NOT soliciting hers, or Charlies, help or monies in any way, nor seeking a personal response of any kind, just respectfully delivering the info and link...
as to kick's question, i'm no expert, just a messenger and not a particularly good one, but seems to me it's a sneaky game as well as a deadly one, how these horses are obtained, and the various ways around the various protection laws...and at heart it's a cruelly vicious snaky one...i really encourage peeps to look around that link for some perspective if any of this prompts their interest in the matter....
the short answer from the main page on that link:
"The majority of horses destined for slaughter are purchased at non catalogued horse auctions held throughout the United States any day of the week. Owners or dealers bring their horses to these auctions where they may be purchased by agents for the foreign owned horse slaughterhouses. Dealers also answer classified ads in the paper. Very few pleasure horse owners who place an ad to sell their horse would knowingly sell their horse to slaughter. Dealers promise the owner a good home, often telling the owner a time honored story of a good home with green pastures. The dealer makes certain they tell the owner exactly what the owner wants to hear. "
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and here's an excerpt from the FAQ on that link, ty for reading:
"In recent years the number of horses slaughtered has continued to drop since1989 when almost half a million American horses were slaughtered in the United States and Canada. In the late 1980's the tax shelters for horses disappeared and hundreds of thousands of Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds, Quarter Horses and Arabians were dumped onto the market. Killer buyers routinely attended pedigreed horse sales sitting right up front picking up any horse, including stakes winners and full term pregnant mares that sold within the profit margin for slaughter. (Note: Many sales companies specializing in pedigreed horses have now instituted a minimum bid of $1000.00 to prevent horses from being purchased by the killers.)
According to a story in the Baltimore Evening Sun at the1988 Fasig Tipton sale in Timonium, MD of the 269 Thoroughbreds, 94 sell for less than $600.00. The killer buyer sitting in the front row bought 46, including mares heavy in foal. The reporter finds the horses the next day at the infamous New Holland sale in Lancaster County, PA. The mares are beaten with whips and canes onto double deck cattle trailers and shipped to AmFram in CT. (Am Fram has since closed, as have 12 other horse slaughterhouses).
Horse slaughter numbers skyrocketed after passage of The Tax Reform Act of 1986 closed the tax-sheltering "passive investment" loophole horse breeders had used to entice wealthy investors interested in a tax shelter bursting the bubble of artificially inflated prices and flooding the market with Arabians, Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds and Quarter Horses. The opening of the floodgates resulted in a bloodbath for the horses as slaughter numbers went from 128,000 in 1985 to 345,500 with another 70,000 horses shipped to Canada in 1990.
After a steady downward trend during the late 1990's, the number of horses slaughtered in 2001 rose to 56,000 due to outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease and fears of Mad Cow in Europe. The number dropped to 42,300 in 2002, but a repeat of the late 1980's bloodbath is on the horizon for 2003 after Wyeth Ayerst Laboratories, the manufacturer of the estrogen-replacement drug Premarin® cancelled contracts with a third of all the Pregnant Mare Urine (PMU) farm producers and the remaining producers have been cut in half. According to the North American Equine Ranching Council, (NAERIC) there are 35,000 broodmares on the PMU farms. Various horse welfare organizations put the numbers at 50,000 - 60,000. The PMU farmers are now dumping their broodmares onto the market at the same time as the annual fall auctions of the foals that are a by-product of the industry. There is no way the horse industry and horse welfare organizations can absorb the tens of thousands of drafts and draft cross mares and foals that will flood the market.
In 2005 the numbers are again climbing in part due to the reduction of PMU herds and also due to passage of the infamous Senator Conrad Burns (MT) amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, (H.R. 4818), signed into law by President Bush on December 7, 2004 repealed the third section of The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, in which wild horses and burros over the age of 10 years or those that have not been successfully adopted after three adoption attempts could be sold at public auction to the highest bidder, allowing the sale of America's wild horses and burros to be sold to foreign owned slaughter houses. As predicted 41 mustangs were sent to slaughter at Cavel before the BLM put a halt to the sale of anymore mustangs while they reviewed their policy. (See Update)
How do horses end up destined for slaughter?
Horses are not raised in the United States for food and fiber. When owners breed horses they are dreaming of the next Triple Crown winner or the next National Champion, not their next steak dinner.
The majority of horses destined for slaughter are purchased at non catalogued horse auctions held throughout the United States any day of the week. Owners or dealers bring their horses to these auctions where they may be purchased by agents for the foreign owned horse slaughterhouses. Dealers also answer classified ads in the paper. Very few pleasure horse owners who place an ad to sell their horse would knowingly sell their horse to slaughter. Dealers promise the owner a good home, often telling the owner a time honored story of a good home with green pastures. The dealer makes certain they tell the owner exactly what the owner wants to hear.
In contrast to the pleasure horse owner, the Amish owner is generally well aware of the final destination of the carriage or work horse that can no longer perform.
Lesson horses from riding stables, camp horses from summer camps and even therapeutic riding horses are sent to slaughter. Often the stable owners tell students and boarders that the horse is being retired on a farm by the dealer who is bringing the replacement horse. A trip to the nearest auction is often the real truth.
The caretakers of Thoroughbred and Standardbred race horses are well aware of the potential for these horses to be purchased by "killer buyers" and slaughtered for human consumption. The horse's owner though may or may not be aware of the horses' fate. Owners make the decision to sell the horse, sometimes on the recommendation of their trainer. Rarely do they ask where the horse is going. It would be even rarer for the trainer to tell the owner of the possibility that the horse may be purchased by "killer buyers" and sent to a slaughterhouse. If the trainer did inform the owner of this possibility, the owner would be assured that the process was humane."
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also from the site's front page. a little more detail:
"Over 200 years ago, when America declared our independence from England, Brown Beauty and Star carried Paul Revere & Sybil Luddington on their famous midnight rides to warn the colonists that the British were coming.
Thus began America’s love affair with horses, a love affair that continues until this day. Sadly though, during the last 25 years, over 4 and a half million of our beloved American horses have been secretly purchased, & cruelly slaughtered to satisfy a foreign taste for horsemeat...
...If it were not for gallant horses such as Brown Beauty and Star, American history would be profoundly different. It was the horse that enabled our forefathers to explore and settle America. It was the horse that helped to clear the forests and later plowed our fields, and then transported our products to market. It was the horse that provided sport and recreation to the early Americans via racing on ovals cut from the virgin American forest. It was the horse that provided our transportation. Horses raced our firefighters to burning homes and carried doctors to the sick and injured. It was the swift horse that carried our mail across the untamed West. It was the brave horse that carried our armies into battle, and to this day carries our fallen heroes to their final resting places.
Every American President has been photographed with a horse, and many have been carried to our national cemetery in Arlington by the horses of the caisson platoon.
With the onset of the industrial revolution and the mechanization of the farm many believed that the horse would depart from the American scene. Instead the horse continued to ride on into the hearts of Americans. As the car replaced the horse and the Depression spread across America it was a horse named Seabiscuit that Americans took into their hearts and called their own.
Today the horse is used in America for sport, recreation, and pleasure.
Every weekend across the United States thousands of Americans enjoy the scenic beauty of our country from the back of a horse.
Everybody loves a parade, especially with all the pretty horses prancing down the street.
Every summer thousands of American children spend countless hours in the company of a horse at summer camps and riding stables.
Millions of Americans participate in competitive events involving horses including horse shows, trail rides, trick riding, vaulting and drill teams.
Police departments use horses not only in crowd control, but for public relations.
Horses are utilized by search and rescue teams
Horses are used in thousands of therapeutic riding programs for handicapped children and adults.
Advertisers use the magnificent horse to symbolize power, beauty, grace, and speed.
Horses provide entertainment to millions of America
American special forces soldiers even rode horses in Afghanistan.
The horse is ingrained in American culture as our partner, friend and companion-not as our next meal.
Congress passed the Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971 protecting our wild horses from slaughter and declaring the wild horse a living symbol of our American heritage.* (Protection revoked 12/07/04, H.R. 297 introduced in 2005 to restore protection) If Congress is to truly be the voice of the American people, and not the voice of special interests, the slaughter of American domesticated and wild horses must be stopped.
We do not raise our horses in the United States for food and fiber, and we do not view our horses as food animals. When we breed our horses, we dream of the next Triple Crown winner, not our next steak dinner. It is not illegal to eat a horse in the US, yet Americans voluntarily choose not to eat horses, just as we choose not to eat our dogs and cats. The reason is really quite simple, it is not our culture.
Widespread polling in several states always reaches the same conclusion - American voters believe it is a crime to slaughter a horse for human consumption. When they learn that it is not, 88%-93% believe that the slaughter of American horses should be illegal. Americans find it offensive to eat a horse due to our culture, and it is our culture that shapes our laws.
Only three slaughterhouses exist today in the US, Dallas Crown, Bel-Tex located in Texas, both foreign owned. Cavel (a slaughter house destroyed by fire in 2002), has rebuilt in DeKalb, Illinois.* (Slaughter plants in the U.S shut down due to passage of Ilinois Public Act 095-0002 an amendment to the IL Horse Meat Law on May 24, 2007 outlawing horse slaughter in Illinois, and the U. S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding the legality of 1949 Texas Horsemeat Law.)Thousands of American horses are also exported every year to Canada and Mexico for slaughter.
Each year thousands of American horses are purchased from unsuspecting owners or stolen and sent to a terrifying death at a slaughterhouse. Horse dealers routinely tell unsuspecting owners that their horse will have a wonderful home with green pastures and loving owners. Lesson stables and riding camps tell naive students and boarders that the unsound lesson or camp horse is on his way to a retirement farm, when in reality the horse has embarked on the last ride to the slaughterhouse.
I have always known in my heart that slaughter is the ultimate betrayal to an animal who has given their life to serve you and bring you joy. Sadly though many horse dealers, trainers and breeders are pro slaughter. How can one profess to love and admire a horse, and at the same time endorse the slaughter of these magnificent animals? The answer is simple. Those that are motivated by money support the slaughter, those that are motivated by a love for the horse are opposed to the slaughter.
Horses travel thousands of miles with no food, no water, and no rest over a period of days in overcrowded trucks designed for cattle and hogs. The low ceilings in the trailers make it impossible for the once proud and majestic horses to even raise their heads.
Upon arrival at the slaughterhouse they are herded into a lineup where they can smell and hear the horses ahead of them being killed. Electric cattle prods or a spear type weapon is used to prod the horse into the knock box where a worker attempts to knock the horse unconscious with a 4 inch nail driven into their head. The terrified horses whose instinct is to flee, have nowhere to run and scramble and fall in desperation, slipping on the urine and blood soaked floor of the knock box. The horse is then shackled by one hind leg & hoisted into the air upside down to have their throat cut and allowed to bleed out. Some horses are still conscious when hoisted into the air.
The Report of the American Veterinary Medical Association's Panel on Euthanasia in 2002 did not consider this method of killing a horse, “Acceptable”. Humane euthanasia performed by a veterinarian using lethal injection is the method preferred to slaughter. Responsible horses owners euthanise their horses, they do not send them to a slaughterhouse to be beaten to death and have their throats cut.
Yet there are those in the horse industry that claim this method of death is humane. After holding many a horse euthanised by lethal injection, and viewing videos of horses killed in a slaughterhouse, there simply is no comparison. I find these claims by the American Quarter Horse Association, AQHA, the American Paint Horse Association, APhA, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, AAEP, the American Veterinary Medical Association, AVMA, and various state horse councils to be an insult to my intelligence and common sense. I believe they all are in need of a visit to the "No Spin Zone".
The AAEP claims that the captive bolt is humane euthanasia. Does that mean that when an equine practitioner is called to our horse farms we can expect to be advised that our horses are going to be humanely euthanised via the captive bolt, and make sure to have the hose ready so that we can wash away all the blood after the vet finishes the procedure by slashing our beloved horses' throats?"
etc...
this and so much more info on that link.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2007-11-28 07:04 by Beelyboy.