Humane Slaughter of Horses is needed in America

Support Humane Slaughter of Horses

The Horse Protection Act, which outlaws the slaughter of any horses for human consumption in the U.S. or to be exported, was passed with little debate through the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 263/146, on Sept. 7th, 2006.

The passage of a bill like this is a slippery slope leading to dire changes in livestock agriculture. Animal right’s groups such as P.E.T.A. (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are using legislation to destroy livestock production by any means necessary. Legislation in the veal, hog and poultry industries has come about due to scare tactics and misrepresentation of livestock practices presented to the public and elected officials. Animal right’s groups will stop at nothing in order to change the way the general public views livestock agriculture. Currently, these groups portray animal agriculture as an evil and sinister means of producing food for the world through various forms of media. They will continue to make livestock agriculture look and sound horrible by any means necessary and annihilate it at any cost.

This Horse Protection Act or HR 503 (House of Representatives) and S 603 (Senate) is the latest in an onslaught of animal rights legislation. “The bill sets a dangerous precedent by banning a livestock product for reasons other than food safety or public heath,” says Joy Philippi, a pork producer from Bruning, NE, and president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). “We’re very disappointed by this vote, which clearly was based on emotion, not science.” Below is a list of myths and facts about the horse slaughter or harvesting industry that were provided to me by Dr. Jodi Sterle, Ph.D. Associate Professor and State Extension Swine Specialist ~ Texas A&M University.

MYTH: The horse industry supports HR 503

FACT: The American Quarter Horse Association (largest U.S. horse organization), the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture (which has jurisdiction over the legislation), and 190 other horse, veterinary, cattle, and agriculture organizations OPPOSE this horse slaughter ban based on fundamental economic, humane and public health issues. Many horse owners support keeping the horse option, even if some choose not to use it.

MYTH: If U.S. horse slaughter is banned, Kentucky Derby champions like Ferdinand will be saved from slaughter in the future.

FACT: Ferdinand was slaughtered in Japan (he was owned by a Japanese company at that time), and this ban will not prevent the foreign slaughter of any future unwanted horses. After horses leave this country – whether they go to Mexico, Latin America, or Japan – passage of HR 503 would not prevent them from being slaughtered in one of many foreign slaughterhouses, where seven million horses are slaughtered each year for human consumption. The legislation would simply eliminate the U.S. plants: the most stringently regulated and humane animal processing plants in the world.

MYTH: “Some horses…are improperly stunned and are conscious when they are hoisted by a rear leg to have their throats cut,” states the HSUS horse slaughter fact sheet posted at www.hsus.org.

FACT: Each and every horse is humanely euthanized before any processing activities occur and the three plants have a documented track record of humane treatment. In fact, USDA veterinarian inspectors are present for the humane euthanasia of every horse, and are mandated by law to stop the process if the horses aren’t rendered brain dead before they are moved and processed. Not only is humane treatment the law, it is good business practice. Treating the horses well and minimizing their pain and stress keeps the plants operating smoothly and efficiently.

MYTH: Horse neglect did not increase in the past when the number slaughtered horses declined, so if HR 503 passes and the number of horses slaughtered drops from 90,000 to zero, there will be no increase in neglect, according to bill sponsor Re. Ed Whitfield (R-KY).1


FACT: An increase in neglect is likely, according to university experts, because the ban will take away the only option that provides salvage value for disposing of the nation’s unwanted horses. According to the Unintended Consequences report, “Tens of thousands of horses could be neglected or abandoned if a processing ban were imposed…Local and state governments will be adversely impacted by increased costs of regulation and care of unwanted or neglected horses.”2

Market forces, not slaughter plants, determine how many horses go to slaughter. Since there is no national system for recording and tracking horse neglect, there is no way to identify trends or compare trends to slaughter numbers. Each year, a variety of factors dictate the number of unwanted horses; the number of horses with insurmountable behavior problems, the disposable income of horse owners, and the market value of horses. The plants are the repositories for the unwanted horses that no one else will take.

MYTH: Horses are treated poorly during transport to slaughter.

FACT: The treatment of horses to slaughter is stringently regulated. No other animal has humane treatment laws governing its transportation to slaughter, so horses are already protected more than any other livestock animal. USDA reports that the regulations are being enforced. In fact, an analysis published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 1999, conducted by renowned animal welfare expert Temple Grandin, PhD, stated “…owner abuse or neglect (before transportation) is the primary cause of severe welfare problems in horses arriving at slaughter plants.” Although USDA has increased the number of inspections of horse transportation to slaughter, inspectors have found no evidence of a systemic problem, according to a recent USDA letter to the House Committee on Agriculture.3

MYTH: Video on anti-slaughter Web sites proves that horse slaughter is not humane.

FACT: The footage of horses being mistreated may have been shot in Mexico or Latin America, but it was NOT filmed in any of the three U.S. plants operating today, nor does it reflect the humane euthanasia process mandated by current federal laws and regulations. To the plants’ and their regulators’ knowledge, there is no evidence that demonstrates a systemic problem of horses being mistreated in the three U.S. processing plants. Therefore, there is no defendable reason to ban horse processing for human consumption.

MYTH: Slaughter plants should be closed because that’s where stolen horses end up.

FACT: There is no evidence of a stolen horse problem at the plants, so banning horse slaughter can’t be a solution. The three horse slaughter plants document every horse that arrives, and very few, if any, stolen horses have been found. In Texas, as of 1997, a law enforcement official onsite inspects each horse and checks it against reports of stolen horses. In Illinois, horses arriving are also checkend against records of stolen horses. Why would someone steal a horse worth $3,000 or $800 to sell it for $300 to a processing plant?

MYTH: If horse slaughter is banned, people will adopt or buy the unwanted horses.

FACT: The horses that go to slaughter are the unwanted of the unwanted – often because they can’t be ridden, or are dangerous. Their market value is so low, no one else bought them. A few of the influx of 60,000 to 90,000 unwanted horses may be adopted. However, if there were such a demand to adopt and care for this type of horse, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would have been able to find homes for the thousands of unwanted wild horses that taxpayers paid nearly $40 million to feed and shelter in 2005. The average yearly cost of caring for a horse is $2,300 and many horses live to be 30 years old.

According to a memo from the Congressional Research Service, “A key concern expressed by a number of equine groups is whether the existing U.S. horse sanctuaries have adequate resources to absorb the large number of animals that could be confiscated or otherwise diverted from slaughter if this law were to pass…AHPA agrees that no nationwide standard-setting or oversight system is in place and also that no rescue organizations may have the resources or business capabilities to take in large numbers of horses.”4

MYTH: If horse slaughter for human consumption is banned, the processing plants will still accept horses and process them for other important purposes.

FACT: H.R. 503’s ban on processing horses for human consumption will close down the three processing plants, according to plant owners, and result in:

■ Elimination of the only option that provides salvage value to the horse owner for an animal that is no longer serviceable, useful or desired.
■ Elimination of the only USDA-inspected source of equine protein, an essential element in the diet of U.S. ZOO animals.
■ Elimination of the only large-scale equine research venue for leading schools of veterinary medicine.
■ Elimination of the only U.S. source of equine pericardium sacs used in human heart surgeries.
■ Elimination of the service plants provide to horse owners by preparing the horse carcasses for acceptance by rendering plants – a time consuming procedure that the slaughter plants now provide at no cost to the owner.

MYTH: Banning U.S. horse slaughter will not affect our economy since the plants are foreign-owned.

FACT: Hundreds of employees in the United States who work for horse owners, trucking companies, auction houses, shipping companies and other suppliers will lose their jobs. The plant communities of DeKalb, Illinois, and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, will be especially hard-hit, with each of the local economies taking a predicted hit of $41 million. The value of each horse will decrease by approximately $300, according to an independent report on the unintended consequences of a horse slaughter ban – the ripple effect of which is predicted to cripple the $40 billion U.S. horse industy.5 The negative impact will be significant, just as it is when a Toyota plant or other foreign-owned business is closed in any other community.

MYTH: Americans should support HR 503 because animal rights groups say it will improve horse welfare.

FACT: The Humane Society of the United States also said it would improve the welfare of animals saved after Hurricane Katrina, but HSUS is currently under investigation by the Louisiana Attorney General, who is questioning exactly how they improved animal welfare, especially since they raised $30 million to pursue this end. 6

The Animal Liberation Front supports a ban on horse slaughter so strongly that one of their members burned down a horse slaughter plant in 1997, putting animals at risk. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employees were also charged with animal cruelty last year for killing cats and dogs and throwing them into dumpsters after stating they were going to take them to shelters and put them up for adoption.7

1 U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing on H.R. 503,
25 July 2006
2 Ahearn J, Anderson D, Bailey D, et al. “The Unintended Consequences of a Ban on the
Humane Slaughter (Processing) of Horses in the United States,” available at
www.animalwelfarecouncil.org. Accessed September 17, 2006.
3 Letter from USDA to Bob Goodlatte, Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Agriculture
4 Memo from Congressional Research Service to House Agriculture Committee, “Equine
Rescue Organizations,” May 7,2004
5 Ahearn J, Anderson D, Bailey D, et al. “The Unintended Consequences of a Ban on the
Humane Slaughter (Processing) of Horses in the United States,” available at
www.animalwelfarecouncil.org. Accessed September 17, 2006.
6 Salmon, Jacqueline, “RedCross, Humane Society Under Investigation” Sunday, March 26,
2006, p. A10, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032501002_2.html. Retrieved August 14, 2006.
7 “PETA Employees Face Felony Cruelty Animal Charges,” available at
www.petakillsanimals.com/petaTrial.cfm. Retrieved August 21, 2006.


Finally, if there was no way to humanely dispose of horses, many people would simply release horses into the wild that would have bad teeth and feet or even be sick and eventually become food for wild animals or buzzards. Banning horse slaughtering will not stop the practice, only move it beyond the border to Mexico, and NAFTA or any other trade regulations will not be able to stop this trade. Many people will simply cross the Rio Grande at various points to continue the practice.

I love horses as much as anyone, but I also understand the importance of having horse-slaughtering plants for the good of the entire horse industry and animal agriculture as a whole. This only the beginning, more legislation over animal agriculture based purely on emotion is sure to make its way to the floor of congress, however, people must try and look at every point of view and take into account the scientific and economic considerations for everyone involved.