Posted on 06/01/2008 6:22:29 PM PDT by Lorianne
The global food and fuel crisis is resulting in more than just people going hungry. Rising grain and gas prices, as well as the closure of American slaughterhouses, have contributed to a virtual stampede of horses being abandoned — some starving — and turned loose into the deserts and plains of the West to die cruel and lonesome deaths. Horse rescue projects, which are mostly small, volunteer operations with limited land and resources, are feeling the consequences of this convergence of events. In the meantime, many now unaffordable horses are being sold to abbatoirs south of the border where inhumane methods of slaughter are practiced.
The global food and fuel crisis is resulting in more than just people going hungry. Rising grain and gas prices, as well as the closure of American slaughterhouses, have contributed to a virtual stampede of horses being abandoned — some starving — and turned loose into the deserts and plains of the West to die cruel and lonesome deaths. Horse rescue projects, which are mostly small, volunteer operations with limited land and resources, are feeling the consequences of this convergence of events. In the meantime, many now unaffordable horses are being sold to abbatoirs south of the border where inhumane methods of slaughter are practiced.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
paging emily litella.
/johnny
/johnny
Just curious. What is the number of wild horses in the United States alone?
Horses are being abandoned because the stupid enviro-nazis have made it illegal to put down your own horse, and illegal to bury a horse on your property. You must pay someone to shoot the animal and then to cremate it. It is also illegal to sell the horse carcass for horse meat. So, when the horses go to auction and there are no takers, the horses are abandoned.
What’s the problem? Round them up, grind them into meat and mix with a little beef use it as dog food and sell the rest to Haiti or Africa or some other starving place. They’d be glad to have good meat.
Unintended consequences.
Horsemeat used to be the primary ingredient in American-made pet food. Excess horses were handled much more humanely at American slaughterhouses.
Liberals and touchy-feely oh NO, you can’t hurt the nice horseys get their way. No horsemeat in American pet food, starving horses, horses shipped to Mexico for inhumane slaughter...
Sadly, totally and utterly predictable.
In other words: Bush's fault.
I'm pretty particular about that.
/johnny
Having spent my life in a family that raced and bred TB’s, I can tell people that there are far worse things that happen to horses than ending up in slaughter houses, but they refuse to believe that. I knew that the efforts and pressure brought to bear on lawmakers to close the slaughter houses here by the do-gooders would only end in a longer ride for the animals destined for slaughter to Mexico and Canada, or worse yet, a slow painful starvation. Do-gooders are not able to grasp the concept that many who own horses have neither the $ for a vet to put a horse down nor the means to dispose of the carcass.
There is no law against humanely euthanizing a horse, and in the context of the normal monthly expenses associated with proper care and feeding of a horse, the combined euthanasia and cremation cost can’t possibly be more than a month’s expense.
Of course, if the racing and show-horse industries would quit breeding many times more horses than there’s a market for, in a competition against other breeders to produce the “best” horses, there would be no surplus horses to be auctioned for slaughter or abandoned. These people, and those who patronize their races and shows, really don’t give a crap how many horses starve and suffer.
Breeders are obviously aware of this problem. They should set up a system whereby money is set aside at the time of sale for the eventual euthanasia and cremation of each horse they sell. But of course they won't, because that would eat into their profits.
Sorry Shrink, you’d be surprised at how many people won’t spend that small amount of money to humanely euthanize a horse. I know of horse owners that have starved a horse for a couple of days and then feed it an inordinate amount of feed to colic them. In most areas of the US, the county supervisors or managers collect or bury the horse after its dead to prevent a public health hazard. Most average folks can be really cruel just to save a buck. I see it everyday. Sorry..its the gawdawful truth.I have seen this behaviour in Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi.
No abandoned cows—yet. We’re still working on that.
Need to allow slaughter houses to kill horses again.
Despite what most people believe, TB's are better cared for during and after their racing career has ended because it requires a lot of $ to race even a $ 3500 claimer. The backyard breeds suffer far more than TB's or Standardbreds do and usually have a much greater chance of coming to a sad end.
***... a virtual stampede of horses being abandoned — some starving — and turned loose into the deserts and plains of the West to die cruel and lonesome deaths.***
The same thing happened a few years ago when the EMU industry went belly up, thanks to a joke by either Leno or Letterman.
It was common to see one running up the roads of many a rural area. No one wanted them.
Same for pot bellied pigs. They were expensive once, then you could not even give them away.
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