Posted on 02/24/2005 1:05:27 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
RENO, Nev. - For the first time in more than a generation, the mustang - the very symbol of the American West - can be slaughtered for horsemeat.
In December, Congress repealed the 34-year-old ban on the slaughter of the wild horses that run free across the West. The move has brought a powerful backlash from activists, who want to reinstate full protection for the mustangs.
"It is really a slap in the face to the American people," said Betty Kelly, co-founder of the horse protection group Wild Horse Spirit in Virginia City, Nev.
Acting on behalf of ranchers who say the horses eat forage needed by cattle, Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., attached the amendment in December to a spending bill that President Bush signed into law.
It allows for the sale for slaughter of some older and unwanted horses that are captured during the periodic government roundups aimed at reducing the wild population, now estimated at 33,000 across 10 Western states. About 19,000 of the horses are in Nevada.
A bill to reinstate the slaughter ban was introduced in Congress last month.
Responsibilty for rounding up horses on federal land and selling them rests with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which has yet to send any of the animals to slaughter.
BLM officials said the agency is reaching out to animal protection groups and is optimistic that before the summer, it will find new homes for the 8,900 horses and burros that could be subject to slaughter.
"We realize it is a challenge, but we think there are owners out there that would provide the kind of care we are looking for," BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said from Washington, D.C.
The issue has dogged the Interior Department and Congress since Nevada's Velma Johnson, also known as Wild Horse Annie, and a legion of schoolchildren persuaded Congress to outlaw the use of motor vehicles to hunt the mustangs in 1959. That was followed by the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act of 1971.
Sylvia Fascio, a fifth-generation Nevada horse breeder, said there are too many wild horses roaming the BLM land next to her ranch, and some should be sold for slaughter.
"I enjoy the wild horses. I'm blessed to live out here among them and it's a very romantic thought. But there is such a thing as reality," Fascio said. "Since they can't seem to find homes for all of these horses all of the time, there is only one thing left. There are foreign countries that eat horsemeat. We don't now, but we did during World War II. I see nothing wrong with that."
The fate of the horses is also a question of cultural values, according to Mike Schroeder, a Washington state wildlife biologist. "I think of them more as livestock. But a lot of tribes I work with think of them as wildlife that should not be touched," he said in a speech to a Western Governors Association conference earlier this month.
It is a volatile issue. Scott Freeman, a defense attorney in Reno, defended one of three young men who were accused - and eventually acquitted of most charges - in the 1998 shooting deaths of 33 horses on the edge of Reno. The shootings outraged animal protection groups around the world and led to death threats against Freeman.
"I have lots of experience doing homicide cases, but I have never experienced the emotional outburst I did with the horse case," he said. "The rallying cry was for the defenseless animals and that the individuals - who in my case turned out to be innocent - should basically be strung up."
Burns said the repeal of the slaughter ban is necessary to manage the herds and protect the range. The measure allows the sale of horses more than 10 years old, as well as any that go unadopted three offerings in a row.
The BLM said it believes the 37,000 free-roaming wild horses and burros on the range are about 9,000 more than natural food supplies can sustain. Its aim is to bring the population down to about 28,000.
BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said the agency already is getting some responses in its effort to find homes for the animals and hopes to find a solution "in a way we feel good about."
ON THE NET: http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov
ping
Pretty sick when the US votes to come one step closer to the dog-eating Koreans. There are too many children without homes in our country...will they be the next group sold for slaughter?
Don't be ridiculous. Horse is far better tasting than dog.
horse, goat, cow, moose - all good eating.
Should the animal be left to overpopulate and starve to a painful death or merely discarded. Would you feel better if it were rendered for glue?
Hey horse meat...its whats for dinner
I frankly dont see much difference between slaughtering horses to eat and slaughtering pigs or cows. I've never eaten horse and dont plan to but I dont see what wrong with selling it to the Frenchies.
ping em
No, I wouldn't. And it's not better that they starve, which isn't really what's happening. It's a money-grab with the European market, and there are no standards to the shipment of LIVE horses overseas. More often than not, they are corralled into overstuffed cargo holds, dehydrated, and slowly dying on the long sea voyage to France. I wouldn't be so opposed to the slaughter of horses if the US would take the lead on more humane practices, but with horse meat going for hundreds of dollars a pound, it'll never happen. Sad, because I always considered Americans to be above the smarmy horse-eating French.
Ping for the Saddle Club (I don't have the ping list)
Ping for the Saddle Club (I don't have the ping list)
Can we send them to England? Hunt horses now instead of foxes.
Horse welfare should be ended.
When the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act of 1971 was passed, the population in the area was less than 10,000. Under the Act, the agency is required to protect the animals. It may round up excess wild horses and burros and offer them for adoption but it may not simply sell them. Presently, the program maintains thousands of horses horses over ten years old, which are not capable of training. In the 2005 Budget, the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range spending $29.1 million on the program this year and has offered a proposal to spend $39.6 million next year. The BLM spent $29.5 million on the program in 2003.
So we feed and care for 10,000 horses and burros, which will never do work, while people are statving. Why?
Horsemeat has been eaten for centuries in Europe and North America.
Me neither. That's why I don't eat any of it.
I love the horses, however proper management is the solution, rather than absolute protection.
I encourage using them as meat.
We do so with deer, cattle, quail, and so many other animals.
Animals do not - and cannot - have rights.
But they make great food.
these are not wild horses....they are feral horses that came over with the conquestidors.....
when they take the food away from native species like bison, antelope, deer and elk and Big Horn sheep they need to regulated like any other species....
I am no expert on the shipment of horses for food source, but I doubt they are treated as you describe. It would not be wise for them to dehydrate the horse when the end product is very valuable.
Austrailian sheep are shipped to the middle east all the time and the mortality rate is no higher than when the critters are being raised on the ranch.
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