Just what would YOU know, anyway?
Europe is a culture that is in severe decline.
Americans are MUCH more appreciative of the role horses have played in the advancement of Western Civilization.
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In December, Congress repealed the 34-year-old ban on the slaughter of the wild horses that run free across the West.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
Explain please to this "moron" the relevance of your hysterical slavery reference to a conversation about slaughtering feral HORSES.
Horses are not in any way equivalent morally to human beings. It sounds like youve watched too many episodes of "Mr Ed", bunny hugger.
Well I hadn't really thought of it from that perspective...
But yes, I suppose at a philosophical level it DOES reflect our society's obsession with short-term consumption and complete disregard for long-term commitment to productive assets.
Everything has become disposable, including America's wealth.
Just how is a FERAL horse either a productive asset or part of America's wealth?
Same as all our other natural resources.
Just what would YOU know, anyway?
Europe is a culture that is in severe decline.
Americans are MUCH more appreciative of the role horses have played in the advancement of Western Civilization.
That is the crux of this matter. Those of us who have horses and more importantly, find an inner peace with them, even the ornery ones, perceive suffering in the way the whole process of horse slaughter is done. The mustangs should be bolted upon the prairie that has been their home. A "Slaughter Truck" could be fabricated and the mustangs rendered meat on the hook in place. It simply takes the bureaucratic will and ingenuity.
As for domesticated horses, I am against their slaughter upon no other grounds than I consider it an offense to my soul to summon a horse that has borne my weight and compel it by its tameness, to suffer un-humane transportation to a slaughter house. The only reason, IMHO, for a tame horse to be put down is illness and suffering. To send a horse that has worked or played with you to slaughter is somehow, immoral to me.
Let me add that this "sentimentality" is not limited to horses, nor do I believe confers upon my character a "weakness". To the contrary, just the opposite. It has been my experience from battlefield to the hay field that the lack of empathy was a good indication of a lack of courage.
One last point, the American shipping millionaire, Henry Bergh, started the ASPCA in New York in 1866 because of the mistreatment of horses. He also went on to found the SPCC in 1874. That was the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Children.
Those who are cruel to their animals are cruel to their children, and vice versa. Harvesting, culling herds, being predators ourselves, are all peripheral to the point of actual contention which is cruelty and forced suffering. To the animal and to ones own character. We all, man an animal alike, would like to pass through this life with as much unnecessary suffering as possible.
No! I have no obligation too. Furthermore, don't let me catch you on my land or around my horses. Is that clear?
Grow up.
I may be European born but Im a US citizen. But judging by your tagline I guess you're a Pat Buchanan fan so that doesnt mean much to you.
Oh, by the way, posting a picture of the Budweiser clydesdales really clinches the case for the value of feral horses.
Exactly, Willie. The horse has carried more of our burdens than beer. Cannon, shot and powder by caisson in the middle of battle, swordsmen from Ghengis Khan to the last charge of cavalry by the Polish Army against the Germans in 1939. I was at a WWII Air Corps Officers burial at Arlington last year, and his remains were given the "honors" deserved by being borne on a caisson pulled by horse. What the "morons" don't get is that the horse has earned a particularly venerable place in human history and not just warfare. The horses has done more for mankind than just about any other natural object except wood. It's not the slaughter that offends me, it's the torture that is inflicted prior to. We can do better than that.
You may be an American citizen, but you have little regard for our culture.
"Lighten up, Francis."
~ from the movie Stripes
Well said!
...but your not from Ireland.
...Clydesdales really clinches the case for the value of feral horses.
So....you're kind of a feral human?
Excellent post elbucko...
I object to slaughter of the domestic horse for the reasons you stated. It is a betrayal of the trust we asked them to put in us when we first haltered, or first climbed on a horse and said "trust me, work with me, and I will not hurt you". We have their cooperation in life, and when we injure them from our use, or have used up their working years, they deserve better from us in return than a crammed slaughter truck to a terrorizing end at a factory slaughter house somewhere. I think we have a contract with them, and we are better for holding ourselves to it.
Betrayal is not the same in the case of the Mustang... they don't know us, really, though some of these unwanteds are certainly broke to halter, even if they've been returned to BLM as too hard to handle. Their attitude toward us is probably not different than our contract with cattle. I must concede that not all these Mustangs are suitable for placement in homes, it's a rare horseman who desires and can handle the training of a wild horse. And there are probably not a lot of people out there willing to take on a horse that can't be used... aside from the few afforded by refuge groups who will put them to pasture.... larger holding pens...
Your idea to make shorter work of them by at least bringing the slaughter to the horse is as good as any. But it is an abomination of nature that we have let this situation grow into a problem of this magnitude. There is no excuse for creating a scene where this many animals will die. It certainly can't be called management. It's just cleanup after mismanagment. People have really screwed this up, to have managed this into a situation where 10,000 animals need to be slaughtered. It makes me sick. And I am not ashamed of that, I like the me that cares about them. I certainly wouldn't like the me that felt nothing.
Better ideas for the future are needed.
Witty. You've stepped in your own manure and now you can't shake the smell off your own boots. Next time, give some consideration to your response. FR has consensus, but it is also one that can be contentious to the unthoughtful. There are many kinds of "Conservatives" here and not just ones that want to conserve only money. If that is what you think conservative means, another code word for cheap or selfish, you are going to be disappointed.
LOLOLOLOL
Just to piss off the people who want to tell others what they can and cannot eat, I'm going out of my way on my next trip abroad to eat some dog, some cat, and some horse. Who knows, I might even find that I like them.
"but your not from Ireland"
Oh yeah? How do you conclude that?
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