Horse Slaughter Is Reconsidered

Animal-Welfare Groups Are Joining Ranchers in a Push to Revive an Industry That Died in 2007

Less than four years after the last equine slaughterhouses in the U.S. closed down, an unlikely coalition of ranchers, horse owners and animal-welfare groups is trying to bring them back.

The group, gathering in Las Vegas this week for a conference called Summit of the Horse, aims to map out a strategy for reviving an industry that slaughtered as many as 100,000 horses a year in the U.S. before it was effectively shut down by congressional action in 2007.

Advocates say the slaughterhouses could bring an economic boost to rural areas and give owners who no longer have the means or inclination to care for the horses an economical and humane way to dispose of them.

"We believe that humane processing is absolutely a moral and an ethical choice," said Sue Wallis, a Wyoming state lawmaker who organized the event.

Ms. Wallis is working on bringing a slaughterhouse to her state, but said her coalition first must overcome what she called "the 'ick' factor."

Indeed, animal-welfare activists opposed to the resumption of slaughter say the public will rally to stop it, since many Americans grew up with such books as "Black Beauty" and TV shows like "Mister Ed" and consider horses companions, not meals.

"Public opinion is with us," said Patti Klein Manke, executive director of the Hooved Animal Humane Society.

Pressure from animal-rights groups and from undercover videos that circulated on the Internet and showed apparent cruelties in the horse-butchering process prompted Congress to shut off all funds for inspecting equine slaughterhouses in 2007. That dealt the industry a fatal blow, as federal inspections were required by law before the meat could be exported for human consumption.

I wonder if the distinction in how people think about dignity could be correlated with pet ownership? I’ve never had a significant pet (gerbils, and now ferrets), and I would never project that definition of “dignity” on an animal.

But I know horse owners who would use many of those adjectives to describe their horses (and interestingly, most would never use the word “pet”). I like horses; I don’t think I’d ever purposely eat horse meat. But to me they are still just animals.

And frankly, I don’t know how horses really think. So I don’t know what treatment they would consider noble, even if I cared. But if I did care, I would doubt that being stuck in a stall, only to be brought out to have stuff strapped to my back so someone can climb on me and make me dance to their bidding, would be noble.

But how would I know — maybe they are like the Ood, existing only to serve others. (random Dr. Who reference).

I don’t think any human would find what we do with horses to be dignified, noble, or treating them as worthy or honourable. But on the other hand, they are animals, so why would be apply those same rules.

Which is my way of showing why I don’t think of them as any more than animals, and don’t bother with “dignity”. It’s an unknowable thing — how to treat something we can’t communicate with in the way they would find “dignified”. If I care, I get stuck in a circular argument that ends with me freeing the horses and letting the run wild — not because that is dignified either, but because then we are at least “leaving them to their own devices”.

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