Horse Slaughter - The Facts

Background

Americans do not eat horses, nor do we raise them for food. Most Americans support a ban on horse slaughter. Yet more than 100,000 horses were killed in the U.S. in 2006 at three foreign-owned slaughterhouses and tens of thousands more were exported for slaughter abroad. The meat comes from pet horses, work horses, race horses and even wild horses and is sold for human consumption in Europe and Asia where it is considered a delicacy.

The Status of Horse Slaughter

Until recently, three horse slaughterhouses existed in the U.S., two in Texas and one and Illinois. All three were foreign owned, and the meat from the slaughtered horses was sent overseas. Impatient at the inability of the federal government to ban the industry, the Texas plants were effectively shuttered in 2007 when Texas began enforcing a 1949 state law prohibiting horse slaughter. Illinois passed a similar law in 2007 and the slaughter stopped there, too. The result was a steep decline in the number of horses slaughtered in the U.S. in 2007 (just under 30,000). However, horses were and continue to be shipped out of the country for slaughter in Mexico, Canada and further abroad, in sharply increasing numbers.

Immense Cruelty

The suffering of horses in slaughter, whether here or abroad, is horrendous. But while the process in domestic slaughterhouse whereby horses were often hit in the head with the captive bolt gun multiple times before being strung up for bleeding out and quartering (sometimes while still conscious) the grisly scene in Mexican slaughterhouses is yet worse. A recent investigation by The Humane Society of the United States revealed that horses are literally stabbed to death in Mexican slaughterhouses. To view video footage of the treatment, click here (warning: graphic content). The findings are echoed in a story by Lisa Sandberg that ran in the San Antonio News Express in October, 2007 in which she wrote:

"The American mare swung her head frantically when the door shut to the kill box, trapping her inside. A worker jabbed her in the back with a small knife – seven, eight, nine times. Eyes wild, she lowered her head and raised it as the blade punctured her body around the withers, again and again. At the 10th jab, she fell to the floor of this Mexican slaughterhouse, bloodied and paralyzed, but not yet dead. She would lay a good two minutes before being hoisted from a chained rear leg so her throat could be slit and she could bleed to death."

How Horses End Up at Slaughter

Most American horses going to slaughter, whether slaughtered here, in Mexico or elsewhere, arrive at the slaughterhouse via livestock auctions where they are bought by "killer-buyers" working for the slaughter plants. The killer-buyers travel from auction to auction to collect horses they can then sell to the slaughterhouses at a profit. These killer-buyers have a financial incentive to outbid other potential purchasers of the horse, and many individuals selling their horses at auction are unaware that they risk placing their horses in the hands of killer buyers simply by entering them into the auction ring. Few horse owners electively sell their horses to slaughter.

Much of the domestic transport of horses to slaughter is unregulated, with only the final leg of the journey to the slaughterhouse covered by federal regulations. This means that slaughter-bound horses continue to be moved on double-deck trailers designed for cattle and pigs in direct violation of Congressional intent. Not only are the conveyances dangerously top-heavy but they are inhumane, forcing many horses to travel in a bent position. The portion of the journey to slaughter which is regulated by the government allows horses to be shipped for more than 24 hours at a time without food, water or rest. Foals, heavily pregnant mares, horses with broken legs and blind horses can be moved, under the regulations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is now seeking to broaden the scope of its transport regulations to cover all segments of the journey to slaughter but is too little too late, particularly given that the domestic horse slaughter plants have been shut down. The United States government has no authority to regulate the treatment of horses once they cross the border and are outside of U.S. territory.

The Remedy – Passage of The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S. 311/H.R. 503)

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (AHSPA) prohibits the transport and sale of horses to slaughter for human consumption, effectively halting their slaughter here and export for slaughter abroad. First introduced in 2001, the AHSPA has steadily gained public and Congressional support with the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passing the bill in the 109th Congress. Related measures designed to stop horse slaughter have also received widespread Congressional support including a spending restriction to the FY 2006 Agriculture Appropriations bill designed to stop slaughter by withdrawing federal funds for legally mandated inspections. It passed both the House and Senate by a landslide but was circumvented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A similar amendment is in the FY 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.

Yet the slaughter continues in the absence of final passage of the AHSPA, in part because of the pro-slaughter position of groups such as the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the slaughterhouses themselves, with which the AVMA partners via the ironically named Horse Welfare Coalition. In contrast, Veterinarians for Equine Welfare, the humane community, much of the equestrian community and dozens and dozens of celebrities and corporate leaders support passage of the bill. To see a current list of supporters, click here.

What You Can Do

* Contact your elected officials

AWI’s Compassion Index
HSUS

* Register your support for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act

please send us an email by clicking here

For more information, view Frequently Asked Questions About Horse Slaughter.