No More Horsing Around
The horse meat scandals continue to make headline news. The most recent, and most impressively researched, piece came out last week from Vickery Eckhoff, who published her findings in Newsweek‘s “The Daily Beast.”
The gist of Eckhoff’s argument is that any move toward supporting the production of horse flesh for human consumption is a move toward a public health nightmare. She lists the drugs that horses culled for slaughter routinely take and then she highlights how dangerous these drugs are for human consumption. Few journalists who have covered this story have stressed this essential angle. In fact, Eckhoff and I have been the only ones to do so (and I only did so at her prompting), which is all very strange given the coverage typically lavished on e. coli and mad cow disease and antibiotic resistant bacteria. Horses seem to inspire a “isn’t that weird?” response rather than a critical look at the public health implications of eating them.
I recently spoke with Eckhoff about this issue, her coverage of it, and the response to her article. Eckhoff is concerned about how we treat all animals. Her emphasis on horses, however, is driven more by a concern for public safety than an overt animal rights perspective. This is not to say that she eschews such an agenda. It’s just to stress that her work on horse slaughter is intended to do something different than stress the cruelty of slaughter (which she takes as a given). It aims to highlight the fact that there are forces in the Unites States colluding to legalize horse slaughterhouses and, as her work suggests, they must be stopped. As a result, the issue of horse meat is, she rightly argues, a matter requiring an explicit and unique political response. In this respect, horses are different than pigs, cows, and chickens. They cannot currently be slaughtered for consumption. And this difference matters in the context of the reality of industrial animal production.
To the extent that they’ve followed Eckhoff, some animal rights activists have not been as supportive as they should of her horse coverage. There’s a knee-jerk tendency among some animal rights critics to sternly warn that we need to worry about all animals, and not just one species. This is an important point. But it can be used like a gavel to warn anyone who chooses to focus on a single species to watch her step, even if, as Eckhoff shows, there is clear justification—in this case the demand for a unique political response—to highlight the exploitation of one species over another. We cannot simply write article after after article arguing that it is always wrong to unnecessarily exploit all animals. To focus on a single species, or a single case, is not to deny the legitimacy of other cases. Most people get this, I know. But the fact that Eckhoff got even a little flak over the issue bothers me.
The genuinely good news that I learned from Echkoff is that—if her public health message sticks here in the United States—there is virtually no way that we could end up with a horse meat industry, which is something several interest groups are trying to establish (only they prefer to call it the “cheval” industry). The reason is this: all horses that would be slaughtered would be surplus and cast-off horses from the racing/service industry, and all those horses are inundated with drugs, including, most notably, clenbuterol. With those horses off limits for human consumption, it might be natural to think some ranchers would choose to raise horses for the sole purpose of food. But as Echkoff—who writes regularly for Forbes—reminded me, this would never happen because horses do not gain weight fast enough to warrant raising them for slaughter. It’s not economically viable. The only way this industry would “work” is if producers used “refuge” horses.
And as Eckoff has heroically shown, this option is politically not feasible so long as activists speak up—and, yes, about only one species and one special alone: horses.
Update: a link to a press release about an upcoming radio interview with Eckhoff.
Tomorrow: animal rights infiltrators
Thanks, James, for your research and detail to this issue. Horse slaughter is a heinous “business” all the way around; health issues, inhumane slaughter practice because of the mindset of the horse, the use of this industry to make a quick buck for some. I always appreciate accurate reporting. Thank you.
I am horrified that horse slaughter is trying to come back in this country. What a silly notion that you can’t advocate for one species only! If your passion is saving horses GO FOR IT!
Help for others in need will follow. We have to stop murdering animals.
Thank you….very good article and very fact filled. We all know Vickery Eckhoff does a lot of research on her articles and thank you for mentioning her.
I’ve been following your pieces on this issue over the past year and want to thank you for your comprehensive coverage.
I am also hearing the argument from fellow vegans that we can’t advocate for horses because cows, pigs and chickens are still slaughtered.
I am perplexed by this attitude. Almost every advancement we make for animal welfare IS species-specific. I mean, should we not advocate against the culling of wolves because deer are still hunted? Or forgo attempts to protect dogs from dog fighting because there’s also cock fighting? And not support Sea Shepherd’s work because other marine mammals are fished commercially?
It’s the most bizarre argument that we as animal advocates wouldn’t support legislation to protect 150,000 American equines per year from the horrors of horse slaughter – a totally unnecessary and predatory business in the United States that subjects horses to conditions barbaric even by the standards of slaughter experienced by other animals. It’s a fight we can win – and I – as an advocate for ALL animals, wholeheartedly support the efforts to end horse slaughter.
Exactly! We fight for the legislation we have in front of us and continue to promote animal welfare of all species.
Another excellent blog, James and applause to Vickery for her excellent investigative journalism – a rarity these days. I would first like to state that we are not animal “rights” i.e. we are not asking for animals to have rights. The vast majority that have been at this for years and years are equine welfare advocates. Our organizations were formed to focused on equines. If we are ever going to pass the federal legislation, we must stay focused on the content of the legislation and not bring other issues into legislation.
We do support all animal welfare legislation and keep our members informed of legislation that could take away protections or legislation like the Ag Gag laws that would make undercover investigations a crime.
This fight has been going on since the late 1990s with a foreign meat business that has been operating for decades. We are closer now that we have ever been and ask that everyone call their legislators for support in passing these important food safety bills.
For those wanting to end all slaughter, we can only suggest that you find a legislator that is willing to take on the meat industry and introduce legislation. Once you have a bill, I’m sure you would want people calling legislators to stay focused on the bill and not bring, as an example, immigration reform into the discussion when the bill only covers slaughter. It dilutes the message and takes focus away from the intent of the legislation.
Be prepared for a long, long fight as you can see how long it’s taking us when focusing on one species that isn’t even a food animal in our country. We are up against the beef industry and the Farm Bureau who are bottomless pits when it comes to lobbying. They have convinced legislators to buy into the “slippery slope” that this is just a first step to banning all animal slaughter even though that is not the intent and has solely been focused on equines.
The same people behind to slaughter our horses, are the same that push for puppy-mills, and AG GAG laws, both of which are for protecting the animal abusers and calling those whistle-blowers of abuse terrorists. Really!!! Anyone calling authorities over abuse of farm animals in IO, WY, and UT are considered felons and al-quida terrorists.
The woman behind horse slaughter, Sue Wallis, even did the introducing of the AG Gag law in WY, this year, after massive animal abuse at an industrial hog farm, in her state.
We have collusion to protect the industrial farmers, and ranchers, over the health and welfare of our food supply. We need to pay attention to this. It came to light that the meat processors in IR knew about the tainted beef with pork and horse meat for over a year. DO NOT think it won’t happen here. There is concern, it already has as illegal horse meat has been shipping into the US via Houston port and no one is really sure where it went.
Please call your senator and reps and ask them to sign onto and support the SAFE ACT, before it is too late.
Thank you for another great blog. What everyone needs to realize is that if we can succeed in keeping another animal from becoming food in this country and or from contributing to other countries, it is a win.
I read something from Sue Wallis a day or two ago aboutnhow the slaughternhouses would be top of the line and test test test.
Sorry but the transportation violations would still occur no matter how wrap and package it. We’re not just talking talking horses on the truck for hours or days with no food or water. There is a killer in TN who TWICE last year had major accidents where fortunately no humans were killed. Horses were. The forst time the driver fell asleep and rolled the truck. The second time the the truck broke in half. These happened out on major interstates.
The captive bolt issue remains. The captive was designed for cattle not horses. Most slaughter workers fail to render the horse fully unconscious on the first shot. Even Temple Grandin’s slaughterhouse in Canada that she designed couldn’t past muster on this.
Let me talk about drugs for just a moment. There is a newer drug that is coming on the market. It’s called frog juice. It’s about 40 times as powerful as morphine. Do we really want to be exposed to this?
No one really talks about what happens post July when the EU will refuse our horses because we don’t have a passport system for them. Our horses are fed more drugs than Carter has pills. There won’t be a market.
Will these same folk resort to contaminating our food chain? I don’t know. I know that there just isn’t the market that the pro-slaughter folk seem to think there is. And even if it were here today it won’t be long before that market shuts there doors to them.
Finally let’s face it. People were beyond mortified and angry that they were duped into eating horse. This isn’t a case of mislabeled meat. It was a deliberate contamination. Because it wasn’t just horses that were found in beef products–pork also was.
Something else to think of. If our food chain isn’t already contaminated it will be. We’ll be slaughtering horses in this country and all it takes is one person to turn their back at the wrong moment and our food chain is compromised. If cattle ranchers are worried about consumer confidence they should be siding with horse advocates. Many people are going off red meat because of the fear of contamination.
Food to think on…
Sue Wallis’s testing would not matter a hill of beans to the EU. There has to be an approved tracking program in place which is implemented and proposed by the Fed govt.
As I understand it, Temple Grandin’s slaughterhouses in Canada weren’t designed for horse slaughter. I imagine it would be difficult to impossible to design a slaughterhouse that would work well because horses vary tremendously in size, as cattle and sheep do not. And they are prey animals with the tendency for flight when threatened. Different than sheep or cattle or pigs. Hell, Grandin (whom I do not view as fount of knowledge for horse slaughterhouse) didn’t know what “bute” was when Vickery interviewed her in late 2011. I believe she has yet to design a horse slaughter plant. If she hasn’t done this yet, who is? Anyone?
The Canadian slaughter houses have been noted for being extremely dangerous for both the workers and the doomed horses. Great working environment!
Frog juice is already out there, being given to race horses, to dull pain, and we all know horses can run on broken legs… Snake venom is another gem given to horses. No way to trace this stuff? Who knows where it comes from. What it will do? Danger, danger danger. What do the NIH or the FDA or the USDA have to say about these new products (for lack of a better word) that horses are subjected to? Silence.
I don’t believe there will be a market for our horses after July. This is a problem. And we can thank overbreeding for that… greed. It all traces back to financial gain.
I also believe the wonderful world of food safety lawsuits beginning in the EU will cross “the pond” due to the very likely source of American horses sent to slaughter (when filled with drugs) to the EU and who knows where else.
Hell, we’ve got live horses being shipped to Japan, so that the Japanese can have their sushi fresh. Foal meat a delicacy.
The market for slaughtered horsemeat isn’t the USA. We know that. Or, at least, if you’re Skye McNeil, you can slaughter horses in OK, but don’t sell the meat in the state, ship it elsewhere. I find this a very troubling rationale from a woman whose conflict of interest is glaring.
I’d be mad as hell if I found out that the meat I was eating wasn’t what it was supposed to be. That is a nightmare on so many levels. But I don’t eat meat. Our food chain is certainly contaminated, people either just do not know it, or do not want to think about it.
I agree with Mr McWilliams’ observation:
“as Eckhoff shows, there is clear justification—in this case the demand for a unique political response—to highlight the exploitation of one species over another. We cannot simply write article after after article arguing that it is always wrong to unnecessarily exploit all animals. To focus on a single species, or a single case, is not to deny the legitimacy of other cases.”
American’s interest (focus) on the treatment of a single species – horses – is justified by several specific concerns unique to horses.
Horses are a unique species in several ways and several of those very aspects cause the commercial horse slaughter industry to be exceptionally cruel and dangerous to them. A horse’s physiology/anatomy places them at great risk of broken legs or necks via the industry’s bulk (unsegregated, insecure) shipping and holding practices.
Further, as herd-based animals who are dependent on their peers and on their flight response for survival, industry practices again bring them specific harm, distress, and accidental death.
Lastly, few other animal species are of such great cultural interest to people. Frequently the subject of films, books, plays, and innumerable productions, their slaughter is hypocritical to American culture. We can not idolize and admire a creature that we willfully bring such horrific suffering to. To my mind, slaughtering horses for human consumption is akin to slaughtering dogs for the same. Unacceptable.
Contact your US congressman and both US senators. Request that they cosponsor S.541 and HR.1094: a bill to prevent human health threats posed by the consumption of equines/horses raised in the US.
Find yours: http://votesmart.org/
Oh I know that. I meant it sarcastically. There is no way to test and make a profit. That is what is driving all of this.
And we havent even begun to implement any kind of tracking system in this country.
And the other issue I have is with sequestration. Our own inspectors are going to be furloughed to inspect OUR food. Why should we be paying for inspectors to inspect food being exported? Why should WE bare the burden of paying for all this training.
I don’t claim to speak for everyone else but my issue with horse slaughter is that it’s not a food source animal. I’m a omnivore. Yes, I do tend to eat less red meat. That is by choice not boycott or anything like that.
But I would seriously consider cutting all red meat out PERMANENTLY if horse slaughter is brought back. I might use cow’s milk for ice cream and cheese but that would pretty much the extent of it.
Horse slaughter is inhumane, and a cruel fate to horses. Not just the old or infirmed. They are horses that their owners, for whatever the reason, have decided they are no longer wanted: the aged schoolhorse, who after serving faithfully, teaching many to ride; the broken down race horse; the camp horse who is no longer needed and can easily be replaced the next year; the show horse who no longer brings home a blue ribbon; babies that greedy owners bred for, only to discover that there is no market for them, as well as their mothers, bred year after year, and now no longer wanted. Horses that have served mankind, and instead of greener pastures to graze or at least, a humane euthanasia, are instead trucked in crowded trailers with no food or water, many injured and many times mares, babies and stallions in the same pen. Beated upon by cruel handlers, until they finally arrive at their final destination, where instead of a peaceful death, they suffer a death that no creature deserves. Horses contain carcinogenic drugs such as Bute and dewormers. Do we really want to eat this? Do we want their runoff blood contaminating our water? Ask the states of Illinois and Texas, who shut down their slaughterhouses for these reasons. Those who are in favor of slaughterhouses are doing so to line their own purses. Don’t be fooled into thinking that slaugherhouses will provide more jobs or more tax money. They don’t. And don’t believe that this is the solution to unwanted horses, and horses that are suffering from neglect, starvation and being turned loose. As a co-founder and former President of a non-profit horse rescue, the sad truth is, these are situations that exist with or without slaughterhouses, because unfortunately, well, we a mankind can be cruel. Still for slaughter? Google horse slaughter and watch the multitude of videos of horses being slaughtered…and then I dare you to say that it is ok.
When it comes to animal slaughter, I say the end result is what is important. If Eckhoff can help stop this heinous practice by emphasizing human health issues, more power to her. She’s doing her part, we’ll keep doing ours.
Next month a slaughterhouse is scheduled to open in New Mexico. Of course the main clients will be the EU. I’m not sure how they plan to get around the new restrictions on drugs in horses since American horses are full of them.
Canada is right now breeding and raising horses for human consumption. They purchase a number of mares last year from a use to be PMU farm for their breeding farms. So it can be done. As for the EU they have not applied the restrictions yet so America horses are still being slaughter and sent oversea for someone dinner plate. I was told when I sent a e-mail to the New Mexico city government that they had nothing to do with it and to contact the USDA and given the following information.
You may contact the USDA locally at:
Roswell Sub Office
1011 South Atkinson Avenue
Roswell, NM 88203
575-622-8745 Extension 4 or (575) 887-6669
Or if you wish, you many also contact the Chaves County Administration at:
575-624-6600
and let them know we don’t want another horse slaughter plant in the US.
Mr. McWillaims, Thank you for acknowledging the dedicated work of Ms. Eckhoff. And thank you for your inspiring blog. Your accompanied photo, a classic. It speaks volumes. In the battle to end horse slaughter, I have experienced the myriad excuses to continue this horror. Now there is a “horse meat scandal” in Europe & Asia. An increased awareness of, & reporting on, the health hazards of eating horse meat, along with soon coming EU passport system. Therefore, I find it more mind-boggling that many states are attempting to open horse slaughterhouses. A no-win. But where foreign billion $$$ dollar corporations will profit, paying minimal U.S. taxes. However, the taxpaying American public will be funding the slaughterhouse in taxes, as well as paying legal fees for lawsuits. For we know the pollution to communities from blood & offal…along with the smell & screams. Then there are the employees, @ 50, mostly immigrants & criminals. Crime rates soar, enhanced by the very nature of the work: torture, butchering, killing. So here we go again, a few corrupt, self-serving politicians. For the almighty $$$ dollar. And in our depressed economy too!! An admirer of Saul Alinsky & Grassroots movements, I am now more confident than ever that there will be a federal ban to end the heinous slaughter of our majestic, dedicated to man, equines. We come together, strengthened. To finally save our horses & our health. With dignity & *facts. As has been seen, we match pro-slaughter blow for blow. When they up the ante, advocates follow suit. Our government may not be just in all ways, but advocates are. As good as one gets, measure by measure. For the horses. For our health. Our food supply. Our economy. For enhanced world-wide respect. Thank you.
Commercial horse slaughter is not humane nor is it euthanasia!
Bovines and equines (cattle and horses) are both supposed to be “rendered insensible” before vivisection, before they hang on the hook, according to Federal Law: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/07C48.txt. They become meat at that point and many equines do officially even before they are dead! A large percentage of horses (at least 40%) regain consciousness on slaughter lines after they are hanging. The captive-bolt is ineffective at rendering them senseless and they are shot in the head multiple times before their vivisection for harvesting is completed. Animal advocates are outraged over this because of the extremity of this barbaric practice. This is evidenced in the following video, as well as many that can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPqh43_NkM.
The specific fact that equines commonly have to be struck multiple times with the captive-bolt, or shotgun, is what makes commercial horse slaughter in the U.S. a clear violation of the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958. The meat produced contains dangerous levels of adrenaline and cortisol, in addition to all the prohibited substances and medications given U.S. horses. It’s bad meat and baaad business.
It should be illegal. Our federal legislators have to abolish it.