Despite the federal law in the U.S. which bans horses in America from being slaughtered for human consumption, it does not prevent horses in America from being shipped to Canada and Mexico to be slaughtered for human consumption.
Consequently, horses being bought at auction in the U.S. can be sold for up to $20 a pound which makes them valuable at auction, so even if you wanted to save unwanted pet horses, racehorses, carriage horses, untamed wild range horses and others from being slaughtered outside the U.S. it could cost you thousands of dollars for every horse you wanted to save from the horse killers at auction.
Now, instead of being slaughtered on U.S. soil, up to 100,000 horses a year in America may be packed into double-decker truck trailers and shipped thousands of miles across U.S. borders without water or food in extreme cold and hot temperatures. As usual the “do-gooder” U.S. government, by banning horse slaughter in the U.S., has merely made it a cruelly longer process for innocent horses to endure. Too many of us may forget when we give away a horse that this once noble and loyal servant may end up on someone’s dinner table in Japan, Canada or Europe where horse meat is considered a delicacy and in high demand, especially in Japan.
Making matters worse during the slaughter process there are no USDA inspectors to supervise how the horses are being slaughtered. In Canada the stunning or high powered bolt to the head is not enforced for every animal so too many of your ex-pet horses may be slaughtered still conscious, struggling and even possibly skinned alive. When horses are being led to slaughter they see, hear and smell the other horses being slaughtered right in front of them. Imagine the pain and sensations of being carved up alive!
In Mexico the slaughter process can be even worse where there may be no stunning process meaning no high powered bolt to the head. Here, horse slaughter workers take a frightened horse and repeatedly stab it in the back between the horses’ shoulder blades until the horse gives up and drops to the ground, mortally wounded, bleeding and finally disabled. It is then the carving up process begins as the horse still struggles, screams and cries until it is dead. The carving up process could take 30 minutes or longer depending upon how fast or how slow the factory slaughter workers are carving up that day. No living creature deserves an end so horrific, cruel and painful especially our once loving, gallant steeds.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: GENTLE GIANT DRAFT HORSE RESCUE MARCH 2010