Friends Of Equines Society

Last December, the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) held their annual  meeting in Atlanta, Ga.

It was there and then that the Agriculture & Energy Committtee of the NCSL formulated a plan, a "secret" strategy, whereby they would petition congress & all state legislatures "as a body" to oppose HR 01 & 501, our anti-horse slaughter bills. In addition to that, they have embarked on a state-by-state campaign whereby each of their state reps would initiate pro-slaughter legislation in their own states,..some of whom are asking for theconstruction of new saughter-plants in their own home states! This plan to bring back horse-slaughter in the United States was co-founded by a woman, a woman who, by the way, claims to love horses. Here is her open letter to the 111th US Congress AND to the State Legislatures; Be sure to see the links at the bottom of the letter for their "supporting documents" and even a power-point presentation of their meeting; please know, as a result of this meeting where they formulated their killing plan,..tweleve states are now proposing legislation in their own states to bring back horse-slaughter plants; we will be listing them here for your shortly, with the petitions we have made for each of these states, and are working on a "secret" plan of our own to counter-act this stratedgy...so check back soon because we will be updating it here for you soon;

Representative Sue Wallis

PO Box 71, Recluse, Wyoming 82725

I am writing to ask you to avoid legislation that would further impact the private property rights of livestock owners, including horses, to market their animals, or to transport them for any purpose, including for their processing to be used for food. I am also asking you to work proactively on behalf of the equine industry to not only oppose these efforts, but to encourage positive industry efforts within the United States. This is a touchy and emotional problem for a lot of people, and passions ride very high. Below are my own words which I hope will help you understand our position, and in fact, the great majority of people who actually own and work with horses every day.

I suspect that you have, and will receive a wealth of information from animal rights organizations with varying agendas that will try and the prohibit the use of horses as food animals, and the transportation for the purpose of processing horses by inflaming passions, manipulating images, and fabricating atrocities in order to achieve their purposes. Some are well-meaning folks who love their horses, and consider them to be companion animals-others are radical vegans who are trying to eliminate all animal agriculture. What I hope to do is provide you with some common sense information based on facts that reflects the true nature of the problem, and especially how devastating economically, and socially, this has been to the admittedly small population of the country, like myself and my family and neighbors, who still make our living primarily from animal agriculture.

First, at the heart of it, horses are livestock-just like cattle, pigs, and chickens. Since the dawn of time, horses have been an animal of many uses for humans, including food. A few of us still make our living with them, use them to run our cattle operations, and have for generations. Ours is a small family ranch, we are a diversified operation, and our primary product is grassfat organically raised beef. My family has been in the livestock business for six generations, and currently my brother raises and trains registered Belgian and Haflinger horses. In the past we have run a stud bunch in our summer country with a registered Quarter Horse stallion and anywhere from 10 to 20 mares. By far the vast majority of those colts became useful, valuable saddle and performance horses, or breeding stock-a few of them did not-some were dangerous outlaws, some were born with defects, some were injured in ways that made them unsound for use. We never imagined that we would be denied the ability to market these animals for their salvage value. This is exactly like telling a dairy farmer that he can’t sell a cow for beef when she doesn’t breed, or is past the age of optimum production.

Like most people who live and work with horses every day, I am absolutely compassionate. Those of us who have the ability to do so will generally allow those horses who have been with the family for a long time, to live out their old age in comfort, we call them "pensioners," and then put them down as painlessly and stress free as possible when they begin to suffer. Many horse owners don’t have the luxury that we do. You can’t bury a 1200 lb horse in your back yard like you would a dog or a cat…and in many places, it is illegal to do so even if you do have the country and the equipment to bury them.

The loss of secondary markets with the closure of the last horse processing facilities in the US, which was brought about by extremely well financed animal rights campaigns in Texas and Illinois, has decimated our industry nation-wide. A horse that brought $5,000 a few years ago will not bring $2,000 today-and that only if they are gentle, and trained. Those kind of horses generally go to people who have the resources to care for them, and to put them out of their misery when they are suffering. Unfortunately, there are many, many horses who will never be anybody’s pet. Most of the sale barns won’t even accept a horse these days unless they can sell them to somebody who will use them. If they are old, in poor condition, unrideable, or dangerous-and there are plenty of those, there are no alternatives. The auction barns are reporting that they can’t get any bids at all on brood mares, weanlings, and yearlings. Anyone with a horse trailer in the parking lot is likely to find strange horses tied to it and abandoned when they get ready to go home. The sale yards are having a serious problem with people just leaving horses in their pens.

We hear stories every day where horses are just dumped in somebody’s pasture-then it is your problem-you can’t take them to the sale, costs upwards of $300-$400 to put them down and dispose of them, the Humane Society of the United States won’t take them, the shelters are all full and out of money. Out here in the West, it is easy to just take them out to the desert and turn them loose, where people think that they will join the wild horses. In the first place, wild horses are vicious and brutal and have been known to seriously injure and kill strange horses. If they are lucky enough to be accepted by the wild bands, then we have even more of problem than we had before. Our brand inspectors report horses being taken out in the brush and shot, and having their brands skinned off of them so ownership can’t be traced. They found horses tied to a tree and left to starve. We recently received a report from the Wyoming Livestock Board that indicates that the number of abandoned horses that the State of Wyoming has had to deal with has doubled every year for the last two years, and where they used to be able to recoup their costs at the sale barn, now all the cost of feed and water while trying to determine ownership, and then euthanasia and disposal when they can’t, is just an extra burden on the taxpayer.

I know you may feel otherwise, and that is certainly your right, but I think it makes a lot of sense to use these excess horses for whatever good can be obtained. The majority of cultures in the world eat horse meat, and appreciate it for its healthy nutritional quality, taste, and affordability. It was widely eaten here in the US during World War II. There was a lack of beef at that time…mostly because of misguided federal actions as a result of the Depression. One little known fact is that when the cattle markets failed in the 1930s, the government decided that it was because there were too many cattle-not because the economy was ruined and nobody had any money to buy food. So, they forced ranchers to sell their cattle to the government for $1 per head, and then they dug huge pits, drove the cattle in there, killed them and covered them with lye so nobody could use the meat. What a waste. One of the things that many wondered then, and those of us who know about it still wonder…is why they didn’t provide that meat to all of those people who were starving all over the country? Would have made a lot more sense. The end result was, when the War occurred, there wasn’t enough beef in the country to feed the troops.

My brother and his family lived in Sicily for two years, and horse meat was on most of the menus there. My son, a graduate student, just visited Finland this summer for a conference, and reported that the horse meat they served him there was much better than either the reindeer steak with lingon berries, or the plate full of little fish deep fried whole. A recent news report from Iceland indicates that the frugal Icelanders, in the face of an economic downturn, are avoiding imported beers, and have doubled their purchases of horse meat, which is half of the price of beef. The fairly extensive Tongan population that lives in Salt Lake City prize horse meat, but finds it difficult to obtain. Tribes like the Apache seldom rode horses, and ate most that they caught. The point is, attitudes about eating horse meat vary widely, and in my opinion, it is incredibly culturally arrogant of a small crowd of well-financed animal rights fanatics, with I suspect an ambition to make all of us vegans, to try and make everyone conform to their ideas. They are very good at sensationalism, the more drama they can create around exaggerated and manipulated stories, and outright fabrications, the more effective they are. What we are trying to do is combat that with old-fashioned common sense. I do hope we have a chance at fighting our way through the blizzard of half truths and outright incendiary rhetoric.

If you or any of your colleagues would like more information, please ask them to contact me, and I will be happy to supply them with accurate information including, among other things, a graduate student dissertation that examines the BLM horse problem in what I believe to be an objective and sensible light. Rather than keep more than 30,000 horses in corrals and feed them hay at taxpayer expense, wouldn’t it make more sense to have them processed and feed hungry people? Most of the horses running on public lands are not Spanish mustangs, they are remnants of farm and ranch horses turned out for good in the 1940s when they were no longer needed for haying teams. In the northeastern Nevada valley where my husband was raised, for instance, all the ranches are tucked up along the base of the mountains where the water is. When haying was over everybody turned their horses out on the flat, and they ran in the hills on the other side all winter, and watered at springs there. In the Spring, the whole valley would get together and gather the horses, they would brand the colts, geld the yearling stud colts, and start training the three-year old geldings by hooking them to a mowing machine with an old experienced horse. They would turn the mares and colts back out with the stud-which they changed every few years so that they didn’t have a sire breeding his daughters. Well, with the advent of tractors and modern machinery, they didn’t need those horses any more, and so nobody bothered to gather them. Now, here we are with way too many of what are really nothing more than inbred feral horses destroying the range on the public lands.

Proponents of a ban on processing horses for food will claim that there is no market for horse meat in the United States, and that we should not be providing meat to foreign markets. A more accurate statement would be that most Americans do not eat horse meat. Since the vast majority of world cultures prize horse meat for its high nutritional quality and taste, and the United States is full of immigrants from those countries, there is, in fact a pretty good population who would purchase the meat if it was available. Since the closure of the last plant, we have, in fact, imported into the United States an increasing amount of horse meat from zero in 2003 and 2004, to over 500 metric tons in 2007. Most of that is going to zoo animals, because horse meat is the best commercially available meat for the diets of big cats. Some is going to ethnic markets. There is also a thriving global, export market for horse meat. This market will not disappear if US citizens are prohibited, it will merely shift to other sources, and the end result being that the livestock owners of the United States are denied their right to a viable market.

I sure don’t begrudge the people who are trying to raise money and rescue horses. Nor, do I object to those who are trying to work out alternatives, especially for horses that are people’s pets and who want to do the right thing by them. More power to them. But, it has become perfectly clear that there are far more horses than those outfits can possibly ever deal with, and without a market, the problem will become much, much worse. The fact is that those people who do not want to sell their horses for slaughter, when faced with a dismal economy, and one in which they may be facing foreclosure on their home, because the recovery facilities are already full and overwhelmed, have very, very few alternatives.

It is interesting to note that in one sector of the equine industry, thoroughbred race horses, there is a very visible and public chasm between a few very wealthy, and very high profile owners on one side, and practically everyone who actually deals with the horses themselves-the breeders, trainers, and jockeys-who are universally in support of humane processing for unusable horses.

An organization calling themselves Animal’s Angels has been widely broadcasting video footage allegedly obtained from a covert operation at a horse processing plant in Mexico in 2006. Why is this footage just now being released? And what, if any, extreme violations are being exposed? If you feel that the killing of animals for food is horrific, than of course, it is horrific-as someone who has butchered my own meat, I can tell you that the process is never pretty, and is always messy, but can and should be done with care and respect for the animals. Again, horses have been and continue to be an excellent source of high quality food for the vast majority of humans on the globe. By legislating away any viable market for horses in the US, you are not going to prevent horses from being eaten, you are just going to create a horrendous continuing problem in the US, and destroy the livelihoods of horse people nationwide.

This same organization has acquired through a federal release of information effort a number of photographs, and have posted them along with a few reports of court actions concerning injuries and improperly transported horses at the Beltex plant. While they are trying to use the images of injured animals to claim that the processing itself is cruel and inhumane, as a person who has worked around large animals for my entire life, and after going through all of the documents which they have posted on websites, I have come to several conclusions: 1) the photographs have all been detached from the inspector’s reports which I presume is an effort to insinuate that injuries documented were the result of intentional abuse; 2) some of the horses were obviously injured in transit, this is regrettable, but the fact is that horses, just like humans and any other living animal can and do get injured-sometimes horrifically-anyone who has ever worked in an emergency room, or on a rescue to automobile accidents will testify that the long bones in legs are actually quite fragile. What little documentation was left with the photographs indicated that the inspectors were doing their job. They documented the incident and insured that the horse was put out of its misery as quickly as possible; 3) horses come with varying degrees of temperament, and varying degrees of human interaction, both positive and negative-I suspect that most of the injuries around horses heads were self inflicted by horses throwing a fit inside of a closed spaces like a horse trailer; 4) some of the horses had old injuries, which I presume meant that the owners were trying to salvage some bit of value out of the livestock-in cases where they were not able to put weight on all four feet, which is against the law, it was clear that the inspectors had not only documented the violation, but there was evidence that action had been taken against the shippers; 5) in a few cases, a shipment arrived at the plant with an animal down, and for no obvious reason-if it was still alive, the inspectors ordered them euthanized immediately…all in all, what I saw was evidence that the inspectors were doing their job.

Right now we can still ship horses to Canada and Mexico. If we lose these markets, too, then there is no hope. There have been horrific reports from Mexico, and some of that may be true, although many of us suspect that this, too, is being exaggerated and manipulated in order to forward an anti-slaughter agenda. So far as I know, there have been no complaints from Canada. I know people who were very, very distressed when the plant in Dekalb was shut down, because when they had a horse, or horses, that were going to be sold they preferred to haul them to Illinois in their own trailer and deliver them directly to the plant-that way they knew exactly how they were transported and handled-and they were very impressed by the facilities and the professionalism of the processors. Those of us in the livestock business have no illusions about the facts of life, or death, and we know the importance of ensuring that the slaughter process is as quick, painless, and stress free as possible. I personally would much prefer to ship horses to a processing plant here in the States where I know it is regulated and done right.

Were processing facilities to be opened in the United States, as I hope and pray that they do, I would hope that they would be built with the kind of facilities like those that have been developed with the assistance of Dr. Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Dr. Grandin’s designs have been widely incorporated into the beef and pork processing industries and have greatly improved the humane handling and welfare of livestock. There is no reason why the same principles could not be used for the processing of horses.

Ending the ability of horse owners to sell their unusable horses anywhere, or to transport them to places where they could be sold, is a huge and horrible mistake which in the end will only make a bad problem much, much worse. I do hope that I have caused you to consider the plight of so many of us who make our livings with horses from a different perspective, and I hope that you will contact me if you have any questions or concerns. This is of huge concern to rural America, to animal agriculture, to all facets of the equine industry, and to horse owners everywhere.

Most of all, we would greatly appreciate your restraint in promoting legislation that would further intensify the demise of the equine industry in the United States.

Sincerely,

Sue Wallis