Horse slaughter houses will again be opening in the United States, but the outcry from activists may not come as loudly as one would expect.
Horse slaughtering is again on the table in the United States.
Funding for inspection of horse slaughter houses was ended in 2006, which basically shut them down. This was done with the idea that more horse rescues would follow. However, that is unfortunately not what happened.
Patty Livingston, a horse rescuer in Bethlehem, GA, and president of the Georgia Equine Rescue League, spoke with 11Alive News in Atlanta about the controversial move of putting horse slaughterhouses back in business in the United States, supported by Congress and President Obama. The bill was sent to the president this month; he signed it on Nov. 18, allowing the slaughterhouses to get back to business in the U.S.
But, Livingston indicated that, horrible as it seems, it is the best of the options out there right now. “In 2006 I actually voted to shut them down, not knowing what that was going to mean for our horses,” she said.
The collapse of the economy led to more horse abuse, Livingston indicated, and abandonment has increased—as much as 60 percent in Colorado, she said, leading to rescue groups becoming overwhelmed and unable to deal with the problem of abandoned and abused horses in the United States.
Slaughter houses in Canada and Mexico have continued to demand horse meat since the U.S. slaughter houses shut down five years ago. So, many old and abandoned horses have been taken across the borders for slaughter—under less humane conditions, Congressman Jack Kingston (R-Savannah) pointed out to 11Alive News.
“In those facilities, particularly in Mexico, the USDA has no jurisdiction and we don’t know what kind of facilities they are, if the horses are treated humanely,” Rep. Kingston said.
Rep. Kingston did vote to allow horse slaughter houses to reopen, as did various Congressmen from both sides of the political aisle, allowing the bill to be signed by President Obama.
Surprisingly, some horse rescuers, like Livingston, do support the move as the lesser of the evils.
“The cruelty that they endure now is ten times worse than they ever endured when we had slaughter houses in this country,” Livingston explained to 11Alive News.
There are over 9 million horses in the United States today; just over one percent, approximately 125,000 are slaughtered each year.