Wild horses sold by US later ending up at slaughterhouses?

[trailmonkee]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by muriel_volestrangler (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: NBC News


Wild horses scour the ground for strands of hay during an adoption event put on by the Bureau of Land Management in Albuquerque, N.M., in 2009.

The Bureau of Land Management faced a crisis this spring. The agency protects and manages herds of wild horses that still roam the American West, rounding up thousands of them each year to keep populations stable.

But by March, government pens and pastures were nearly full. Efforts to find new storage space had fallen flat. So had most attempts to persuade members of the public to adopt horses. Without a way to relieve the pressure, the agency faced a gridlock that would invite lawsuits and potentially cause long-term damage to the range.

So the BLM did something it has done increasingly over the last few years. It turned to a little-known Colorado livestock hauler named Tom Davis who was willing to buy hundreds of horses at a time, sight unseen, for $10 a head.

The BLM has sold Davis at least 1,700 wild horses and burros since 2009, agency records show [1] -- 70 percent of the animals purchased through its sale program.

Like all buyers, Davis signs contracts promising that animals bought from the program will not be slaughtered and insists he finds them good homes.

But Davis is a longtime advocate of horse slaughter. By his own account, he has ducked Colorado law to move animals across state lines and will not say where they end up. He continues to buy wild horses for slaughter from Indian reservations, which are not protected by the same laws. And since 2010, he has been seeking investors for a slaughterhouse of his own.

"Hell, some of the finest meat you will ever eat is a fat yearling colt," he said. "What is wrong with taking all those BLM horses they got all fat and shiny and setting up a kill plant?"

Animal welfare advocates fear that horses bought by Davis are being sent to the killing floor.

Read more: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/29/14153296-wild-horses-sold-by-us-later-ending-up-at-slaughterhouses?lite

[Live and Learn]

1. That is awful. nt

[Hestia]

2. Yes, it is awful! Watched a documentary on the horses and they are so majestic

and beautiful and wild. Why is that ranchers who don't pay jack get to put their cattle on OUR lands but the horses can't stay because they vie for the same food source? It seems that people love the west, as long as they can make a dime off it. This is so sad and sickening. I know some people who have adopted the horses and burros. Beautiful creatures.

[MercutioATC]

3. If he's breaking the terms of his contract, terminate the contract.

If they don't want the horses that they can't take of slaughtered, find an alternative.

Otherwise, how are horses different than cows...or pigs...or sheep? As distasteful as some people who romanticize horses may find it, horses are meat.

[awoke_in_2003]

5. +1...

extremely stupid meat, too.

[littlemissmartypants]

4. ."Since when is anything in this country done legal?" He said talking about the USA...

There have been no horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. since 2007, when Congress barred funding for U.S. Department of Agriculture horse meat inspectors. Since then horse slaughter has been outsourced. A 2011 report by the General Accountability Office [10] found the export of horses for slaughter to Mexico shot up 660 percent after the ban.
In Eagle Pass, as at other crossings, slaughter horses are checked by USDA veterinarians. A USDA spokeswoman refused to make veterinarians available for interviews, but confirmed that vets sometimes see wild horses bearing the BLM brand in slaughter export pens.
Brand documents leave almost 1,000 of Davis’s wild horses unaccounted for. That means they should still be within 75 miles of his residence -- if he has complied with state law.
Asked if this was the case, Davis first said the horses were still on 160 acres of land he leases from the state of Colorado. Then he said some had been shipped out of state without brand inspections, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
"Since when is anything in this country done legal?" Davis said in a phone interview.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/29/14153296-wild-horses-sold-by-us-later-ending-up-at-slaughterhouses?lite

[4th law of robotics]

6. They're an invasive species and there is no moral difference

between eating a horse or a cow.

Banning horse slaughter here was a stupid decision made by emotional people who didn't understand the reality of the situation.

"oh they're soo cute and majestic" isn't the basis of sound policy.

[spotbird]

9. Members of Congress from the most Ruby Red states

grease the hands of political their "Christian" benefactors by insuring there is an endless flow of horses to tend at taxpayer expense. These are the same people who would allow humans to suffer and die for want of adequate medical care.

It is scandalous, and a well kept secret.

It's nice to see that someone else knows the truth of it.

[daleo]

10. Technically, cattle are an invasive species, too

Horses and cattle were both brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Horses were roaming the west and being ridden by natives in the 1700's. On that basis, they probably have a better claim on being non-invasive than cattle.

Bison are a different story.

As for eating horses versus cattle, I tend to agree that there isn't much of a moral distinction, at least one that can be argued on non-sentimental grounds. But I think there should be space for wild horses in the west.

[MercutioATC]

11. Fron a completely non-logical position, I agree.

I have no problem with horse being a meat.

That said, I think it'd be good to have a place for wild horses in the west.

(to anybody that links to places in the west where wild horses are protected, I'm agreeing with you. I'm just stating that I think it's a good idea and I don't have enough personal investment in the issue to look it up)

[roody]

12. I am a vegetarian and

I agree about the ethical part.

[Trillo]

7. Trap, neuter, release?

Is it working with feral cats? Cats aren't horses, so probably there would be differences between how it might work, how horses colonize in the wild.

[spotbird]

8. They're an invasive, damaging and expensive boondoggle.

This guy should honor his contract, but destroying the animals is a humane and sensible solution. The current system is a tragic waste to taxpayers and the environment. A few ranchers do very, very well feeding from the government trough, a luxury the rest of the country can't afford as we cut care for needy humans.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Locking - not Latest Breaking News

This is a feature, republished from propublica.com a day earlier. Please feel free to post in Good Reads or General Discussion.