The American Horse Slaughter Protection Act took effect in the United States on March 10.
This law followed the initiative of the American Horse Defense Fund to shut down foreign-owned horse slaughter plants in the U.S. Horse meat is highly sought after in Europe, particularly in France and Belgium.
The bill prohibited federal funding for inspection of horses before slaughter. This inspection is necessary for horse meat that is intended for human consumption. However, in February the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced an interim rule establishing a voluntary fee-for-service horse inspection program. It allows the three U.S. plants to continue processing horses for human consumption. This unsettled the act’s advocates, undermining their intent to stop horse slaughter.
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More than 100,000 horses are slaughtered each year in North America. They are horses deemed no longer useful to their owners.
On the Prairies a few horses are produced for the slaughter market, but the majority were born with no intention of being slaughtered for horse meat. The life expectancy of horses is about 30 years, but the average lifespan of a horse in North America is 11 years. Good horse handlers will tell you that after the horse’s first decade, it is just beginning to reach its prime.
Because horse slaughter statistics might be manipulated to conform to the agendas of certain groups, I undertook some grassroots sleuthing and visited with meat buyers.
The fellows I met were insightful, informative and compassionate. I asked them where these unwanted horses came from and their sense was that the horses going to slaughter generally fell into one of three groups:
- Roughly 20 percent were aged or spent horses that looked the part. They were ill and had swayed backs and neglected feet.
- Roughly 40 percent were from the pregnant mare urine industry. I assumed incorrectly that these were expired mares. Some were, but the majority were young horses that had been bought as foals at PMU fall production sales.
They were inexpensive horses bought by inexperienced horse owners. After several years, the horses were no longer wanted. Some were even labelled as dangerous to humans. This was beneficial for the slaughter industry because someone else picked up the tab of feeding the horses for two to four years until they were a reasonable size for slaughter.
- The remaining 40 percent were unsound four- and five-year-old horses. The meat buyers said these young horses were judged unsound in either body or mind and were no longer useful. This judgment came from the owners and not the meat buyers.
What happens to change a wanted horse into an unwanted horse? We might speculate that the financial responsibility of owning a 1,000 pound animal surprises and burdens some owners. Possibly the ignorance of the actual facts of horsemanship and caring for horses results in unsound horses and unsatisfied owners.
It might also be that appropriate supervision is unavailable to guide willing horse owners out of those stormy and confusing places to a point where they can enjoy the horse.
Laying fault, blame and unreasonable expectations upon young horses does not serve the horses or the owners.
Whatever the circumstances, these unwanted horses in North America are conveniently found wanted and useful by folks across the waters.
They have given them a purpose at their table.
Carol Shwetz is a veterinarian practising in Westlock, Alta.
