Horse slaughter houses to open again

[Perkele!]

Link to the story

[singleshot]

Doesn't piss me off. Maybe people who can't afford 14 dollar a bale hay will have a place to take them instead of turning them loose in Unit 1 among other places.

[rcdinaz]

Good point!

[Perkele!]

We created the $14/bale monster.

 

With 6 horses to feed it's getting out of control.

A friend of mine brought a whole semi load from the East Coast, even after the delivery expenses he ended up saving more than 50%.

 

I'm with you on turning the horses lose issue but have you ever been to a slaughter auction ? I have.

[yotebuster]

This is the best news I've heard in weeks!

[ThomC]

Animal control is filling up our landfill with good chinese food every day.

[The Coues]

We were talking about this in my AG class the other day and I dont see how it is any different than slaughtering a Beef? People say it is different because people think of them as pets but I have many friends who have cows and they are more of pets than a horse, shoot there is even people who have saddled up cows and trained them to ride like a horse. As long as they arent cruel to them I dont care.... But that is just my $0.02!!

[CouesWhitetail]

What upsets you about this? Horses are livestock like any number of animals we kill and eat. Certainly horses are beautiful animals and have a lot of value as work animals and even as pets, but some people value pigs and turkeys as pets and we still eat them. Wild (feral) horses are non-native animals that cause real problems with managing habitat for wildlife.

[CouesWhitetail]

Here is a link to a fact sheet about Feral Horses put out by the professional wildlife biologist society The Wildlife Society(of which I am a member).

 

http://joomla.wildlife.org/documents/policy/feral_horses_1.pdf

[bradne]

As mentioned above, there is no difference in slaughtering beef and horses. I will say I love horses. Unfortunately there are way too many of them in some places. Check out craigslist and you will see quite a few people trying to get rid of their horses. This is due to the high cost of feed right now and the fact that not many people have enough pasture to keep a "retired" horse. Unfortunately when the bills need to get paid, the horses are often the first to suffer. Right now there are very few "horse sanctuarys" that are willing to take in older horses. The state of Arizona in the last few years have had a significant increase in "starving horse" cases due to these issues. I am sure that most others would agree that putting the animal out of his misery HUMANLY is much better than letting it starve to death.

 

As someone else has mentioned Unit 1 has a lot of loose horses. While they are officially "wild mustangs", in reality they are feral horses. They are not really native to the area (in the last couple of thousand years at least) and are the decendents of ranch horses that either escaped or were let loose years ago. Back in the 1800's the U.S. Army let loose a lot of draft horses in the western states in an effort to let them breed with the existing horses on the range. The idea is that the offspring in the future would be slower and in turn would allow the calvary to keep up with the indians that were using these horses (very long term plan). Mustangs were always considered a "smaller horse". I have seen "mustangs" that were almost 17 hands high due to their breeding with the draft stock. They were also extremly nimble and fairly quick which goes to show you that the best laid plans sometimes backfire.

 

If you hunt in an area where there are a lot of feral horses (like parts of Unit 1) you will notice a lot of range destruction. These horses do basically nothing but eat grass (competing with the elk) and dropping manure all over the place (there are literally huge piles of it in places), they tend to cut their own trails in places which in turn leads to erosion.

 

Most of these are bands of mares led by a stallion. The stallions can be pretty mean if they consider you to be a threat to the mares. I have had them stand outside of camp and whinny, call and stomp because they were upset at the "intruders". I am sure that these horses will still be protected by the Wild Horse and Burro act and will not be sent to the slaughter house, but that it is the same attitude that keeps these animals overpopulating the range.

 

Again, I love horses, and I am sure that there will be some that disagree with my view, however I recognize that there are times when we need to thin the herd and if run humanly the slaughterhouse is a good way to do it.

[Perkele!]

Try roping off of a cow, or work cattle off of a pig.

Try putting Border Patrol officers on a sheep instead of the BLM Mustangs they are getting issued instead of the dirt bikes.

 

I guees we'll agree to disagree.

[bradne]

I am a huge believer in the BLM Mustang Program for BP. Some excellent horses are coming out of that program (I deal with the program very closely). No one is saying to go and exterminate all of the mustangs. The problem is that even if you issued every BP agent a horse (give him two even), you have barly put a dent in the feral horse population and it still does not deal with the problem of starving domesticated horses and no place to put them.

 

You indicate you have some horses. Are they adopted from BLM? If not then I encourage you to look into the program. When we get to the point of being so short of working horses that we are working cattle while riding pigs then I guess we will have to let the breeding stock of feral horses build up.

[coueshunter84]

Way more positives to this then negatives. Glad they finally came to their senses in at least one subject.

[Pine Donkey]

Here is a link to a fact sheet about Feral Horses put out by the professional wildlife biologist society The Wildlife Society(of which I am a member).

 

http://joomla.wildlife.org/documents/policy/feral_horses_1.pdf

 

Amanda,

 

Thanks for posting this article. It is always easy to fall on emotion as a basis of decision making, but when it overrides science, long term or permanant damage will be the result.

 

I know of several people looking to give away horses right now because they can't afford them. It is a sad sign of out economy, but it is a current reality. I love horses however, I don't want to see other species suffer due to their presence. As with most things, balance is needed.

[tylerd]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I respect that. With that said, however, from the facts posted by Amanda we see that 63.9 million dollars was spent in 2010 managing "wild" horses. It was reported in the recent media that in 2005 before the repeal of federal funding for the inspection of horse slaughter that it was a $64 million a year industry. It is ironic that these figures are so close. We have gone from a $64 million economic boost (largely based upon exports) to the opposite in management. To me at this point with our struggling economy we must make financial decisions and swallow some of our emotions.

Tyler