The National Horse Protection League has initiated a petition calling upon American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and AVMA President Gregory Hammer to support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act pending in Congress.

Please take a moment to sign the petition and leave a comment for Dr. Hammer to let him know it is time for the AVMA to call for a ban on this brutally cruel practice of horse slaughter.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/959750520

(Also, take Animal Law Coalition's poll on horse slaughter to the left of this page.) 

The AVMA has been disingenuous on the issue of horse slaughter, claiming on the one hand it is not pro-slaughter and stating on the other hand, that slaughter is a necessary, humane solution for  all of the unwanted horses.

There is nothing "humane" about horse slaughter.  The AVMA knows this. The captive bolt gun used in the U.S. slaughterhouses did not typically render horses senseless before slaughter.

As John Holland has explained, "In its 2000 report on methods of Euthanasia, the AVMA stated that the captive bolt gun should not be used on equines unless head restraint could be assured. This is because of the relatively narrow forehead of equines, their head shyness and the fact that the brain is set back further than in cattle for which the gun is intended. It is difficult for an operator to assure proper placement of the gun.

"No slaughter house ever found a practical way to restrain the heads of the horses, so by the AVMA's very definition, the process was not acceptable. The result was a very large number of ineffective stuns. These misplaced blows undoubtedly caused severe pain until a stunning or fatal blow was delivered. "

Imagine the pain and terror experienced by horses as bolts were repeatedly fired at their heads many times by untrained operators.  To see a captive bolt gun, go see the movie "No Country for Old Men".

Many times these horses were still conscious as they were then hoisted upside down for slaughter.

What is particularly disturbing is that because it was obvious horse slaughter could not be made humane according to the standards in its 2000 Report, AVMA simply changed the requirements in its 2007 Euthanasia Report! In that report the AVMA removed any mention that horses' heads should be immobilized during use of the captive bolt gun. That pesty requirement that slaughterhouses ignored anyway simply got in the way of the AVMA's campaign to convince Congress and the public that horse slaughter is "humane". Now the AVMA is effectively telling Congress and the public that it is humane euthanasia for an untrained operator to fire metal bolts at a horse's unrestrained head until it is more or less unconscious and then, still alive and perhaps even conscious, subjected to the slaughtering process.  

(For more information on the brutality of horse slaughter in the U.S., click here to read the July 25, 2006 testimony of Christopher J. Heyde, Deputy Legislative Director for Animal Welfare Institute, before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

The AVMA has been particularly active in disseminating the myth that if horse slaughter is banned, there will be large numbers of unwanted, abandoned horses.  (Even if that were true, it is not clear how substituting one form of cruelty for another is somehow a solution.) 

As if a multi-million dollar a year industry is driven by unwanted horses.  The AVMA knows that horse slaughter is not a program of humane euthanasia for unwanted horses. Horse slaughter is driven by a demand for horse meat.  Kill buyers buy horses at auction for slaughter. Many times people selling horses at auction are unaware or don't intend for the horses to end up in the slaughter house. Without the kill buyers who skulk around horse auctions buying horses for slaughter, most of these horses would be purchased by others or end up in rescues or sanctuaries.  

As John Holland, a free lance writer and researcher on horse slaughter, has explained, "Kill buyers do not go around the country like dog catchers gathering ‘unwanted horses' as a public service." That is because kill buyers are not looking for the unwanted or abused or neglected horses. They are looking for healthy horses that can be slaughtered for horsemeat, a delicacy in parts of Europe and Asia. The USDA has said over 92% of American horses slaughtered, are healthy. 

Also, the horse slaughter industry actually encourages the over breeding of horses. Because owners can make money from the brutal slaughter of their horses, they have an incentive to over breed.   If the slaughter of horses for human consumption is illegal, there is no reward for over breeding.  

Pet Abuse.com actually reported a decrease in horse abuse and neglect cases following closure of the last U.S. horse slaughter house in 2007.

Historically, there have not been increases in abandoned, neglected or abused horses following closures of horse slaughter houses. In 2002 the Illinois slaughter house burned to the ground and was out of commission for some time.  Reports of abandoned, abused and neglected horses in the Illinois area were actually on the rise in the 2 years before the fire but decreased afterwards.

The number of horses slaughtered in the U.S. dropped significantly from over 300,000 annually in the 1990s to 66,000 in 2004.  There was no notable increase during that time of abandoned, abused or neglected horses.

As Americans Against Horse Slaughter puts it, "The ‘surplus horse population' [argument] is a scare tactic."  

About 920,000 horses die each year in the U.S.  As AAHS points out, "Just over 100,000 horses were slaughtered in the U.S. in 2006. If slaughter were no longer an option and these horses were rendered or buried instead, it would represent a small increase in the number of horse being disposed of in this manner  - an increase that the current infrastructure can certainly sustain. Humane euthanasia and carcass disposal is highly affordable and widely available. The average cost of having a horse humanely euthanized and safely disposing of the animal's carcass is approximately $225, while the average monthly cost of keeping a horse is approximately $200."

Click here for a look at the many false reports planted in the media to try to convince the public horse slaughter is necessary to prevent large numbers of unwanted, abandoned horses.

Also, click here to read Deleting the Fiction: Abandoned Horses and here to read Deleting the Fiction: Abandoned Horses, Part II

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For an excellent discussion by John Holland that debunks the myths disseminated by the AVMA about horse slaughter, click here.  

For more information on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act and how you can get political for the horses and help pass this bill, click here and here.