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Last year, 53,947 horses were shipped from the United States to Mexico for slaughter. That marks a 26% decrease from 2018 when 70,708 horses designated for slaughter were transported across the southern U.S. border, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Market News Livestock Export Summary.
Efforts to open new horse slaughter plants have been unsuccessful, partly because of legislation denying funds for federal inspections of such operations. Nevertheless, thousands of U.S. horses have been exported to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. Canada and Mexico are two of the main exporters of horse meat to Europe. At least 85% of horses slaughtered at European Union–approved Canadian horse slaughterhouses originated in the United States, and 50% of the horse meat produced from those animals was exported to the EU. Federal data on the number of horses transported to Canada annually aren’t available. However, the advocacy organization Animals’ Angels estimated that 12,273 U.S. horses were imported by Canada for slaughter in 2017. California, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, and New York have enacted laws against horse slaughter and eating horse meat. Source: AVMA
While the Chinese government has announced a temporary ban on the trade of wild animals and the closure of all wildlife markets across the country, donkey skins continue to be exported to the country at a high rate. “Over the last decade, there’s been a large increase in demand for Ejiao within medicinal and beauty products and this has had a devastating knock-on effect for global donkey populations,” Brooke’s veterinary adviser, Laura Skippen, says. Kenya has been hit the hardest, but it is a crisis across the continent. Conditions within the legal donkey skin trade still regularly contravene the international OIE standards for humane slaughter and transport of animals. The illegal trade poses even greater welfare risks with donkeys transported for days without food or water. Methods of illegal slaughter are completely inhumane and also pose huge human health risks, with donkey carcasses not being disposed of correctly, which is a public health concern. The trade of donkey skins has been linked to the spread of disease before. In early 2019, equine influenza affected donkeys across seven West African countries, with up to 62,000 animals dying in Niger alone. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) suggested the outbreak may have been a consequence of the unregulated global movement and trading of donkeys for their skins. Brooke has also voiced fears for the spread of zoonotic diseases such as anthrax – which can pass between animals and humans. Some countries, such as Senegal and Uganda, have responded by banning the export of donkey skins, but others, including Kenya, have kept the trade legal, meaning donkeys are being smuggled from neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania. All this is leading to a sharp decline in donkey populations and a catastrophic effect on communities. Source: Horsetalk
 The Bureau of Land Management appears to have adopted acting chief William Perry Pendley's position that the growing number of wild horses and burros is perhaps the biggest threat to the health of federal rangelands. President Trump's proposed fiscal 2021 budget requests Congress provide an additional $15.3 million for BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program — to $116.8 million from $101.5 million in the current budget cycle.
BLM estimates there are more than 88,000 wild horses and burros trampling federal herd management areas — more than three times the number of animals the rangelands can sustain without damaging vegetation, soils and other resources. Pendley has said the 88,000 wild horses and burros in the West pose an "existential threat" to federal rangelands.
Congress appears to agree the issue is worthy of additional funding. Congress allocated $101.5 million in fiscal 2020 for BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program, which was roughly $21 million more than in fiscal 2019. But appropriators withheld $21 million for the program in fiscal 2020 until 60 days "after the Bureau submits a comprehensive and detailed plan for an aggressive, non-lethal population control strategy". Congress requested the plan from BLM early last year; it directed that, among other things, BLM outline specific strategies, and the estimated costs, to reduce herd sizes. That plan was due to Congress last August; BLM is expected to finalize and submit the plan in the coming weeks. Pendley has estimated it will cost $5 billion and take 15 years to reduce growing herds on federal rangelands to sustainable levels Source: E&E News |
TOPICS+ Horse Slaughter
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