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U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and John Katko (R-NY) took the lead in an effort to keep horse slaughter plants shuttered on U.S. soil.  In a letter sent to key leaders of Appropriations Committees, they urged for a continued restriction on the use of taxpayer funds for horse slaughter operations in the United States. This provision was included in both the House Fiscal Year 2021 agriculture appropriations bill and the administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Request. This is a continuation of overwhelmingly popular policy that has been in place each year since Fiscal Year 2014 and for all but two years since 2005. This provision is necessary to stop the return of the predatory horse slaughter industry in America. At a time when Congress faces difficult budgetary decisions to help Americans through the COVID-19 pandemic, expending limited funds to bolster a foreign owned industry should not be one of them. Horse slaughter is an inherently cruel practice that 80% of Americans want to see permanently banned. Beyond fiscal concerns, flesh from American horses is not fit for human consumption. Equines are not considered food animals in the U.S. and therefore are not raised under the regulatory restrictions of animals used for that purpose. Throughout their lives, they routinely receive drugs and medications that are specifically banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in food animals due to their toxicity to humans. 85 additional U.S. Representatives signed the letter, sending a strong message to leadership that horse slaughter plants are not welcome in the USA and not one penny of taxpayer money should be allocated to fund them.
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
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TOPICS+ Horse Slaughter
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