US Group To Take Campaign to End the Slaughter of Horses for Food to England

Last week we wrote about the slaughter of thoroughbred horses in England for food. You can read about it here:
http://geari.blogspot.com/2006/10/
dirty-little-secret-of-horse-racing_02.html

And, we’ve written extensively about the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, an act put forth in the US to end the slaughter of horses for food. Unfortunately, as is typical in US politics, it is stalled and it’s future uncertain. You can read about the bill here: http://geari.blogspot.com/2006/07/more-on-us-
horse-slaughter-legislation_26.html

These efforts will eventually pay off. Most people are against killing horses, no matter the cause.


Article:

Campaign to outlaw horse killings

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/
0,,1890414,00.html

US group steps in after The Observer reveals 7,000 young thoroughbreds are shot every year

Antony Barnett
Sunday October 8, 2006
The Observer

One of America's leading animal welfare groups is to launch a major campaign in Britain next year aimed at outlawing the slaughter of horses in this country to be exported for human consumption.

Last week, an Observer investigation revealed that as many as 7,000 horses a year are shot in two UK abattoirs. We disclosed how their throats are slit, their bodies hanged upside down and skinned before they are butchered to be sold across the Channel as gourmet meat. Many are thoroughbreds that have finished racing or never made the grade. The disclosure shocked many people in the animal world.

Now the US-based International Fund for Horses aims to make such killings illegal. It has been one of the major campaigners behind the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act in America, which has wide support across both the Republican and Democrat parties and is close to becoming law.

Its celebrity supporters include Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Bo Derek, Whoopi Goldberg, Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, Daryl Hannah and Paul McCartney.

The fund president, Vivian Farrell, said: 'When we started in the US many people simply didn't believe it was going on. The same is the case in the UK. Now thanks to articles like those in The Observer it cannot be ignored ... Whatever is successful in America we will attempt to use as a template for our efforts to get it banned in Britain.

'We are also working on a media campaign to make it socially unacceptable in the public imagination to eat horsemeat, using celebrities and events, the same way it was done with respect to cigarette smoking, to decrease demand. We are optimistic and committed. We will see this [through] to the end.'

Supporting its US campaign, Paul McCartney said: 'In this new century I think it is horrific and slightly strange to realise that horses, traditionally man's friend, are still being transported and slaughtered for human consumption.'

Republican Representative John Sweeney, who sponsored the Act in the US, said: 'It's one of the most inhumane, brutal and shady practices going on in the United States today.' More than 90,000 horses are slaughtered each year in the US.

In the Observer investigation, one owner of an abattoir in Nantwich, Cheshire, was recorded by an undercover reporter claiming that it killed between 2,000 and 3,000 racehorses a year. Later the company said the total was closer to several hundred.

While the racing industry has always tried to play down what happens to the 4,000 horses that retire each year from the sport, The Observer proved that many ended up on dinner plates. Even the bodies that regulate the industry have been forced to admit that over the last five years thousands of racehorses have been slaughtered in the UK for food.

The US animal welfare group is convinced its new campaign, which it plans to start early next year, will garner huge public and political support.

Yet a move to outlaw the slaughter of horses for meat in Britain could face opposition. In the US, the ban was opposed by the American Veterinary Medical Association which feared rescue shelters would be swamped with hundreds of thousands of unwanted animals, while others would be sold to unregulated slaughterhouses overseas and brutalised.

A similar fear is shared by Tory MP James Gray, president of the Association of British Riding Schools. He opposes live exports but warned: 'The danger is that people will find a way round. Whether we like it or not, there is a huge demand for the meat across the Channel.'

Animal charities would like the multi-billion-pound racing industry to spend far more on providing places for retired horses. It spends only £250,000 a year on retraining 90 animals. Although some thoroughbreds are retrained for polo, hunting or other activities, many are unsuitable for general riding.

The British Horseracing Board, which governs the industry, said there was no evidence that a ban was necessary.

'We work closely with animal welfare groups like the RSPCA and the International League for the Protection of Horses. Unfortunately some horses need to be put down, for example if they are injured.

'Our concern is simply they are put down in the most humane way possible. We do not have a view what happens after that.'