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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Exports of Horses for Slaughter Surge
 Star-Telegram.com
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| | With the only three horse-slaughter plants in the U.S. closed, the industry has turned to Mexico and Canada to kill horses for their meat, largely for export abroad for diners. |
A surge in exports of unwanted horses across the border for slaughter has horrified animal-welfare advocates, who say they will redouble efforts for a law to ban shipments of horses to Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses.
Court rulings this year closed the only three American horse-slaughter plants, including facilities in Fort Worth and Kaufman.
Since January, so-called killer buyers who purchase unwanted horses at auctions have shipped 48,000 horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. U.S. exports to Mexican slaughterhouses are up by 369 percent, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
On Sunday, the Express-News chronicled the crude method used to kill horses at a plant in Juarez, Mexico, where workers stab horses in the spine until they are disabled.
The horses are then strung up from a hind leg, and their throats are slit.
The grim story prompted outrage from activists and congressmen who have tried to ban slaughter through the Horse Protection Act.
"If members of Congress saw these photos and read the story, I think we'd get some immediate action," said U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, a horse-slaughter opponent.
The Humane Society of the United States criticized the Texas Department of Agriculture for allowing companies to use taxpayer-funded pens to help get the horses to slaughter.
The group planned to hold a news conference today to show video collected at the pens and at a Ciudad Juarez slaughter plant. It is pushing for a national ban on the shipment or export of horses for slaughter.
More than 100,000 U.S. horses were slaughtered last year for overseas consumption, according to government figures.
About 15,000 fewer horses overall have been slaughtered this year, but exports to the foreign slaughterhouses are way up.
In August, the House passed a $91 billion farm and nutrition spending bill that would make it illegal to transport or export horses for human consumption. The Senate has not voted on its version of the bill.
Another Senate bill protecting horses from slaughter was approved in committee, and a House version is pending in committee.
"The state should have absolutely no role in facilitating slaughter given the existence of a statute that forbids the practice," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States.
Beverly Boyd, spokeswoman for the agriculture department, said the agency's pens are a rest stop for animals headed to Mexico and South America.
She said the agency is required by law to accept all animals as long as state and federal laws and the department's pen policies are followed.
Animals eat, drink and rest at the pens after traveling hundreds of miles.
They also are examined by Mexican veterinarians before being shipped south. The agency has several pens along the border for livestock being exported to Mexico.
"A lot of these animals going into Mexico or Canada have traveled a long distance. You don't want them on the trucks all the time," Boyd said.
A 1949 Texas law bans the sale or possession of horse meat for human consumption or transferring horse meat so it can be sold for human consumption.
The law doesn't address live animals. The Humane Society used that state law to successfully sue for the shutdown of a Beltex Corp. slaughter plant in Fort Worth and a Dallas Crown plant in Kaufman.
Sunday's newspaper report documented conditions at a municipal plant in Juarez, where horses were hacked to death with knives, rather than stunned with the captive bolt guns that were common at the U.S. horse-slaughter plants. The puntilla method appears to be standard at older slaughterhouses throughout Mexico.
Those who lobbied unsuccessfully to keep horse-slaughter plants open in the U.S. say they warned their opponents that horses would suffer far more if the plants were closed and the animals were exported.
About four to six trucks carrying about 30 horses each were arriving at the state pens, said Kathy Milani, the Humane Society of the United States' vice president for investigations and video.
Beltex Corp. was delivering the loads. Beltex also runs a Panhandle feedlot in Morton, about 370 miles west of Fort Worth. Truck drivers also told the animal protection group's employees that they had driven from Morton.
Beltex did not respond to phone messages requesting comment.
This report includes material from the San Antonio Express-News and The Associated Press.
Nations Help Horses Get to Slaughter
Suzanne Gamboa - Associated Press
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Washington - Horses are filling some state-owned livestock pens along the Texas-Mexico border before they head to a grisly slaughter for their meat in Mexico.
With the only three horse-slaughter plants in the U.S. closed, the industry has turned to Mexico and Canada to kill horses for their meat, largely for export abroad for diners.
As of this week, the U.S. had exported 20,196 horses from Texas for slaughter in Mexico this year. That's up from 1,109 over the same period last year, U.S. Agriculture Department statistics show.
Through the week of Sept. 22, the latest date for which statistics were available, 29,741 horses had been exported to Mexico for slaughter from Texas and New Mexico, compared with 6,331 for the same period last year. Arizona and California showed no exports of horses for slaughter.
The Humane Society of the United States criticized the Texas Department of Agriculture for allowing companies to use taxpayer-funded pens to help get the horses to slaughter.
The group planned to hold a news conference Thursday to show video collected at the pens and a Ciudad Juarez slaughter plant. It is pushing for a national ban on the shipment or export of horses for slaughter.
The House in August passed a $91 billion farm and nutrition spending bill that would make it illegal to transport or export horses for slaughter so their meat could be eaten by people. The Senate has not voted on its version of the bill. Another Senate bill protecting horses from slaughter was approved in committee, and a House version is pending in committee.
"The state should have absolutely no role in facilitating slaughter, given the existence of a statute that forbids the practice," said Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States.
A 1949 Texas law bans the sale or possession of horse meat for human consumption or transferring horse meat so it can be sold for human consumption.
The law doesn't address live animals.
The Humane Society used that state law to successfully sue for the shutdown of a Beltex Corp.-owned horse-slaughter plant near Fort Worth and a Dallas Crown plant in Kaufman.
An Illinois law, upheld by a federal appeals court, bans horse slaughter for human consumption and the import, export or possession of horse meat designated for human consumption.
Beverly Boyd, spokeswoman for the agriculture department, said the agency's pens are a rest stop for animals headed to Mexico and South America.
She said the agency is required by law to accept all animals as long as state and federal laws and the department's pen policies are being followed.
Animals eat, drink and rest at the pens after traveling hundreds of miles. They also are checked by Mexican veterinarians before being shipped south. The agency has several pens along the border for exporting livestock to Mexico.
"A lot of these animals going into Mexico or Canada have traveled a long distance. You don't want them on the trucks all the time," Boyd said.
About four to six trucks carrying approximately 30 horses each were arriving at the state pens at the time, said Kathy Milani, The Humane Society of the United States' vice president for investigations and video.
The loads were being delivered by Beltex Corp. Beltex also runs a Panhandle feedlot in Morton, about 300 miles northeast of Socorro. Truck drivers also told the animal protection group's employees that they had driven from Morton.
Beltex did not respond to phone messages requesting comment.
The horses arrive at around daybreak, some with injuries. In early afternoon, Mexican trucks arrive at the pens to load the horses and take them to Mexico, she said.
Some horses are walked across the border at nearby Santa Teresa, N.M., to San Geronimo, Mexico. They are loaded into double-decker cattle trailers that the U.S. has outlawed and driven farther into Mexico, Milani said.
Humane Society workers saw a sick horse pulled from a crowded trailer and left on the lot. Milani said a veterinarian was called after the group told state officials about the ill horse.
The San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle described the slaughter of a horse in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in a report about the issue Sept. 30.
Opponents of efforts to ban horse slaughter had warned during previous congressional debates that closing the plants in the U.S. would lead to the export of horses into Mexico and Canada.
"The U.S. plants had, certifiably so, the most humane way to end the life of unwanted horses available to those horse owners who did not object to horse slaughter, and we turned our back on it," said Charlie Stenholm, a former Texas congressman who now lobbies for the horse-slaughter industry.
"Now we are transporting horses hundreds of miles, and it's all because some people object to horse slaughter," he said. |
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