Int'l Fund for Horses
July 2012
[Ed. Note: Watch Horse Slaughterhouse.]
[Horse slaughter] never left the building. How can you re-instate something that still exists. Nor does the slaughter of US horses need beefing up; it is stronger than ever.
The following is a letter from Sue Wallis (Wyoming legislator) and the
latest version of her pro-horse slaughter group, sent to Agriculture
Secretary Vilsak at the USDA, begging for horse slaughter inspections
necessary to export horse meat and thereby saving the US horse industry.
The letter is based on the loosest interpretation of facts, or no facts at
all.
Here are the facts:
Items 3 and 4 destroy the basis of Wallis’ arguments to “re-instate” horse
slaughter. It never left the building. How can you re-instate something that
still exists. Nor does the slaughter of US horses need beefing up; it is
stronger than ever.
Item 5 describes Wallis and the latest incarnation of multiple versions of
her pro-horse slaughter group.
Now the letter...
July 31, 2012
The Honorable Thomas J. Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC 20250
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
On behalf of the International Equine Business Association and the horse
businesses of the United States I am writing to urge your agency to
immediately provide the inspection necessary to humanely and safely process
horses in facilities that are ready to do so in the United States. The horse
industry is already severely damaged because of the lack of market and
options, and now with wide spread drought and wild fire damage, the
situation is truly dire.
Attached please find an urgent petition, and background information
supporting this letter.
USDA stands squarely in the way of enterprises that could offer some relief
and a humane option for many of these horses. It has come to our attention
that USDA is promulgating directives to states that indicate the agency has
no intention of providing the inspection they are required by long-standing
U.S. law to provide, and are actively discouraging state departments of
agriculture from implementing any kind of state inspection. This singles out
one class of livestock owner for economic harm and persecution that is
extremely detrimental-leaving many with no option except to destroy valuable
animals, or to sell them at pathetically low prices and allow them to be
hauled to other countries out of U.S. jurisdiction. In the face of
widespread natural disaster, some would say this is the height of hypocrisy
and completely counter to the mission of the USDA to promote and responsibly
regulate agriculture in this country.
Several horse processing facilities are ready to offer horse owners a fair
price for the animals they desperately need to sell — or could be within
days — to provide much-needed emergency relief. Markets for the product are
ready to accept it domestically and internationally if the meat is
USDA-inspected exactly as it was in 2007.
USDA should not stand in the way of much-needed, humane options for horses.
Horses and horse people are uniquely suffering as a direct result of federal
government inaction, and the Department’s refusal to provide the inspection
services federal law requires USDA to provide.
Across the nation, states, tribes and private citizens are working
hand-in-hand with the federal government to provide relief to every other
breed of livestock, and every other kind of business, yet USDA stands
directly in the path of the same relief for the horse industry.
This is a moral and ethical imperative that USDA must address without delay.
Sincerely,
Sue Wallis, Chair
United States
Bill des Barres
Canada
Olivier Kemseke
European Union, Mexico, Argentina
If there really is a glut of horses in the marketplace (even though 140,000
or more are killed for their meat in horse slaughter plants in Mexico and
Canada every year), then look no further than horse breeders who obviously
need educating on the principles of supply and demand and its economic
impact on the horse industry.
Plus, just because there is a market for horse meat does not mean the US
should or must supply it.
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
0 marine animals
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0 camels / camelids