07/30/07 Horse Slaughter Ban Backfires

Funny how something that seems so right can turn out so wrong. Animal welfare groups who have lobbied to close horse slaughtering plants pat themselves on the back for what they regard as a monumental accomplishment yet in reality they have sentenced horses to undue suffering. There are no statistics pointing to a large increase of abandoned or neglected horses after the plants were closed, yet there are some new numbers that are staggering. There has been a 400 percent increase in horses shipped to Mexico. In the first five months of 2007 nearly 11,000 horses met an end far more brutal than in the US. Horses are shipped longer distances to Mexico with no humane handling regulations to meet a method of slaughter banned by USDA for being too cruel. The Mexican method is to stun the horse with a sharp knife to sever the horse's spinal cord, rendering the animal paralyzed yet aware. From the kill box the animal is hoisted by a chain to have its neck slit. There are eight Mexican plants licensed for export and countless of unsupervised mom and pop slaughterhouses. Horse slaughter hasn't been stopped, it has simply been outsourced.