December 6, 2011

As most of our readers know, horses may no longer be slaughtered in the United States because there are no longer any slaughter houses in operation here. The last horse slaughter facilities closed when, in 2005, Congress curtailed funding to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the inspection of horses in transit to slaughter. The lack of inspection resulted, as it was intended to do, in a defacto ban on horse slaughter.

Some applauded Congress’s action. Certainly the mainstream animal rights activists who lobbied Congress to take that action counted it as a victory. Many, many horse lovers also counted that action as a victory for the welfare of horses. And in a perfect world it well might have been so.