horse processing

A district judge in New Mexico has delayed for ten days the planned operations of the nation’s first horse slaughter plant in seven years. On January 13, 2014, State District Judge Matthew Wilson will listen to testimony in a lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Gary King. King filed the lawsuit last month after a federal appeals court vacated a temporary restraining order blocking the openings. It seemed, momentarily, that the way was cleared—once again—for processing plants to reopen. Going back in time, that temporary restraining order was allowed in July after the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the go-ahead for resumption of the regulated slaughter of horses. This latest lawsuit by the New Mexico attorney general claims that the processor would violate the state’s food safety, water quality, and unfair business practices laws. The processor’s attorney argues that the state lacks jurisdiction because the meat would not be sold or consumed in the U.S., that the federal government has sole jurisdiction over meat shipped to international markets, and that the company is working with environmental officials to ensure lawful disposal of all waste. Click for more details in the Associated Press report by Jeri Clausing. Posted January 4, 2014

There are movements stirring to re-open horse processing plants in the U.S. The last remaining processing facility, which was located in Illinois, was closed in 2007 by a federal judge. Although horse processing was not outlawed, Congress, in 2006, curtailed the US Department of Agriculture’s inspection of such plants. Just recently, a Summit of the Horse conference was held in Las Vegas in which strategies for reviving the horse processing industry were presented and discussed. Proponents say it would revive an industry, stabilize prices at the bottom of the horse market, and be a more humane way of dealing with abused and abandoned horses, which are now transported thousands of miles to Canada or Mexico. “Once they’re across the border, we don’t know how they’re being treated. If we process them here, we will do it humanely and the meat will be properly inspected,” says Nebraska Senator Tyson Larson. Larsen spoke at the Las Vegas conference and introduced a bill in his state last week that, if passed, would create a state meat inspection program that could eventually allow Nebraska to ship horsemeat across it’s borders. In the past, some U.S.-processed horsemeat was sold to zoos, but most of it was shipped overseas to markets and restaurants. Read more in Heather Johnson’s article in the North Platte Telegraph.January 16, 2011