Horse Slaughter: State Judge Trumps Federal Appeals Court
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 […]
Horse Slaughter to Resume in the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has finally given the go-ahead for resumption of the regulated slaughter of horses once again in this country as predicted in our report of March 9, 2013. This turn-around on the part of the government is in response to a reputable study showing that the welfare of horses was harmed by Congressional legislation that closed slaughter plants here.
Animal rights groups will now pressure Congress and the White House for more misguided legislation. Your opinions need to be expressed. Click here to learn how.
Most media news articles reporting the recent USDA action have approached the story from the horsemeat angle. The sensitivity of many in this country to the use of horses for human consumption is a powerfully emotional issue, and such headlines sell newspapers. However, what the media mostly ignore in this story is that the Government Accounting Office (GAO), Congress’s independent investigative arm, bluntly reported to Congress in 2011, that horse welfare had been harmed by their legislation that resulted in the closing of all horse processing plants in this country.
Movement Afoot to Re-Open Horse Processing Plants
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 […]