House Plan to End Horse Slaughter Shortsighted: AVMA

Schaumburg, Ill.

— Despite a disappointing loss in a vote taken by the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) vowed to continue its efforts to preserve the only federally supervised way to assure humane euthanasia for the nation’s unwanted horses.

“The AVMA is extremely disappointed with the outcome of the House vote because it is going to adversely affect the welfare of unwanted horses,” said Dr. Bonnie Beaver, former president of that organization. “The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act does not provide the financial support required to ensure that horses given up by their owners will be adequately cared for, and inadequate funding has a huge potential to create opportunities for inadequate care.”

Dr. Beaver testified against passage of HR 503 before the Energy and Commerce Committee on July 25 and again before the Agriculture Committee on July 27.

Efforts of a bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives who opposed the legislation—led by Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), Joe Barton (R-Texas), John Dingell (D-Michigan), Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota), Steve King (R-Iowa) and Henry Bonilla (R-Texas)—fell short, and HR 503 was passed by a 263 to 146 vote.

The legislation, if approved by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Bush, would prohibit the sale and transportation of horses to facilities where they are processed for human consumption abroad.

Horse processing is the most tightly regulated of any animal slaughter industry, and the only animal that has its transportation to slaughter regulated by the U.S. government. If horse processing plants are forced to close, the Horse Welfare Coalition estimates that the 60,000 to 90,000 unwanted horses annually would be exposed to potential abandonment and neglect. Even worse, processing plants in Canada and Mexico would likely take over the business without the scrutiny and supervision of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors.

The AVMA is one of more than 200 groups in the Horse Welfare Coalition, an alliance of veterinary, horse-industry and agricultural groups representing more than 500,000 individual members in the United States. The Coalition expresses its thanks to the House Members who took the time to become educated on the real dangers of this bill—not only to the economy, but to the very horses it claims to be protecting.

“The Horse Welfare Coalition believes that the best interest of horses and American agriculture was lost today,” said Charles Stenholm, a former Congressman who now represents the Coalition. “We will work to fight the misinformation campaign waged by our well-intentioned but misguided adversaries—the fact is, that without these federal inspectors, more horses are vulnerable to mistreatment.”

The AVMA, along with other groups in the coalition, has already begun sharing the facts behind this safe and necessary practice with members of the Senate.

The Humane Society of the United States continues to distribute a video to television networks and on the Internet they claim portrays current horse slaughter. However, no independent analysis has proved that the video is authentic, or that it was taken at any of the three plants currently in operation. It certainly does not reflect specific laws that have been in effect in the U.S. since 1904, including laws and regulations in the last decade that strengthen USDA oversight of the plants.

“By law, the plants must handle the horses in a manner that meets specific humane standards or the USDA shuts them down,” says Stenholm.

Now that the USDA has formally weighed in to assure the American public that the process is humane, Stenholm says things will undoubtedly go more smoothly as the Coalition works to defeat a similar bill in the Senate.