KOLD News 13Despite ban, thousands of horses still slaughtered

Despite ban, thousands of horses still slaughtered

By Heather Rowe - email

For decades hundreds of thousands of horses were killed in slaughterhouses.

"It's horrific. A good percentage of those would be strung up while they are still alive being dismembered. With a captive bolt to the head it could take 7 to 9 times to render them unconcious," says Karen Pomroy, founder of the horse rescue sanctuary Equine Voices.

In 2006, Congress shut down U.S. slaughterhouses. Yet today both supporters and opponents will tell you in some ways things are worse. That's because horse slaughter didn't end, it moved over the border to Mexico and Canada.

"What they will do is stab them in their artery or muscle to paralyze them and then they shackle them and dismember them alive," says Pomroy. 

Horses are now being crammed into trailers and taken over the border to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada.

According to Pomroy the abuse starts the second they are loaded into the trailer. Pomroy says many on the trailers are double decker trucks that are designed for pigs and cattle, not horses.  

Horses are injured because of it. Some break their legs and cut themselves. These horses are shipped for hours without food or water.

The process starts at horse auctions like the Willcox Livestock Auction. Until Nov. 30, every Thursday morning riders, ranchers and so called "killer buyers" will decide what happens to unwanted horses.

Many are looking for a horse a cheap as 15 cents a pound. Some can turn around and sell its meat overseas for $30 a pound. It's perfectly legal.

Many say horse slaughter is the lesser of two evils. Arizona Livestock Officer Jim Self finds horses every week abandoned in the desert and takes horses to the Willcox auction.

"Its pretty horrible to see a horse starve to death," Self says.

There is an overpopulation of horses in the U.S. and with hay prices doubling and the economy getting worse people can't afford to take care of them.

Sonny Shores, the owner of Willcox Livestock Auction, believes those who are shocked by horse slaughter aren't seeing the bigger issue. 

"The people causing the big stink have not looked at the severity of the problem," he says.

Shores says at least at the auction, horses have a chance of getting a new life. He says more than half of the horses that come to the auction go to good homes.

But Shores says with so much bad publicity, he will no longer sell horses at his auction.

That decison is devestating to some local ranchers.

"This is a big problem. A very big problem and the ranchers and the people who own them aren't the bad guys," Shores adds.

For some the only way to resolve the problem humanely is to re-open slaughterhouses in the U.S. because at least they're regulated.

In U.S. slaughterhouses, many horses are killed with a captive bolt to the head. Horses are not killed, rather rendered unconcious. 

According to local veteranarians, horses have a thick cranium so it is difficult to kill a horse with a bullet or a captive bolt. It is also expensive to euthanize horses. It can cost approximately $150 for a lethal shot and several hundred more to bury them.

But Pomroy says there is a humane answer to the probelm. She says Congress needs to make transporting horses over the border illegal and horse breeders need to be capped to end over population.