Action Needed: Pro-Slaughter AVMA, AAEP, & AQHA
Dear friends,
As most of you probably know, there
have been several news articles and investigative reports
recently released detailing the horrific treatment of horses both during
transport to, and slaughter in Mexico. The media and
investigative reports highlight with disturbing detail, the
absolute egregious cruelty inflicted upon American horses by those involved in
the horse slaughter trade.
Given the facts documented in these reports,
one would think that even those entities that have always been
considered "pro-horse slaughter", would agree that
this reprehensible cruelty must be stopped. Amazingly enough this has not
happened, and in fact, in response to the above mentioned reports,
the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) issued a press release
reaffirming their opposition to the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act
(AHSPA)! The AVMA press release is every bit as astonishing as it is
unacceptable.
It is high time that we take a stand against
the pro-horse slaughter ranks and demand that they change their position on
this issue.
Beginning Monday, October 8th, we will launch
a call/fax campaign targeting the following pro-horse slaughter groups:
AVMA, American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), and the American
Quarter Horse Association (AQHA). I ask each of you to please draft a
letter to these groups and to fax your letters to as
many individuals on the contact list as you possibly can.
Additionally, please call the individuals listed to let them know
that you simply will no longer stand for their continued lobbying in support of
the horse slaughter trade and the enormous suffering and abuse that they
inflict upon our nations's horses. It is our goal to
effectively keep this issue at the forefront of those at AVMA, AAEP, and
AQHA for as long as it takes to get them to change their position and
ultimately join us in working to end this dispicable
cruelty, once and for all.
The contact information you will need is
provided below, as is the recent San Antonio
Express-News
story and the AVMA's press release. I've also attatched the Animals' Angels Investigative Report.
(For our Yahoo Group Humanity Against Horse
Slaughter, the Animals' Angels report has been uploaded to the files section of
the board).
It is vital that each and every one of us make
an unprecedented effort to convince the leadership of these groups that American horse owners and lovers will no longer
tolerate their continued support of the horse slaughter industry. AVMA, AAEP,
and AQHA have turned a blind-eye to equine cruelty and suffering for far too
long. It is high time that they open their eyes and work with us to protect our
nation's horses from slaughter and abuse.
Please share this
alert with family and friends and please remember to always remain factual
and respectful in your letters and conversation. To be anything less does not
help our position or our horses!
Additionally, if you
are a member of any of these organizations, please be certain to mention
that fact in your correspondence and insist that as a member, you demand
that a vote by the membership on the issue of horse slaughter be afforded
to each and every member.
Thanks to all!!
Gail
AVMA-AAEP-AQHA
CONTACT INFORMATION DIRECTORY:
AVMA Contact Info
Directory
Headquarters:
1931 North Meacham Road, Suite 100
Schaumburg, IL
60173-4360
Phone: 847-925-8070
Fax: 847-925-1329
E-mail: avmainfo@avma. org
- Governmental Relations Division:
1910 Sunderland Place, NW
Washington, DC
20036-1642
Phone: 800-321-1473
Fax: 202-842-4360
E-mail: avmagrd@avma. org
AVMA OFFICERS
Name Phone Fax Email
Gregory S. Hammer, DVM, President 847-925-8070 847-925-1329 ghammer@avma. org?
James O. Cook, DVM, President-Elect* 270-692-6787 847-925-1329 cookanhosp@alltel.
net
Roger Mahr, DVM, Past President 847-925-8070 847-925-1329 rmahr@avma.org?
Charles
Hendrix, DVM, Vice President 334-844-2688 334-844-2652 hendrcm@vetmed. auburn.edu
Bret Marsh, DVM, Treasurer 317-227-0300 847-925-1329 bmarsh@boah. in.gov
W.
Ron DeHaven, DVM, Exec. Vice Pres.* 847-925-8070 847-925-1329 ron.dehaven@ aphis.usda. gov
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AAEP American Association of
Equine Practitioners
General Contact Information
4075 Iron Works Parkway
Lexington, KY 40511
Phone: 859-233-0147
Fax: 859-233-1968
e-mail: aaepoffice@aaep. org
AAEP
Contact Info Directory
BOARD
OF DIRECTORS
Name
Phone Fax Email
Thomas
D. Brokken, DVM, President 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 tbrokken@aaep. org?
Harry Werner, VMD, Vice President* 860-653-5088 859-233-1968
hwerner@aaep. org?
R.
Reynolds Cowles, DVM, Trasurer* 434-973-7947 434-973-7449
brec@blueridgeequin e.com
Nathaniel White, II, DVM AC Chairman* 703-771-6800 703-771-6810
nawhite2@vt. edu
John
S. Mitchell, DVM AC Vice Chairman 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 jmitchell@aaep. org?
Duncan
Alexander 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 dalexander@aaep. org?
Jerry
R. Black, DVM 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 jblack@aaep. org?
Benjamin Franklin, Jr., DVM* 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 bfranklin@thehorse. com?
Barrie Grant, DVM* 760-726-4566 760-758-2585 slreh@slreh. com
Eleanor
M. Green, DVM 352-392-2212 #5672 352-392-8289 greene@vetmed. ufl.edu
J. Clyde Johnson, VMD* 802-254-5422 802-257-7219 jjohnson@aaep. org?
Richard
D. Mitchell, DVM* 203-270-3600 203-270-4672 info@fairfieldequin e.com
Rustin Moore, DVM* 614-292-7105 614-292-0895 http://www.vet. ohio-state. edu/162.htm&EL_d=osu.edu&EL_n=moore.66&EL_t=Dr.+Moore
Gary L. Norwood, DVM 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 gnorwood@aaep. org?
Eric S. Peterson, DVM* 502-564-3296 502-564-4818 erics.peterson@ mail.state. ky.us?
Robert K. Shideler, DVM 859-233-0147
859-233-1968 rshideler@aaep. org?
Julia Hall Wilson, DVM* 612-625-3745 859-233-1968 wilso011@umn. edu
OTHER
AAEP CONTACTS
Name
Phone Fax Email
Sally
J. Baker, Director of Public Relations 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 sbaker@aaep. org
David
L. Foley, Executive Director 859-233-0147 859-233-1968 dfoley@aaep. org
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AQHA
American Quarter Horse Association
General
Contact Info- Headquarters
American
Quarter Horse Association
1600
Quarter Horse Dr.
Amarillo, TX 79104
Phone:
806-376-4811
Fax:
806-349-6409
Email
webform: http://www.aqha.
com/contact. html
-
Overnight Delivery
American
Quarter Horse Association
1600
Quarter Horse Dr.
Amarillo, TX 79104
AQHA
Contact Info Directory
AQHA
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Frank
Merrill, President 806-376-4811 806-349-6409 fmerrill@aqha. org?
Ken
Mumy, 1st Vice President 806-376-4811 806-349-6409 kmumy@aqha.org?
Jim
Hezler, 2nd Vice President* 940-440-2040 940-440-9253
jehss@aol.com
Johannes Orgeldinger +49 4960-2222209 806-349-6409 jorgeldinger@ aqha.org
Dick Monahan 509-529-5700 806-349-6409 dmonahan@roach- monahan.com
(*) External, non-AQHA contact information
? Untested email address
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SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS ARTICLE;
http://www.mysanant onio.com/
news/metro/ stories/MYSA0930 07.01A.horseslau ghter.3496288. html
Horse slaughters taking place on the border
Web Posted: 09/30/2007 12:36 AM CDT
Lisa Sandberg
Austin Bureau
CIUDAD JUÁREZ,
Mexico — The American mare swung her head
frantically
when the door shut to the kill box, trapping her inside. A worker jabbed
her in the back with a small knife — seven, eight, nine times.
Eyes wild, she lowered her head and raised it as the blade punctured her
body around the withers, again and again.
At the 10th jab, she fell to the floor of this Mexican slaughterhouse,
bloodied and paralyzed, but not yet dead.
She would lay there a good two minutes before being hoisted from a
chained rear leg so her throat could be slit and she could bleed to death.
The primitive procedure at the Ciudad Juárez plant
now is the fate of
thousands of exported U.S.
horses since court rulings closed horse
slaughter operations in the United
States.
The roan mare was one of nearly 30,000 American horses shipped to
Mexican processing plants so far this year, a 369 percent increase from
the number recorded this time last year.
By the time she and her unlucky peers were led into this city-owned
plant, they typically had traveled in packed trucks 700 miles or more,
say the American traders who ship them there.
The lucky ones arrive dead. Many of the others come in "fractured,
battered and bruised," said Jos Cuellar, the
plant's veterinarian.
No one disputes that slaughter-bound horses have it far worse today than
before U.S. courts, upholding state bans, ended horse slaughter at two
plants in Texas earlier this year and at the nation's single remaining
one in Illinois on Sept. 21.
Animal welfare advocates who lobbied to end horse slaughter in the
United States
gambled that Congress would pass legislation by next year
barring horses from being exported for slaughter and prohibiting their
slaughter in states that don't already ban it.
But the fate of the Horse
Slaughter Prevention Act is uncertain.
"I think (the odds of the ban passing are) 50-50 this session," said
U.S. Rep. Ed
Whitfield, R-Ky.,
a leading opponent of horse slaughter who
sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. HR 503 passed the House
last year but a companion bill died in the Senate. The legislation has
been reintroduced this year.
John Holland, a horse slaughter opponent from Virginia, likens the fight
to warfare: attack the industry from all sides and deprive it of
profits, while pressing Congress for a federal law banning horse exports.
"The federal ban is the name of the game, and everybody in the
anti-slaughter community knows it," he said.
More than 100,000 U.S.
horses were slaughtered last year for overseas
dinner plates, according to government figures. There have been 15,000
fewer American horses slaughtered this year compared to the same period
last year, even counting the jump in the number being shipped to Mexico
and Canada,
Holland said.
"It made it better for (the) horses who are not
being slaughtered, but
it made it worse for those who are. No doubt about it," Holland said.
"If you told me we'd never get the federal ban, would I have worked hard
to get the plants shut while horses are exported? No."
The issue of horse slaughter has emerged as one of the most contentious
U.S.
debates regarding animals.
Lower in fat than beef and sweeter, too, horsemeat is considered a
delicacy in places like France, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan and Russia.
Laurent Mailhet, a third-generation butcher in Lunel, France, insists
horsemeat is tastier than beef, and for good reason.
"The horse is an animal that selects its food," avoiding certain
grasses. Cattle, he said, are less discriminating.
In Mexico, horsemeat is perceived as inferior to beef, selling for
about
30 percent less — and it's sometimes sold as beef to unsuspecting customers.
It never gained much of a U.S.
following, though it's legal in states
other than Texas, California, Oklahoma
and Illinois. The Harvard Faculty
Club reportedly offered horse steaks for decades but removed them from
its menu in the late 1970s.
Opponents argue that domestic horses shouldn't be used to satisfy
foreign palates. Horses played a special role in U.S. history, they say,
helping conquer the West, providing the sinews of early commerce and
serving as majestic friends — but not food animals.
"Horses have helped us settle this country, they've been our primary
means of transportation, they've served us in battle and carried
our
mail, entertained us and been our companions. They've been so much to
us, but the one thing they haven't been is dinner," said Michael
Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane
Society of the United
States.
Though millions of cats and dogs wind up euthanized each year, Markarian
notes, "the answer has never been to send them
for slaughter to
countries where they would be considered food animals."
Proponents of horse slaughter say they, too, have the horses' best
interests at heart. Banning it, they say, will result each year in the
abandonment of tens of thousands of unwanted horses.
The salvage market
To avoid a trip to the slaughterhouse, a horse needs
to carry itself
well at auction. Paraded into the sale yard before a crowd, horses have
about a minute to demonstrate that they're broken in, tame, physically
fit and not too old.
Traders known as "killer buyers" flock to auction houses such as the
monthly horse sale in Stephenville, scooping up horses and ponies that
are crippled, blind, don't ride well or are just plain unwanted. They
stand inside the sale yard, surveying each animal, ready to bid as
little as $60 for a so-called "salvage market" horse.
Mike McBarron is one of about a dozen killer buyers
in Texas who
supply
horse slaughterhouses.
Fifteen of the 21 horses he snapped up in Stephenville the first Friday
of September failed to convince him they had some quality more valuable
than the 20 to 30 cents a pound they would command at slaughter.
"Every one of them is either cripple or crazy or don't ride at all,"
McBarron said, surveying his herd.
McBarron, 36, has been trading horses since he
dropped out of the ninth
grade and makes more money selling saddle horses not bound for
slaughter. He knows he has no celebrities rooting for him, no Bo Dereks
or Willie Nelsons writing to Congress on his behalf. (Both are in the
opposing camp).
He knows many are contemptuous of traders who can flip a horse without
giving it much more than a glance, who assess sentient creatures in
dollars and cents.
But McBarron insists he's providing a kind of
service, saving unwanted
horses from abandonment by saving owners the expense of euthanizing them.
"I promise you, if there was anybody in America other than the
packinghouses that wanted to buy 'em, I'd gladly sell
'em," he said.
The ban on horse slaughter in Texas
hit killer buyers hard. McBarron,
who lives in Kaufman, site of one of the plants, said it costs him about
$100 to send a horse to Mexico,
leaving his profit at $20 to $50 per horse.
Animal welfare advocates reject the argument that owners would abandon
horses if they no longer could sell them for slaughter. They say killer
buyers often outbid others for horses that otherwise might end up on
someone's ranch.
"They create a market," said Holland,
the slaughter opponent from Virginia.
Markarian said horse slaughter peaked in the 1980s,
when as many as
350,000 horses were killed annually for their meat. The gradual closure
of plants didn't lead to thousands of horses running wild or dying in
their pastures, he said.
Steven Long can't fathom selling a horse for slaughter. Last year, his
ailing 20-year-old Dillon told him in subtle ways it was time, so he and
his wife paid $250 to put him down.
"The last thing he saw in life was my face looking into his eyes. I
stroked his face," he said.
A dignified death was the least they could do for a loyal riding buddy,
said the Houston
resident, who edits a magazine called Texas Horse Talk.
He's appalled others don't treat their animals with the same respect.
"That's darn sure pretty cold for someone to send their horse to
slaughter so they can profit or recover their costs," he said.
The killing floor
Under a metal roof in Stephenville, in the warm air long
after midnight,
time was running out for McBarron's newly purchased
herd.
At 10 a.m., they would be put in a cattle truck and shipped 565 miles to
El Paso.
Transferred to another truck for a short haul across the
border, they would then be put on a Mexican truck — and become Mexican
horses subject to Mexico's
regulations, said one U.S. Department of
Agriculture official.
Perhaps they'd stay in Juárez, or maybe they'd be
shipped to one of the
two large plants in Zacatecas, 700 or so miles to the south.
About a quarter of the nearly 400 horses auctioned at Stephenville this
month were sold for slaughter. Some might have won a few ribbons and
been somebody's pet. Some may have spent their lives tied to a tree.
But when the trucks arrived, they would all share the same fate.
Not all horses screech while being stabbed in the back. But horses tend
to stir, making the task of killing them a challenge.
The Juárez plant has a couple of captive bolt guns,
but they're
inoperable about half the time — and when they work, poor training can
make their use almost as chaotic as the knives, said Cuellar, the
plant's vet.
The knife wielders have to be nimble, with good aim, to paralyze a horse
with a single blow to the spinal cord. The man on duty one recent day
had atrocious aim, with horses enduring as many as 13 jabs to the back
before collapsing.
The brutality left the plant's director, Luis Terrazas
Muñoz,
apologetic. But he can't shut the plant down just because the guns
aren't working, he said.
Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State
University, has researched ways to
reduce stress on slaughter animals
and has designed meat plant facilities that process about half all U.S.
cattle. She called the "puntilla" technique
employed in Juárez and at
plants throughout Mexico
"horrific beyond belief."
Repeated jabs to the spinal cord, she said, would not kill the horse, at
least not right away. A clean jab to the spinal cord, which is difficult
to do, dulls sensation in the body but not the head. "The horse would
likely experience being hoisted up and it's probably going to experience
being bled. It would likely experience 30 seconds to a minute of
absolute terror," Grandin said.
Horses were slaughtered at U.S.
plants with a bullet to the forehead
from captive bolt guns. Grandin maintains that death
came quickly and
painlessly. Some animal welfare advocates disagree, however, and say a
horses' quick movements and narrow forehead left some needing to be shot
multiple times before they went down.
The Juárez plant also processes cattle, but on
different days per
Mexican law. The puntilla method is used on both
animals in older
slaughterhouses throughout Mexico,
Terrazas said.
Not all exported horses endure such a grim death.
Newer plants are supposed to use captive bolt guns, but Terrazas
said he
was uncertain whether the new regulations were being followed.
The plants in Zacatecas serve the European market, which bars the
importation of meat from animals that have not been stunned prior to
being bled.
"The use of a pole-axe, hammer or puntilla is
prohibited by the
Convention. Furthermore, large animals must neither be suspended nor
have their movements restricted before being stunned" the European
Convention's slaughter law states.
In Canada, horses at two
large plants in Quebec and Alberta, are killed
with a .22-caliber shot to the head, said the plants' owner, Claude Bouvry.
More than 18,000 horses were exported to Canada through June this year,
a 26 percent rise over the same period last year. Those numbers are
likely to rise, at least in the short term, given the ruling last week
by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ending horse
slaughter in Illinois.
For the time being, American horses will continue to be shipped by
American traders to foreign-owned plants and butchered. Their meat will
continue to make their way into small shops like Dennise
Reta's El
Lucero in downtown Juárez, where customers can buy
anything from cutlets
to steaks to ground meat.
lsandberg@express- news.net
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Staff Writer Michelle Mittlestadt of Houston
Chronicle's Washington
Bureau contributed to this report.
AVMA PRESS RELEASE:
http://www.prnewswi re.com/cgi-
bin/stories. pl?ACCT=104& STORY=/www/ story/10- 04-2007/00046763
47&EDATE=
Cruel Deaths in Mexico a Result of Closing U.S. Horse Processing Plants:
AVMA
SCHAUMBURG, Ill., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Efforts to
shut down horse
processing plants in the United States have led to increased abandonment
and neglect of horses in this country and the inhumane death of horses in
Mexico, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).
Dr. Mark Lutschaunig, director of the AVMA
Governmental Relations
Division, says that the AVMA, far from being pro-horse slaughter, opposes
bills banning slaughter because there are no provisions to take care of the
more than 100,000 horses that go unwanted annually in the United States.
"If they think that by passing one of these bills they'll get rid of
the problem of unwanted horses, they're simply fooling themselves," Dr.
Lutschaunig said.
Efforts by groups calling for an end to horse slaughter, such as the
Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), have led to the closure of the
three remaining processing plants in the United States. Now, as the AVMA
has repeatedly warned, horses are being abandoned in the United States or
transported to Mexico where,
without U.S.
federal oversight and veterinary
supervision, they are slaughtered inhumanely.
"The reality is, the HSUS has done nothing to address the real issue
here, and, in fact, by seeking to ban horse slaughter, they have made
things significantly worse," said Dr. Lutschaunig.
"If they really wanted
to do something productive to improve the welfare of horses, they would
address the issue of unwanted horses in the United States."
Even if a bill passes banning the transport of horses for slaughter, it
would be nearly impossible to enforce. Such a law could easily be
circumvented by transporting and selling horses as "working" or
"pleasure"
horses, only to have them end up in an unregulated foreign slaughter
facility.
"The AVMA does not support horse slaughter," Dr. Lutschaunig
said.
"Ideally, we would have the infrastructure in this country to adequately
feed and care for all horses. But the sad reality is that we have a number
of horses that, for whatever reason, are unwanted. Transporting them under
USDA supervision to USDA-regulated facilities where they are humanely
euthanized is a much better option than neglect, starvation, or an inhumane
death in Mexico."
For more information, or to set up interviews with veterinary experts,
contact Michael San Filippo, media relations
assistant, at 847-285-6687
(office), 847-732-6194 (cell), or msanfilippo@ avma.org.
The AVMA, founded in 1863, is one of the oldest and largest veterinary
medical organizations in the world, with more than 75,000 member
veterinarians engaged in a wide variety of professional activities. AVMA
members are dedicated to advancing the science and art of veterinary
medicine, including its relationship to public health and agriculture.
Visit the AVMA Web site at http://www.avma. org
to learn more about
veterinary medicine and animal care and to access up-to-date information on
the association' s issues, policies and activities.