HSUS and Peta should look to Spain for inspiration on how to manage the wild horses in this country. In Spain, wild horses are a National Treasure! They are rounded up once a year for grooming and veterinary care, vaccinations, etc. and then let go to happily live their live in freedom. If Spain can do this, why can’t this country do the same thing, WITH the help of the organization that is *supposed* to care for them? Lord knows, they have the money and people would be more than happy to donate to that cause.
Just my humble opinion, for what it is worth.  <3

I would like to see some figures and proof to back up the numbers of abandoned horses that this article claims. I have been reading that MANY of the abandoned horses, and your number seems VERY high, are in fact horses that were rejected by the slaughter houses and simply released to die on their own. It makes no sense to me that you seem to state if there were slaughter in the US as there is in Canada and Mexico there would not be abandoned horses here..but the truth is that horses ARE sold for slaughter here and ARE sent to slaughter, so slaughter has NOT be stopped abandonment totally, they are just shipped elsewhere for slaughter. So therefore one could deduce that these horses could have been sold for slaughter instead of being abandoned. So why are they abandoned if they can be sold for slaughter? Who abandoned them and why? Makes sense to me that they were abandoned because they were NOT worth money as slaughter animals and the thing to do would be to open humane and cheap or free euthanasia for unwanted horses. Then there would be NO reason to abandon a horse.

Thank you Humane Watch for showing HSUS for what they are. Everyone in Animal Ag appreciates what you folks are doing.

What a major problem,seems we not only have a problem with too many cats not fixed suffering,And the bad wrap that our pit bull breed is taking,But we have an abundance of suffering horse’s,Why can’t we stop all the breeding.Because the veterinarians are making money,I commend the handfull of people including myself that are trying to make a difference….Like be the change you wish to see!Stop the over breeding of these animals so easy,Have pups ,kittens and foals,fillies fixed before they are sold,leave the saving of a species in extinction to the experts.Sound easy.Well of course not,..!Change begins when all of us are on the same page,and I know from experience..the vets are not..

Why are there 130,000 unwanted horses a year? It is because of unresponsible breeding; in which people don’t care if weanlings sell for thirty dollars at auction, get fed out for a year, and then shipped to slaughter.

Have any of you pro slaughter people ever wondered why France has to import so much horse meat? They have responsible breeding practices put into place and do not have surplus horses. Shame on the U.S. over indulgent public for thinking that they cannot afford euthanasia for an animal that is more of a service animal than livestock. Where is properly cared for the cost for maintaining their hooves for a year is more than the cost of putting them down.

If we were more honest with what we are doing we wouldn’t be turning the horse industry into a giant puppy mill. We would use our supposed superior brains to be more responsible. I am sick of hearing about how the economy is causing this crisis. Irresponsibilty and overindulgence caused it. Ignorance will insure we keep the type of people in the industry that will starve, neglect, and send to slaughter the same animals we claim to love.

could not a way be found to create programs for special needs children and adults, inner city youth, seniors, rehab centers to have access to those animals that can still be cared for and ridden to be partially funded by camps, schools, scouts,, fund raisers and the like? It saddens me how little sense of connection many people have towards animals that have so well served and enhanced so many. Stricter laws on purchasing animals, greater scrutiny in insuring humane treatment, tougher consequences for those who abuse and in place “retirement” care for aging animals..all this is possible. Putting together emergency care to help animals displaced by natural disaster and economic hard times needs to be done and enforced.

Shipping horse out of the country for slaughter is just totally unacceptable.  Next thing ya know they’ll want to outlaw breeding horses, so we won’t end up with so many unwanted ones to slaughter.  All that will do is create a demand for more imported horses.  We import them, use them, export them.  As if we have any control over how those horses are bred and raised to start with and certainly no control of how they are slaughtered.  Do any of these people have any brains?

Hi : ) I was just wondering if you could address the issue of bute and other drugs which we give our recreational horses? Since they are not raised as meat animals? In 2013 most horses will not be eligible for slaughter according to the EU as they have increasingly become aware of the fact kill buyers cheat the “system”. Most of us are working hard to create hay banks, euthanasia and gelding clinics.. while others are still geared toward horse slaughter being the only option. Why must our tax money go toward this predatory industry when we can help the other programs? All emotions aside our horses aren’t raised for meat, therefore their meat is not safe for consumption. With emotion… there isn’t a true way to humanely slaughter a horse due to the way they are built and their flight response. Not to mention there isn’t a clean and effective way to dispose of the by products because they have twice as much blood as a cow and more offal due to the drugs that are in their system. Including steroids that are pumped into them to “beef them up” before they are sent for processing.

You mention transport being an issue. I’m not sure of who you knew when the American plants were open. But often people from Ohio, Indiana or Pennsylvania would ship their horses to Texas. Which is still a long haul. Even if we brought back slaughter houses it would not put a stop to horses being sent to Mexico or Canada. They were sent to Mexico and Canada before we closed our slaughter houses. This number that you mentioned… 130,000 or so.. It is not the number of unwanted horses in America. It is the number of horses that the slaughter houses accepted to meet the demand overseas. I’ve been to auctions where kill buyers have outbid private homes to fill their truck… So… is it okay that we are sending toxic meat overseas? I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m just trying to understand.

HSUS is full of BS and I will do Everything in my power to let people know all about the HSUS and how they want to change the way of life in America I’m calling every American out to join us in this war with HSUS and BOYCOTT them

They should ban the importation of horses so people who want them have to buy them or adopt them from people who can no longer care for them or adoption shelters. We need to make laws to stop animals from easily being slaughtered because we cause a problem.

I have heard that horses are crammed in airless semi trailers.Thats why i am for slaughtering in the U.S.

I always thought PETA was full of crap and really only wanted your money. But I honestly never thought that HSUS was just as bad, if not worse. I am ashamed of myself for not learning this earlier, but better late than never. THANK YOU Humanewatch and HSSP.

PETA is making a bad decision! There is no reason to slaughter horses and to say it’s an alternative to what’s happening now; is a cop out! Shame PETA! There’s always a better way than slaughter. Remember, the ones going to slaughter are not sick, old or emaciated. They are healthy human companions that by hook or crook wound-up in the wrong hands. The only answer is to END Slaughter!

Dont forget that is over 100,000 per YEAR. Even if HSUS did take all 138,000 as you suggest there would be another 138,000 coming down the pipes the next year, and the year after that, and so on, and so forth. A span of 10 years will put the number well over a MILLION.

H$U$ isn’t going to help take care of unwanted horses except in *token* quantities such as their current sanctuaries (inherited from groups they gobbled up). Their “practical solutions” include attacking horse breeders in order to vilify and curtail breeding, just as they have done with pets (dogs, cats). Another incremental step to eliminating animal use (as far as society will support, that is). Economics does play a significant role, and the majority of horse breeders that I know have thoughtfully limited or stopped breeding—which is a smart business move at this point. You wouldn’t know that from the H$U$ propaganda though—greedy breeders are just churning out the unwanted foals, according to them. That doesn’t even make sense! All emotional hubris designed to misinform and sway the animal-loving public.

What I find most interesting is that while both of these organizations acknowledge a crisis facing horses, largely due to the economy (HSUS wants to ban slaughter altogether, PETA says slaughter the horses and put them out of their misery) - BOTH of these organizations are ACTIVELY working to MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE.  Both the HSUS and PETA are opposed to commercial carriage operations, particularly in places like NYC. Working horses are the most immune from the vagaries of economic fortunes AND they are some of the most regulated and inspected horses out there.  Yet both the HSUS and PETA want to BAN carriage horses, taking away hundreds of homes for horses (when the current sanctuary/rescue system is full to capacity and can only take in 13,400 horses or so…).

The HSUS and PETA positions on horses do not take into consideration the welfare of the horses (horses need homes with the financial resources to care for them) and have far more to do with PR and fundraising.  It’s easy to rake in the donations claiming carriage horses are “abused” (when they are NOT!) while ignoring the very real suffering of horses elsewhere “out in the country someplace.”

Shame on both of them.

I just watched a slaughter house video on horses. Wow. Very, very disturbing. The majority of the horses I saw in the video were young good looking horses. Some were older and probably too far gone to rehabilitate. So now I’m stuck. I hate to see horses, or any animal, abused or suffering and I definitely don’t like what I saw in the video. So what do we do. I have felt the financial crunch this year, so to protect the animals I have, including four horses,i will make some personal .changes to make my money stretch. No more eating out, quit smoking, and so on. What about the rest of us. What can you do. On horses

carriage horse at tourist attractions probably have the best possible life of any horse

they work, maybe three hours (I think usually 2) a day.  That is enough to keep them physically fit and enough ‘handling’ for someone to notice if there is any problems. 

They have the rest of the day to be a horse, be groomed, etc

Tourists don’t like raggedy looking horses, keeping these guys in good shape pays for itself and the horses earn their keep.

What kind of idiots want to ban them?

Without horses,  I’m not so sure we would be here.  It did take horses to settle this land.  Maybe we would have settled anyway…..but not so well.

There is a large horse meat market for “pet foods” and circus/zoo animals.  I also remember military relatives of the World War II era saying horse meat was served to the military, especially while stationed in Europe, plus in local super markets.  Most horse slaughter plants in the past were owned by foreign companies.  What the current markets demands, if possible, we should supply.  I doubt horses that were trucked to Mexico or Canida were hauled backed into the U.S. and turned loose.  Doesn’t sound practical.

drafthorse: that was an excellent post. If PETA and HSUS are just playing good cop: bad cop on this issue, while also attacking any safe places horses can remain, it does expose a wider campaign in keeping with the abolitionist view to end all access to non humans for any use. The same is happening with the HSUS/Wildlife Land Trust buying up hunting rights and patenting the contraceptive for wild populations of deer. Control it all and they will say how all sentient beings will live. Wow. This gets creepier by the day.

hrslady,
That’s another major problem in this country, people have no clue about taking care of horses, just like they have no clue about livestock, so it’s very easy to fool them. If they did have a clue they’d get a stallion is not for the inexperienced. They’d realize it takes money to raise horses and if you can’t make money from breeding and selling horses, then you’re not going to breed them when you can barely get enough of out of a foal now to buy a round bale of hay unless you have exceptional bloodlines and even then you can’t get what you could 5 years ago.
The folks without exceptional bloodlines certainly aren’t doing much breeding, they’re trying to give their horses away because they can’t afford to feed them, so why in the world would they breed more when they can’t feed the ones they got?

Rural America is slowly but surely dying away and it is hurting this country in a serious way. Very few people left who know what it takes to raise animals and the work, money, blood, sweat and tears that go into it. So that leaves far too many people who are clueless and easily mislead.

Easily mislead and all to ready to tell everybody else how to do it. 

The idiots think they know it all and you better listen to them.

Hi Shelly -

  I copied part of your post below:

“Rural America is slowly but surely dying away and it is hurting this country in a serious way. Very few people left who know what it takes to raise animals and the work, money, blood, sweat and tears that go into it. So that leaves far too many people who are clueless and easily mislead.”

  That is the root of the problem with animal rights groups (groups that want to abolish animal ownership or usage like HSUS and PETA), animal welfare groups (people who care about the quality of life and care animals have and devote their lives to that cause), and the general public. Most of the public just have the warm fuzzies for companion pets and even then barely understand the true nature and needs of their pets, much less what it takes to care for farm and exotic animals. 
  I have spent decades trying to educate any and all that would listen, and it has become a mission of mine.  If more people made decisions with the right information instead of knee jerk reactions, groups like HSUS and PETA would see a huge drop in funding.

I couldn’t agree more, long time dog owner. Well said.

While it is sad that so many horses are abandoned and unwanted, it is an unfortunate side effect of allowing them to be owned.  We can’t even stop people from abandoning and abusing their own children, but it wouldn’t be right to tell people they can only adopt a child.

IMO, instead of outlawing animal breeding, it would be better to educate the public more on what it takes to really care for an animal.  A lot of people think only exotic pets are hard to take care of, but realistically, a dog is harder to care for properly than almost any exotic animal you can buy at a pet shop, which is why so many are dumped at shelters.

Will more education stop everyone from abandoning or neglecting their pets?  No.  The only way to do that is to make pets extinct, which is what PETA and the HSUS want. 

However, I cannot support taking people’s rights away just because some people abuse their pets.  If someone takes good care of their horses and their offspring, they shouldn’t be banned from breeding them just because some other person let their horses loose to starve.

Hi Fishstick -
  I copied this part of your post to comment on:

“However, I cannot support taking people’s rights away just because some people abuse their pets.  If someone takes good care of their horses and their offspring, they shouldn’t be banned from breeding them just because some other person let their horses loose to starve.”

  The same can be said of dog and cat ownership and breeding, and pretty much any right.  Should we ban humans from reproducing because some abuse their kids?  Should we ban vehicles because sometimes people are killed in accidents with them?  A lot of the animal rights movement uses that logic and it seriously lacks wisdom, insight and especially common sense.  They seem to focus on the minority of bad and ignore the majority of good.  Of course that is how a lot of things work in this world any more, and it’s pretty sad.