Archive for May 23, 2012

U.S. Covers Up Terrorism on the E.U.

Posted: May 23, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue, Horse Slaughter
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Guest post by Vicky Johnson

Want to know how to poison a country?   Feed them U.S. horses!

Suzy and Echo…Lost!

Horses aren’t regulated food animals in the United States and so little testing is done for residue or adulteration that there can be absolutely no confidence level of ‘safe’ horsemeat from the U.S.

And to top that off, there is basically no traceability despite any claims you may have heard. In the U.S. a horse can be designated for “slaughter” at any time, by any owner, even if that owner has no previous knowledge of the horses medical history.

EID’s

There is a form that has to be completed by an owner, called an EID or Equine Identification Document that identifies a horse for “slaughter”. The EID requires that the owner declare that the horse has not had any prohibited medications, or medications that have no withdrawal period, during its entire lifetime. The EID also requires the owner to declare that if the horse was given medications that do have a withdrawal period, that it was withheld, or not given to the horse for the last 180 days.

However, the EID allows the owner to make that declaration “to the best of my information or believe”, thereby rendering the entire document useless. Traders, dealers, and their agents designate a horse for ‘slaughter’ and make those declarations when they have owned that horse for 5 minutes.

Who in their right mind would ever allow such a system for human food traceability? If such a traceability system was permitted to exist, you would think it would be mandatory to test each and every horse for chemical residue or adulteration.  If the situation was reversed, I would expect the U.S. government to test each and every one.

 TOXIC MEAT

Horses in the U.S. are gathered one by one by traders, dealers and their agents from auctions, sales and individuals. Horses aren’t ‘produced’ like cattle in the U.S., where they would have been bred, raised, maintained or regulated as food animals by owners that know and understand food animal production. A large percentage of everything U.S. horse owners use on their horses is labeled ‘not intended for use on food animals’. “Bute”, the U.S. horse aspirin, has no withdrawal period and can never be used in food animals. The majority of horse owners just call the vet and don’t even keep a record of medications. Rarely does a horse transfer in the U.S. with medical history. In developing a sampling plan, it is important to establish a ‘lot’ or ‘batch’ that are the ‘same’ so that a smaller sample can be taken instead of testing 100%. There is nothing the ‘same’ about U.S. horses except that they are horses. There can be no confidence level of obtaining safe U.S. horsemeat on a ‘sampling’. Each and every one should be tested for residues or adulteration. In taking just a sampling of unregulated animals entering a human food chain, the probability and risk of adulterated or residue contamination is very high.

Suzy and Echo

My two mares were stolen by deception from me on April 15th, 2012. Both have had “bute”, a chemical that has no withdrawal period. One was recently treated with penicillin and both were de-wormed with invermectin that would have required 180 day holding period for withdrawal..

Once I learned they were missing, I called the Meeker County Sherriff in Minnesota, which is the county they were supposed to be in, to file a report. After a few days, I was informed that I had to file a report here in McHenry County, Illinois, where they were taken from. I filed a report and was informed it could take a week to get the report. I called to get the report and was told I had to write a FOIA and that could take another week. A week later, I received the report and it was marked civil and closed.

Why is the law selectively enforced? Who is the responsible authority? Does anyone care that horse owners are being deceived by traders that take their beloved pets and kill them? The ‘authorities’ don’t have any responsibility to prosecute. It is not ok to lie and take something that you otherwise would not have gotten if the truth were known. You can’t pick just the part of the sentence you like and ignore the rest.

I have been informed that my horses were sold to Keith Tongen, a known ‘kill’ buyer or someone that buys horses for slaughter. Does anyone think that my horses are still there after a month of trying to get help through our law enforcement? Not likely, but I am praying they are and I’m holding on to every shred of a possibility that they are still living. Probability is far greater that they have been slaughtered, consumed and are in a compost pile already. They were not safe to eat. Is anyone going to be able to trace where they were sold? Not likely.

Where are horse owners suppose to report horse theft to prevent their toxic horses from becoming someone’s dinner?

I am devastated that I can’t find my horses and those that eat them surely should have some concerns too. The U.S. doesn’t care. If there had been an actual investigation when I first discovered they were stolen, I may have been able to bring them home.

Does anyone care enough to expose the truth?

The U.S. is allowing a system whereby unregulated animals enter a human food chain with virtually no traceability and a high probability of adulteration or substance residues.

That could be termed ‘Terrorism”.

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Notorious Tennessee Walking Horse Trainer Pleads Guilt to Federal Charges

Posted: May 23, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse Health, Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Tennessee Walking Horse performing running walk

Tennessee Walking Horse performing running walk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

HSUS Press Release

HSUS Reacts to Guilty Pleas in Federal Horse Abuse Case

In the wake of The Humane Society of the United States’ undercover investigation into the shocking abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses, notorious trainer Jackie McConnell pleaded guilty yesterday to a felony conviction for charges related to conspiracy to violate the Horse Protection Act. Two of McConnell’s associates also pleaded guilty to related charges.

The HSUS expresses its thanks to U.S. Attorney William C. “Bill” Killian and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven S. Neff and M. Kent Anderson for pursuing criminal charges for violations of the HPA, and congratulates them on securing guilty pleas, including McConnell’s guilty plea to the charge of felony conspiracy—the most serious of the 52 counts in the federal indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in February. Federal charges are still pending against a fourth individual charged in the case. McConnell and two others also face 31 counts of violating Tennessee’s state animal cruelty statute in a separate matter that is still pending.

“Although the Horse Protection Act has been in place for more than 40 years, violators have seldom been prosecuted,” said Keith Dane, director of equine protection for The HSUS. “The McConnell case, and the conviction and imprisonment earlier this year of Barney Davis—another Tennessee horse trainer—send a clear message to anyone who sores a gaited show horse that soring is a federal crime, and the government will prosecute violators. We thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, and Federal Bureau of Investigation for their work in these cases, and urge the federal government to continue to make enforcement of the Horse Protection Act a top priority.”

For seven weeks in 2011, The HSUS conducted an undercover investigation in McConnell’s Whitter Stables, showing individuals abusing horses by using painful chemicals on the horses’ front legs to force them to perform an artificially high-stepping gait for show competitions. The footage also shows horses being brutally whipped, kicked, shocked in the face, and violently cracked across the heads and legs with heavy wooden sticks. The nation was shocked when this inexcusable cruelty was released to the public on ABC’s Nightline last week.

The HSUS investigator documented McConnell soring Moody Star, the winner of the 2010 Celebration Reserve World Grand Champion owned by Wilsene Moody. Some in the Tennessee Walking Horse industry deny that soring is still a pervasive part of the training process used to produce the “Big Lick” – the gait frequently accomplished by mechanical or chemical soring – that wins ribbons and titles at breed competitions. But at the 2011 Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, 52 of the 52 horses randomly chosen by the USDA tested positive for prohibited foreign substances applied to their pasterns. Foreign substance violation rates (for soring, numbing, or masking agents) at all USDA-inspected shows were 86 percent in 2010 and 97.6 percent in 2011, an indication that soring is widespread in the Tennessee Walking Horse industry. At the time of The HSUS’s investigation, McConnell was under a five-year federal disqualification from participating in horse shows – yet continued to train horses and get them into the show ring.

The HSUS has long been dedicated to ending this inhumane practice, and in the wake of this investigation, will be doing even more to root out and expose the terrible abuses of show horses.  Significant reforms to the HPA are needed and we will be working with Congress to strengthen the law, toughen the penalties, and provide adequate funding to give USDA the tools it needs to stamp out this cruel practice once and for all.

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