Posts Tagged ‘Susana Martinez’

My Turn: ‘Nothing Humane about Horse Slaughter’

Posted: April 6, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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Source: Paula Todd King as published in The Taos News

“Horse Slaughter is the opposite of euthanasia”

I know that horse lovers abound in Taos and the surrounding areas but I wonder how many people realize how close our state is to becoming the first state in the nation to reopen horse slaughter plants. Is that the notorious reputation we want for our Land of Enchantment? Around the country greedy kill buyers and horse slaughter house operators are licking their chops in anticipation of killing off our country’s horses.

Slaughter advocates say that horse slaughter is the humane answer to deal with unwanted horses. There is nothing humane about horse slaughter.

Horse Slaughter is the opposite of euthanasia. There is no way a horse can be humanely slaughtered in an industrialized setting. We should have learned that lesson by now.

In 2006 the USDA stopped inspecting horse slaughter houses for a good reason, horse slaughter is inhumane. As late as 2011 when the defunding of horse slaughter inspections by the USDA expired, the Government Accounting Office, June 2011 report recommended a permanent ban on slaughter.

The captive bolt method of slaughter commonly used for cattle slaughter is not effective or humane when it comes to horses. Horses, flight animals by nature struggle to escape. Their heads cannot be restrained.

The horse skull is much thicker than other livestock, and their brain is located further back in the skull. As a result it takes several painful blows to the head before the horse is stunned enough to be suspended. Forty percent of the time a horse is alive and aware when the butchering process begins. Is this what you would call a humane end of life for your horse?

Horse overpopulation is another piece of propaganda being circulated by pro-slaughter advocates. Horse slaughter merely enables and rewards the continued irresponsible breeding by the horse manufacturing industries of quarter horses and thoroughbreds.

In New Mexico, we are the recipient of unwanted horses from all over the country as a result of our proximity to horse slaughter in Mexico. In 2011, according to a European Union report, over 19,000 horses were dumped at the border to Mexico — rejects from slaughter. These horses were dumped by unscrupulous kill buyers on state, federal, tribal and even private land.

As citizens, taxpayers, horse lovers, are we going to stand by and allow the hideously cruel industry of horse slaughter to dig it’s nasty claws into our country’s horses once again, an industry that will make a few people rich, an industry that is subsidized by taxpayer dollars to the tune of $5 million annually, an industry that has the reputation of environmental pollution that far outweighs the economic benefit.

We can still stop this barbaric industry before it ever gets started in our state.

Several groups including  New Mexico Against Horse Slaughter and Wild Horse Observers Association continue to call on Gov. Susana Martinez to write an executive order to ban horse slaughter in New Mexico.

Martinez has repeatedly claimed that she has no authority, that it is up to the USDA. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, however, has already pleaded with Congress to place a ban on horse slaughter…(CONTINUED)

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NM Governor Signs Horse Racing Crackdown Bills

Posted: April 3, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News
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English: New Mexico State Governor Susana Martinez

New Mexico State Governor Susana Martinez (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Source:  The Washington Examiner.com

“We owe it to owners, jockeys, horses, and fans alike to ensure that everyone in the industry conducts themselves with integrity…”

SANTA FE, N.M.  — New Mexico racing regulators will be able to test more horses for illegal drugs and can impose tougher sanctions for violations under legislation signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Susana Martinez.

One new law provides the State Racing Commission with an earmarked source of money — about $700,000 a year — for testing race horses. That’s more than twice what the regulatory agency currently spends, according to Vince Mares, the commission’s executive director.

The money will come from an existing tax on pari-mutuel wagering at horse racing tracks.

Another law will allow the commission to impose penalties up to $100,000, or the amount of a horse’s winnings if that’s greater, for violations of the state’s racing rules, including those against the use of performance enhancing drugs. Civil penalties currently are limited to $10,000 for each violation.

The laws take effect June 14.

“We owe it to owners, jockeys, horses, and fans alike to ensure that everyone in the industry conducts themselves with integrity,” Martinez said in a statement after signing the legislation in Las Cruces. “Anyone who endangers a horse or a jockey should face stiff penalties.”

The regulatory changes came after a New York Times investigation last year highlighted drug use in the horse racing industry as well as horse deaths and jockey injuries at tracks across the nation, including in New Mexico.

The commission last year adopted new standards governing the drugs that can be administered to horses. One of the measures signed by the governor will ensure that those standards remain tied to national guidelines set by The Association of Racing Commissioners International and will require use of testing labs that meet the association’s guidelines.

By imposing those requirements in state law, Mares said, New Mexico’s racing regulators can’t retreat from those in the future.

“We want to make sure the Racing Commission remains accountable to stay within the high standards of the industry as far as testing,” said Mares…(CONTINUED)

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New Mexico Governor Signs Bill to Establish Horse Rescue Fund

Posted: March 28, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue
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English: New Mexico State Governor Susana Martinez

New Mexico State Governor Susana Martinez (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Source: Milan Simonich of Las Cruces Sun-News

The new law also allows for gifts, grants and appropriations that would help shelters care for horses.

SANTA FE — Shelters across New Mexico that care for abandoned horses could receive financial help through a bill that Gov. Susana Martinez signed Wednesday.

The measure creates a horse shelter rescue fund to be administered by the New Mexico Livestock Board.

New Mexico has 11 state-licensed shelters for equines, at least nine of which are active in rescue operations, said Lisa Jennings, executive director of Animal Protection of New Mexico.

Her organization lobbied for the bill, which was carried by Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup.

Munoz says the primary financial feature of his legislation is an optional designation for personal income tax contributions for the rescue fund.

The new law also allows for gifts, grants and appropriations that would help shelters care for horses.

Jennings said approximately 350 horses live in New Mexico shelters. Many were abandoned. Others were wild animals that became sick or could not care for themselves.

Munoz said the shelter staffs stepped in, saving the horses from painful deaths.

Under his bill, the livestock board will establish rules for distribution of money from the rescue fund. Horse populations and the needs of each shelter are to guide the board in how it allocates money.

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Butchering Family Gives Up on Horse-Slaughter Plant in New Mexico

Posted: August 14, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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By Milan Simonich / Texas-New Mexico Newspapers

“It doesn’t look like anybody is going to get a grant of inspection for horse slaughter.”

Rick de los Santos speaks to CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker about killing and eating horses (CBS)

SANTA FE – A family business in the Roswell area has suspended its plan to slaughter horses for human consumption in foreign markets, its attorney said today.

Valley Meat Co. has received no response from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on its application to slaughter horses and process the meat, said A. Blair Dunn, the attorney who represents the business. It had been pursuing federal approval since April.

Blair said the De Los Santos family, owner of Valley Meat Co., has no choice but to restart its cattle-slaughter business.

That business was in abeyance while the family sought federal approval for its equine slaughter and processing operation.

“They’re suspending any plans for the horse-slaughter plant,” Dunn said in an interview. “It doesn’t look like anybody is going to get a grant of inspection for horse slaughter.”

A meat-processing plant cannot slaughter both cattle and horses simultaneously, Dunn said. Given what he called inaction by the federal government, the family has no choice but to resume its cattle-processing business to make a living, he said.

Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, was among the officeholders who opposed the horse-slaughter plant. State Land Commissioner Ray Powell, a Democrat and a veterinarian, also was against horse slaughter in New Mexico.

But people in the horse industry disagreed with opponents of the plant, saying there was no logical reason to fight the De Los Santos family’s business venture. “Horses deserve better than to be abandoned, starved or transported long distances in crowded trucks to slaughter in foreign countries,” the New Mexico Horse Council’s president, Rusty Cook, said in a letter to the governor.

His organization represents about 30 horse clubs.

The De Los Santos family had to retrofit its 7,000-square-foot plant to prepare for the slaughter and processing of horses. Dunn said the family saw Europe as its primary market for horse meat.

Horse slaughter has been a dormant industry in the United States. That was because Congress in 2006 did not fund the required USDA inspections of horses that would be killed for human consumption.

The federal policy changed last year. Congress funded the inspections in an agriculture bill that President Obama signed.

Still, in a practical sense, nothing was different for the De Los Santos family, which could not obtain its grant of inspection, despite a persistent effort, Dunn said.

Milan Simonich, Santa Fe Bureau chief of Texas-New Mexico Newspapers, can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or 505-820-6898. His blog is at nmcapitolreport.com

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http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_21310956/family-gives-up-horse-slaughter-plant-new-mexico

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Colo.-Based Horse Advocacy Group Seeks Fines on NM Slaughterhouse over Waste Disposal

Posted: May 22, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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“…during fly season the pile literally moves due to maggots”

Are Horses Next? ~ photo by Terry Fitch

A Colorado-based horse advocacy group says a New Mexico company seeking to become the nation’s first slaughterhouse for horses since 2007 should face fines for violating laws on waste disposal.

The Albuquerque Journal reports (http://bit.ly/J9Fxis) that the state Environment Department received a letter this week from Front Range Equine Rescue calling for fines against Valley Meat Co. The Roswell-area slaughterhouse has hauled 400 tons of composted cattle parts from its property, after two years of prodding by the state Environment Department.

But Front Range Equine Rescue said the company should still be fined for past offenses highlighted by a USDA inspector in January 2010.

Fines can reach $5,000 daily per violation, so Valley Meat could be subject to millions in fines. However, Auralie Ashley-Marx, chief of the Environment Department’s Solid Waste Bureau, said Friday that there are mitigating circumstances, such as the recent removal of the waste and the lack of a market for De Los Santos’ compost.

“This is not a black and white case,” she said. “Sometimes there are limiting factors that are difficult to overcome.”

Valley Meat Co. officials could not be reached for comment.

The firm, owned by Rick De Los Santos, burst into the public spotlight after it filed an inspection application with the USDA in March in a bid to slaughter horses for human consumption in foreign markets.

No rendering plants have slaughtered horses in the United States since 2006, when Congress decided to withhold funds for USDA inspections of horses bound for slaughter. Federal funds for those legally required inspections were restored last fall in an agricultural spending bill.

Gov. Susana Martinez and other high-ranking state officials have spoken out against the startup of a horse slaughtering plant in New Mexico. An application for USDA inspections is pending before the federal Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Ron Nelson, with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, notified state officials about the decomposing cattle in a January 2010 correspondence: “Mr. De Los Santos drags dead cattle (mostly old dairy cows) and piles them on a concrete pad where he leaves them to rot. He calls it ‘composting’ but by all appearances rotting would be more accurate. I am told that during fly season the pile literally moves due to maggots.”

Nelson in 2010 wrote that one pile of cow renderings stood about 15 feet high and was “full of bones and animal parts.” He added: “There is no composting, just animals piled upon each other.”

But Ashley-Marx said Friday that Valley Meat had composted the material, if crudely and in an unregistered operation, and she said the large piles of material “pose(d) no threat to public health or the environment.” She said Valley Meat had improved its composting operation since she visited in 2010 and now has a certified compost facility operator.

However, Valley Meat still does not have a registered compost facility, partly because of gaps in its application and partly because the state has taken more than a year to process its application.

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Editorial: Horse Slaughter Deal Unappetizing for U.S.

Posted: April 17, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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By on Tue, Apr 17, 2012
Would You Eat Trigger?

Do you think it’s OK for someone else to eat Trigger?

Gov. Susana Martinez says absolutely not.

But a bid to begin slaughtering horses near Roswell for human consumption will mean the equivalent of dining on animals that are icons of the West — spirited wild horses and faithful companion and working animals that helped build the nation.

“A horse’s companionship is a way of life for many people across New Mexico. We rely on them for work and bond with them through their loyalty,” Martinez says. “Despite the federal government’s decision to legalize horse slaughter for human consumption, I believe creating a horse slaughter industry in New Mexico is wrong, and I am strongly opposed.” Her sentiments were echoed by State Land Commissioner Ray Powell and state Attorney General Gary King.

The governor plans to urge the USDA to reject the application and to ask for the support of New Mexico’s congressional delegation.

From 2006 until recently, Congress has chosen not to fund the legally required USDA inspections of horses bound for slaughter. But last year Congress did fund the inspections in an agriculture spending bill signed by President Barack Obama.

With the barn door wide open, Rick De Los Santos, part-owner of Valley Meat Co., applied for USDA inspection of its meat processing plant so it can slaughter and process horses.

It’s bad enough that more than 100,000 horses a year are bound for slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada — and dinner tables in Europe and Asia — but it’s distasteful to think about the possibility of little Susie’s birthday pony being turned into taco meat right here in New Mexico.

And distressing to make it easier for deplorable situations to develop like the one at the Southwest Livestock Auction in Los Lunas where four horses were so emaciated and abused that three had to be put down and the fourth expired before it could be euthanized. The owner faces allegations of animal cruelty and neglect. But it’s not his first rodeo with animal cruelty and neglect allegations. In 1991, authorities couldn’t make 16 misdemeanor cruelty counts stick, mainly for lack of evidence — the horses were long gone.

The state Livestock Board and local prosecutors should ride such cruelty cases hard. And the USDA should make it clear: Americans don’t eat Trigger.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

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Horse Slaughter Request Spurs Outcry

Posted: April 14, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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By on Sat, Apr 14, 2012

Slaughter Plant Owner Defends Horse Meat Scheme

New Mexico Gov. Susanna Martinez says NO to Horse Slaughter

LAS CRUCES – A Roswell area meat-processing plant’s bid to begin slaughtering horses for human consumption in foreign markets has sparked a bipartisan backlash by high-profile state figures, including the governor.

But Rick De Los Santos, part-owner of Valley Meat Co., said he is just trying to fill a niche, provide jobs and continue production in a plant he has operated for 22 years. The plant would be the first in the nation in recent years.

“I have applied to be able to slaughter equine, and that’s all I’ve done. If I get it (USDA approval), I get it. If I don’t, I don’t know what I’ll do,” said De Los Santos, 52, who said he laid off his last 10 employees three weeks ago because of the lack of work. “It’s not against the law. Now it’s legal to slaughter horses in the U.S. for human consumption. People here might not want it, but there are people who do want it.”

Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, and Attorney General Gary King and State Land Commissioner Ray Powell, both Democrats, voiced opposition to the horse slaughtering plan Friday.

King called the prospect of a horse slaughtering operation in the Roswell area “a terrible idea” while Powell, a veterinarian, said: “New Mexico can do much better by these intelligent and gentle creatures.”

Martinez’s office said the governor plans to send a letter to the USDA urging the federal agency not to allow the horse slaughtering operation, and she will seek the support of New Mexico’s delegation in Washington, D.C.

“A horse’s companionship is a way of life for many people across New Mexico. We rely on them for work and bond with them through their loyalty,” Martinez said. “Despite the federal government’s decision to legalize horse slaughter for human consumption, I believe creating a horse slaughter industry in New Mexico is wrong and I am strongly opposed.”

While horse slaughter has not been directly banned in the United States, industrial operations have been effectively blocked since 2006 when Congress chose not to fund the legally required USDA inspections of horses bound for slaughter. However, last year Congress funded the USDA inspections in an agriculture spending bill signed by President Barack Obama.

Powell and King’s criticism was part of a joint statement issued by the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the Colorado-based Front Range Equine Rescue and Animal Protection of New Mexico.

The Valley Meat Co., in December and again on March 1, submitted an application for USDA inspection of its 7,290-square-foot plant so that it can begin custom slaughtering and processing of horses.

If he receives USDA approval, De Los Santos said he planned to slaughter 20 to 25 horses per day to start “which is not a whole lot, compared to what’s available.”

De Los Santos said more than 100,000 American horses are shipped out of the country to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada, from which some of the meat is exported to Europe and Asia. “All I’m saying is we can take some of those and slaughter them here,” De Los Santos said.

De Los Santos said the meat from his plant would be exported by an El Paso partner, whom he declined to name, into Mexico. “Everyone who’s ever eaten tacos in Mexico, I guarantee you they’ve eaten horse meat down there,” he said. “It would never be my intention to sell it in the U.S.”

Valley Meat’s application to the USDA was disclosed this week by Front Range Equine Rescue, which obtained USDA documents and email through a federal records request.

Meanwhile, several Roswell area officials, including the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said Friday they are trying to get information about the company’s plans before staking out a position.

“I would not want to venture an opinion until I have some facts upon which to base an opinion,” said Chaves County Commissioner Greg Nibert.

The Humane Society and Front Range have petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to declare that meat from former companion, show and work horses to be unfit for humans because of the risk that the meat contains residual toxins administered to the animals during their lifetime. For that reason, the groups have also asked the USDA to ban the slaughter of those horses for human consumption.

De Los Santos said he understands that many Americans oppose the idea of slaughtering horses for consumption, but he said the foreign demand is there, and he is just trying to make a living with a facility now dormant. He said he is not seeking state or local financial help, and all the investment will come from foreign sources.

“Finally, finally today I see an opportunity where I could make a good living, and provide 40 to 50 good jobs, and now I have all the activists, and the governor, coming after me,” De Los Santos said. “I’m going to try to do what I need to make a living, and that’s not against the law.”

— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal

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