Money, like religion and politics, is an extremely personal and intimate commodity; as well it should be. We, as humans, come to terms with an employer and offer to sell segments of our precious time, here on this earth, in return for money; but it is what we do with that money that makes the difference in the quality and significance of our lives.
Story of Sgt Reckless, a horse so heroic during the Korean war she was promoted to Staff Sergeant by the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and is listed alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and John Wayne as one of our all-time heroes.
WASHINGTON — The Humane Society of the United States commends Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., for introducing S. 1281, the Horse Transportation Safety Act of 2011, an important measure to improve safety for horses during transport. The legislation would prohibit the interstate transportation of horses in a motor vehicle containing two or more levels stacked on top of one another. This bill is backed by organizations in the veterinary medical community, the agriculture industry and animal welfare groups, and is supported by a recommendation in a new Government Accountability Office report released last week which stated that a ban on the use of double-decker trailers for transport to slaughter would “protect horses through more of the transportation chain to slaughter.”
A federal court rejected the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) request to dismiss or limit a suit brought by a consortium of wild horse advocacy groups and concerned citizens to save the West Douglas wild horse herd. Although the BLM withdrew their 2010 plans to decimate this northwest Colorado wild horse herd early in 2011, the advocacy groups have remained vigilant in their stance to have the Court decide whether BLM has the legal authority to zero out a herd. By her ruling, Judge Rosemary Collyer agreed that Plaintiffs could proceed with this claim and stated…
Upon arrival at the Southwest Livestock auction premises, investigators noted that there were approx. 500 horses in the pen area. Several trucks and empty single & double deck trailers were parked in front of the pen area. A sign next to the driveway advertised the auctions weekly cattle and horse sale, held every Saturday at noon. Several of the horses in the pen area had auction tags still attached to them. Some of the horses were thin. According to owner/shipper papers recently obtained via Freedom of Information Act Request, Chavez ships close to 400 horses every month to slaughter in Mexico. Records also indicate that many of the horses in his shipments end up at the municipal slaughter plant in Juarez, which is not approved by the European Union and still uses the Puntilla knife.
There is still a lot of bad horse news out there; the likes of horse eating Sue Wallis is sharpening not only her butcher cleavers but her profound talent at publicly lying about facts and figures, the BLM is still on its wild horse eradication campaign and has now added freakish “Frankenstein’ disfigurement to its list of equine torture methods and a President who promised “change” and purported to be “animal friendly” has had his head buried so deeply into the hole in his ego that he has turned a blind eye to the needs and threats against our American equines…nothing is new, so for today we are going to just let it go, see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!
Rock Springs, Wyoming, is not exactly what I would call ‘close’ to Colorado Springs. Nevertheless, our new intern, Erin Clifford from Michigan; and I hopped in the car and started up I-25 northbound, picking up our fellow wild horse advocate friend, Rachel Reeves, along the way.
Animals’ Angels observed the collecting station of known slaughter buyer Garry Morris. There were approx. 40 horses in the pen area. One pen held a severely emaciated red roan Appaloosa, which was probably less than 3 years old. The horse, which was a BCS 1.5 on the Henneke chart, was obviously sick, since thick, purulent discharge was dripping from his mouth and nostrils. There also was discharge from the eyes and he had a dry cough, all symptoms of a severe strangles infection. The horse shared the same pen with numerous other horses, a few minis and an approx. 8 month old foal. Investigators never saw the horse move, he was standing very still with his head low.
The Government Accountability Office released a new report yesterday, “Horse Welfare: Action Needed to Address Unintended Consequences from Cessation of Domestic Slaughter,” and some proponents of horse slaughter are using it as a rallying cry to re-open equine abattoirs on American soil. But the GAO report is a lot more nuanced than the horse slaughterindustry suggests, and the report provides some good insights into better policy solutions for horse welfare. And it confirms what we have long known: that shipping horses long distances in double-decker trailers and killing them for food exports isn’t good for the horses.
The Government Accountability Office has issued its report, GAO 11-228, on action needed to address unintended consequences of the 2007 closing of domestic slaughter facilities. A principal recommendation: “Congress may wish to consider instituting an explicit ban on the domestic slaughter of horses and export of U.S. horses intended for slaughter in foreign countries.”
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