OpEd by Vicki Tobin ~ VP of Equine Welfare Alliance
“Slaughterhouse” Sue Wallis is a Stranger to the Truth
Sue Wallis recently released talking points for supporters to use with their legislators. Talking points should be concise but more importantly, accurate. Apparently, Sue Wallis did not get the memo on the latter. Not only are they inaccurate but she can’t keep her lies straight, particularly when it comes to numbers. It is not wise to disprove your own statements. She not only shoots herself in the foot but continues reloading and shooting over and over again.
Take special note that once again, the issue of food safety is completely ignored. Feel free to share this in your conversations with legislators! My apologies for a plain document in comparison to the slick PDF from Wallis. I thought content was more important than esthetics.
Today, more than 300,000 horses in America have no where to go, living out the last of their days to die painful death of starvation and thirst.
There are no statistics to substantiate this outrageous claim. And even if it were true, less than 115,000 horses are slaughtered each year so there would still be almost 200,000 horses that “have nowhere to go”. The foreign meat business only buys the number of horses needed to fill the demand, not the number of available horses. This point is worthless and a clear message that horse slaughter will not solve any problems that may exist. Slaughter is for food production and not the place to send horses “that have nowhere to go”.
Note to self Sue, don’t refute your own arguments in the same statement.
The Government Accounting Office (GAO) report of June 2011 indicates that any U.S. appropriation riders and bills that seek to eliminate humane horse processing in the U.S. offer ZERO solutions.
Horse slaughter hasn’t provided any solutions and is confirmed with your first talking point. So you now have two talking points that say nothing and offer nothing. The GAO report also recommended banning horse slaughter.
The GAO report reveals that a lack of horse processing in the U.S. has exacerbated the suffering, and increased abandonment, neglect, pain and misery for horses nation-wide.
Anyone that reads the GAO report will quickly discover that there is no data to prove the closure of the plants can be attributed to anything and what role the economy played since it tanked one year after the closures. The GAO even stated that.
Full Analysis: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/GAO_Response-final.pdf
Executive Summary: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/GAO_Exec_Summary-final.pdf
AVMA and AAEP both agree that gunshot or captive bolt are humane methods of euthanasia. Carcasses of horses euthanatized chemically can contaminate the environment, and pose a significant risk of poisoning of prey species.
Both veterinarian agencies recommend ending a horse’s life by humane euthanasia administered by a veterinarian and both describe euthanasia as a veterinary procedure. We have never heard of a veterinarian ever recommending horse slaughter to end a horse’s life probably because the medications they prescribe make the horses ineligible for slaughter. Approximately 800,000 horses die or are euthanized every year without the sky falling because of contamination. The point is unclear regarding prey species since just about every animal on its own scavenges for food. There have been no reported incidents of prey or non-prey animals that became ill from a buried horse. Furthermore, the carcass can be cremated, composted or rendered in addition to burial. Slaughter is not a disposal service, it is a foreign meat business.
Reestablishing horse processing in the U.S. would revive a $112 Billion industry.
What industry – the meat industry or the horse industry? In either case, this is a totally false statement. The horse industry is a $39B industry [direct and indirect] and the revenue in overseas sales from U.S. horses that went directly to the foreign owners was $65M [not billion]. If Wallis is referring to the horse industry, horse slaughter represents a mere 3 cents on every $100 earned. In addition, there is no mention of the increased costs to the taxpayers for litigation costs to force the plants to pay their fines, devalued property values to the surrounding areas, tremendous costs for wastewater issues caused by the plants and financial tax loss to the communities resulting from the lack of being able to attract new businesses and jobs.
Reestablishing horse processing in the U.S. would revive $1.9 Billion in tax revenue.
Tax revenue on what? It’s easy to throw around large numbers when you don’t say what they represent or the source of the information. It must have slipped her mind that the foreign owned plants paid next to nothing in taxes in the U.S. Dallas Crown, as an example, paid a total of $5 in 2004.
Reestablishing horse processing would boost all businesses related to the horse industry from feed companies, saddle makers, trailer manufacturers to hay growers, tack stores and more!
Dead horses don’t eat, Sue. Unless someone is planning on sending their horse to auction with new tack and a new saddle or buying a new trailer for the hauler, none of those businesses will make one penny from horse slaughter. They stand to increase revenue if a horse is alive.
Reestablishing horse processing will create more than a thousand jobs immediately in hard hit states and tribal economies.
More outlandish numbers. The three slaughter plants employed a total of 200 employees, of which approximately 85% were undocumented. All other infrastructure is still in place – auctions, haulers, feedlots and kill buyers. The same number of horses are being slaughtered as when the plants were open. The only job loss and tax revenue can only be related to the 30 or so jobs held by American citizens when the plants closed.
States such as Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming have taken active steps to encourage horse processing industries to enhance their struggling agriculture economies. Congress should not be standing in the way.
The waste of tax dollars for studies into opening plants as well as legislators time working the bills is all for naught since U.S. horses cannot meet food safety requirements of the consuming countries or the FDA. The amount of horses that might meet EU food safety laws would not sustain a plant financially. It would be bankrupt the day it opened its doors.
The National Conference of State Legislatures, Nat’l Assn of Counties, Nat’l Congress of American Indians and more than 230 equine and agriculture organizations across the nation have submitted strongly worded resolutions calling on Congress to restore horse processing.
The opposition to horse slaughter is holding steady at 75% or more. It is clear that the proponents of horse slaughter are a small minority but have the deep pockets of the meat industry behind them and have been monetarily successful in keep the legislation to ban horse slaughter from moving forward.
Members of HSUS, ASPCA, AWI are not involved with animal agriculture or animal husbandry, so…why are we listening to what they believe is “best” for horses?
Another outrageous statement. Sue Wallis does not have access to the membership data and doesn’t have a clue how many are horse owners or involved in the horse industry. Not only does the overwhelming majority of the horse industry oppose horse slaughter but more and more meat producers are finally realizing what supporting horse slaughter is doing to the reputation of the U.S. meat industry in regard to food safety.
People in the horse industry never had the opportunity to voice their commonsense, factual reasoning to keep horse processing in the U.S. before the 2007 ban instigated by HSUS.
Factual reasoning must begin with facts and Wallis has none. People in the horse industry spoke load and clear ensuring the funding was removed for horse inspections. Perhaps what she meant to say was that the voices of the industry and Americans were not heard when Harry Reid via Conrad Burns snuck the 3 strikes language into an appropriations bill on America’s wild horses and burros without the benefit of a hearing or notifying anyone.
HSUS created today’s dire circumstances for the 300,000-plus displaced horses across America, and
yet they do nothing to help with their $150 million.
Actually, it is organizations like Wallis’ that have created the “dire circumstances” by not addressing over-breeding and responsible ownership. Horses slaughter is as much available today as when the plants were open so it is obvious that horse slaughter has already been proven not to work.
The ban on horse processing is an infringement on private property rights and has been found to be
unconstitutional.
Wrong again, Sue. The constitutionality of banning horse slaughter has already been heard in federal courts. The laws prevailed proving your statement false. Owners are sending their horses to auctions to sell them. When horse slaughter finally ends, they will still have the right to sell their property. This is a tired, emotional, over-used argument with no basis.
The animal rights organizations use unscientific, emotional propaganda to manipulate Congress.
Au contraire. We have provided peer reviewed published papers, data from the USDA, studies comparing official state reports of neglect to official unemployment records and several papers with a thorough analysis of the issues with sources that can be verified. As evidenced in these talking points, you have provided no data, no sources, no analysis and numbers that you throw around that keep changing in each communication. Aren’t you using emotional propaganda by trying to scare people into believing they won’t be able to sell their horses or promising jobs that never existed nor will exist?
These so-called non-profits pay no taxes, create zero jobs, and offer no solutions, while doing
everything they can to advance their anti-animal agriculture, vegan agenda.
Aren’t you a so-called non-profit? Are you paying tax? How do you rationalize being a 501(c)(3) and lobbying instead of doing charitable work? Aren’t you proposing an agenda that 75% of the country opposes? The organizations you are bashing not only offered solutions but have implemented them. Ignoring them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Click (HERE) to download Wallis Talking Points
Related articles
- Anti-Horse Wyoming Politician Promotes Fraud Against President and Congress on Facebook (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
- Desperate Wyoming Horse Eater Shows Her Burro In Illogical and Inhumane Rant (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
- GAO Follows Horse Slaughter Lobby Down the Rabbit Hole (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
- Polls and Petitions Reflect America’s Humane Love for Equines (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
- Senator Baucus Dons his Horse Slaughter Suicide Vest (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
- For Horse Lovers Everywhere: The Truth About Horse Slaughter (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
- EWA VP Sinks Wyoming Horse Eater’s Rant (rtfitch.wordpress.com)
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
From Animal Angels:
Horse Slaughter Bombshell in Belgium and Holland
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs022/1101655399670/archive/1107935901491.html
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SS…better give it up, because you have garnered the undivided attention of Ms Tobin and she is going to turn you every which way, but loose.
Thanks Vicki….thanks RT for featuring.
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KEEP AFTER HER RT FOR THIS WOMAN IS SICK. HER FACTS ARE ALL SCREWED UP. TO THINK THE TAXPAYERS HAVE TO PAY HER WAGES, PENSION AND WHO KNOW WHAT ELSE WHILE SHE IS OUT THERE GIVING THE PUBLIC FALSE INFORMATION AND TRYING TO PROMOTE MEAT THAT IS DANGEROUS FOR HUMAN CONSUMPATION. WILLIS IS THE WORST EXAMPLE OF A REPRESENTATIVE I HAVE EVER SEEN AND THE PEOPLE OF WYOMING DESERVE BETTER.
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I don’t understand WHY the people of Wyoming allow her to still be there!!! They push the mustangs in their advertisements for tourism, yet they have SS pushing for that same tourist attraction to be located as the next restaurants main meal!! WHAT GIVES???
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Well she certainly looks like she’s eaten all the horses.
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No fat jokes…there are good people that support antislaughter and wild equines and are overweight. I’m one and still have a brain.
SS is ugly because she stands for ugly, wrong, evil and lies about many issues….wild equines and HCHS are just 2 that this nutbag advocates.
But yes, based on appearance, she is an easy target. The fact is that it is her stance and activism that are the problems.
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Vicki, thanks so much for providing another dose of reality and sanity in contrast to this woman’s depraved and deceptive “talking points.” You are truly a horse hero. 🙂
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This horse of a woman has to be one of the most disgusting, immoral, dishonest individuals to come along in some time. Her propaganda efforts are so tranasparent they are almost juvenile. What a pathetic excuse for a human being.
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Could you use elephant, ranch, mountain, tsnami, whale—-yes whale has nice alliterative qualities with woman. Horses are too fine, noble, and honest to be in any way associated with this woman.
I believe I was informed through a reliable source that there is no evidence that she has ever owned, raised, ridden, or trained horses herself. As if she should be considered some kind of expert on the horse industry and horses.
She needs to have her 501 (c) 3 status pulled and sooner is better than later.
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You are insulting the creatures you are using to mock SS.
No creature, other than human insult and disrespect life forms more than the likes of SS.
Calling her fat, is off topic….and as I just said, it insults the life forms you use to insult her and they don’t deserve that kind of disrespect.
But you are certainly entitled to your right to free speech. I just wonder if it helps the equines, wild or domestic.
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Excellent! All are great and clear points but this is my favorite: “Dead horses don’t eat, Sue. Unless someone is planning on sending their horse to auction with new tack and a new saddle…”
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I believe she is the main “sock puppet” for the likes of Gage & Olsonn (whomever Bride of Chucky Stenholm sells his morality and ethics to, for, with, whatever).
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Them danged sock puppets do get around!
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1. WY Governor’s Office
(not that he can act in this case, but he should hear from us anyway)
Gov. Matt Mead
State Capitol, 200 West 24th Street
Cheyenne, WY 82002-0010
Telephone: 307-777-7434
FAX: 307-632-3909
2. The Congressional Committee on Ethics
Barbara Boxer, Chairman
220 Hart Building, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510
Telephone: (202) 224-2981
Fax: (202) 224-7416
3. The White House petition office
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
(In the subject line, choose “Other”. The first line in the message should be “REPORTING FRAUD ON WTP PETITION:” Then briefly, professionally, and clearly issue your complaint about Sue Wallis’ encouraging her followers to commit fraud on the petition. Link RT Fritch’s thorough blog about her shenangins if you want to:
https://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/anti-horse-wyoming-politician-promotes-fraud-against-president-and-congress-on-facebook/
4. Facebook (See “Report Fraud” on FB Help Center).
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Above is a re-post of what I’ve put on my Celebrate the Horse Network pages for our troops. Thought it might be handy for others, here.
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I did each of these actions, and it was fun. I have not received a reply from any of them.. My only problem was how to complain to FB.
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No bashing here, Elaine…but didn’t the Gov of WY recently sue (amicus filing) re the West Douglas herd (or was it the East Douglas herd)? If I have the players right, emailing him would be like asking SS to acknowledge drug issues in HCHS US equines.
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Yes Gov. Mead is against the free roaming wild horses in this state. He comes from a ranching family and has shown that the horses are using to much of the range land that the cattle need. This is just a short statement to how I understand some of the things he has commented on since his election. In fact all of the elected US officials from Wyoming are sailing on the same boat.
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I did email Governor Mead and I included several paragraphs in this letter about the food safety issues that his state representative is completely ignoring. I shared with him my strongly felt opinion that it is the responsibility of the government to protect human health—even if those human beings do not live between our shores. Moreover, I suggested that given scientific information that is now more broadly known and understand that in 2006 regarding the effects of drugs given to horses on human health, and that the insistance of a relatively small group of Western states special interest groups on re-opening horse slaughter plants in the United States could put the entire US meat industry, particularly the 97 percent of beef that is raised by public lands ranchers to be exported to foreign markets.
This madness that is so richly dressed in the caricature of a human being known as Sue Wallis—who is the ugly public vision of everything associated with horse slaughter—makes me more angry the more I write about, the more I try to synthesize the facts that we know about it.
I agree with the comment that SS is a sock puppet. However, the AAEP is not. The AVMA is not. As part of the professional code of ethics veterinarians are supposed to understand and agree to uphold is a pledge pledge to protect both animal and human health. It is time for the good veterinarians who disagree with their leadership to take their groups back because I am find such flagrant, self-serving, abdication of duty to protect both horses and humans repugnant.
A third group of veterinarians, Veterinarians for Equine Welfare are addressing the breech of ethics that the AAEP and the AVMA’s stance on horse slaughter really is. Their pages offer a rebuttal to the position of AAEP and AVMA.
Doctors who fail to follow the code of ethics of the profession can be disciplined by the state medical board and can be disciplined through fines, restrictions on their licenses, or the loss of their license. Attorneys can also be disciplined and ultimately be disbarred if the fail to adhere to certain ethical guidelines.
I believe letters of protest for their position on horse slaughter are in order. The word on the street is that AAEP has taken a position that for all except the very end when the horse is in the kill box and can smell blood, thus causing fear and panic, horse slaughter is deemed humane by none other than Dr. Lenz and his followers in the unwanted horse coalition. There is absolutely no way any person of conscience could come to this conclusion given the USDA’s own photos and reports. For other members of AAEP to let these charletans who are probably being paid under the table by Charles Stenholm to create this fictional world where terror is kindness and kindness is terror is not acceptable.
Sooner or later, those little girls who look up to the men and women who take care of their horses, are going to understand that they have been gamed and betrayed—just like we grown-up men and women are feeling right now.
Horse slaughter is so inherently evil that it cannot help but leave a dark shadow on all who tie their fate to it.
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“Horse slaughter is so inherently evil that it cannot help but leave a dark shadow on all who tie their fate to it.”
Amen Christie.
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SS is a pathological liar or possessed by the devil–maybe both.
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Great article!! Thank you Vicki and R.T. for yet another slam dunk. SSW is so clearly delusional and I just love the way you continually spell that out. It’s awesome.
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Sue (not a poet) Wallis keeps tripping over her fork tongue…..Again, her claims of loving the horses and wanting to see them not suffer, ah, it is the Horse Industry that she cares about…Where would that Industry be without the horses. Maybe she should start a ant farm……….
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All very good comments. I agree, if the horses are dead – there is no way they
can consume any food substance. The more this woman rants and talks the more she puts her foot in her mouth. The untruths spew from her mouth like the evil one that she is. Its so obvious she has never owned a horse. If she did I would hate to be that poor fellow. Many people do not realize what Texas
and Illinois had to put up with. They were many environmental violations which to my knowledge went unpaid. How can you let a business operate when they don’t pay their bills. These house of horrors should not be placed in anyone’s back yard or in any remote areas of the United States. Americans have voiced their opinions loud and clear on this issue. I also see that Canadians may be following the same path. We too, in Illinois have to be ever so vigilant because there is a legislator who tries to pass legislation to reopen it. The poor people in Texas could tell all sorts of horror stories. Without horses, who is going to buy the feed, hay and tack that goes along with our horses. The more this woman opens her mouth, the more ideotic she sounds. She should hang up her spurs! Hmmmmmmmm, do we think she has ever ridden a horse?
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Oh, yeah – this person from Texas can indeed tell all kinds of horror stories all right. I and my horses lived in the shadow of both Beltex and Dallas Crown for 15 nightmarish years.
That’s the main reason I left. Just couldn’t take any more. The plants are closed now of course, but they weren’t when we left.
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Our representatives are not hearing from us is the word I am getting. We need to get people calling in large numbers. Get the small animal advocates to speak up for the horses. Although SS is a joke, she is getting attention partly because of GAO report and partly because we are not contacting our representatives. Lastly, and unfortunately several equine scientists have challenged the report on the effects of bute.
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Who has challenged the report on the effects of bute?
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I wonder whether anyone has mailed Wyoming’s governor a copy of Andrew Cohen’s article in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY….The Quiet War Against Wyoming’s Wild Horses”?
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