Month: August 2012

Pro-Horse/Anti-Slaughter Super PACs Popping Up Like Petunias

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NO HORSING AROUND: Seven super PACs opposing horse slaughter popped up over the weekend, including the American Horse Association, Oklahoma Horse Association, Texas Horse Association, Missouri Horse Association, New Mexico Horse Association, Arizona Horse Association and Alabama Horse Association. All are registered in Kaufman, Texas, with Julie Caramante, who’s lent her name to numerous horse rights and anti-horse slaughter organizations, listed as treasurer for each.

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Horse Slaughter Applicant Gives Up After Being Fined $86,400 For Mountain of Dead Animals on Property

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Roswell, New Mexico, August 15 — When the first applicant for an American horse slaughterhouse operation surfaced earlier this year, Front Range Equine Rescue (FRER) immediately investigated in order to determine the nature of the applicant’s business. FRER discovered that the applicant, Valley Meat Company, had a fifteen-foot high pile of dead cattle rotting on its property, creating a health hazard for the community and placing into serious question the operator’s ability to start up his new operation, slaughtering former American companion, work and competition horses for human consumption. Pictures of the pile taken by both state and federal officials showed a horrific sight. FRER determined that Valley Meat had been in violation of New Mexico law for years, specifically because its owners had been maintaining this massive public health and safety hazard on their property, without any proper or responsible abatement. FRER presented extensive documentation to the state Environmental Board, urging the state to take a careful look at Valley Meat’s operation. In response the state Environmental Board, and its Solid Waste division, undertook a detailed evaluation which this week resulted in a finding that Valley Meat was in grave violation of the solid waste laws, and that it should be fined $86,400 for what amounts to one of the highest penalties for a solid waste violation issued in New Mexico.

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BLM Will Not Move Captive Oklahoma Wild Horses Despite New Dust Bowl Threat

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HOUSTON, (Horseback) – Little has changed in the federal Bureau of Land Management’s handling of wild horses under its Wild Horse and Burro Program, this in spite of the worst drought affecting Midwestern states since the dust bowl of the 1930s. What’s more, nothing will change, despite a threat from nature that could put thousands of animals in jeopardy.

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

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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.

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Tainted Politician’s Attempts to Slaughter Horses Continue to Unravel

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The plant was supposed to open by summer’s end, employing four dozen people.

It might not have been the most appealing work: butchering hundreds of horses each day to fill dinner plates in Europe. But Rockville, Mo., population 166, needed jobs. So residents had embraced turning a defunct beef processing plant into the nation’s first horse slaughtering facility since 2006.

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Wild Horses Evoke Deep Feelings

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But wild horses touch something inside us, something uncommon, something special, something uniquely connected to them. Something for which we have no name, which bears no surprise considering we struggle with everything about the animals, even identity and name.

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Tradition Keeps “Suicide” Horse Race Alive

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(CBS News) This weekend, as it has for nearly 80 years, the rodeo in Omak, Washington will attract thousands of residents and tourists to its city to watch up to 20 jockeys and their horses sprint down a steep embankment and into the water.

Fans of the “World Famous Suicide Race” call it an adrenaline-pumping tradition that brings the community together. Animal rights activists and others, however, cringe watching the stallions plummet into the river down a 210-foot-long, 62-degree slope called Suicide Hill, the dust kicking up behind them as onlookers cheer.

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$170k Bail for ex-BLM Boss Child Sex Charges in NV

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During his 40-year career with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Ronald Wenker was a top government official who made statewide and national decisions on land issues.

But, on Friday morning, the 64-year-old sat in a room full of accused criminals at Washoe County Jail, where he made his first court appearance during a video arraignment.

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