photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation
July 31, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
John Holland, President, Equine Welfare Alliance
540.268.5693
john@equinewelfarealliance.org
Laura Allen, Executive Director, Animal Law Coalition
425.419.7301
lauraallen@animallawcoalition.com
EWA and ALC produce evidence showing GAO Horse Welfare report was fraudulent
EWA (Chicago) – The Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) and the Animal Law Coalition (ALC) announced today that they have irrefutable evidence showing that the Government Accountability Office fraudulently misrepresented horse abuse and neglect data in their report GAO 11-228.
The GAO report blamed falling horse prices and increased abuse and neglect on the closing of the domestic slaughter plants in 2007. Shortly after GAO issued the report, a conference committee reinstated funding for horse slaughter inspections, opening the way for slaughter to return to the US. Widely quoted in the media, the report is also provided as evidence in the lawsuit filed by Valley Meats against the USDA.
The EWA and ALC have provided both a video and a white paper showing how the fraud was committed. The ten minute video, How the GAO deceived Congress about horse slaughter was released on YouTube, and shows step by step how the GAO hid information in its possession showing abuse and neglect was in decline and misrepresented the data as showing it was increasing.
The fraud was discovered by the EWA while collecting data for equine abuse and neglect rates across the country. “We were looking for the correlation between various factors such as unemployment, slaughter and hay prices on a state by state basis,” explained EWA’s John Holland, “and when we looked at the Colorado data, we were reminded of its mention in the GAO report.”
The GAO claimed in the report to have contacted state veterinarians across the country and to have been told that abuse and neglect was increasing everywhere in the wake of the closing of the US plants in 2007. These were the same officials EWA contacted looking for states that kept records.
The EWA found data from six states; Oregon, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Georgia and Colorado. The records showed that abuse and neglect had been in decline between 2008 and 2010 (the last year of the GAO study), and that the GAO had used the wrong dates on the Colorado data to make it appear abuse had increased 60%.
“We had accepted that abuse was probably increasing as the result of the bad economy,” says Holland, “so imagine our surprise when we found it had been decreasing.” The EWA study finally showed the reason: drought. Drought and the subsequent increases in hay prices correlated tightly with the abuse and neglect numbers, and outweighed the influence of the recession and other factors.
“Not only did the GAO misrepresent the data, they completely missed the importance of hay prices and availability.” said Holland. The EWA filed a FOIA request for the data used by the GAO and the request was denied. The EWA also filed an IG complaint, and finally had a conference call with the GAO to request the report be withdrawn. The GAO refused any response except to say that their reports were flawlessly cross checked.
Victoria McCullough, owner of Chesapeake Petroleum and internationally known equestrian, said “Acceptance of lower standards results in failed policies and most significantly failures of public interest. Special Interest encroachment within Washington must not be allowed to erode public trust.”
– # –
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSxUPNgzgn4&feature=youtu.be
White Paper: http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/How_the_GAO_Deceived_Congress-final.pdf
The Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 300 member organizations and over 1,000 individual members worldwide in 21 countries. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids.www.equinewelfarealliance.org
The Animal Law Coalition (ALC) is a coalition of pet
Related Articles
- EWA and ALC Produce Evidence Showing GAO Horse Welfare Report Was Fraudulent (virtual-strategy.com)
- EWA and ALC Produce Evidence Showing GAO Horse Welfare Report Was Fraudulent (biomedreports.com)
- Rising hay prices linked to levels of horse neglect (horsetalk.co.nz)
- USDA to Grant Horse Meat Inspections (rtfitchauthor.com)
- Study of Equine Abuse and Neglect Patterns Produces Surprising Findings (rtfitchauthor.com)
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
It seems that daily we are learning of more foxes guarding the hen-houses. Corruption reigns.
LikeLike
This better mean that the slaughterhouses get blown to pieces! Return all warehoused horses and burros to their territories and imprison every person who falsified that report or, who had knew about it, for life with no parole. They were planning to kill thousands of America’s wild horses just to fund their bank accounts in Cayman Islands. We need to punish the criminals appropriately. All the blatent corruption in this country has got to stop and here is our first chance to set an sobering precedent!Justice had seriously better be served up!
LikeLike
How many more lies and greed and corruption do our innocent beautiful Mustangs have to endure ???? How many more petitions to no where must we sign , how many more phone calls to deaf ears must we make for the Mustangs, when does the hammer come down with justice ??????? How many more deaths and suffering for the Mustangs ??? When is enough enough?????? Someone Please tell me ???????
LikeLike
“Flawlessly crosschecked” by whom? There’s plenty of evidence released by peer that the government omits, skews, and employs ghost writers to stack the deck when “certain people” and organizations want a specific outcome.
LikeLike
I’m having trouble reading the comments in the new format. They’re white when I type them, but a gray that almost matches the background box when I post.
LikeLike
Dear Linda I also have a hard time reading and posting with the background, thats why i haven t been posting much !!!! Words seem to blend in the background !!!!!
LikeLike
I agree on that Linda and Arlene. It is pretty hard to see the comment section anymore with this coloring mix.
LikeLike
These old eyes are having trouble reading the gray type against the gray background. Is there a way to make the type white?
LikeLike
Sorry about the repeat!
LikeLike
It’s almost impossible to read the commits because of the color, I mentioned it earlier, but no one else did , now others are, thanks … When I write my response the lettering is nice a white you can see but when anything is posted you CAN NOT read it…….. I wonder if this information will make a difference of course it should no question, but we all know how this work’s with the injustice of the Wild ones, and a BIG CLUE would be WHY would they not give them information??? BECAUSE they KNOW it is a fake report… OMG just unbelievable, SOOOOOO glad they have this data for the horses side to a future, lets hope, but nothing would surprise me????
LikeLike
Their report will never be corrected. Never. That’s how they operate now. Lie, then deny.
LikeLike
Same here. The format is beautiful, BUT not functional. It’s very difficult to follow, review or comment on past articles. The previous format had a continuity and flow that was much more inviting.
LikeLike
LIES! LIES! LIES! YE-AH! that’s the song that comes to mind from the 80’s. Its the GAO reports favorite tune. Now for the stringer, for years I have been listening to the HooHA that spews from Suey and Doink, Suey was blubbering about the contacts that she has in the GOA office and the fact they were pliable and listened to the plight of the horses. She also stated they were a friend of the killer buyers attempting to make a living. As well, Dr. Lentz is a key bonafide looney who stated the GAO would work with them to show the real truth as they have defined it. Just listening to their nuts you get pieces of how the GAO became corrupt. Now remember there are members of Congress and State Government who are also killer buyers or conduit for kill buyers and they have a special interest in the GAO office. This has been a train wreck from the beginning. Mrs. Piggy is selling RV and is opening her beef slaughter business-guess the back up plan were her skinny grass fed cattle in case the fat horses fed extra couldn’t be slaughtered in US. I guess that the name of this game is and has been money-they all seem to need it. The person behind the GAO report befuddlement is going to deny it because they will lose their job! Just calling people and vets on my own independent studies didn’t come up with the massive wide-spread issues with horses they were claiming. So get ready Im sure the next report will have to be checked the minute it is released. I have been scanning the net weekly looking for articles on abuse, mismanagement, and abandonment in horses and there have been less and less cases. They still exist but less now the droughts subsided in most states. So the AWI needs to be prepared to mark up the very next GAO report the minute its published and be prepared to check facts, and not just on words alone, you will need to get hard copies of the state to state data and figures and actually verify the sources because they will work even harder to cover their butts. Now they know someone’s looking. This ring of horse killers is as tight as the drug cartel and the root of all of this mismanagement is money-you follow the money you find the dead horses, and dead horse lies. Now to throw another under the bus, the Navajo nation is set to help at the Federal Hearing. They have been throwing around numbers of horses that have been incorrect data and we need to verify that its incorrect and someone needs to get it to the people who can set it straight on Friday. The Nation says they have 27000 horses, they also claimed a couple of months ago this number was hard and fast at
23,000 then they state they will keep 12,000 so the actual number of horses they are set to destroy for cash is 11,000 or 14,000 if you use their higher, number. Hardly a reason to reopen a 400,000 a year on tax payers dime facility. With access to the GAO report invalidation if that could be presented casting doubt on the issue it could be presented to validate that we don’t really have a clear and present need for slaughter. WE have to get the Gao report misinformation out there to the public they need to read this, all the horse people who are mesmerized by the reports lies need to hear this-can it be put on the wire, AP, the Horse magazine? It needs to be out there if nothing else but to publicly dispute in where the public will see it. WE have to give the public the facts-some people out there have really big questions about where all this abuse and neglect is at, so we have to show them the truth is the opposite!
LikeLike
Cynthia, this is a response I got from a girl who lives by the Navajo…..
I live in a community right next to the NN and have Navajo friends. I’ve
never heard of the government consulting or polling the ordinary
people. They just do what they like, including things they know will get a
lot of opposition, and essentially dare the people to overturn them. The voting system is so archaic, that seldom happens. And
the NN is probably the most corrupt of all the indigenous peoples in the
U.S. Hardly a week goes by without an article in our paper about
convictions on theft of tribal property or misappropriation of funds. The money that comes in and known the lack of oversight makes activities that hurt their own people too tempting to resist. I don’t see why money from slaughter would be any different.
7:15 p.m., Wednesday July 31
Reply to Linda_Horn
LikeLike
Be certain to watch the video by John Holland from EQUINE WELFARE ALLIANCE
How the GAO deceived Congress about horse slaughter
LikeLike
The video explains that….
The same three congressmen who requested the GAO study
AND
Were responsible for removing language from an agriculture appropriations spending bill on November 18, reversing a five-year ban on horsemeat inspections
ARE THE SAME THREE CONGRESSMEN responsible for the MONSANTO PROTECTION ACT
Sen. HERB KOHL (D-WI)
Sen. ROY BLUNT (R-MO)
Rep. JACK KINGSTON (R-GA)
LikeLike
Excellent information but i would expect no less from Mr. Holland.
LikeLike
I was sent this information yesterday and it didn’t surprise me. We will never know how many bills these crooked politicians passed using fake information the GAO has sent out in the past. Useless bills that we the taxpayer ended up paying for. And with them not being subject to the public’s scrutiny they can do whatever they want to. Look at the money they were paid to write up these lies which is our tax dollars down a rat hole. All of congress are crooks, they get voted back in year after year by bringing home the pork to their states.
LikeLike
Congratulatins to the EWA and AWI. This report was vexing to say the least. While different states have different rules about keeping state wide records, most states have animal control offices and these officers do have records. In our area, it takes a while to figure them out because they are in code, but the code is in the public record. The idea that records did not exist was too easily dismissed. Thank you for your work.
LikeLike
OK OK !!! NOW what is important what is done about it !!!!!!! If it is fact for petes sake act on fraud , fraud is fraud , Quit talking about it , and action please !!!!!!! If all thats going to be done with this is talk about it , what the hell good is it ????????? Lights Camera Action PLEASE !!!!!
LikeLike