This is an excellent article by journalist Vickery Eckhoff. Once again, Vickery does great research and gives the public the truth.
SOURCE: forbes.com
Vickery Eckhoff, Contributor
176,000 U.S. horses were sold to slaughter in 2012 through livestock auctions and feedlots like this one in Fallon, NV
The opening of three slaughter facilities looking to butcher horses on U.S. soil hit another roadblock Monday when a federal appeals court issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from inspecting horse slaughter plants. The length of the injunction—issued after a request by Front Range Equine Rescue (FRER), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and other groups and individuals—was not indicated.
Once that issue is resolved, though, no U.S. plants will be starting up overnight for a host of reasons: first, because the USDA will then need to train inspectors, a process that could take weeks. Without inspectors on hand, no plants can operate.
A second obstacle is that two of the plants presently looking to slaughter horses—Valley Meat in Roswell, NM, and Rains Natural Meats in Gallatin, MO—have other legal issues at the state level that may hold the plant openings up according to Bruce Wagman, the attorney for FRER and related parties.
So Will Horse Meat Be Produced Anytime Soon in the U.S.?
Don’t count on the media to tell you that. For the better part of two years—including as recently as November 1—it has been announcing various impending grand openings of Valley Meat or plants in other states, most of them quoting its owner, Rick De Los Santos, and his attorney, A. Blair Dunn. And yet not a single plant has opened.
The reasons for this are long and complicated. They have mainly to do with the highly unregulated equine slaughter industry’s specific talent for promoting its virtues over its rather sordid history of environmental and humane violations, expensive court battles, unpaid fines and disregard for court orders. Couple that with an unwary news media prone to taking the industry at its word, without fact-checking and with even less appetite for making corrections, and you have a recipe for misinforming the public.
Given their legal problems, why did Valley Meat’s owner and attorney on November 1 tell the Associated Press (AP)—and by extension, the American public—that they’d be up and running within seven to ten days, then? Or that Rains Natural Meats would be packing horsemeat as early as three days ago?
Were they planning on opening and operating illegally? Or were they simply jerking the press around, regardless of the facts, in order to generate PR?
The AP, for its part, has produced 17 articles since June, 2012, giving Mr. De Los Santos, Mr. Dunn and their supporters an open platform for doing just that. And while the AP has defended its coverage of Valley Meat as balanced and factual, an analysis of seven consecutive stories published between June, 6, 2012 and April 13, 2013 shows otherwise.
While roughly the same number of sources both in favor or against the slaughter plant were interviewed by the AP, the study shows that the views of Mr. De Los Santos and horse slaughter proponents and industry groups commanded a 69.4% share of voice while sources presenting a counter or anti-slaughter view had only a 12.7% share of voice. That is not balanced reporting—and Mr. De Los Santos and Mr. Dunn’s problems with being factual make it especially concerning.
A close reading of the AP’s more recent articles reveals more of the same. To read them is to wonder if the AP has some kind of stake in these plants slaughtering horses for export.
Critical Facts Wrong in 17 Articles, But AP Won’t Correct Them
It’s a fact that Valley Meat and Rains Natural Meat can’t open because they have unresolved legal problems and no USDA-trained inspectors. So to state that the plants are about to open when they can’t is just plain false. Should the AP have fact-checked Mr. De Los Santos and Mr. Dunn on this? Absolutely.
A bigger worry, however, is the historical events, data and context that the AP gets wrong, doesn’t examine or seem to understand, and the insupportable conclusions it draws for the U.S. public as a result.
It has, for example, consistently maintained across its coverage of Valley Meat that Congress’ defunding of horse slaughter plants effectively shut them down in 2006, including a November 5, 2013 article, “Federal Appeals Court Halts Horse Slaughter After Humane Society Appeal” by Jeri Clausing, picked up by ABC News, NBC, The Huffington Post, and other mainstream media.
According to the article: “Valley Meat Co. owner Rick De Los Santos has been fighting for two years for approval to open. He converted his small, struggling cattle slaughterhouse in southern New Mexico to take advantage of a shift in Congress that lifted a ban on funding for inspections at horse slaughterhouses. A vote to end that funding in 2006 had effectively banned horse slaughter until the money was restored in 2011.”
To be sure, Congress’ banning slaughter in 2006—along with the idea that the shutdown was bad for horses—is a staple of Ms. Clausing’s and the AP’s extensive reporting on Valley Meat.
But that premise is flat out wrong on three counts. First, because the plants shut down in 2007, not 2006. Second, because what shut them down wasn’t Congress’ 2005 vote to defund slaughter inspections, but state bans on horse slaughter in Texas and Illinois that were upheld by federal court judges. Third, actual data between 2005 and 2010… To read the rest of this article, CLICK HERE
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
These horses who have been shot and lay and die slowly, is this humane? No of course not, they have crack shots, so be that but still some are suffering while dying.
for what reason are they culling these horses, Mother nature is the one who takes the weak out and the strong stay, being a wild horse is not easy, they have to eat, find water every day, fight off pray that prays on them, Watch out for the babies in the heard , the stallions have to defend their mares, live through the weather changes and mother nature does throw in storms, for those who make it, it all starts over again every year. Man is the worst hunter of all, he will kill not for food but for sport. Seems to me we the people could let them be, have a humane round up sell some of the younger ones off and manage the heard that way rather them kill the horses.
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Daryl, great passion here, but did you mean to post on the Brumbies thread? I agree the single most invasive species our planet endures is over 7 Billion (and counting) human beings. It strikes me as the ultimate hubris for us to label any other species “invasive” and “overpopulated.”
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Yes It is just men seem to just want to kill, these animals have been there for a long time, nature takes care of them, we are just wasteful as humans , how can we say killing is the way to thin out any animals? It hurts so much to think of these animals just being shot, then just lay there suffer and die…..to me it is not humane. I love horses, all kinds of horses, to me they are the most beautiful of all animals God made. They have a right to live and die in the wild. But not this way.
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Daryl, we are in agreement. I can’t comprehend how I can be a member of the same species which could so wantonly kill another species, especially since they are victims of a long series of human decisions. At least on this continent we have created the situations which we then blame and kill them for.
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Thank You RT. and Especially To Vickery For submitting The TimelinE Of The Horse Slaughter Closures. I Shared This Article Because I Was There To Witness The Hard Work, Failures And Finally The Success. I Remember The Back Door tactics Of Conrad BurnsAnd His Cronies. Putting Language In The Farm Bill Will Only Be Temporary Until They Make Next Years New Policy. We Need To Get The Safe Act Passed With No Loopholes For Those Slimy People To Ooze Through. again, Many Thanks.
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Ok the SIGN in the photo NEEDS SENT TO CONGRESS!!!! Repeatedly, we are bombarded with the facts of slaughter-the old, infirmed, underweight, starved, debilitated, crippled, sickly, injured, and unhealthy animals, blind, unmanageable stallions etc. that NEED to be disposed of to slaughter-REALLY???? That’s NOT what the Killer Lot Sign says! It says-the activists and the REAL HORSE PEOPLE were right, we only require healthy horses in perfect condition. So please. Lets point at this EVERYWHERE! This is HOW They DUPE the Public to believe the sick, unhealthy, etc will have a place to go to cure their suffering….the lies are being revealed but NOT fast enough-so we need to expose these lies for what they are LIES! I am sorry but WE ALL work together to battle this crazy industry and the mental leaders they have engaged to do the dirty work of manipulating the public and we have to change the public views QUICKLY! We need more people to open their eyes-
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I will continue to tell you that horse slaughter is barbaric and abuse. Horses do not deserve this fate. We must put a control on how many are born and we can control to a certain extent. Please stop this horrible method of killing and painful deaths to our horses. We must stop this now. Greed and money is behind this traumatic cycle of death events. We must stop horses from entering this killing pipeline into Canada and Mexico. We have a lot of work to do. Let do it. Speak up everyone for the horses. They need all of us and they thank you.
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Keep up the fight to stop horse slaugther. Lies and underhanded business goes with the killing of horses for money. The slaughtermen are heartless to kill these beautiful equines. Thank you to all that are trying your hardest to defend putting an end to horse slaughter and the abuse of horses.
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“A close reading of the AP’s more recent articles reveals more of the same. To read them is to wonder if the AP has some kind of stake in these plants slaughtering horses for export.”
Maybe not the AP, but someone, say a large international company, got tired of spending money on our elected representatives in DC and has decided to buy some space in the newspapers as well.
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These companies probably are operating illegally somewhere on this side of the border – how else would they be able to illegally traffic horse meat through Texas to load it on a Russian Ship in the Houston Harbor for distribution in Europe & beyond? (Remember the Houston TV station who covered this?). And, they’re probably doing it close by (Texas?), so there is less chance of them being caught in-transit during a long haul. US Customs, Coast Guard, DPS, etc all have jurisdiction over this.
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