by Susan Wagner, President & Founder, Equine Advocates
All of the progress that has been made since the last horse slaughterhouse operating in the U.S. closed in 2007 is in danger of being reversed. This is why we are now urgently calling on President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to end horse slaughter before they leave office with an executive order and federal policy change to remove equines from the food chain entirely. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION HERE.
Both major Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have announced some disturbing appointments. If Hillary Clinton becomes President, Ken Salazar, the former Interior Secretary, ranked by many as one of the worst in American History (along with Albert Fall, James Watt and Gail Norton), has been named to head her Transition Team. Salazar was a huge proponent of horse slaughter long before he became Interior Secretary. In 2013, he resigned his position as Interior Secretary under questionable circumstances. It was revealed that under Salazar’s watch, Tom Davis, a known horse dealer and rancher, bought 1,794 Wild BLM Mustangs for just $10 apiece and sold them for slaughter in Mexico. We believe having Ken Salazar in any position of power would be a continued threat to the safety and protection of America’s wild and domestic equines. Please read this article that appeared in the Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/24/blm-illegally-sold-thousands-wild-horses-slaughter/
Salazar’s agenda to “industrialize” the West and America’s Public Lands amplifies the threat to America’s remaining wild horse and burro herds. We believe the damage he did while he was in office continues to have detrimental and dangerous effects on the wildlife and the land. We implore Secretary Clinton to reconsider her appointment of Ken Salazar to her administration if she wins the election.
Equally horrendous is the list of horse slaughter proponents that Donald Trump has selected as part of his “Agricultural Advisory Committee.” They include:
- Forrest Lucas, oilman (Lucas Oil) and rancher- His political action committee (PAC), Protect the Harvest is, in our opinion, the most dangerous anti-horse/anti-animal PAC in the nation. He said of his PAC, “…we’re out here organized…” and “…we need to get horse slaughter back.”
- Mary Fallin, Governor of Oklahoma, who had signed a bill to legalize horse slaughter in her state
- Bob Goodlatte, Congressman from Virginia and former chair of the House Agriculture Committee, a major force in blocking legislation to ban horse slaughter for years.
Forrest Lucas, head of the anti-animal/ pro-horse slaughter PAC, Protect the Harvest, is on a mission to bring horse slaughter back to the U.S. He is just one of numerous horse slaughter proponents named to Donald Trump’s Agriculture Advisory Committee.
For a complete list of Trump’s proposed Agricultural Advisory Committee members, click here:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-agricultural-advisory-committee
In addition, Trump has former Georgia Congressman, Jack Kingston as one of his advisers and also as a media spokesperson. Kingston was a member of the infamous 2011 Congressional Conference Committee that voted 3-1 (along with Senator Ray Blunt and former Senator Herb Kohl) to bring horse slaughter back to the US. They based their votes on the special interest-driven Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report #11-228 on Horse Slaughter. John Holland, President of the Equine Welfare Alliance successfully proved that the GAO Report was, in fact, fraudulent:
http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/How_the_GAO_Deceived_Congress-final.pdf
Read the rest of this article HERE.
Categories: Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
I’ve really been having a hard time with this election. I don’t like any of them.. They’re all no good for the horses. It’s hard to decide who is the lesser of the two evils.
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Terri, same problem here. Evil is Evil, there is no parsing it.
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Pleeease STOP killing off OUR COUNTRY’S BEAUTIFUL WILD HORSES! It’s NOT your PLACE TO CAPTURE& remove them from their homes.for doing NOTHING WRONG! They help flourish our LAND period. Educate yourselves before LETTING one more horse die B’CUZ of their RIDICULOUS LIES.PLEZ they deserve Soooo much BETTER THAN THAT. THEY BUILT OUR COUNTRY!!!
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I’m a horse owner and living in California I’m very familiar with the issue of horses taken into Mexico to be slaughtered instead of the United States. The slaughter houses in Mexico are more horrific than can be imagined, and horses not selected for slaughter are used for blood sports equally horrifying. Some say that if they are to be slaughtered it’s better here than in Mexico. At least in the U.S. its more humane… (Slaughter is NEVER humane as far as I’m concerned.)
If Hillary is elected the issues with the BLM will only get worse. Trump is an unknown but based on what I’ve read it doesn’t look good. It makes me very sad.
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Trump is not an unknown. He is clearly aligning with all the horse haters and slaughter apologists that can be found West of the Potomac.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/trump-campaign-announces-agricultural-advisory-committee
His advisors include several federal legislators that blocked for years passage of the horse slaughter ban (Goodlatte, Kingston), welfare ranchers, a Texas state legislator, Sid Miller, that attempted to legalize horse slaughter twice, a horsemeat worshipper that picked up the slack of Sue Wallis after she kicked the bucket (which also employs that David Duquette AQHA lobbyists).
It is obvious than in Trump’s world the only good horses are those ganging from a meat hook. Not surprising, taking into account his grandpa made a fortune selling meat of dead or agonizing horses (together with cheap alcohol and sex) along the Klondike trail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3757224/Donald-Trump-s-grandfather-started-family-empire-property-bought-Yukon-gold-rush-barely-survived-shipwreck-Alaska.html
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Reblogged this on GiGizMe.
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Hillary Clinton on animal welfare issues; Protect horses by ending the slaughter of horses for human consumption and cracking down on the practice of horse soring, in which chemicals or other inhumane methods are applied to horses’ limbs to exaggerate their gait. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/protecting-animals-and-wildlife/
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Well, Lisa, if she actually follows thru (understand – so few politicians do) this would be great! Don’t have any faith that the other party is so inclined at all!
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What concerns me is that the wording is very narrow, and I wish more emphasis would be placed on America’s wildlife, not just wildlife in other countries. Ours is in danger of extinction too. Because nothing is said about America’s wildlife, it tells me that ranching and extraction industries are still going to rule.
So, she may be marginally the better candidate, but follow-through I am not confident in, and I personally do not want President Obama’s former people, because they have been the biggest disappointment outside of a Republican administration. Much too conciliatory. Her VP has a history of association with the Sportsment’s Act, and having Ken Salazar heading her transition team says it all, I think. We deserve new people and a clean slate, not a continuation of the Obama administration. It smacks of cronyism.
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Ida, not to even mention both these candidates were soundly rejected by the American in prior runs for our highest office. Not sure why they are any better now, only more ambitious.
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From an animal rights blog:
What have Democrats done for Animals?
https://armoryoftherevolution.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/what-have-democrats-done-for-animals
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sadly this blogger leaves out the fact that trump has said he supports turning over public lands to the states to do as they wish…drilling development and of course that will be the end of wild horses as we well know
and hillary has been contacted by our animal organizations and has a statement on her website of her support for animal issues..never seen hillary in a fur-have you?
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Sandra, I’ve been hearing that Trump actually wants to keep public lands public. Even the Huffington Post, which is reletively liberal, states so: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57910d96e4b0bdddc4d393b3 . However, he has expressed interest in fracking for oil and it’s highly likely that he will at least try to use eminent domain to drill on public lands, but I haven’t come across anything about him wanting to sell them off. Did he change his position recently? As far as his stance on animal welfare (minus the animals effected by trade agreements) and the preservation of wildlife, wild horses and burros is concerned, it looks very grim unless Forrest Lucus gets ripped off of his Agricultural Advisory Committee by some miracle.
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Hi Starry,
To be frank, Trump campaign has been so erratic (add his penchant for “not revealing what his plans are) that it seems he doesn’t have a plan at all bu is rather “improvising”.
However, based on the lineup of his agricultural advisory committee, we can conclude that, as poster child of neocorporatism, he will just give them away to welfare ranchers and mining interests.
If you pay close attention to the list of advisors it includes multiple welfare ranchers and lobbyists from the NCBA. It is obvious that he is not interested at all in keeping public lands public if there is a special interest group he can rip money off.
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Actually Sandra, THE HORSES would have a greater shot at the State level. We ALL have more power at the State and local level. And then, ALSO, we would be better able to target our political efforts as well as our rescue efforts. Seriously folks…it is the Federal government that is keeping this issue in the unsolvable column. It isn’t just the mustangs in jeopardy…it is all the hard-working, hard-used sport/performance horses that fill the killpens mostly. Those venues are all under State and local control and we gain more power the closer to home the fight is. Obama could not care less about the horses and anyone but his own agenda. Asking him to care about anything that doesn’t further that is a waste of time. Better to have people working and able to afford to rescue and/or keep the horses they have, than to shut down industries that create jobs and help horse rescuers and responsible owners like me, KEEP supporting their horses out of our own pockets.
Just sayin’!!!
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Viktoria, I share your sentiments on how the federal government has failed to reform the wild horse and burro program and how the Obama administration hasn’t been the best for our free-roaming equines. However, I have grave concerns over entrusting many state and local governments with managing our Mustangs and burros, and here’s why: imagine these animals being put in the “care” of officials that have a disdain for them, especially states like Wyoming and counties like Elko County in Nevada where people’s attitudes toward wild equine preservation are anything but friendly. Plus, welfare ranchers have more control in these areas. It’s my fear that such horses that are unlucky enough to be in the vicinity of these states and counties could easily be eradicated. Unlike with the federal government where advocates throughout the US can have a say, chances are that, unless you happen to be a resident of the state/county, you have no say in their management. In a state like California where animal welfare is taken far more seriously, yes, the horses there would most likely be safe from abuse and death. But sadly, most western states don’t share those same values. Secondly, the 1971 Act would either need to be amended or repealed all together in order to transfer the management rights to the state and local governments.
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You are correct on all accounts. We may not like the job the Obama administration did but, believe it or not, it would be far worse if you put them under the care of local or state ag officials: it would be going back to 1930 and the mustangers capturing them for slaughter, specially now that there is an international horsemeat trade offering a higher incentive for their removal and sale for slaughter.
We need to deal with the fact that with some occasional exceptions in AZ (Phoenix area), NM and CA, most western state and officials are very hostile to wild horses.
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well you could have done more research on this subject-clinton has as high a rating as sanders from animal humane groups- has spoken out while sec of state calling poaching a terrorist activity and while I literally hate Salazar for very personal reasons over the slaughter of the adobe town horses-Hillary has picked ALL former obama administration people to coordinate with current administration heads to gather pertinent data for a transition..It is our job to make Hillary aware of our strong feeling about past BLM, DOI transgressions and to settle on a person we will promote and support for the new DOI-my choice would be Grivaja from arizona, he is latino and from a red state and is very informed on public lands issues and wild horses..so lets focus on what we can do now to influence what happens down the road
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while we all have our own presidential candidates we support-lets not lose sight of the fact it is CONGRESS not the president who passes the laws-in 1971 good old tricky dick was president..so lets focus on where the solution is-congress-where conrad burns the republican from montana slid slaughter into the 71 law with the help of nevada senator democrat harry reid
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FACEBOOK
Breaking: Riot Police Begin Mass-Arrests at Dakota Access Pipeline, FACEBOOK Censors Video
Commenters on their Facebook page were also complaining they could not share the video. Screenshots posted by page followers show Facebook blocked the link.
North Dakota
It didn’t take long after the National Guard was activated in North Dakota for militarized law enforcement to descend upon the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Today, mass arrests began as riot gear-clad police attempted to break up Native American opposition to the construction of the pipeline, which has been halted at one location but continues elsewhere.
According to independent news outlet Unicorn Riot, at least 20 protesters, or “water protectors,” have been arrested at gunpoint along with medics and two journalists. Police issued a one-time warning to “water protectors” that any trespassers would be arrested. The warning came after several people locked themselves to construction equipment in acts of civil disobedience on Tuesday.
NORTH DAKOTA
GOVERNOR DALRYMPLE Activates National Guard, Tribal Leaders Respond
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/09/08/north-dakota-governor-activates-national-guard-tribal-leaders-respond-165730
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Call the White House and pass the word
Call the White House today #stophorsegenocide ….202 456-1111
one simple command. They answer. I just did. Do it now!
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As you may be aware, the off-range “pastures” charge ~$2 per day but the off-range “corrals” charge ~$5 per day. During the advisory meeting, Bolstad kept telling the board that there wasn’t enough money to keep feeding them (grrrrrrr) but they were moving as many as possible to the cheaper “pastures”. What he concealed was the fact that they recently shipped over 2,000 to Bruneau, Idaho that is considered a “corral” [feed-lot] and which is owned by Simplot – the billionaire family known for McDonald’s potato fortune. Who is in who’s pocket?
You may find this interesting:
Click to access WOFacRpt081816_web.pdf
Using the Aug 2016 facility report that shows us that it costs about $46 million per year for their off range care. It costs us $ZERO for them to live and die on their own legal lands.
To take it a step further, The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported the federal government spends at least $144 million each year managing private livestock grazing on federal public lands, but collects only $21 million in grazing fees—for a net LOSS of at least $123 million per year.
So just for “fun”, let’s say that all the wild horses and burros are returned to their rightful and legal herd area lands and that all welfare livestock are removed from our public lands … that would save us tax-payers $169,000,000.00 per year, not to mention it would save range lands from the destruction caused by non-native, domestic, private/corporate profit livestock on our public lands.
“Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West”
http://www.publiclandsranching.org/book.htm
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GG, another way to look at this is to assume:
325,000,000 US population
100,000 total wild horses and burros (both on and off range)
$1 a day to keep one animal on the range, in the wild (half the long term holding costs, and costs of roundups, removals, transportation, processing etc. would mostly vanish).
So one animal would cost taxpayers $365/year on the range.
100,000 animals would cost $36,500,000 annually on the range
Divide this $36,500,000 cost among 325,000,000 citizens and you get $1.12 per US citizen, PER YEAR, or just over 9 cents a month per person to keep all our wild horses wild, in the wild.
Since more than half the BLM wild horse and burro management budget is used to maintain captive horses, at a cost of approx. $46-50 million annually, keeping them on the range would save around $10 million annually, and for around $1 per person per year we could keep our wild horses and burros wild, in the wild.
The losses you mentioned in the cattle grazing fee subsidies should also include some valuation of the cost sharing programs (also provided by taxpayer dollars) to provide incentives, grants, and matching funds for infrastructure like water tanks and fencing etc., as well as some accounting for ecosystem impacts and resulting loss of production and/or remediation costs. I overheard on a radio show in recent days there are around 200 BLM Law Enforcement Rangers and only 70 Special Agents, who must oversee around 245 million acres of public lands… so it is no wonder “things fall apart.”
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/law_enforcement.html
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We are already paying taxes to care for our public lands and I see no reason even for that additional $1 cost – especially once the dirtiest highly-paid BLM are in prison. BLM salaries: https://www.federalpay.org/employees/bureau-of-land-management/top-100/2015
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GG, agreed. I’ve mentioned here many times we are already paying to keep horses and burros wild, in the wild, though our taxes. Here I just tried to quantify it a bit to point out how little it really may cost us to keep them there. I was not suggesting any ADDITIONAL costs at all.
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Please stop doing this horrible thing, you people are wrong, they are protected so why do you think can murder them. This has to stop now!!!!!!!
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You also forgot to mention Trump’s Sid Miller, a man who attempted to legalize horse slaughter in Texas not once but twice, in 2003 and later in 2007, hoping that by hacking off the law the two former horse slaughter plants operating in Texas would be allowed to stay open (he has not alone in that Venture though, he was actually the sidekick of Bloody Betty Brown)
Note as well his penchant for junkets and fondness of launching nuclear weapons against people with different beliefs than his:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/08/06/3805622/sid-miller-trump-agriculture/
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DO NOT VOTE TRUMP. HIS FAMILY MADE THEIR FORTUNE OFF HORSEMEAT. DO NOT VOTE TRUMP. CLINTON MAY HAVE SALAZAR BUT SHE IS AGAINST THE HORSES DYING BY SLAUGHTER. WE HAVE NO OPTION BUT TO HAVE HILLARY IN OFFICE.
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I didnt want the horsemeat idiots to get this info. But read this entire article. Halfway down the family business is revealed. Make sure you read Entire page. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200169/How-Trumps-struck-Klondike-gold-Donalds-grandfather-gave-birth-familys-glittering-empire-seedy-restaurant-catering-loose-moralled-men-women-seeking-fortune.html
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There are plenty o history sites that claim more details including the butchered were bought and cut up by the family as well!
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