Can there be grey?
by,
Tom Lamarra
Originally published at thebloodhorse.com
It tends to get lost in the shuffle because it’s not as
Mexico (that number jumped
sexy as anabolic steroids, race-fixing, or catastroph-
to 40,000 last year). There
ic breakdowns from a media perspective. But talk to
are about 20,000 un-adopt-
people who work in the horse industry every day, and
ed feral horses and another
they’ll tell you the issue of unwanted horses is serious
6,000-8,000 waiting to be
and so broad it impacts the entire United States, not
adopted. It all adds up to
just the horseracing industry
about 100,000 unwanted
horses in the U.S. each year.
Time for a wake-up call
“I have no doubt there is an
“We need to focus our efforts on the front end of the
unwanted horse problem in
problem rather than the rear end of the problem,” said
this country,” Lenz said. “We
Tom Lenz, DVM, a past president of the American As-
cannot completely eliminate
sociation of Equine Practitioners who is active with
it, but we can certainly mini-
the Unwanted Horse Coalition formed after an AAEP-
mize the problem.”
sponsored summit in 2005. “Honestly, the average
horse owner hasn’t thought about this issue, but they
Can’t escape slaughter
need to give serious thought to changing the way they
issue
operate.” Lenz offered his thoughts June 18 during a
The Unwanted Horse
day-long “Unwanted Horse Forum” sponsored by the
Coalition, which
American Horse Council and the United States Depart-
falls under the
ment of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. The forum
AHC um-
was fairly subdued even though the lightning-rod is-
brella
sues of horse slaughter, euthanasia, and consumption
of horse meat colored much of the proceedings.
The USDA titled the forum “The Unwanted
Horse Issue: What Now?” It was timely
by accident; the United States Supreme
Court two days earlier denied an appeal
from an Illinois slaughter plan that chal-
lenged an Illinois law prohibiting the
killing of horses for human consump-
tion. The meat at the Illinois plant
and two in Texas that closed in 2007
was mostly shipped overseas for
consumption. According to USDA
data through 2006, about 70,000
horses per year were slaughtered in
the U.S., 25,000 a year were shipped
to Canada, and 7,500 a year were sent t o
34 Equine•Connections - the magazine for global equine stewardship - www.equineconnection.org
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