AnitaAnne, noble as your basic support of the ban of horse slaughter might be, your stance is not in the best interest of the horse, in the long run, not as long as horses are bred beyond demand, with many becoming un wanted
At least in the USA and Canada , there are laws and regulations towards humane slaughter.There are none in Mexico, where many of those surplus horses went, after the slaughter plants in the States were closed to horses.
Watch some videos of horses being stabbed, sometime hung up on hooks, still alive , slaughtered in Mexico. I doubt those poor animals would have thanked those that closed the option to a more humane slaughter in the States!
What about un wanted dogs and cats? Many are put down all the time, being un wanted. Where is the hue and cry there, just because the meat is not eaten in North America ?
You keep talking about how you treat your horses, how your family treats their horses, how other responsible horse owners that also happen to love horses treat them, but tell me, without reporting someone to the SPCA, when conditions get bad enough, so they take action, how are you going to regulate what the many people who happen to own/use horses, seeing them only as an asset or liability, do with them?
It does not matter as to what responsible caring hrose people do with their horses, as there are still many, many, many un wanted horses. Go to any all breed auction mart, and you will see them going through that ring
You have to live with reality, then work on solutions within that reality, and not some utopia that does not exist.
When the slaughter plants were closed, The bottom selling price of those hroses going through those auctions, was less at times then the commission , so that people were abandoning horses in those auction marts after hours
I reported aherd of starving horses one year, tot he sPCA
I happened across them, walking a back pasture and woods, on some property my friend was thinking of buying. It was January, and 30 below C
Mares still had foals on them, and were back in foal, with one mare ready to foal anytime, in those conditions. Two studs were running with those mares.
All had back bones showing, even under winter hair. Where they had pawed for food, was bare frozen dirt. ONly some buried poplar leaves were under the snow, at the base of some trees.
No hay, no water.
The woman who owned the horses, said she bought them to save them from slaughter! Horses were seized,but what really got me, having inside info, as my son's ex was working in Horse Industry, thus knew the sPCA officers, was the fact that this woman had been convicted before, and now had horses again.
She is not alone in this,thus, if you wish to really do some good, get laws changed to that those that have starved animals, never are allowed to own them again.