Is horse slaughter really necessary? Much less humane? No. The answer is no. Horse slaughter is completely unnecessary and far from humane. Every year over 100,000 horses are brutally killed for human consumption (ASPCA). There is a bill that has been presented in the U.S. Senate called the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act. The SAFE Act would not allow horse slaughter industries to operate in the U.S. and would ban horses from being shipped to other countries for slaughter. Horse slaughter needs to be ended because it’s inhumane and cruel, no horse deserves to go there, and there are plenty of other options to horse slaughter.
Horse slaughter is inhumane and cruel because the horses are normally shipped for over 24 hours in cramped, dirty trailers with no food or water (ASPCA). They are given no rest and remain standing for this entire time. When they get to the holding pens at the slaughterhouses, the pens are muddy and filled with diseases. Many of the horses here are skin and bones, sick, and oftentimes injured from transport and being in such tight spaces with other horses. On top of all of this, they are treated brutally and carelessly. Any horse can
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end up at one of these; pregnant mares, foals, sick, old, young, pedigrees. Every horse is only one bad sale away from being slaughtered. No horse deserves to be treated like this under any circumstance.
Every horse at a slaughterhouse has no idea what they did wrong, if anything. Some of the absolute best horses come from slaughterhouses. There are people that will look through the holding pens and ask for a week or two to sell some of the horses in there to people who want them. My horse Gypsy came from one of these terrors. She was seen in the kill pen and listed for limited time before she was shipped to Mexico for slaughter. Gypsy is one of the most hard-working and athletic horses I’ve ever seen. She’s absolutely gorgeous and is super smart. It’s horses like these that end up in the kill pens because no one else wanted them or thought they were good enough. Every horse deserves a chance or at the very least a proper
euthanization. There is many other options to horse slaughter as well. If people knew what bringing their horse to sale barns where kill buyers are was doing to the poor animals, most people would sell their horses some other way. Not to mention horse meat isn’t near as good as cow for instance. Horses were made to work and help us, not feed us. There are other animals put on this earth to satisfy our hunger. Some of the horses sent to slaughterhouses are saved and live happily as a part of loving families, as every horse should. But, it’s the horses that no one sees the potential in, that go through this horrific nightmare called horse slaughter. Horse slaughter needs to be stopped. So many good horses go to the kill pens for reasons no one can explain. Even when some of the horses are saved, not all of them make it because of the way they have been kept; without food or water for days on end. Some of them are simply too weak to keep fighting for their life. Horse slaughter is cruel and brutal, deserved by nothing, and unnecessary considering all the other options to horse slaughter.
It is not just the animals who are being treated wrongly. The workers are vulnerable and suffer from injuries on a daily basis. This workforce requires so much protection, such as chainmail outfits to protect themselves from tools. From cuts, sprains, to amputations, “ The injury rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate in a typical American factory.” (238). Many immigrants come to the states, some illegally. Companies give their supervisors bonuses when they have little reported injuries as a reward for a spectacular job. Regardless, these supervisors do not make attempts to make the work environment safer. They threaten the employees with their jobs. They will put injured employees on easier shifts to heal so it will not look suspicious as to why they are in pain. Next to failing to report injuries, women in the slaughterhouses suffer from sexual assault. Male coworkers pressure women into dating and sex. Reported cases include men using animal parts on them in an explicit manner, making work another kind of nightmare. All this corruption and lack of respect for workers is all for a cheap meal people buy when they have the
For as long as there have been horse slaughterhouses in the United States, they have been an issue of controversy (Associated Press State and Local Wire, 8/7/01). Currently, only two slaughterhouses that produce horse meat intended...
Breeders are against slaughter but they maybe the ones causing the problem. Race horse breeders breed multiply foals a year but not all race will and those rejects either find a home or go to slaughter but even champion race horses aren't safe as said in the article Thoroughbreds Washed Up in Racing Often Land at Slaughterhouse “Five Star General will be sold on this day and shoved into a pen with two dozen other horses. Then he'll be loaded into a trailer and shipped 1,500 miles to a small plant just outside Fort Worth, Texas. He will be slaughtered there, racing dreams packaged and shipped overseas. His processed remains will be exported to Belgium or France, where the meat will be prepared in a kitchen. This is horse racing's dirty little secret--the one those in the industry traditionally have ignored and outsiders barely hear about” (Mease). Breeders over breed and end up with to many foals. Not all foals are granted a home the left over to to slaughter and so do old race horses their to much money to keep
... rodeo as cruel and abusive. But the rodeo today is changing with the hope of getting better. The bucking and roping stock are treated as prized animals. They even have their own bucking champions. The solution to any kind of animal abuse is in the continued scrutiny of the sport by the PRCA. As the sport evolves and the animals become more valuable it should cause better care for the animals.
For many people across the United States rodeo is how they make a living. Weather its competing, selling, or just working behind the sense, they depend on rodeo for a job. Not only do humans depend on rodeo for a job, but so do all types of animals. Not all horses are cut out for the same job just as all humans are not. Many animal rights groups use words like animal cruelty and unsafe to describe a rodeo, but underneath the tough exterior strict rules combat the use of these words by cutting down on the unsafe and cruel events. Rodeo, despite being a dangerous sport, benefits a community in many ways and does not condone animal cruelty in any way. It is a place where a community of people can show their skills, sell their products, and find friendships with people just like them.
Temple Grandin once said, “I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we 've got to do it right. We 've got to give those animals a decent life and we 've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect” (Quotes). This quote is one of the countless quotes by Temple Grandin; after her many years of work in slaughter houses and with animals. Everything that happens to animals by humans must be done in a humane and safe way. Farmers are working every single day to make sure all animal slaughtering is done in the most humane matter. In the United States slaughtering practices have strict regulations and many experts like Temple Grandin are advocating for the animals.
Have you ever been to a horse race? Seeing the riders give their horses a pat and an apple after the race, people cheering for their horse as it runs rapidly to the finish line? Seems like a great time. But what happens to those horses after they are done their race. What happens to the people who gambled their family’s lives savings. All horse racing should be shut down due to the well being of the horses, the effects of gambling, and the lack of interest.
As the animals move up the line they can see what is about to happen to them, some of the animals struggle and in turn are abused by frustrated workers, who are under pressure to keep the slaughter lines moving at rapid speeds. It is not uncommon for the animal to suffer one or two failed stuns. In this event, the animal may be paralyzed without losing consciousness and may regain their senses after being hung on the bleed rail, I would consider that torture. To soften a hog’s hide for skinning, hogs are dunked in tanks of hot water after being stunned. If a hog is not stunned properly they can be conscious as they are lowered into the hot tanks squealing and kicking to be scalded and drowned.
Horses that go to slaughter are inhumanely killed. Most of the horse meat goes to Europe and Japan (“Horse Slaughter”). How does it impact society? Although horse slaughter was
The calf ropers chase and wrestle the young scared calves to the ground and roughly tie their limbs tightly together with painful rope. If these cowboys and rangers truly care for their animals and put their welfare first, then they wouldn’t subject them to such traumatic injury and potential mental illness. Horseracing results in similar tragedies as rodeos do. As soon as a horse becomes injured or useless, it’s killed. In no way is that fair. These aren’t machines. They are live beings. Circus' use means of electric shock, assault, whippings, and withholding food as tools to force animals to perform excessively unnatural and unnecessary "tricks". The fact that this blatant exploitation of animals is still legal is truly reprehensible. Highly intelligent animals such as the elephant are conscious enough to understand when they are being treated unfairly and abused. The elephants snap and rebel, they charge crowds, trample handlers, and destroy equipment. Lions recognize and maul those humans that mistreat them. These actions aren’t out of pure aggression and they don’t need to be “corrected”. It’s clearly a cry for help from those that can’t speak for themselves and communicate their physical and mental pain. The animals
Rodeo is not as cruel as it is made out to be. The PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) has strict rules on animal treatment. Several rodeo companies have been fined and removed from the sport for mistreating animals. Methods of which these rules are enforced vary in multiple ways from the judges watching the event to the PRCA employees behind the chute. The cowboys and cowgirls of the PRCA take animal abuse very seriously and these men and women are committed to the care and welfare of animals used in rodeos such as Cheyenne Frontier Days or the Greeley Stampede. Rodeo is not as cruel as people make it seem.
Horse slaughter is the solution to the overpopulation of horses. It is better for the horses to be slaughtered then for them to be abused or neglected. Horse slaughter provides a meat source, raises the economy and the entire body is used. If people did not ride horses they would be treated like livestock rather than pets. The slaughterhouse is the only home for horses without one.
Can you imagine going through the pain that animals in slaughterhouses went through? Most people don’t think of that part of it but the real fact is that billions of animals went through a painful life to be killed for food every year. Most people like to keep the thought in there heads that these animals live on beautiful green farms where they are treated great and then have a very peaceful death, and never feel any or little pain. Well that is not the case, these animals are treated very unfairly. The animals in slaughterhouses are given a massive amount of antibiotics, hormones, and drugs to keep them alive in conditions that are so bad they would otherwise kill them.
The first stakeholder group is animal rights groups. I critically read articles from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Humane Society of the United States. According to their website, PETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 3 million members. The HSUS on the other hand, is the nation’s largest and most effective animal protection organization. Both groups take a parallel stance. An article posted on PETA’s website outlines their stance on horse slaughter, and they unquestionably oppose the idea of horse slaughter. Michelle Kretzer, the author of the PETA article, claims that more than 160,000 horses are jam-packed in trucks where they are deprived of food, water, warmth, and rest. The article also explains that horses are put on the trucks to be exported for slaughter to Mexico and Canada. Upon arrival in those countries, horses are shot in the head with a captive bolt gun, and at least 40 percent are still conscious after the shot. (Kretzer, 2013) HSUS also presents disturbing facts on their website. HSUS explains that before 2007, the year horse slaughter stopped, horses experienced broken bones protruding from their bodies, even eyeballs hanging out by a thread. (The Humane Society, 2013) Both groups strongly believe that slaughtering horses is not the solution to the overpopulation of unwanted horses, rather they believe that more horses can to be sent to rescue shelters and adopted. If horse slaughter continues, the animal rights stakeholder will lose everything they have fought for and fail their mission
The first law against farm animal cruelty was passed all the way back in 1822 in Great Britain, but the United States has barely done anything.Animal rights is where animals should be treated humanely and should have at least a little bit of a good quality of life. This topic is becoming a problem because with our fast food chain animals are being fattened up in horrible conditions and then being slaughtered at mass rates.The government should impose more regulations on the confinement of animals to improve the humane treatment of them.