What will happen if horse slaughter is outlawed?

If you've read History 101: Heroes of Horse Rescue, you already know what a long road we've hauled. The road to slaughter is paved with the paranoia of human beings. The lying pro-slaughter faction, who seems to be unable to speak the truth about anything concerning horse slaughter, has placed this paranoia in minds. If you haven't given the pro-slaughter "arguments" (lies) much thought, you may be one of the many people who worry about what will happen if horse slaughter is banned in the U.S. USESR has our own theory about this, based on a decade of scrutiny of the horse slaughter industry & all issues, information, media news, personal experiences of rescuers across the United States, and dedicated research can discern.

The pro-slaughter faction, the most visible of which is the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), wants us to believe that there are too many horses, that rescues are not equipped to handle the thousands of unwanted horses that will require rescue in the event horse slaughter is outlawed. They want us to believe that abused, neglected horses with no slaughterhouse to die at will die in fields and be left lying there to contaminate water supplies and become public health hazards. They claim that horse rescues are not equipped to deal with unwanted horses because they are not regulated and do not answer to any official entity other than the IRS. They want us to believe that the vast majority of horse rescues are actually organized horse abusers. Recently, they have even been claiming that there are less than 50 horse rescues in the United States. In fact, there are over 20 in Texas, alone.

Because there are hundreds of horse rescues in the United States, because there is no overpopulation problem, because horse rescues will not be forced to take in additional horses, because the vast majority of rescues practice humane care (most use adoption contracts to continue to ensure safe care),… because all these things are true and everything they say is a lie, it's difficult to know where to start.

Since nothing they say is backed up by statistics or historic evidence, and because everything our side says IS backed up by statistics and/or historic evidence, let us begin with California and Proposition 6. "Prop 6" is a state law which makes it a felony to transport horses across state lines for purposes of slaughter. A mighty war raged over Prop 6 in the days before it was voted into law, not just in California, but all over the United States, on the World Wide Web. An LA newspaper interviewed a man who claimed that if Proposition 6 passed, unwanted horses would be turned out on the street to roam like stray cats and dogs. That did not happen. People were saying that without the slaughterhouse as an outlet, more horses would be starved/neglected/abused. That did not happen, either. In fact, such cases decreased after Prop 6 passed. Horse theft also dropped. Nothing else happened. Why should we expect other states to be any different? California has one of the highest populations of horses. If there was an overpopulation problem, it would exist there, too. Still, no horses were abandoned, the sky did not fall, and life as we know it went on. California still has the most horse rescues and sanctuaries in the U.S., as well.

It is an undisputed fact that less than 1% of the horse population goes to slaughter. What are the odds that the human population can't adjust to that no longer occurring? All kinds of horses go to slaughter, but all have one thing in common- they are unlucky. Perhaps it was a Paint horse that didn't 'spot out'- an embarrassment to its breeder. Maybe it is a former show horse, no longer winning blue ribbons. Perhaps the horse misbehaved or has some training issues because anyone can hang out their shingle and call themselves a trainer. Perhaps the horse is crippled or temporarily lame. Perhaps the horse was left in a will to an heir who had no interest or knowledge in caring for it. Perhaps the horse was seized for cruelty by a law enforcement agency that does not deal with equine rescues. Perhaps the horse was stolen. Perhaps the horse is "just old". The pro-slaughter lies do not attempt to learn any of the various reasons why horses wind up at slaughter. Instead, they claim that slaughtered horses are old, infirm, ill, or merely "unwanted".

U.S. history has shown us that abuse and theft will drop if horse slaughter is banned. Since horses go to slaughter for various reasons, we must rule out a portion of that 1%, and we can start by eliminating the number of stolen horses that get slaughtered each year. That still leaves us with the infirm, the lame, the elderly, and those with training/disposition issues. Without auction/slaughter houses to dump these horses off at (low-end local auctions are a main pipeline to slaughter, as they are easy pickings for killer-buyers and horse abusers know it), will horse rescues be flooded with horses they are forced to care for? No. That is not possible. There is no one who can force a rescue to take in any animal, for any reason. Horse rescues will, as always, strain to take in as many as we can, however, USESR has no intention of taking in so many horses we cannot afford to care for them and are forced into bankruptcy or be forced to close our doors. We will take in what we can, as much as we can, and we will strain to take in as many as we can, as we always have, always do, and always will. We are positive that most of our sister rescues feel the same.

So, with no slaughterhouse and rescues refusing to take in horses, there will be a backlog of horses for sale. If you read information contained in our Slaughter section, you already know that the only true definition of an "unwanted horse" is a horse that is for sale, or available to be given away for free. USESR predicts that because of this, horse owners are going to start trying harder to treat horses like an investment instead of a commodity. More people will let horses mature before riding them and causing premature lameness due to over-activity in the early years of life. As it is now, people are in a rush to start making money with their horses, or start enjoying riding them. Unless a horse is marked for sale, riders/handlers rarely keep sale value in mind. With no place to dump these horses, we believe we will see an end to people riding 18-month-old horses for sport or pleasure.

USESR predicts that the horse-owning publics concern with sale value will lead them to urge professional equine sporting associations to push back the minimum age in which horses can compete or be ridden. We believe that more people will be practicing natural hoof trimming methods or utilizing corrective shoeing methods to rehabilitate foundered horses. To sum it up, USESR believes that when horse slaughter is outlawed, people will begin taking better care of their horses and that effect will snowball until the demand for horse rescue services hits an all-time low and stays there.