The Unintended Effect of Slaughter Ban

[prudery]

Originally Posted by Danzig

obviously the best case scenario would be no slaughter of horses. but until the overbreeding of horses is discontinued, the fact remains there will be more horses than willing owners.
so...then what? with the closing of any u.s. slaughterhouses, the result is that the horses are being shipped that much further, in the same rotten conditions, to out of country slaughter--without the watchful eye of our govt inspectors. i'm not so sure that is an improvement over what we had previously. obviously no horse lover would want horse slaughter in this country, but we can't pretend that the problem has been solved just because we no longer have it within our borders.

i'm absolutely not pro slaughter--but the current 'solution' to the slaughter issue is no solution at all.

No one has ever called the current situation a solution ... The work is not finished ... The closing of the US slaughterhouses was not intented as a " solution " in itself---the solution was the passage of the bill, the closing of borders, and the subsequent future fight to enlighten owners and breeders toward a goal of humanity and responsibility ... This is not a simple issue by any means, and it is in no way finished ...

[Princess Doreen]

Mrs. Rip Van Winkle has awoken from her nap. And nobody missed me either. But I'm going to give my 2 cents on a subject which I am passionate about.

There are horse breeders/owners/trainers who depend on the kill buyer stopping by their barns on a regular basis taking away their unwanted equines for $300 - $500/head.

No slaughter and no transport? No kill buyer! No kill buyer? A boatload of horse breeders, owners and trainers no longer breeding, owning, racing poorly bred horses on nothing more than 100% speculation. And, horse thievery would greatly diminish.

There will always be abuse, neglect and abandonment. But, it should not be blamed on the fact that slaughter ceases to exist in the USA.

The problem of overpopulation, overbreeding, over ownership, horse theft, horse slaughter didn't happen over night. Many years in the making - many decades even.

The problem is complex - many stages and it may take years to see a drastic improvement - perhaps a decade.

But, by first attacking the problem by legislating breeding and ownership is going to cause a backlash and accusations of government interference. We can't get legislators to get the slaughter bill into law. Do you really think they'll craft legislation to limit breeding and ownership?

Cutting off the profitability of horse slaughter will lead to "voluntary" and drastic cutbacks in breeding, owning and racing inferior equines.

It's the simple start to a complex problem and the bedrock on which the problem will eventually be solved - not 100%; maybe not even 80 or 90 percent. But, a 50 - 75% improvement over the next 10 years would be a God send.

The journey starts somewhere. Slaughter and transport for slaughter is the snake's head.