LEGISLATION:  Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503)

FACT: EVERY 5 MINUTES, An American horse is slaughtered for human consumption.

* The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503) will end the slaughter of horses for human consumption and the domestic and international transport of live horses or horseflesh for human consumption.

* The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503) was introduced in the U.S. House on January 14, 2009 by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) and Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN).

Despite the fact that the US plants are no longer in operation, killer buyers continue to purchase and haul as many horses as possible from livestock auctions around the country to the slaughterhouses that have now relocated to Mexico and Canada.

Wild horses are also slaughtered, since a 2004 backdoor Congressional rider engineered by then-Senator Conrad Burns (R–MT) gutted the protections afforded by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. Now, the Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for protecting wild horses, must sell “excess” horses (those 10 years of age or older, or not adopted after three tries) at auction. As a result, wild horses are being removed from their range at an alarming rate and sold for slaughter. Sadly, the American Quarter Horse Association has hired former Senator Conrad Burns to lobby against legislation banning horse slaughter and other equine welfare measures.

Although awareness has grown exponentially in recent years, the horse meat trade is still relatively hidden from most Americans, and the industry wants to keep it that way. Warren Smith, operations manager of a Canadian horse slaughterhouse, was quoted as saying to the Edmonton Journal, “Talking about horses is kind of a scary thing, especially in the West, where people think it’s more of a pet than protein. When anybody starts writing about horses, everybody gets up in arms. Every time we say anything about horse in the paper, there’s always an uproar, so I don’t want to talk about it.”

Until the US Congress passes legislation banning horse slaughter into law, show horses, racehorses, foals born as “byproducts” of the Premarin© (a female hormone replacement drug) industry, wild horses, burros and family horses will all continue to fall prey to this detestable foreign-driven industry.

For more information, please visit: http://www.everyfiveminutes.org/