Posted on 03/04/2013 9:31:12 PM PST by nickcarraway
Wild horse activists held a rally in downtown Oklahoma City Monday in an effort to save Oklahoma’s horses from the slaughter house.
They were hoping to influence an annual meeting of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages the nation’s wild horse and burro populations on public land. BLM Public Affairs Specialist Paul McGuire said when they capture wild horses, their goal is to have them eventually adopted.
“If wild horses and burros were not managed, they would very quickly overrun the carrying capacity of the land that they inhabit,” McGuire said. “Destroying both the land as well as the herds themselves, (they) would suffer greatly.”
The rally outside the Sheraton Hotel was organized by Respect 4 Horses, the Cloud Foundation and the Wild Horse Freedom Federation.
“We now have less than 20,000 wild horses and burros left,” Simone Netherlands said, the Director for Respect 4 Horses. “If they were any other species, they would be on the endangered species list right now.”
But BLM said there are twice that many and their population needs to be controlled.
Activists want BLM to stop rounding up wild horses and they also accuse the government of allowing “kill buyers” to purchase BLM’s captured horses for the sole purpose of selling the meat in other countries.
“BLM does not, as a matter of policy, sell horses to known kill buyers and we certainly don’t sell horses directly to slaughter,” McGuire said.
Netherlands said they are also concerned about House Bill 1999 and Senate Bill 375, which would allow for horse slaughter houses to be built in Oklahoma.
“If we do this, we might as well open dog and cat slaughter plants as well,” she said.
But Rep. Skye McNiel (R Dist. 29), author of HB 1999, said 160,000 horses are shipped out of the U.S. every year (21,000 from Oklahoma) and are inhumanely destroyed. She said having a slaughter house in Oklahoma would protect horses who are aging or ill from dying a horrible death.
McNiel said they would follow humane USDA standards as well, similar to those regulating the slaughter of cattle.
The BLM said no major policy changes would be decided Monday.
Wild horses = range maggots. But can be good eating.
“If we do this, we might as well open dog and cat slaughter plants as well,” she said.”
What does this woman think happens to the excess of dogs and cats at animal shelters that don’t find happy, happy homes?
I’m going to partially play a devil’s advocate role on this. Most of equine evolution took place in N. America over millions of years. They then disappeared entirely due to ice ages and predation. The Spanish colonists returned horses to us 500+ years ago. The descendants of those original Spanish horses have been ID’ed through DNA testing and separated out from the feral equines which escaped from ranches and farms over the years. I suggest that the Spanish descendant population be allowed to remain in areas that can support them, and round up the rest. Surely a Robert Redford or other large land owner can give them safe haven. My 2 cents.
If they are really concerned for the horses then prove it all they have to do is adopt everyone of them. Buy a nice place and give them a home, then in about 3 years they’ll be faced with the same problem the state faces. What to do with all the damn horses.
Sweetie, you can bury a dog or cat with a shovel. A horse is a wee bit more difficult.
We own a Spanish Mustang,she’s everything one could hope for in a good saddle horse.
And then they would die off. See, it's self-regulating. Not pretty, but then Nature was not invented in the Walt Disney Studios.
I don’t doubt it. Good for you!
Livestock can also be pets, but not all livestock are pets.
*** in an effort to save Oklahoma’s horses from the slaughter house. ****
It used to be that horses had value. You bought one, rode it till it was old, then sold it to a slaughter house to feed Europeans.
Then the do gooders got slaughter houses banned, horses lost their value and old horses were released just to get rid of them, or they were sold to Mexico where killing horses was much more brutal than the US version.
Time to bring back the humane slaughter houses again.
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