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New
Bill to End Horse Slaughter
A new bill has been introduced in the House to ban horse slaughter for
human consumption, HR 6598. This version is different from HR 503
and the text of the bill is below.
6598 would ban ANY transport of horses for human consumption, including
the live shipment of horses to countries like Japan, something 503
didn't cover. I think it is an excellent bill, but everyone
should make up their own mind. This bill calls horse slaughter
what it is, inhumane, and provides, including jail time and
fines.
At this time there are only 12 cosponsors plus the sponsor for a total
of 13 (also posted below). It isn't that we need as many as we
have on HR 503, but we need more than this to see it passed and we have
VERY limited time to get this through the House and Senate and signed
by the President. I would suggest that we first work on those who are a
co-sponsor of HR 503. If your Congressperson is a cosponsor give
them a call and ask that they support HR 6598, which has as its goal
the ending of horse slaughter just as 503. If you would like to
view the co-sponsors for 503 go to http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?c110:H.R.503:
and click on cosponsors.
If you would like to fax letters directly to Congressman Conyers you
can do so by faxing letters of support to (202)225-0072. At this
time they are looking for letters of support from those involved in the
equine industry (rescue, own an equine ranch, boarding facility...)
submit a letter of support on your company's letterhead to the above
fax number.
Please don't forget to contact your Congressperson and ask him/her to
support the bill, HR 6598.
110th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6598
To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain conduct
relating to the use of horses for human consumption.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 24, 2008
Mr. CONYERS (for himself, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. RAHALL, Mr. JONES
of North Carolina, Mr. MORAN of Virginia, Mr. CHABOT, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr.
SCOTT of Virginia, Mr. SMITH of New Jersey, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Ms.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. NADLER, and Ms. SUTTON) introduced the following
bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain conduct
relating to the use of horses for human consumption.
/ Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,/
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Prevention of Equine
Cruelty Act of
2008'.
SEC. 2. SLAUGHTER OF HORSES FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.
(a) In General- Chapter 3 of title 18, United States
Code, is
amended by adding at the end the following:
`Sec. 50. Slaughter of horses for human
consumption
`(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever
knowingly--
`(1) possesses,
ships, transports, purchases, sells,
delivers, or
receives, in or affecting interstate commerce
or foreign
commerce, any horse with the intent that it is to
be slaughtered
for human consumption; or
`(2) possesses,
ships, transports, purchases, sells,
delivers, or
receives, in or affecting interstate commerce
or foreign
commerce, any horse flesh or carcass or part of a
carcass, with
the intent that it is to be used for human
consumption;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than three
years or both.
`(b) If--
`(1) the
defendant engages in conduct that would otherwise
constitute an
offense under subsection (a);
`(2) the
defendant has no prior conviction under this
section; and
`(3) the conduct
involves less than five horses or less than
2000 pounds of
horse flesh or carcass or part of a carcass;
the defendant shall, instead of being punished under
that
subsection, be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than
one year, or both.
`(c) The Attorney General shall provide for the
humane placement
or other humane disposition of any horse seized in
connection with
an offense under this section.
`(d) As used in this section, the term `horse' means
any member of
the family Equidae.'.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections for
chapter 3 of
title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding
at the end the
following new item:
`50. Slaughter
of horses for human consumption.'
Action
Needed to Protect America's Wild horses
The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) has, in its infinite wisdom,
removed over 75,000 horses from the wild since 2001. While allowing
over 4 MILLION cattle to remain grazing on public lands that were set
aside for the preservation of the wild horses and burros.
Many
of these removed wild horses end up in long term holding facilities. At
its best the adoption program could only adopt out between 5,000 to
8,000 wild horses into homes each year. (Actual adoption rates fall far short of
these numbers, they are closer to 3-4,000, especially in times of economic hardship.) This means most of the horses removed
eventually end up at the long-term holding facilities. So, it is no
surprise to those who follow the issue that there are over 30,000 wild
horses in these facilities at a cost to the tax payer of over $26
million a year ($10.9 million for long term holding and $15.5 million
for short term holding where many long term horses are housed until
they can find a place in one of the overcrowded facilities). At best
wild horses are held for approximately 200 days by the BLM before
adoption.
Many wild horse advocates have warned over the years
that the aggressive removal program that the BLM was advocating would
lead to problems, but the BLM was determined to remove as
many horses as possible. Shocking, but now the BLM says that they have
too many horses in long-term holding! Their solution? To kill all the
horses in those facilities. It would save money and it would free up
more budget to remove even more horses. So, in a few years there would
be an overflow of horses once again who would all need to be shot (they
also want to shoot horses on the range so they don't have to remove
quite as many horses). With such a plan in place is it crazy for wild
horse advocates to say the goal of the BLM to destroy the wild horses?
I
should say here that the BLM has authority to euthanize horses under
the 1971 law. This authority was given to them to allow them to put
down horses with extreme injuries or who were suffering. The BLM
already uses this authority to destroy healthy horses with any type of
deformity or illness during removals. However, in previous years when
they sought Congressional approval or budget for mass euthanasia,
Congress has not approved such measures.
A report prepared by American
Herds
(July 9, 2008) says that there are currently so few horses
remaining in the wild that they may already be in danger of becoming
extinct. The report shows that the process that the BLM uses to
estimate the number of wild horses living wild on the range is flawed
and their estimated number of 33,000 is off by approximately 20,000. If
the report is correct, and most who follow the issue and care about horse agree with the intense research,
the current number of wild horses
residing on the range is closer to 13,500 to 16,000. The BLM says that
the Appropriate Management Level (AML) for the range of over 53
million acres is around 25,000 horses. According to the BLM this is the
total number of horses that the range can support.
One must also note here that originally the total acres available for horses was much greater. According to information obtained from
the BLM, the BLM transferred over 2 million acres to other agencies in 2008 alone. No horses or burros reside on that land any more, they were removed "for their own good".
Different estimates exist over how many herd areas have been "zeroed" out exactly, but it is well over 100 by the BLM's own documents
The BLM
states that they arrive at the AML by taking a number of factors into
account, including range health. According to the BLM wild horses and
burros do more damage to the range than cattle or sheep. Wild horse
advocates charge that this is a blatant falsehood. I did a simple
search on Google and found that even Wikipedia
disagrees with this charge. According to Wikipedia "Researchers note
that most current Mustang herds live in arid areas which cattle cannot
fully utilize due to the lack of water sources. Horses are better
adapted by evolutionary biology to such climates.[17]; they may range nine times as far from water
sources as cattle, traveling as much as 50 miles a day.[18] This allows them to utilize areas not grazed
by cattle. In addition, horses are "hindgut
fermenters," meaning that they digest nutrients by means of the cecum
rather than by a multi-chambered stomach. In practical effect, horses
can obtain adequate nutrition from poorer forage than can
cattle, surviving in areas where cattle will starve.[18]"
However,
wild horses are blamed for all rangeland degradation. The BLM is in the
process of removing wild horses in areas where they are "starving" or
because water holes have dried up. In the recent removals of wild
horses observers noticed that while horses being removed were fat and
fit. In response the BLM issued statements that the horses were being
removed under emergency orders because the horses might possibly
starve, not because they were.
The BLM also proposes gelding
stallions and returning them to the wild. This may sound, on the face,
like a good idea to control herd growth, but it has far reaching
problems. Gelding stallions would create a problem with herd structures
as well as inhibiting herd health and viability. Geldings would suffer
greatly in the wild. They would be targeted by unaltered stallions and
create an break in the strict societal structure of herd life. In the
herd area that is on Nellis Air Force Base the BLM proposes removing
ALL wild horses and replacing them with a total gelding herd. This
would ensure that when the last gelding
died of whatever causes, no horses
would remain on that herd management area. PZP is the preferred method
of birth control because it is reversible and allows the animal to
contribute to the genetic pool, but with the herds at dangerously low
levels in most areas it is not needed at this time. Gelding removes
those genes from the pool forever because it is not reversible and it
disrupts the herd dynamics to the point of putting the herds in danger
on a number of levels. It is simply another way the BLM proposes to
remove every horse from the range.
I was recently told by a
reporter that my suggestion that the BLM was mis-managing the program
which could lead to the extinction of wild horses was overly dramatic
because the BLM would lose funding if they didn't have the program.
That is untrue. The BLM oversees many programs, the wild horse and
burro program is simply one of many programs. The BLM is an agency
under the Department of the Interior and would continue to receive
funding to oversee the grazing of cattle and other livestock, other
wildlife, mining, drilling and public land use. They do NOT need the
horses to justify their existence. I stand by my statement that the BLM
has abused the wild horse and burro program, mis-managing it to the
point that it has become a fraudulent use of taxpayer funds.
As
of this writting the BLM is under investigation by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO). When the GAO previously investigated this
issue they found that the BLM was not properly administering the
program. However, the investigation was stopped short. We sincerely
hope that this time the GAO, who is supposed to be unfettered in their
investigations, is allowed to pursue the issue completely. Their
preliminary report is due in September 2008 to Congress. Congressman
Rahall and Congressman Grajalva have asked the BLM to postpone any
actions toward killing any horses in long term holding facilities until
the GAO report is complete. They have also asked for answers to a
number of questions. In previous years the BLM has not responded well
to such inquiries. Hopefully, they will be more forthcoming with this
request as these Congressmen head the committee that funds the BLM.
The
government needs to have the wild horse and burro program taken over by
another agency, preferably a new agency without the same conflicts of
interest, so our wild horses and burros can survive for our future
generations as Congress intended when they passed the law for their
protection in 1971.
If you would like to voice your opinion on the BLM's proposal you can
call a special number they have set up for public input 1-800-710-7597. You can also donate
to a variety of programs designed to help the horses, including the
AHDF. |
