Wyoming legislators to the U.S. Congress wild horse It’s legal in the US.
The meat will be sold in the US and international markets.
Animal rights groups are unhappy with the move.
Simone Netherlands, Head of Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, said: [simple] Humane methods of slaughtering horses. To do it humane requires precision. ”
Dr. Joanna Grossman, Equine Program Manager and Senior Advisor for the Institute for Animal Welfare (AWI) added:
House Joint Resolution 3 (HJR3) said it would remove legal roadblocks and make “other necessary policy changes,” allowing federal land management agencies to establish “best management practices” for wild horses and donkeys. increase.
Such practices include slaughtering them and processing the meat for sale.
Under the Federal Wild Grazing Horses and Barros Act of 1971, indiscriminate killing of these animals is illegal and they are considered living symbols of the country’s Pioneer West.
Protecting vulnerable resources
U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages free-roaming horses and donkeys under the Federal Land Policy Management Act to balance available natural resources. This is “important for conserving scarce and fragile resources in the Dry West” and is important for ensuring healthy wildlife and livestock.
It adds that balancing natural resources is only possible through responsible wildlife management.
Wild horses, in particular, “unfairly encroach on other uses by using and often damaging other public land users’ infrastructure, damaging riverbeds and overgrazing limited fodder.” I am doing.”
“With virtually no natural predators, wild horse and donkey populations could double every four to five years if left unchecked,” the resolution added.
The 1971 Act requires federal agencies to periodically count wild horse and donkey populations to determine what is the “adequate level of management” in balance with existing environmental conditions. increase.
The law provides for the humane capture, removal, and disposal of excess livestock using methods including public sale, adoption, or euthanasia.
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, by 2021 about 23,000 horses will be processed for human consumption, even though 83% of Americans support a ban on horse slaughter. Brought to the United States.
“No horse is safe until the practice is outlawed and Congress passes a law banning slaughter here in the United States,” the ASPCA said on its website.
increase in numbers
However, BLM and forest service argue that wild horse and donkey numbers have increased so much that they are becoming unmanageable.
The resolution states that other problems related to livestock management include difficulties in adopting or selling animals, lack of effective birth control, and lawsuits that prevent the removal of animals.
Grossman said the Wyoming bill is intended to express an opinion on a specific issue, unlike the actual bill in Congress.
In any event, AWI opposes the slaughter of horses for human consumption.
Grossman told the Epoch Times, “There are serious and systemic welfare concerns with the slaughter of horses, and it is very different from euthanasia, and it is very different from euthanasia. “is when an animal is killed humanely and promptly, usually for medical or health reasons.”
Grossman said national polls show that Americans overwhelmingly oppose horse slaughter “for good reasons.”
“There is no need to subject horses to such abuse, and there is no market for horsemeat in the United States,” she said.
“Claiming that there is a wild horse overpopulation crisis is disingenuous given the vast numbers of livestock grazing on the rangelands.”
Grossman said it is a proven safe method of contraception to reduce the costs of managing wild horses and donkeys.
Horse Group vs. Rancher
In Arizona, the fate of the wild Alpine horses that roam the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests has been at the forefront of debate between horse advocacy groups and ranchers and local forest services.
Simone Netherland, president of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group in Prescott, Arizona, said the last U.S. slaughterhouse was slaughtered in 2007, largely due to inhumane killing and processing methods. He said the venue was closed.
Holland said her group vehemently opposed legislative efforts to legalize the slaughter of wild horses and donkeys for sale on the open market.
In early October 2022, members of the Alpine Wild Horse Advocate Group made the grisly discovery of more than 15 free-roaming horses shot and killed in Apache forest. Recent discoveries put that number at over 40.
About 140 of the original 400 Alpine horses remain free, but many have been sold by the Forest Service and placed on private ranches and reserves throughout Arizona.
The Forest Service designates wild horses as unlicensed livestock. As such, it is not protected under the 1971 Act.
Holland said Americans don’t eat horse meat today because they don’t like the taste and find it unhealthy.
At least three animal rights groups oppose the consumption of wild or domesticated horse meat in the United States as potentially toxic.
In a joint statement titled “Horse Meat Toxicity,” the AWI, the Humane Society, and the ASPCA said horse meat is “unfit for human consumption” because it contains a number of federally regulated drugs. said. One such drug is phenylbutazone, or ‘Butte’, a pain reliever associated with a potentially fatal human disease.
The statement said that if horse slaughter resumes in the United States, “there will be regular sales of meat containing harmful additives. Not only is it adulterated according to federal law, but It can cause serious harm to people,” he said.
Holland told The Epoch Times that her group was “appalled” by a resolution in Wyoming to legalize the slaughter of wild horses and brows.
