We are enormously grateful to supporters of this cause - please continue to share Ambassador’s story to your non-horse friends as well. Since 2012, the CHDC has battled to achieve an end to the cruel air transport of live horses from Canada to Japan for slaughter. The evidence we’ve uncovered is gruelling. In response to our Access of Information requests, we recently received pages and pages of reports and e-mails dealing with equine transport issues that CHDC brought to the attention of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in 2012. The responses reveal that three horses died as a result of a landing accident and six horses perished in flight on August 1, 2012, “due to a combination of a substantial delay, the large size of the horses, and significant stress levels in the animals”. Further, “horses usually go down during take-off and landing” (incidence of this is allegedly dependent on the individual pilot); one horse died on a trip from Calgary and was upside down in his crate. How did the CFIA deal with the truth of the six in-flight equine deaths? We’ve discovered conflicting information, either representative of blatant fabrication or such hopeless disorganization that one has to seriously question the agency’s ability to communicate effectively and to make sound decisions. On one hand, we are told that the six equine fatalities occurred due to a combination of three factors, including the large size of the horses. On the other hand, the public is fed this line: “The CFIA is not aware of any injury or undue suffering due to lack of segregation of horses over 14 hands in height.” Note the dates. The fatalities occurred on August 1, 2012, and the deviation from the truth found its roots over three months later. Should it be any surprise that the flimsy wooden crates currently used for equine transport purposes have been known to break? We suspected that this might be the case, and now we know it to be true. The CFIA admits that rearing horses have broken overhead wooden lattices covered in netting. Incidentally, while it is common knowledge that duct tape is useful for many purposes, apparently one more use was discovered for it in 2012 – to repair broken crates housing large horses for export. Canadian law prohibits equines from being deprived of food and water for longer than 36 hours during the process of transport. Such a lengthy period of time without sustenance is grossly inhumane in itself; and clearly, due to flight delays, the 36-hour regulation can easily be breached. Further unacceptable practices include the horses’ exposure to de-icing sprays on the tarmac, as well as engine noise levels that can only be described as deafening, while the animals are confined in their crates awaiting loading. ATI findings confirm what we already knew – that stress levels can be very high when horses are in close confinement and subject to the rigors (and terrors) of air travel.