PLEASE HELP PASS THE Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act TO STOP THE export OF AMERICAN HORSES to MEXICO and CANADA for SLAUGHTER and HUMAN CONSUMPTION !!

The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, H.R.1942/S.1214, will put a permanent ban on domestic horse slaughter and the export of American horses to foreign countries for slaughter and human consumption!

More than 100,000 American horses are horrendously slaughtered each year, their meat mislabeled as other species and shipped overseas, and eventually consumed by many unwitting customers. 

Horse slaughter is NOT peaceful euthanasia. They (working, racing, companion horses) do SUFFER AND FEEL EXTREME PAIN during the slaughter.

It’s impossible to conduct commercial horse slaughter humanely, painlessly.

HORSE SLAUGHTER LEGISLATION HISTORY

In 2007, the last three slaughterhouses within the U.S. closed in Texas  (Beltex Corporation and Dallas Crown, Inc) and Illinois (Cavel International, Inc) with the establishment of new state legislations (H.B. 1711) and enforcement of previously overlooked ones (U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit upheld Chapter 149 of the 1949 Texas Agriculture Code)

For five years since 2006, Federal Appropriation Bills included language (proposed by Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) ) that prevented governmental funding on horse meat inspection, which kept horse slaughter plants in the U.S. out of business. However, without a federal legislation like the SAFE Act, horse slaughterhouses are still trying to reopen. In fact, in 2011, two pro-slaughter members of Congress quietly lifted the ban on horse meat inspection by taking out related language that was originally in the Appropriation Bill. And at the time passing the bill was imperative, many anti-slaughter allies had to sign it to keep the government running. The new federal budget in 2014 would once again prohibit federal funding of horse meat inspection as it was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama.

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503) was introduced in 2006, and the American Horse Slaughter Protection Act (S. 1176) reintroduced in 2011. Safeguard American Food Exports Act was introduced in both the the House and the Senate in 2013.

If we pass the SAFE Act, there will be no more loopholes for slaughterhouses to find to attempt to reopen plants again and horses in America will genuinely be safe, without worrying about being brutally dismembered either domestically or outside the country after being exported.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM?

Gotten?: Horses are often obtained via livestock auction, or sold to slaughterhouse middlemen, or “killer buyers”, without their owners knowing the real identity of the buyers and what is going to happen to their horses. There are instances where horses are stolen from their caring owners and slaughtered so fast without the chance of tracing or retrieving them.

Transported?: When transported to slaughterhouses, horses are shoved into cramped space on trucks and suffer from temperature extremes, unrelieved thirst, and depletion of energy for over 24 hours. When they arrive at the slaughterhouse, they can be offloaded by excessive force if they are downed and unable to rise or unwilling.

Butchered?: When the horses are herded through the plant to slaughter, callous workers use fiberglass rods to poke and beat their faces, necks, backs and legs as the animals are shoved through the facility and into the kill box. Subjected to overcrowding, deafening sounds and the smell of blood, the horses become more and more desperate, exhibiting fear typical of "flight" behavior - pacing in prance-like movements with their ears pinned back against their heads and eyes wide open. 

Conditions over the border are even worse than those at the previously operational US plants. A 2007 investigation by The San Antonio News-Express revealed that the use of the puntilla knife on horses prior to slaughter is common practice in Mexican slaughter plants, such as a facility currently owned by Beltex, formerly operating in Texas. Footage obtained by the paper shows horses being stabbed repeatedly in the neck with these knives prior to slaughter. Such a barbaric practice simply PARALYZES the animal. The horse is STILL FULLY CONSCIOUS AT THE START OF THE SLAUGHTER PROCESS, during which he or she is hung by a hind leg, his or her throat slit and body butchered. Death, the final betrayal of these noble animals, is protracted and excruciating.

STATISTICS

A national poll shows that almost 70% Americans support a federal ban on horse slaughter. Similarly, regional polls show that 82% (Kentucky), 72% (Texas), 69% (Utah) oppose horse slaughter.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently bans the presence of 379 common equine drugs in animals slaughtered for human consumption.

Since horse slaughter was banned in California horse theft has dropped by over 34%. (California Livestock and Identification Bureau)

FAQ

Here are some crucial facts that can help you understand what is happening to animals that we are beholden to (horses have worked for us, entertained us, been our friends, and died for us during wars, and now they are slaughtered and fed to us). These Q&A are directly pulled from sources linked in the end with some deletion for the sake of concision:

• Is it possible to conduct commercial horse slaughter in a humane manner? 

No. Horse slaughter, whether in U.S. or foreign plants, was never and cannot be humane because of the nature of the industry and the unique biology of horses. Slaughter is a brutal and terrifying end for horses, and it is not humane. Horses are shipped for more than 24 hours at a time without food, water or rest in crowded trucks. They are often seriously injured or killed in transit. Horses are skittish by nature (owing to their heightened fight-or-flight response), which makes accurate pre-slaughter stunning difficult. As a result, horses often endure repeated blows and sometimes remain conscious during dismemberment—this is rarely a quick, painless death. Before the last domestic plant closed in 2007, the USDA documented in the slaughter pipeline rampant cruelty violations and severe injuries to horses, including broken bones protruding from their bodies, eyeballs hanging by a thread of skin, and gaping wounds.

• Is it true that slaughter is a last resort for infirm, dangerous or no longer serviceable horses?

No. In fact, 92.3 percent of horses arriving at slaughter plants in this country in recent years were deemed to be in "good" condition, according to the US Department of Agriculture's Guidelines for Handling and Transporting Equines to Slaughter.  The horse slaughter industry makes a greater profit off of healthy horses and therefore purposely seeks out such animals.

• Is horsemeat safe for human consumption?/Can the federal government ensure the safety of horsemeat?

No. U.S. horse meat is dangerous to humans because of the unregulated administration of numerous toxic substances to horses before slaughter. In the U.S., horses are raised and treated as companion animals, not as food-producing animals. Unlike animals raised for food, the vast majority of horses sent to slaughter will have ingested, or been treated or injected with, multiple chemical substances that are known to be dangerous to humans, untested on humans or specifically prohibited for use in animals raised for human consumption. 

Horses are gathered from random sources at various stages in their life, and there is NO SYSTEM in the U.S. to track medications and veterinary treatments given to horses to ensure that their meat is safe for human consumption. Due to concerns about the health threats of drug-laced horsemeat, the European Union (EU), a primary importer of North American horsemeat, suspended horsemeat imports from Mexico—where 87 percent of horses slaughtered for export to the EU are of U.S. origin. EU authorities made the decision after a series of scathing audits that exposed a plethora of problems, including the lack of traceability of American horses and horrific suffering on U.S. soil and in Mexico. The USDA has no system in place to track horses’ lifetime medical histories, and the reputation of the entire U.S. meat industry is at risk. Testing random samples of horsemeat overlooks the fact that every single horse has a unique, unknown past. Unlike animals raised for food, horses do not spend their lives being prepared for the food chain. Every horse is a pet, riding companion, racehorse, and show pony or work partner. Each may be a single patient to any number of vets, transferred by any number of owners, and has a unique life story. Relying on random-sample testing of horsemeat is inadequate and dangerous.

• If slaughter is not an option, what will we do with sick, old and unwanted horses?

Approximately 920,000 horses die annually in this country (10 percent of an estimated population of 9.2 million) and the vast majority are not slaughtered, but euthanized and rendered or buried without any negative environmental impact.  Just over 100,000 horses were slaughtered in the US 2008. If slaughter were no longer an option and these horses were rendered or buried instead, this would represent a small increase in the number of horses being disposed of in this manner - an increase that the current infrastructure can certainly sustain. However, there is no logic in suggesting that all horses currently going to slaughter would need to be euthanized and disposed of following passage of the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act. Because most horses going to slaughter are marketable animals, many of the horses previously slaughtered would instead be kept by their owners, sold to someone else or placed at sanctuaries following passage of a ban, thereby reducing any impact on the current infrastructure even further. Additionally, humane euthanasia and carcass disposal is highly affordable and widely available. The average cost of having a horse humanely euthanized and safely disposing of the animal's carcass is approximately $225, while the average monthly cost of keeping a horse is approximately $200.

• Is banning horse slaughter a states rights issue? Shouldn't the federal government not get involved?

No. Horse Slaughter is a Federally Regulated Industry. Opponents try to claim that slaughtering horses for human consumption is a states rights issue. However, this is not true. The slaughtering of any animal for human consumption in the US is a federally regulated process. This is the same for beef, hogs or other livestock (Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 603); Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 1901 note; Public Law 104-127)). In addition, since horse meat is not consumed in the US it must be hauled across state lines and the US border which are clearly defined issues within the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause. While a state does have some leeway to ban certain slaughter practices within their state boundaries, these actions to not apply outside of their jurisdiction. For example, Texas, California and Illinois have banned horse slaughter within their states but those laws have no impact elsewhere. Furthermore, nobody has a "right" to abuse or neglect an animal. There are laws against animal abuse, neglect and abandonment at all levels of government in the US.

• Will horse abuse and neglect cases rise significantly following a ban on slaughter?

No. There has been no documented rise in abuse and neglect cases in California since the state banned horse slaughter for human consumption in 1998. There was no documented rise in Illinois following closure of the state's only horse slaughter plant in 2002 and it’s reopening in 2004.  Since closure of the domestic plants in the earlier part of 2007 there has been no correlating rise in neglect and abuse cases.  Conversely, horse slaughter engenders indiscriminate breeding and neglect by providing a “dumping ground” for unscrupulous owners.

• If there is a ban on horse slaughter in the United States, will there be an increase in the export of horses for foreign slaughter? Will horses suffer from longer transport for slaughter in countries where there may be weaker welfare laws?

The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act contains clear provisions prohibiting the export of horses for slaughter abroad, as well as clear enforcement and penalty provisions. Risk of federal prosecution and the high costs associated with illegally transporting horses long distances for slaughter abroad are strong deterrents. Ironically, the very organizations most critical of the recent closure of the three domestic horse slaughter plants due to the subsequent surge in horses going to slaughter in Mexico are working to defeat passage of the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act. In doing so, they are working in tandem with the companies that until recently slaughtered horses here and which now are buying horses in the US and shipping them to their plants in Mexico and Canada.  

Sources: https://awionline.org/content/horse-slaughter​ http://www.congressweb.com/awi/86​ ,https://awionline.org/content/safeguard-american-food-exports-safe-act​ http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/horse_slaughter/facts/facts_horse_slaughter.html?credit=web_id85541261​ https://awionline.org/content/horse-slaughter-facts-faqs​ https://awionline.org/content/horse-slaughter-statistics​ https://awionline.org/content/illegally-acquired-horses​ http://www.horsefund.org/horse-slaughter-images.php​ http://www.americansagainsthorseslaughter.com/Information.html,http://kaufmanzoning.net,https://americansagainsthorseslaughter.wordpress.com/information-sheets/horse-slaughter-background-history/​ http://www.habitatforhorses.org/slaughter/,http://www.habitatforhorses.org/horse-slaughter-revealing-the-truth-part-two-the-process/​ http://www.habitatforhorses.org/horse-slaughter-the-truth-revealed-history-part-i/​ http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-resources/horse-slaughter-timeline.aspx​ http://www.horsefund.org/horse-slaughter-legislative-timeline-2011.php​ http://www.horsefund.org/horse-slaughter-images.php​ https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1942​ https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1214/text​ http://www.horsefund.org/horse-meat-images.php​ http://www.horsefund.org/horse-slaughter-images.php