The case for horsemeat in America
Until fairly recently, horse slaughter was common in America. Although at the time, the horsemeat trade was limited mainly to pet food manufacture, since Americans (unlike people in most other countries) have never really taken to eating horsemeat.
This is a pity, frankly, since the reasons behind it are entirely sentimental. We don't have cherished childhood stories about cows or chickens. There is no version of Misty of Chincoteague starring a chicken; no cow equivalent of National Velvet. But in an era with rising food costs, where meat in particular has become hugely expensive, all but the cheapest cuts of meat are out of reach of the poor and working class.
Horsemeat is said, by its proponents, to be a lean meat that is high in nutrients, similar to a very lean grass-fed beef. Let's just say it's probably an acquired taste. Wikipedia describes it as being "slightly sweet, tender and low in fat." I have never eaten horsemeat, and I have to admit I would have a lot of reservations about trying it, were it available.
Unfortunately, horse slaughter in America was a highly charged issue. A lot of the animals sent to slaughter were mustangs, which had been rounded up in the American West using inhumane and stressful methods. And who wants to see perfectly good wild (actually feral) horses rounded up and ground into pet food? It was a horrific scene; bad enough that animal welfare activists, with all the best intentions in the world, managed to shut it down. Today, most American horses bound for slaughter are shipped to either Mexico or Canada. Or worse, packed into shipping containers without food or water and shipped overseas for slaughter.
The last three slaughterhouses in America closed their doors in 2007. Many animal rights and breed organizations (like the venerable American Quarter Horse Association) are actively involved in trying to end horse slaughter trade in America altogether, by making it illegal to buy, sell or transport a horse for slaughter in the United States.
Slaughterhouses are terrible places, there's no arguing that. But why not lobby to regulate better slaughterhouses with more federal oversight, rather than shifting the slaughter burden to other countries? If you think a horse slaughter plant in Texas is a nightmare, I can guarantee you that it's a walk in the park compared to a slaughterhouse in Mexico. And even if all other factors were equal, being shipped to Mexico is a nightmare in and of itself.
The real problem is that the American slaughterhouses were being operated with no supervision and atrocities were commonplace. There are thousands of reports of cruelty, suffering, open wounds, horses left to die on the ground, every awful thing you can imagine.
America's animal processing system is horrendous all around. But it's slightly better for animals destined for food, since these fall under the auspices of the FDA and are more tightly monitored. (Even so, only barely.) A plant slaughtering animals for foreign markets and American zoos is apparently a plant left neglected and ignored by officials. And atrocities took place there.
But ending the practice isn't the answer. It's a form of NIMBYism that only makes things worse for the horses. The answer is to lobby for tighter controls, more public oversight, and more transparency throughout the system. Animals should not suffer, whether they are being killed here or abroad, and whether they are horses, cows or chickens.
A ban on the purchase and transport of horses for slaughter elsewhere would certainly do the trick, but it seems unfeasible. There are hundreds of thousands of unwanted horses in America. Where would they go? Currently they are sold at auction for pennies on the pound, sold to so-called "kill buyers" who route them into the slaughter trade.
The United States was producing 25,000 tons of horsemeat per year. No one is raising horses for food (the economics just aren't there) so that figure represented unwanted horses. What happens to those horses, if horse slaughter is banned in America entirely?
Main image courtesy Flickr/Smabs Sputzer