The Republic of Horse represents the interests of the horse.
Our primary concern is ethical: horses should not be treated as disposable goods. Commercial breeding of service and companion animals by those who insist on their "property rights" to validate slaughtering "surplus" horses is unworthy of a civilized country. This is especially true of a country that built itself on the labors of the horse. Ethics begins with the least of us.
There are also substantial practical reasons to eliminate horse slaughter for human consumption from our country.
- As athletes and recreation animals, horses are given many drugs banned in food animals. A horse may pass through many owners with no accompanying record of drugs and medical history. The United States performs absolutely no management or tracking of horse health, and those who eat their meat have no protection from banned drugs.
- If American horses continue to be slaughtered for consumption overseas, a passport ID system similar to that in Europe will have to be initiated. All horses will have to be microchipped with an identifier matched to drug and transportation records. The records will be maintained by horse owners. All horse owners will incur costs, and lose freedom, in the interest of satisfying the demands of those few who wish to slaughter horses for profit or to stimulate the breeding industry. Taxpayers will incur the costs of paying for a new government-controlled ID system.
- Horses are not eaten in the U.S., therefore the meat must be shipped to Europe and Asia. Most of the profit is taken there, and therefore, historically, benefits to the community, as well as taxes paid by these businesses, have been abysmally low.
- Slaughterhouses create a stigma and a drop in the standard of living in towns that host them. Historically, property near slaughterhouses is difficult to market. A slaughterhouse town or neighborhood is plagued with unpleasant noises, smells and effluvia and the frequent sight of horses being trucked to their dismal end.
- The industry creates relatively few jobs - low-paying, desperate, dehumanizing jobs. When Dallas Crown in the small Texas town of Kaufman closed, the crime rate fell 50%.
- Pro-slaughter propaganda asserting that horse slaughter is good for horse welfare defies common sense and is obviously an emotional smokescreen for special interests. Horse welfare depends on rational breeding in proportion to available homes, conscientious management and humane euthanasia.
Two pieces of legislation, H.R.2966 The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011 in the House of Representatives, and S.1176 The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011 in the Senate, seek to eliminate the industrial slaughter of horses in the United States. The bills must pass through their assigned committees and be co-sponsored by a significant number of legislators before they can come to a floor vote.
The bill summaries for H.R.2966 (House) and S.1176 (Senate) include the names of the current co-sponsors. If your Senators and Representative are not co-sponsors, please call them and let them know that the United States must end this disreputable and predatory business, and ask them to co-sponsor H.R.2966 or S.1176. Contact information for the House of Representatives can be found at the Directory of Representatives, and for the Senate, at Senators of the 112th Congress.
The Republic of Horse site owes a debt of gratitude to many online resources. Of greatest note are:
For more people and organizations who support a ban on horse slaughter, see Anti-Slaughter People and Organizations.