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Post by horseguy on Jul 16, 2017 23:42:51 GMT
One detail of the new proposed Federal Budget includes shifts in funds away from wild horse sterilization to removal from the range. Additionally, Federal rules changes on slaughter would be amended to permit wild horses being treated as livestock. www.rgj.com/story/life/outdoors/2017/07/11/trump-budget-sets-up-wild-horse-showdown/466303001/This is an issue I have followed for years along with the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) legislation. When you put the two Federal concepts behind these two sets of Federal rules and laws, you see our national government's schizophrenic position on horses as livestock, or not. On one hand the BLM rules treat every wild horse like it's Old Blue out in the pasture behind the house, when by any sane assessment wild horses are like any other wild creature from a deer to a pheasant. In contrast, the Real Old Blue out behind the house under the Federal NAIS would be treated like a cow or fish raised in a hatchery for food. Sport horses, breeding stock for recreational horses and all personal horses under this Fed statute must be chipped and their movements (presumably from birth to slaughter and packaging) tracked and recorded so as to facilitate food recalls. So which is it? Are horses in the USA food/livestock or pets never to be eaten? I have my personal views on this but my main complaint is that we pay US Legislators and bureaucrats to address and control in both directions when these two enforceable concepts are in near complete conflict since a horse cannot be livestock and a pet at the same time. It's as if we have one Federal agency digging a hole and another filling it in, and we pay for both.   |
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Post by horseguy on Jul 18, 2017 13:41:27 GMT
By some estimates, the Canadian horse slaughter industry is an $80,000,000 a year business. US laws banning horse slaughter has only served to move this business out of the country and long with its jobs. Similar Mexican estimates are available on the internet, but a word of caution. I have done many searches seeking accurate information on companies that process horse meat in Canada and Mexico and objective information is difficult to find. What you find are endless horse advocacy posts that have a definite anti slaughter perspective.
But let's say that the internet information is half true or $40,000,000 a year in Canada and probably similar in Mexico. Then a lot of horses that are being trucked out of the US over long distances to be processed as human and pet food every year. If those animals were not exported, we would be awash in starving, diseases and malnourished horses here at home. The Federal Bureau of Land Management that is in charge of US wild horses is already over their Congress authorized limit by double and as a result of feeding costs is substantially over its budget.
Objectively, what we have created is a Federally funded process of denial that costs the US American jobs, business income and taxes all so we can "feel good" about horses. We have not solved any problems connected to this trade, just move them north and south. In fact, by subjecting these horses to long distance trucking we probably have made their lives worse.
What do you think?
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Post by jimmy on Jul 19, 2017 15:45:02 GMT
The wild horse advocates blame the special interest such as cattlemen and mining, on the problem.
The truth is, the biggest special interest that is being catered to are the advocates themselves. All other interest of livestock and plant and wildlife have had to take a back seat.
The voices of the powerful lobbying forces of the horse advocacy groups, with lawsuits and emotional appealing pr campaigns, are disproportionately represented and have prevented sustainable and responsible management plans for decades.
The wild horse population is out of control, and the damage being done to federal lands is far reaching. Over grazing, destruction of water holes and habitat of other species of plants and animals.
The advocates would like to blame this on cattle. The truth is that cattle grazing is controlled. They are on strict grazing rotations delegated by the BLM and the USFS. (Even those are antiquated) We manage federal lands. We manage wild life. But the wild horse operatives demand no management at all. They were here first, let them live wild and free and let nature take it's course,to the detriment of all else. many of these beloved animal will and are dying of starvation and dehydration, but that's okay by them.
The range lands of the west, mostly in Nevada and Oregon, can comfortably handle around 27,000 horses. The rest of over 80,000 horses, by some counts are either still on the range, or living in shadeless grassless holding corrals and fed at the cost of tax payers. Thousands of unadoptable "wild" horses living in holding pens the rest of their lives. The Wild Horse and Burro Act requires un adoptable horses to be euthanized. But because of the advocacy groups, that can't happen.
As usual, the groups that claim to have so much care and compassion, have zero compassion for he livelihoods and welfare of others. Many are against public use all together. They call the cattlemen low life "welfare ranchers". Nevermind the truth that they are the ones maintaining the allotments and created or maintain the water holes that keep those horses alive.
There is no sense in no management. What they have done is prevent any sensible management whatsoever.
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Post by horseguy on Jul 20, 2017 11:19:42 GMT
As Jimmy points out, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and the "animal lover" lobbies know how to squeak. These lobbies like US Humane Society, which has nothing to do with local Human Societies that run animal shelters, profit from people's caring for animals but do little to help them. The USHS founder and President lives an opulent life style and does not own a pet or any other animal. The USHS raised $34.6 million from its 2005 Hurricane Katrina fundraiser to help effected animals. During the entire year 2005 according to Federal tax records dispersed a total of $8.6. The rest goers to "administration and lobbying that results in things like wild animal overpopulation. USHS Article
As long as money can buy votes in Congress, as the USHS can and does on issues like wild horses, reasonable, trained, experience people will not be able to apply logic and authentic caring for horses to this problem. There are many potential solutions such as having several classifications for horses, for example, personal animals, livestock and wild. Personal animals should be exempt from the overbearing NAIS laws that require and owner to submit Federal paperwork on every movement of their horse, to a show, to a farrier, for a trail ride, etc. Livestock should be exempt from anti-slaughter laws because like cows and other food animals, they are food animals. (remember in India, due to cultural beliefs, it is illegal to slaughter a cow - we all have some cultural hang-ups). Lastly, wild horses are wild and cannot be tracked by NAIS so there is no reason to have them covered by that set of regulations until they are caught for transport. Anything else is insane.
As US culture moves from agrarian, to industrial and now to digital we need to look objectively at how our changing ideas of animals impact the reality of the horse. The current system is cruel to horses and in many cases to horse owners. As much as the current budget and rule changes might appear to be a step backward, they will remove thousands of horses from completely exposed holding pens where they are doomed to spend the rest of their lives at tax payers expense. American can better use that money to rebuild roads and bridges.
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