Pro slaughter vs Anti slaughter . These discussions always end in the same name calling, statistics quoted but no real solution . There are still horses going to slaughter 130,000 from the US in 2011 up from the year before. No matter how you feel about it its a business and it is based on supply and demand. Even with that high of a number being slaughter there are over 200,000 horses that are in
rescues that are not being absorbed into the population as the animals welfare/rights groups promised. If you save a horse from slaughter it does make a difference to you and that horse but another horse or horses went in its place , the number would depend on how much money went to the kill buyer Supply and demand. There has always been neglect and even if slaughter came back there are still people who will not sell or send their horse to slaughter , some would let them starve first and will never enter the slaughter pipeline .The things most of us agree on are that there are too many horses circling the drain . There are too many horses that do not meet the criteria people are looking for and too many horses for homes. We know where babies come from . The time, energy and money spent on killbuyers, lobbyists, posters , rescues or directly to the head organizations of whichever side you support could have gone to a DVM to geld , a trainer to give them skills to make them valuable or to a horse owner that just needed a couple of bales to keep the horse they wanted. Being proactive to help horses from circling the drain would have prevented a lot of the problems we see now. Can we put aside our political differences and help the horses or is it just a lost cause ?
In some cases it is a lost cause. Because the politicians and lobbyists can 'discuss it to no end' without every coming up with a solution. There is no money in it for them in solving the problem. If you solve the problem- the money dries up.
ReplyDeleteWhy would they shoot themselves in the foot like that? They know the bleeding hearts will pay and pay. It will keep their pockets lined. Life for them is good- why upset the applecart?
A native Californian here, now replanted in middle Tennessee, and I just wanted to comment to say THANK YOU for the original post! We have a small private equine rescue group here and one of the biggest (and most frustrating) things we have been battling is not rescuing but rather dealing with all the anti vs pro slaughter BS. The fact that as a group we do not officially stand on either side of the argument has caused a lot of problems with other rescues as it seems most are full of die hard anti activists. I personally have no issues with anyone for feeling however they do on this matter as it's my position we are working hard to rescue, rehabilitate, and rehome....we are NOT a political group and we are NOT going to allow any special interest movement period to interfere with what we are doing for our local at risk and in need equines. Less stone throwing and more effort put towards finding answers and solutions would seem to be the sensible route to take however most get so embroiled in the heat of things they can't see past the drama and the end result is lines are drawn, bad blood creates even more rifts between folks who should be working together, and we get nowhere.....and as always it is the animals who suffer. For all that we humans are supposed to be the superior animals in the messy chain we sure have not been putting in a very good accounting for ourselves.
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