Horse Meat Ban Has Unintended Consequences

By Douglas V. Gibbs

In 1998 California passed a law banning the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to be humanely slaughtered (processed) for human consumption, and for other purposes. Supporters of the law were successful in their campaign to create an atmosphere of disgust among the voters when one considered that there are actually people out there that enjoy consuming horse meat. The image of a slaughterhouse full of able-bodied horses that just want to be cared for by some loving and caring human was used with great success. After speaking with a couple people, despite arguments of the unintended inhumane consequences of the law, people who know little about horses argued with me in support of the horse meat ban.

The Lone Ranger's horse, Silver, was portrayed as an intelligent animal that responded to a mere whistle. Zorro's horse was no different. We were even entertained on television decades ago by a fictional talking horse, Mister Ed, who came across as more intelligent than his bumbling owner, Wilbur. The relationships that people have with their horses, including daily interaction many owners enjoy, have made horses an important part of our lives, enabling us to humanize them, and wrongly view them as very intelligent animals.

Not a horse owner, nor a person that has spent much time around horses, like most of the public, a certain part of me was appalled by the fact that there are people out there that eat horse meat. Without being properly educated, I assumed the meat was probably an acquired taste of an otherwise not very tasty meat, and I imagined the poor animals shaking in fear as the owner decided old Sea Bisquit needed to become Friday Night's Blue Plate Special. Well, either that, or I imagined a van showing up to take sweet Boxer to the glue factory, as in Orwell's dystopian allegory, Animal Farm.

After dumping a load of sand at a horse boarder in Southern California, the owner of the facility, and I, had a short conversation about how some horses eat sand. Normally, sand is used to mix with the dirt in an arena to soften the ground for the horses. Some arenas also use a mix of dee gee and dirt. In other cases, straight sand is used.

About 10% of horses, according to the owner of the facility, sometimes simply because of boredom, eats sand. Once in the horse's system the sand acts like sand paper to the animal's innards, often killing the poor animal in a very painful manner. The gentleman I was speaking to pointed out one of his horses that they were keeping a close eye on because the horse had decided to eat fifteen pounds of sand.

"Contrary to popular opinion," he told me, "horses are dumb animals. They rank right up there with sheep."

"If the horse dies," I said, "the disposal must be a pain."

"You have no idea," he replied. "Between the red tape, and laws on the books, it is very difficult to dispose of the poor animals. Whenever a horse is injured, or suffering from other sources, it used to be much easier, quicker, and humane, to put the animals down."

Not understanding what he meant, I inquired further. The gentleman proceeded to explain that when horses were allowed to be used for meat consumption, the process of the animal being picked up and put out of its misery was quick. Now, as a result of the horse meat ban, the animals suffer longer before they are put down. The law, intended by animal rights groups like PETA, to be humane, are actually very inhumane to the poor animals. Horses have no concept of death, but they do understand pain, and to string out the time they must suffer because some people have a problem with horses being used for meat consumption is actually much more inhumane to the animals.

"Horses are good eating," he went on to explain. "The meat is real red, like venison, and is very tasty. Think about it, these animals are fed the best food. They aren't sent out to graze on weeds. They are given alfalfa and grains their whole lives, ensuring their bodies are healthy."

"Are their other consequences from the meat ban, other than the longer period of suffering many horses experience?" I asked.

"Absolutely," he said. "The reality is that there are a lot of horses that are abandoned. These unwanted horses now are worth nothing because their meat can't be sold, and the increasing number of unwanted horses is saturating public animal rescue facilities. No funding has been allocated by California's law to manage the large increase in horses at these facilities that ultimately suffer even greater due to the over-population of the poor miserable animals at these understaffed facilities. Also, the cost of maintaining unwanted horses is incredible. Upkeep of a horse is high as it is. Caring for an unwanted horse is even higher. One can buy a horse for relatively cheap, but when vet bills start accumulating, and the other maintenance costs go up because of the additional needs of a suffering animal, it can get pretty expensive. Government regulations, however, make it difficult to put down and dispose of the animal, and the quicker method of selling the horse for meat, and having all of the duties of putting the animal down being transferred to the horse meat industry, is gone.

"Also, by eliminating the allowance of horse meat for human consumption, it has hurt the economy. The overall national export value for horse meat was in the tens of millions of dollars, and since California has the second largest number of horses, the law largely impacted that number. This also affects governmental revenues, which vanished in this State once the law went into effect. Since the horses are not being consumed, it also raises the question, 'What to do with the body?' Burying the body, or disposing of them in landfills, gets the environmentalists upset because of the negative impact on the environment. Adoption has gone down as well, increasing the number of unwanted animals that literally live lives of suffering because they aren't put down, and they aren't adopted. The law has also hugely impacted the cost of buying horses, as well. You can buy a horse for $25 dollars if you really want to. But the people that are now beginning to buy horses are those that have no understanding of what goes into horse ownership, and who have no ability to properly care for the animals. This also adds to the number of horses that live miserable lives."

"Did anything good come out of the horse meat ban?"

"I suppose," he said, "it made a bunch of compassionate animal rights radicals feel better about themselves. Problem is, these people refuse to recognize the unintended consequence of misery among the horse population they have caused."

On the surface, the law seems well-intended, but the reality is that the ban on horse meat has caused more problems than solutions. The animal rights activists may believe they have won with their horse meat ban, but in the long run, horses have lost.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary