Horse Slaughter Revisited

[urbpan]

I'm listening to an NPR editorial railing against the slaughter and export of unwanted race horses , by Frank DeFord. I've mentioned the issue here, and at the vegetarians community before.

I'm a bit of a knee-jerk liberal, I confess. Usually on NPR I agree with the liberal editorials and disagree with the conservatives (yes they have conservative commentors). This issue isn't liberal or conservative, it's blindfolded sentiment versus no other solution offered.

The commentor did not offer an alternate method of disposing of the thousands of horses that are unwanted, nor did he mention that the same fate awaits cows (mentally equal if not equally aesthetically pleasing animals) by the thousand-fold. He did ask if we would do the same to our dogs and cats. Why not? 10 to 15 million unwanted animals euthanized every year, and we just send them up chimneys. I'd rather someone eat them than they become part of the greenhouse effect. Not very sentimental, I know, but I don't think that sentiment should be the primary factor in solving problems.

Comments

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

i seem to recall something in there about capturing wild horses, and if they're not 'adopted' then permitting their sale for meat. that's the only part i object to, and i object to it hugely. i love wild horses, love the idea of the wild horses, and have -many times- gone up to the virginia highlands before dawn for a chance at seeing wild horses.

it's better to eat them than not, certainly, but it's better still to let them stay wild.

horses have always seemed a LOT smarter to me than cows. i don't eat either, but i've always been impressed with horses, and what a well raised horse is capable of communicating.

[wakarusa.livejournal.com]

I heard the same editorial this a.m. I'm all mixed up and upset about it. First thing I thought of, frankly, was greyhounds. Something like 50,000 of those are slaughtered a year, and I think the number for horses was 60,000 odd. Setting aside the issue of how animals are slaughtered - the conditions, the method of kill - greyhounds and horses are bred sheerly for sport, not even nominally for food. To me, this is even worse morally than a feedlot (and I do think those are about as low as you can go).

I grew up with both horses and cows, and while I know that the differences I see between them are in large part due to the livestock mindstock in which I was raised, I am a lot more upset about eating horses. But I don't like any animal being killed in the stun gun, assembly-line fashion, terrified and surrounded by strangers who could give less of a shit. It is not sentimental as much as - um - wow, I just had an Obi Wan moment! It feels like when Alderaan blew up, and he felt a "major disturbance in the Force." THAT kind of feeling. And while it is emotional, hopefully there's enough balance to it that it doesn't feel sentimental.

All that said, I did feel the commentator was sentimental, especially the point you quoted :) and for that reason, I guess he was actually conservative, or he would have been more conversant with PETA/ local meats issues and language. Or he was a knee-jerk liberal like you and me.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

i seem to recall something in there about capturing wild horses

That's an entirely different issue--feral animals versus unwanted domestics.

i love wild horses, love the idea of the wild horses

Of course, there haven't been any wild horses in North America for 10,000 years. What we have are some wonderful feral horses, the preservation of which is a topic for another discussion.

horses have always seemed a LOT smarter to me than cows.

But they're not. Horses are just more useful to humans in more ways than just a food source. Generations of breeding horses as companionable animals and of cows as milk machines has pushed their mental abilities into different directions.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Of course, there haven't been any wild horses in North America for 10,000 years.

I just read that they went extinct a few hundred years before North American wooly mammoths.

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

it's absolutely true, on all points- there is a difference between feral horses and true 'wild' horses; they look quite different, they are quite different. i've always heard the herds called 'wild,' even though they, or their ancestors, were domesticated. still, they're magnificent, and i do recall that this same bill discusses their capture, sale/slaughter.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Does that mean that they are acutally different species (not able to breed with eachother, at least in theory)? How long would you say a species or individual would need to be out of captivity (domesticity) to be considered a wild animal again?

From the article cited above:

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

A recent study of caballine fossils in the northern hemisphere reveals that those of late Pleistocene times belonged to two clades: (1) an endemic North American group, and (2) a Holarctic group found in both North America and Eurasia (Vilá et al. 2001). The familiar domestic horse of today comes from the second clade.

This implies that there were (at least) two distinct species of horse in North America, including the species that includes the wild ancestors of domestic horses. Most likely these were a separate subspecies from the actual wild ancestor of domestic horses but they would be close enough to interbreed, yes.

I'm sure there's a real scientific answer to your second question, but I would be tempted to say "never." That is, if the ancestors of a population of animals are domestic animals, that population will always be "feral" not "wild." The horses that currently live in North America have only been there for (at most) a little over 500 years. Longer than almost any other introduced domestic, but still just the blink of an eye.

Re: From the article cited above:

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Does that mean that all pigeons are in fact feral?

Re: From the article cited above:

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Yup. All but the ones in North Africa.

(why don't I have a pigeon icon?)

Re: From the article cited above:

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

That's what I figured.

Why DON'T you?!

Re: From the article cited above:

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Gotta make one. Maybe I'll derive one from the "perfect pigeon" illustration from my pigeon book. Or I'll see if I can't get a good closeup of a wild one--excuse me, I mean 'feral.'

Re: From the article cited above:

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I could help you with that.

[zipotle.livejournal.com]

As disturbing as it is to think about (eating small domestic animals)-I agree. Why waste them? Especially with the number of people living under the poverty line that we have.
People have been eating horses for a good long while. Why is it such a freakout?
OK, I KNOW why, but still. It's been happening forever. And if we don't eat them-what, just make the landfills even bigger?

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

not sure why they couldn't compost them. you can compost table scraps that include meat and bone, why not horses? seems better than landfill, and i'm sure many don't qualify for the human food-chain.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah! That's what I'm talking about. Use the money that would be spent shipping dead horses all over the planet for creating sustanable cooperatively owned farms in the poverty stricken areas instead. "It's that whole if you teach a man to fish..." sentiment about encouraging independence rather than dependence. (And, I might add, that since there really is plenty of evidence that animal are not so healthy for humans to eat, feeding horses to poor people is kind of like feeding them french fries and potato chips.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/purplebunnie_/]

I really wouldn't mind eating them... except they likely wouldn't taste very good.

There's a place in Eureka called China Buffet, only it's better know as "kitten on a stick." Because that just doesn't taste like chicken.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, road kill deer are used for human consuption - why not horses?

[turil.livejournal.com]

I'd rather someone eat them than they become part of the greenhouse effect.

By "someone" I'm guessing you mean human. If so, are those really the only two options? How about letting other (more clearly carnivorous) species eat them? Microbes, bugs, carnivorous birds, etc. like to eat horses, right?

Obviously, not creating an "entertainment" industry that directly causes many thousands of unwanted horses that never learned to survive in the wild is something that might not be so great in the first place. Though I would definitely agree that the industry that kills cows by the billions is a far worse offender. But people do still believe that eating animal flesh is a necessity for human survival, while watching animals run around in circles is not so much.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

By "someone" I'm guessing you mean human.

I don't care who eats them.
But someone (I suppose the Federal Government) is making money selling horse meat overseas, so if we landfilled or vulturized (me make new word) tens of thousands of horses, someone's going to complain about the "waste." (of money, not life)

while watching animals run around in circles is not so much
Right. And getting back to the original editorial, it was presented by a sports journalist, who defended horse racing as a sport and form of entertainment.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Vulturized? Ok, that's a good one. Composted would work too, as Ms. Cantrell pointed out.

And there will always be someone to complain about everything :-) Complaints should never stop a good idea.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want to live downwind of a horse composting facility.