They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Stop the breeding








Stop the breeding!!!!!!!!!!!These fat cat horse breeders all the way down to the single owner. There are too many horses. Make breeders restricted, authorized, licensed and regulated. Horse are very expensive and need a lot of time and care. It's not the wild west anymore. There are proven, more human training methods. Horses are not disposable, their one of mans trusted companions for thousands of years. Make the breeders financially responsible for horses they produce. Each horse should be regestered and kept track of new owners. People should be required to pass a test, just like a drivers license to even buy a horse. There's alot more to it. No one should be allowed to breed any domestic animals unless authorized with strict rules and regulations. There is an over abundance of all domestic animals. No one should be allowed to own exotic or wild life animals without special training and license. Their are just too many animal being abused. Dog fighting, *** fighting, horse racing. Anyone using or abusing animals should be charged with a cheminal offence. Stop the senseless pain and suffering that is happening today. Just watch ASPCA animal precint a few times and your heart aches. There have been over 5000 deaths a year just on the race track, not to mention during training. Stop the suffering. Legislators - it up to you!!!!!!!!!!! These horses that are being shipped to slaughter are not the old and dying, they came in 5th or 6th a few times. The wild horses that are slaughtered are perfectly healthy. There's just too many. They cost a lot of money to take care of. Stop the breeding!!!!!!!

What is absolutely ridiculous about this article is the fact that our government passed a law which halted horse slaughter in the U.S. based on emotion and to simply to appease extremists and animal rights activists. Processing horses for slaughter was a viable business in our country that provided jobs to hundreds of employees and served a purpose to salvage un-usable animals into a product that feeds people (primarily in other countries). When we have starving people in our nation and in our world, why on earth would we waste food just to appease people who can???t stomach the idea of the food chain? Why also would be shut down a legitimate business in our country that provided employment to our people just to make certain extremists feel all warm and fuzzy inside? What is our government going to try to regulate next, cattle, pig, goat, sheep or chicken slaughter just to appease animal rights activists. I love horses, I raise horses and I have owned and ridden horses all my life. No I would not chose to eat horse, unless I was starving, but I don???t have an issue with being able to humanely salvage an animal that may not be suited for any other use in this world. Most all of the horses that are sent to slaughter are sent for one of the following reasons: 1 ??? their owners can no longer take care of them, 2 ??? they are crippled or injured and can no longer be used to job that they were intended for, 3 ??? they unbreakable, have injured their owned and should not be sold to another individual who may also get harmed. Bottom line is that the horses that were being sent to slaughter were unwanted horses. Why do you think there are so many wild horses on public lands right now? There is not a demand by people to want to adopt these horses because they aren???t high quality horses, may people do not know how to handle these unbroken horses, and most of the general population cannot care of a horse, nor do they have the funds to do so in the current economic environment (when hay costs $50 per horse per week, not to mention boarding, vet care, farrier, etc., etc.). So if are faced with choices of either letting the mustang heard continue to populate and overrun our public lands and thus starve out themselves and other wild animals (deer, elk, mountain goats, mountain sheep, etc.) or to periodically thin the herd by humanely processing these animals for slaughter so that other living individuals may benefit, what is the more rational, educated, and humane decision?

It seems our government's answer to everything is to kill it. They did it with the Canandian geese by gassing thousands because of people compalaining of the goose poop at the parks, they did it with the white mountain goats that became to over populated for their taste on an island that they put them on in the first place to eat the weeds up and now they want to do it with the wild horses. Nature works just fine without our meddling and playing God.
They should turn loose the ones held capture like a prison to respectable places where they can thrive on their own. The answer is not killing then but then again we do have an idiot at the helm. Look how missmanaged Yellowston National Park is. Too much is put into the cattle culture who are not native to this country/ The destruction of what they have done in regards to pollution is deplorable. Read the Rise and FAll of the Cattle Culture. It will open your eyes to many things this country has done to drive it into the ground. We only have one small Earth, some just will never understand what that means.

It always amazes me the number of people who attribute terms such as "Magnificent" and "living symbol of the American west" to these inbred mustangs that in no way resemble the TV myths associated with them. I would be willing to bet that most of the people writing and commenting on this issue have never walked among today???s wild mustangs and seen for themselves what mustangs have become. The Mustangs that have made history came to be by ranchers releasing to a few high end studs into specific herds to supply the ranches with viable working stock. In almost all areas, this breeding program is long gone. After years of inbreeding without herd management, the domestic horses that supplied the bloodlines hundreds of years ago, no longer exist. Today???s mustangs are of very poor quality and few if any represent the ???glory of the west??? as implied in this article. They generally do NOT make good saddle horses or pets, range in areas they are not indigenous to and consume significant food sources. Consider that 1 horse eats about as much as 2 yearling steers, or 5 mountain goats, or 5 sheep or 6 deer. In general, it takes between 25-30 acres of BLM land to produce the 600lbs of hay required to feed 1 horse for 1 month. There is a limited amount of food in the areas where mustangs range. The unintentional introduction of horses into North America has and continues to decrease the available food for native deer, elk, buffalo, mountain goats/sheep, and rabbits. This, in turn has decreased the food chain for many predators.
More and more, it seems like the uninformed public is out to save everything, regardless of how many other things they kill or starve to death just to be a part of the latest emotionally based media hype that frequently has little or no complete impact analysis or practical solution.
I am not with a private corporation and don't have big (any) money. I am someone very concerned about the our environment and our approach to all wildlife management, but extremists and uninformed city dwellers that are always yelling about government and big money, sometimes should look in the mirror and see who the real enemy to our environment and wildlife sometimes is.

This article was very distressing to read. I encourage you to write more on this subject and place it in the front of the magazine so that it will not be missed. Please don't stop the conversation. I hope I can sleep tonight after reading this article.

It's hard to believe we are debating the brutal killing of these magnificent animals. Horse slaughter methods are particularly brutal. It's amazing how many people think of horses and other wildlife as nuisances. Private corporations and big money encroach upon and destroy public land without any public consent. Profit is the only thing being thought about. In their eyes, everyone and everything else be damned

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Many US horses are sent to Mexican slaughter houses. If you want to see what happened with them please visit:
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/horses_mexican_slaughterhouses?rk=D1AxRbdqGp_KW
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2007_horseslaughter_notcosponsor
Please help us signing at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/423921708
Thanks in advance!
Sandra Segovia / Mexico
APASDEM www.apasdemexico.org

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The horses belong on the range far more than cattle ranchers. When did it become gospel that a private industry could take control of thousands of acres of public land, run off and destroy natural predators and their habitat, and do it at the expense of the taxpayer? All to produce meat that clogs arteries...

I am so devastated about this. How can so called humans can be so callous? Is nothing sacred anymore? What will humans do next? Start eating little children for the softness of their flesh? And the way they slaughter them is simply abominable! I had to start a voice for these magnficent and intelligent creatures.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/STOP_HORSE_CRUELTY/

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I think we have it wrong. This article speaks of these rather large number of mustangs and how they are taking over the land. It isn't the horses that are taking over the land, it is MAN! When will we stop thinking we are the only living species on this earth? WE are not special, we are not even very good. And for man to continue this way shows only that he thinks about himself and nothing else. This has become a world where only man has rights.

These horses struggle each year to keep from being killed for someone to eat. Just the thought of eating a horse makes me sick. But it will be a cold day in hell when man admits that he is doing something this evil. Because if he did, he would have to stop taking the land, the water and everything that other species need to live on this earth. And he will then have to stop eating flesh.

DO THE RIGHT THING!

I think we have it wrong, once again. This article speaks of these rather large number of mustangs and how they are taking over the land. I had at least 2 go through my yard just the other day! It isn't the horses that are taking over the land, it is MAN! When will we stop thinking we are the only living species on this earth? WE are not special, we are not even very good. And for man to continue this way shows only that he thinks about himself and nothing else. This has become a world where only man has rights in his mind.

These horses struggle each year to keep from being killed for someone to eat. Just the thought of eating a horse makes me sick. But it will be a cold day in hell when man admits that he is doing something this evil. Because if he did, he would have to stop taking the land, the water and everything that other species need to live on this earth. And he will then have to stop eating their flesh.

DO THE RIGHT THING!