United Organizations of the Horse Illegally Posing as a 501 C 3 Charitable Institution

Sue Wallis article number 2 by Nell Walton

The United Horseman's Front is listed at as a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit charitable corporation under category "Animal related / (Animal Protection and Welfare (includes Humane Societies and SPCAs))" established in 2009. Dave Duquette, owner of Duquette Quarter Horses in Hermiston, OR, is the president. The United Horsemen's Front was registered as a nonprofit corporation in Oregon in November of 2008.

The US Internal Revenue Service defines a 501(c)(3) charitable organization as follows:
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates....The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. ...

However, despite exhaustive research, there apparently has been no reported or recorded evidence that the United Horsemen's Front has participated in any equine rescues or rehabilitations to date.

During the course of the research, the activities of the group were in fact found to be exceedingly puzzling, especially when reviewed in light of the above mission statement.
In July 2009, during an interview with Michelle Brence of the Oregonian, Duquette said:
"... he (Duquette) used to average $300,000 in annual horse sales, with most fetching $10,000 to $15,000. "Now I'm lucky to sell two or three horses a year," he said. "A horse I could get $20,000 out of in the last few years, I probably couldn't get $5,000 out of now."

Ms. Brence also reported that:

"...the Duquettes and others have formed advocacy groups to push a proposal they're calling the H.O.R.S.E. Act of 2009 (short for Humane and Optimal Restoration and Sustainability of Equines) to reinstate USDA inspections. Horse meat could be exported to China, Mexico, France, Italy and other countries where it's consumed by people. ... But Dave Duquette, who lobbied for the proposal in Washington, D.C., last month, remains confident. "Everybody we talked to was very supportive of it," he said. "There are a lot of Republicans that will be on board, but there are a lot of Democrats that will be on board, too."

Absolutely no indication or discussion of how the United Horsemen's Front is fulfilling its nonprofit mission of animal protection, humane treatment and welfare.

It seems that much of the energy of both the United Horsemen's Front, and the United Organizations of the Horse is far more focused on other issues. In many press releases the United Horsemen's Front and the UOH make the following statement:

"The UOH seeks to unify all like-minded equine associations and individuals in support of its mission-to promote the humane care and management of horses, and the continued viability of the equine community in the United States of America."

As no clear definition is given of who and what exactly makes up "like-minded equine associations and individuals," one must attempt to make deductions as to who these groups and individuals might be from some of Mr. Duquette's (and Rep. Sue Wallis') public statements.
For example, in an exchange on the United Horsemen's Front Facebook fan page

(http://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Horsemens-Front/261616654545> who is on what side of which isle???? If you believe the dribble and rediculous rants of RT Fitch then maybe this page is not for you. There has been much posted and written about Sue(Wallis) and I that is simply A.R. bull that has no factual meaning. Instead of attacking this group maybe do the research on who these scammers are. Makes me wonder who your protecting, there is an obvious scam going on and doing the see no evil thing makes you look more suspicious than maybe you think. If you believe in climate change then great, Sue (Wallis) or anyone else that doesn't should not be chastized by you or RT. I believe it's a natural occurring change and Al Gore made alot of money SCAMMING the public."

(R.T. Fitch is a blogger at http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=omaglqdab&et=1103686005163&s=152&e=001vB_Jp7o2suWujbUMXozLaspboaryxkPtx0x8-odPSmOLys84eV7do8wZB8gBRK9CeWNaKZLEWoSl2eQAPUaorjXypDmhaYfuySmqiQ3rEqCgUbLDZElMew== who has been extremely critical of Mr. Duquette and Rep. Wallis. The A.R. abbreviation stands for animal rights.)
Mr. Duquette also spends much of his energies repeatedly criticizing Wayne Pacelle, CEO and President of the Human Society of the United States (HSUS), which seems odd, given Duquette himself is the president of a group dedicated to animal protection and welfare. However, the United Horsemen's Front and the UOH have their own particular interpretation of what the HSUS and other animal welfare groups' true mission is:

"The animal rights radical agenda (NOT to be confused with legitimate and responsible animal welfare proponents, which we all are) offers no solution except pushing for what is essentially a welfare entitlement program for animals-Medicaid and food stamps for horses so that every old, dangerous, unsound, unusable horse is maintained at public expense for the rest of their 25 to 30 year average life span. What they propose will create a mechanism to shovel taxpayer dollars directly into the pockets of animal rights organizations (HSUS/PETA) so they can continue to pay six figure salaries and put more of their budget into pension plans than to actually help any animals. Last year HSUS spent less than 1/2 of 1% of their almost $100 Million dollar budget on direct animal care http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=omaglqdab&et=1103686005163&s=152&e=001vB_Jp7o2suVZ_rnx5v-45-S_SHDrexeMhx5TK7ZWZ4X58HlTMyRoN_p-LE1lOag6Sshwulxlat3DulvW6aqYFa2NkfaOMSfLDLG0QjXtjpAXjDz7OebAqQ== ..." (from a UOH press release in April)
No sources are given as to how one can apply for Medicaid and food stamps for horses (unfortunately). And, the accusation in regards to the HSUS budget expenditures cannot be verified on any charity research website (Charity Navigator, Guidestar), nor the website listed in the press release.

So, in light of these statements, one can only gather that "like-minded equine associations and individuals" consist of those that do not challenge Mr. Duquette's or Rep. Wallis' "facts", plans or behavior in any fashion whatsoever.

Rep. Wallis is up for re-election on November 11, (after winning the Republican primary in her district by only 177 votes).

It is beyond disturbing that on August 30, of this year, Mr. Duquette, president of a 501(c)(3) charitable organization specifically forbidden under Federal law in participating in any campaign activity for or against political candidates, was listed by the Wyoming Elections Commission as the Chairman of the United Organizations of the Horse Political Action Fund

(http://soswy.state.wy.us/Elections/Docs/WY_PAC.pdf).

Rep. Wallis is, of course, the Executive Director of the UOH.

This series will conclude with a final article on the questionable relationship the UOH has with horse slaughter buyers and a recap and review of the facts.

More information:

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/groups_push_to_slaughter_horse.html

http://www.unitedorgsofthehorse.org/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Horsemens-Front/261616654545

United Organizations of the Horse - Not for the HORSE At All

"We will probably work up to the point where we're killing 20 horses a day."
September 13, 2010By Nell Walton

http://www.allpetspost.org/allhorsespost/?p=3838

Who is Sue Wallis and Why Should I Care?

The statement in the headline was made to a reporter from the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in late April of this year, by Wyoming State Representative Sue Wallis of Recluse, WY.

On March 9, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal signed into law a bill that enables the Wyoming Livestock Board to send stray, unwanted or feral horses to slaughter. Prior to this legislation, the Board could only send such horses to public sale. This bill (http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2010/Enroll/HB0122.pdf), was introduced into the Wyoming House on February 11, 2010 by Rep. Sue Wallis, and was signed into law less than 30 days later.

Upon review, many parts of the bill are quite troublesome (even aside from the fact that horse slaughter is an extremely controversial issue in the US). In the section in regards to the due diligence required for a Board inspector to determine ownership of an "estray" horse, the horse "cannot be held for more than 10 days" before being sent to slaughter. Under this language, an inspector could make the decision in 1 hour that the horse was a stray or feral and make the arrangements to have the horse sent to the slaughter facility. Additionally, it states that "the board shall provide meat from estrays disposed of by slaughter....to Wyoming state institutions or to nonprofit organizations......" meaning among other things prisons, schools and state run health facilities.

Even more troublesome is the fact that Rep. Wallis is also the Executive Director of the United Organizations of the Horse (UOH), which is diligently working towards the development of a horse slaughter plant in Wyoming. The UOH website states that it is a "mutual benefit nonprofit organized primarily to work in the political arena and is registered in Wyoming" (i.e. a lobbying group). The Wyoming Secretary of State's records show that the UOH was incorporated in November of 2009. According to a press release on April 24, 2010, the UOH is also negotiating to take over ownership of the Cheyenne Stockyards facility which currently belongs to the Wyoming Livestock Board. Plans are to turn it into an "intake and rejuvenation" facility for stray, feral or otherwise unwanted horses, where they can be evaluated for usefulness, health, and other criteria (i.e. adherence to federal regulation in regards to slaughter). If a horse fails this triage, it will be sent to the UOH slaughter facility.

So, we have the following scenario:

Rep. Wallis is a Wyoming elected state representative

Rep. Wallis is also the executive director of a lobbying group, whose purpose is to promote horse slaughter in the State of Wyoming

Rep. Wallis was also the sponsor of a Wyoming HB 122, which enables the Wyoming

Livestock Board to send stray or feral horses to slaughter

Rep. Wallis' bill HB 122 was brought to session and signed into law in less than 30 days time, with little to no time for public comment, according to the recordU

Under Wyoming legislative ethics law (W.S. 9-13-106), very clear distinctions are made as to conflicts of interest for state legislators, and, states that any legislator "...shall not make an official decision...if the has a personal or private interest in the matter...." So how was it that Rep. Wallis was allowed to sponsor and lobby to get a bill passed within the Wyoming House in about 3 weeks, when there was such a clear conflict of interest?

Also, under "Organizational Structure," on the UOH's web page it lists two other affiliated corporations: 1) The United Horsemen's Front, which categorizes itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational charitable organization and 2) Unified Equine LLC - "a Wyoming limited liability company under which all humane horse processing and related businesses are operated."
However, Unified Equine, LLC does not stand up to scrutiny. The Wyoming Secretary of State currently does not have a Unified Equine, LLC listed as either an active or inactive corporation in the State of Wyoming, and it would be of interest to see if such an organization has or will have Rep. Wallis as a paid employee. The United Horseman's Front is listed at www.guidestar.org as a nonprofit corporation under category "Animal related / (Animal Protection and Welfare (includes Humane Societies and SPCAs))" as a 501(c)(3) charitable group established in 2009. It's President is Dave Duquette, owner of Duquette Quarter Horses in Hermiston, OR.

......... Mr. Duquette and his organization will be further addressed in tomorrow's edition.

More information:

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2010/04/28/news/19local_04-28-10.txt

http://www.unitedorgsofthehorse.org./

Bad Economy Bad Times For NW Pa. Cats

GERRY WEISS, Erie Times-News ERIE, Pa. (AP) ¯ There is reverence in this room.For the difficult task performed. For each cat or dog, treated with calming compassion until the very end.

The euthanasia room, tucked away inside the Humane Society of Northwestern Pennsylvania, has little in it. The walls are bare and painted light purple. An examination table is placed near the middle.

A staff member, wearing long rubber gloves, removes the animal from one of the clinic's cages and carries it into this room.Another worker often apologizes to the cat or dog, and then injects it with a dose of Sodium pentathol.

The animal is dead within three or four seconds.But on Thursday at the Humane Society, one animal was followed by another, and another, and another.

Officials said 20 cats were euthanized that day, 15 of which were healthy and at the shelter for less than two weeks.

Euthanasia, predominantly of cats, is soaring at area animal shelters — a crisis, officials say, brought on by a drop in adoptions and a sharp rise in drop-offs of stray and abandoned cats that local clinics are calling an epidemic.

For more, please click on this link:

http://cbs3.com/wireapnewspa/In.NW.Pa.2.1876791.html

Please spay and neuter your cats..

The Real Fix for Retired Racehorses

The Real Fix For Racehorses - It should start on the front end...before racing begins. This is an excellent article written by a central PA riding instructor for the Pennsylvania Equestrian.

The Real Fix for Retired Racehorses

by Bob Wood, Special to Pennsylvania Equestrian - August 2010

“Racehorse Retirees Face Happier Futures” was a recent headline in the Pennsylvania Equestrian. The report of 200 racehorses saved yearly by this recent effort is a positive rescue direction. The sad truth is that the vast number of raced Thoroughbreds have no future. As great as 200 saved a year sounds, it's a drop in the bucket of abandoned Thoroughbred racehorses. Furthermore, this kind of positive news often takes the focus off the true scale of the problem.

Having retrained many TB racehorses over many years, I feel the rescue/adoption solution has never and will never address the vast number of horses raced and discarded. The practical answer to this problem is to deal with the challenge of a second career before their racing days begin, not afterward. The focus must be on the underlying first causes of their unadoptability, because there will never be enough rescue stalls to provide more than a token post-career solution. We therefore must increase their adoptability to the average person wanting to own a horse by making them easier to retrain after racing.

An inventory of the racehorse skills set reveals a horse that knows how to run fast, turn left, and stop within a half mile or so. They scare the average potential horse owner to death. Their fundamental lack of early basic training makes them unusable as riding horses later in their lives. They do not know how to stand still when mounted, they are unfamiliar with the full weight of a rider in the saddle, or the feel of a rider's leg against their barrel. Most are, as a result, ticklish when they are first mounted with a riding saddle, if you can mount them at all in any conventional sense. They end up in a second career job market with no real marketable skills, and often with the additional handicap of a minor injury, a mental scar like cribbing or weaving, or manners that few average riders can endure. All this could be made easier after race retirement, if time were taken at the beginning of their training to build the foundation of a second career skill set when they are most open to learning.

Please click here to read the rest of this article:

http://www.pennsylvaniaequestrian.com/news2010/0810_Real-Fix-for-Retired-Racehorses.php

Will the US Congress Fund the Export of Poisoned Horse Meat?

NCSL passes resolution to lobby for reinstatement of funding for USDA horse inspections

The following press release was issued in response to the resolution passed by NCSL. A copy of the release from Sue Wallis is posted below this release.


July 31, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

Vicki Tobin
630.961.9292
mailto:vickitobin@earthlink.net

Valerie James-Patton
530-474-1128
valerie@equinewelfarealliance.org


Lobby Group Will Urge Congress to Fund Export of Tainted Horse Meat

CHICAGO, (EWA) - The National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) has passed a resolution calling for the reinstatement of USDA inspectors for horse meat.

The NCSL is a non-governmental lobbyist organization which serves the nation's 50 states legislators to advocate and lobby for the interests of states before Congress and federal agencies. The resolutions NCSL passes are not binding and merely allow them to lobby on behalf of the states.

Representative Sue Wallis (WY) who is vice chair of the NCSL's Agriculture and Energy Committee, went on record asking that she be allowed to slaughter horses to feed Wyoming children, the poor and prison inmates without having the meat federally inspected for consumer safety. The Wyoming livestock board responded quickly by stating in no uncertain terms that "horse slaughter is not an option."

The Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) strongly opposes the misuse of tax payer dollars to fund inspections for an industry that is not needed or wanted by the overwhelming majority of Americans.

US horses are not raised as food animals and as such, receive numerous substances on a routine basis that are prohibited for use in food animals. Our country does not track horses and has no mechanism to remove horses from the food chain that have received prohibited substances.

Horse owners were vehemently opposed last year at an attempt to implement NAIS, a national tracking system. Considering that less than two percent of the horse population ends up on slaughter trucks and represents only three cents on every $100 earned by the horse industry, the cost of implementing a national tracking system to accommodate an insignificant percentage of horses makes absolutely no fiscal sense.

In the NCSL release, as with most pro horse slaughter communications, there is no mention of the known drug issue in American horses. "It is a travesty that legislators would even consider reinstating inspections knowing that there is no way to guarantee consumer food safety" said EWA's Valerie James-Patton.

A recent survey of horse owners by the publication, The Horse, revealed that 96% of horse owners give their horses at least one of the banned substances on a regular basis. A peer reviewed scientific study by Drs. Marini, Dodman and Blondeau that was published in the scientific journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology, revealed 100% of the slaughtered Thoroughbreds traced in the study had received the carcinogen phenylbutazone. It should be noted that these tainted horses were shipped to the European Union for human consumption while the USDA was supposedly inspecting the horse meat. Another study in CA of Thoroughbreds revealed a 99% usage.

"Instead of wasting valuable legislator's time on this nonsense," commented EWA's Vicki Tobin, "a better use of time and donations by these pro horse slaughter groups would be to address why excess horses continue to be produced every year and start working on solutions. Continuing to slaughter the victims of irresponsible breeders and owners, is only going to perpetuate the problem, not correct it."




##


Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues free, umbrella organization with over 120 member organizations. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids.

http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/



##




NCSL Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2010

Contact:
Sue Wallis
307 680 8515 cell
307 685 8248 ranch
sue.wallis@unitedorgsofthehorse.org

National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) adopts new policy resolution calling for USDA inspection of horse meat.

The policy resolution was passed at the annual Legislative Summit held in Louisville, Kentucky on July 25-28, 2010. The policy was first reviewed and passed by the Agriculture and Energy Committee, and then passed at the Business Meeting of the 45 states in attendance. Policies which receive a super majority vote of more than 3/4 of the states attending give NCSL staff in Washington, D.C. the authority to lobby Congress on behalf of the position of the states.
USDA ante-and post mortem inspections are mandatory if an animal is to be sold as meat, and the animal must be slaughtered in a USDA-inspected facility. Federal appropriations law contains a prohibition on allowing federal dollars to be spent on salaries for inspectors who inspect horses before or after slaughter, making it impossible for operations that want to process horse meat within their borders to market this meat. Inspectors also cannot respond to a voluntary, fee-based inspection request to inspect horse meat. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) believes that these provisions unduly restrict states' action regarding horse slaughtering facilities within their borders. Therefore, NCSL calls upon Congress to remove these restrictions in existing law, and not insert similar provisions in subsequent appropriations bills or other legislative vehicles.

The closing of horse slaughter facilities in America has decimated the equine industry, and has curtailed the ability of states and tribes to control the numbers of excess and abandoned horses on their lands. Documented reports indicate an increase of 400% in the number of starved, abandoned, and neglected horses between 2008 and 2009 alone. This has resulted in unprecedented state budget increases and taxpayer costs at a time when states cannot afford unnecessary expense. It has severely impacted the livestock industry as a whole, and by eliminating the salvage value of horses has significantly reduced the market value of all horses. The loss of markets for horse meat for pet food, for the maintenance of zoo animals, and for byproducts has greatly impacted these sectors. The loss of horse products for export has eliminated more than $42 million dollars of direct income for an already struggling sector of the livestock industry, not to mention millions of dollars in indirect costs because of the loss of value of individual animals. Given the current state of the horse processing industry, it is particularly important that the federal government not restrict access to inspection.

-End-

Dairy Cows Abused Routinely - And Unnecessarily

Animals Angels has done another investigation – this time into the fate of dairy cows. I have to say the article really hit home with me. Every week at New Holland Livestock Auction you can see dairy cows on their way to the slaughterhouse. The very painful part of seeing them is that they are carrying huge, milk laden udders and no one offers them a bit of relief. They obviously suffer horribly on their way to slaughter. Isn’t there a better – a humane – way?

http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=0015rqrTrc4Ajs2xn6QK7oJgbSKBuWuNwXcXsuFfmkdwE0PA1pkuQ8zB2DUl_iUkhs_YlcCiS9k7rPPP4iYMdHqTWnIlCoYeRE22yrGU-8K_dqE9L4fobTg-XqcUwOjubf1eb4KRai-Ch0%3D


(From the above line)

A few personal words

I remember quite clearly my first encounter with a so called "spent" Dairy Cow. I looked twice to see, was she really a cow? She was bony, and yet an absurdly huge udder mounded up from where she lay. It was July 2006 and she was panting heavily, unsheltered in the hot 98 degree sun in a far corner of the auction property.

She looked like nothing was left of her yet she was alive, her eyes expressive. Her bones poked up from her skin like tent poles. She was foaming from the mouth, her knees were bleeding, and milk dripped from her enormous udder.

She suffered quietly, like all "Dairy" Cows do. The auction workers joked about her appearance and referred to her as "Cheeseburger." One worker said to me, "These are all going to -----," naming a national fast food chain. I gave her water. Later that night, she was relentlessly shocked with an electric prod to make her rise and struggle horribly to get to the sale ring where she sold for $50.

Hours later, as sick as she was, she was loaded onto a double deck truck to be, I am sure now, injured further as she was shipped for immediate slaughter. It is exactly 4 years later. She was not unique but the first of hundreds to be encountered at auctions nationwide. But she was the first and in my mind she stands out unforgettably.

Since July 2006 Animals' Angels has worked to alleviate the suffering of "Dairy" Cows. We can achieve much better treatment and conditions for all of these animals. Much of the investigating, documenting, filing of complaints, first & second rounds of meetings, is already done or in full swing. We have the ability, a good body of work and certainly the will. The time to dedicate a High Priority Campaign to "Dairy" Cows is now.

This month's newsletter focuses on the "Dairy" Cow, her life as it is and how we can bring about the widespread and enduring change needed to make right conditions for these animals.

Yours truly,

Sonja Meadows

Refuting The Crazy Arguments Supporting Horse Slaughter

Sue Wallis and her ill-advised group the United Organizations of the Horse (UOH) are again spreading their manure across the public press trying to make us believe that they are doing horses a real favor by slaughtering them. Here is a recent press release where Sue offers talking points to her horse slaughter supporters. My italicized words here refute the craziness she is spreading. I own horses. I volunteer at a rescue and have for three years. I fail to see how sending our companion animals to slaughter can ever be construed as a “good solution.” This is a purely profit driven group, with no sense of ethics or humanity. Please read on…note the words that are not italicized come directly from the UOH’s cited press release found here:

http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=001BVV8sZmFHDQyrwcj_2IVrJRtVHieLr4NCNlxTJbcVKIsg2moKW7CK2QQMTYHCiFboekBAAexsqF1LgW1rlUkMONxZW6wcJRgmOS2vx9F_TGPLFbyh_ZTrJf-2CR2ZNNdW3vXdqpqOIUeuQXHBFDLjjHL7ca1NIEKIgZ7UIwqrHOxgBsTgVn35jj2KKEQjeQsuHHbIsWXaHerwKqq7nXrojW1N8tjUGvAv2k-vCf1Q-sTHhfyRhtxSo-431A1tWkfzzY-o-ZZl40%3D

Yet another blast from the press. No matter where you live you are probably seeing this kind of thing every day. We are seeing a real upsurge right now in Wyoming because of our press releases about the Unified Equine Programs, but if you live in Missouri, or Tennesse, or Montana, or anywhere else where horse people are trying to find a good solution...you are no doubt seeing far too much. The press loves a controversy, and we are an easy, dramatic story. We need every one of you to stand up, speak out, and counter these attacks.
http://trib.com/news/opinion/editorial/

Seeking a “good solution?” For whom, the horse or the irresponsible owners/breeders?

We cannot let this (or any public expression of misinformation, outright lies, and exaggerations) go unanswered. We must speak with many voices. I have become too much of an easy target, and while I'm happy to share talking points, etc., it will be much better and more effective if it comes from other voices. We really need mainstream agriculture and horse people who understand to tell your story. You all understand that if we lose this battle over the hearts and minds of the pet owning public, that our entire animal agriculture and horse based livelihoods are lost.

Horse based livelihoods are generally based on live horses, not dead ones. And as a “mainstream horse person”, I don’t want there to be any chance my horse ends up in a slaughterhouse. There is nothing humane about slaughter. The horses are terrified. They smell the blood and as they wait their turn to be slaughtered they hear other horses being killed screaming. The slaughterhouses are not designed to properly restrain a horse’s head. They are designed for cattle. With their long and agile necks and their instinct to avoid the killer, they dodge the captive bolt hammer being swung at their heads. It often takes repeated blows to stun the horses and then they are frequently cut apart alive. It’s heinous beyond words.

Humane euthanasia is a fatal injection kindly administered by a veterinarian. The horse dies peacefully and painlessly. The owner can attend the death and have peace with their choice. Euthanasia and body removal costs on average the same as one month’s care does for a horse. If you can’t afford that you couldn’t afford the horse in the first place.

Sue Wallis and her cronies at the United Organizations of the Horse often claim to love their horses and often say they personally wouldn’t have their horses slaughtered. Isn’t that speaking out of both sides as your mouth?

And anyway, since when does anyone deserve “salvage value” on a companion animal? I own two horses and two cats. I couldn’t sleep at night if I even contemplated sending one of them to slaughter so I could get $200 bucks in meat money and save the $300 it would cost me to have them humanely euthanized.

If you want to drive change, you have to get out of the back of the truck. That is what we are trying to do. Animal rights organizations like HSUS/PETA create problems, inflame problems, and make money off of problems...we solve problems, and create value out of good solutions.

The key sentence there is “create value out of good solutions.” How is slaughter a good solution for the horse? Slaughter rewards irresponsible breeders – it allows them to breed and breed, and those horses that aren’t up to snuff (be it thoroughbreds, paints, quarter horses, etc) can be “culled” and sent off to slaughter. Not only do they get rid of the inferior horses they’ve deliberately chosen to put on the ground, they can get a few bucks for their refuse. Slaughter also rewards horse thieves, and even in this day and age they still exist. It terrifies me that my horses could be stolen and sold for slaughter. The thief pulls up, loads horses out of a field and bingo, he’s just made a couple of hundred bucks on my beloved companions. Check out www.netposse.com . Sadly, it happens every day. And it can happen so fast…But the UOH wants to create “value” out of someone’s refuse or the theft of someone’s companion animals…

Here are some points:

1. We, the horse owners and people who make all or part of our living with horses, are the people who care. We are the people who clean the stalls, pay the feed bills every day, are responsible for the care of our animals, and make the hard decisions when necessary.

I am a horse owner, and I assure you I care very much! I pay the bills to have the stalls cleaned, the horses fed, the vet and farrier visits and believe me, when the hard decision needs to be made my vet and I will be there and I will not be looking for salvage value. As a horse owner making the hard decision, I will grieve their loss but I will never send them to a cruel fate so that I can make a few meat dollars. Never. They’ll leave this earth painlessly and knowing they were loved and very much valued.

2. There are fates far, far worse than slaughter. A quick, painless death in a slaughter plant is far preferable to a slow and agonizing death of starvation. Nature is cruel. Death in the wild is often brutal, prolonged, and horrific. Imagine being eaten while still alive as is the fate of many horses turned out to fend for themselves.

We’ve been over the slaughter plant death, and quick and painless it is not. Check out this website: http://www.animals-angels.com/index.php?pageID=563. Animal Angels has done repeated investigations into horse slaughter houses and humane it is not. Additionally, turning out horses to fend for themselves is abandonment and it is against the law. Anyone abandoning any animal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Once again, UOH is advocating for the criminals. Sue wants to help ‘em out and pay them for the animals they would abandon and neglect. Why would we reward criminal behavior? Isn’t that creating value out of crime?

As far as the wild horses go, which Sue now elects to term “feral” horses (and compares to pigs!), nature will run its course as it does with all species. Horses are prey animals to mountain lions, bears, wolves, coyotes, and worst of all, humans. Wild horses age and on occasion fall sick or get seriously injured…the predators do their job and thin the herds and make use of the body. It may seem cruel, but this is the way of the animal world. How is it better to remove the wild horses from their land and send them off to the slaughterhouse? I guess it’s better in the UOH world, because one again we are creating value. How sad that America’s wild horses have become a target for the profiteering horse slaughterer’s dressed in sheep’s clothing. I think it could be reasonably argued that removing wild horses from the wild is taking the food out of the predator’s mouths. Isn’t Sue real concerned about the “hungry?”

3. Without the option of slaughter, and using the meat to feed hungry animals or hungry people, those who can no longer afford to keep a horse, and cannot sell it, have literally no option...you can't bury a 1,000 lb horse in the back yard like a cat or a dog.

Slaughter is still very much an option. It may not be happening here in the US, but go to any horse auction and you’ll see meat men buying up the cheap horses to fill their trucks to Mexico and Canada. The meat does not go to hungry animals or hungry people and Sue knows that good and damn well. Horsemeat is sold in Europe and Asia for anywhere from $20 to $40 a pound. I don’t know too many hungry folks who can afford that. The reality is that horse meat is viewed as a delicacy, but even the elite European diners are becoming enlightened and appalled about horse meat and demand is falling.

Since the cost of a month’s care costs the same as a humane euthanasia, if you couldn’t afford to kill it humanely, you couldn’t afford to feed it, and you never should have had the animal in the first place, or else you made really bad decisions and didn’t have it humanely euthanized when your funds to feed it were apparently drying up!

4. Some Americans always have and always will eat horse meat. It is what filled the bellies of our soldiers who won World War II, and kept the families here at home fed throughout the 1940s when there was a shortage of all other meat. You could find it on the menu at the dining room at Harvard until the late 1980s, you can still find horse sausage in Scandinavian butcher shops in the upper mid-West. We have been contacted by gourmet chefs, and local food aficionados who want access to a high quality meat, that is very nutritious (50% higher in protein, 40% lower in fat than beef), from well cared for animals that have no disease concerns like mad cow. You can find horse meat on the menus of our closest neighbors in French Canada, and Mexico, and many people have taken the opportunity to enjoy it while traveling abroad. 72% of world cultures consider it just another protein source. China consumes the most, followed by Mexico, then Italy, Belgium, France, all the Scandinavian countries, Russia, Japan, Korea, Tonga, Mongolia, Canada-and since the U.S. is full of people from the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Africa, there are quite a few people who would welcome the availability of a good wholesome meat at an affordable price. While considered a gourmet dish in some parts of Europe where the best cuts are expensive, in by far the majority of markets around the world, with Iceland being a perfect example, horse meat is affordable and about half the price of beef.

I’m skeptical about cheap horse meat Sue…perhaps because of all the crap you’ve already distributed? And do you realize how long ago the 1940s were? But let’s discuss horse meat for just a few moments, at any price. American horses are medicated regularly. They are given Bute (horse aspirin, essentially), dewormer, and a host of other drugs and vaccinations. Bute is a well know carcinogen and it, along with many other horse medications, is clearly labeled NOT for use in food source animals. Unless a horse has been raised solely for meat purposes, the vast percentage of them have been administered drugs that are highly toxic to humans. This is one of the reasons the European Union is now becoming very concerned about the horse meat entering their food system. Read more here:

http://tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/canadian-food-inspection-agency-sidesteps-eu-quarantine-mandate/.

Sue may term horse meat “nutritious” but I call it toxic poison.

5. All animals, including horses, take nature that we cannot use and turn it into nature that we can use. Try drinking the water that a pig drinks, or surviving on the food that a cow or horse eats.

Not sure the point here…I’m trying, but I don’t see it…

6. It is our core belief that people have a right to use animals, and a responsibility to do so humanely. We subscribe to the same moral and ethical foundation as our Native American friends, that all animals are sacred and must be harvested with dignity and gratitude, but that the most horrific crime is to waste their sacrifice. Contrast that viewpoint with the total waste of at least 200,000 horse carcasses per year which, if euthanized with lethal drugs, become no more than a colossal disposal problem with toxic carcasses that cannot even be buried because of fear that it will leach into groundwater.

The UOH believes “people have the right to use animals.” I take exception to that, and don’t try to sugarcoat slaughter by calling it harvesting. We harvest crops, not horses. Call it what it is…slaughter. I believe all animals deserve to be treated humanely, including food source animals. Horse slaughter is not death with dignity and gratitude. As far as the comment about the total waste of 200,000 horse carcasses per year, it sounds to me like Sue is suggesting that none of us should be allowed to humanely euthanize our horses. That, is going to far!

7. One billion people on the planet today rarely get enough to eat, and another billion do not get enough protein and nutrients for health. Ten million children a year die of starvation. From a moral standpoint, can we afford to put any viable protein source off limits?

So toxic horse meat is a viable protein source? Perhaps Sue means a profitable protein source? Of course viable is defined as “capable of being done with means at hand and circumstances as they are.” And that’s exactly what slaughter does. It doesn’t consider the safety of the consumer. It’s killing them toxic as they are and shipping them off to those Europeans diners without a second thought. Out of sight, out of mind. Cha-ching!


8. The system being proposed in Wyoming will guarantee every horse a good life, and where appropriate, guarantee them a decent and humane death. Once dead, what happens to the carcass is no longer an issue of animal welfare.

Tell me again how this is decent and humane? Tell me again how that toxic carcass is no longer an issue?

9. Under the current situation, the only horses that have any value whatsoever are those that are big enough, healthy enough, and close enough to a border to be worth the trucking to Canada and Mexico where they are slaughtered under systems and circumstances we cannot control or regulate. We feel it is far better to do this under US regulation, and in situations where we can monitor it.

We’re back to creating value and ignoring humane behavior. Let’s reward those over breeding their horses. Let’s reward those stealing horses. Value and again, cha-ching!

10. The system being proposed in Wyoming is being designed by world renowned scientist, Dr. Temple Grandin, who has transformed the beef and pork slaughter industry from a humane standpoint. We will do it right, under regulated and inspected circumstances, and it will be continuously monitored by a third-party video audit system to ensure that no horse is abused and that all guidelines for the correct and proper handling of horses are always complied with. This will be an open and transparent process that anyone who chooses to do so, can see exactly what we are doing.

Yeah, I bet it will be an open and transparent system, Sue. That’s going to cost some serious money and you guys don’t want to spend it, you want to profit from the killing of horses. Have you done any research at all on the criminal element that comes to town with the slaughter house? Have you done any research at all on the environmental impact to the towns where horses have been slaughtered? Perhaps you should read what about the environmental hell visited on Kaufman, Texas by its former Mayor, Paula Bacon, found here:

http://www.animallawcoalition.com/horse-slaughter/article/686

And after reading that, you would do this to your state, your community?

11. Because of the closure of the US slaughter plants in the US in 2007 by state action in Illinois and Texas, the entire horse industry from top to bottom has been deeply affected. What was a 1.2 Billion dollar industry supporting 460,000 full-time direct jobs, and another 1.6 million indirect jobs has been cut in half. There has been a loss of a minimum of 500,000 direct and indirect jobs, and horses that were worth $1,000 are now worthless, horses once worth $2,500 are lucky to bring $750, horses that would have sold for $85,000 to $100,000 are now being liquidated for $10,000 each. These hard, cold facts all have a very human face in livelihoods lost, in families no longer able to raise their children in a horseback culture, in diminished tax bases for communities.

The poor economy, plain and simple, has driven the horse market down drastically just as it has affected most segments of the economy. This compounded by the fact that horses are actually a luxury – not in the least cheap to own and care for let me tell you – and luxuries are one of the first things people give up in a bad economy. Add the excess breeding by many of the industrialized Quarter horse and Paint horse farms and you end up with horses of no value. A clear mind can see this easily.

12. The animal rights radical agenda (NOT to be confused with legitimate and responsible animal welfare proponents, which we all are) offers no solution except pushing for what is essentially a welfare entitlement program for animals-Medicaid and food stamps for horses so that every old, dangerous, unsound, unusable horse is maintained at public expense for the rest of their 25 to 30 year average life span. What they propose will create a mechanism to shovel taxpayer dollars directly into the pockets of animal rights organizations (HSUS/PETA) so they can continue to pay six figure salaries and put more of their budget into pension plans than to actually help any animals. Last year HSUS spent less than 1/2 of 1% of their almost $100 Million dollar budget on direct animal care. See http://humanewatch.org.

I’ll offer a solution or two. Stop rewarding people for breeding out the wazoo. Stop rewarding thieves. I volunteer at a horse rescue weekly and see the types of horses going to slaughter. Both of my horses were rescued from slaughter and they are wonderful, sane, young horses. The USDA says that 92% of horses going to slaughter are just like my horses. So give up on the old argument about aged, unsound and dangerous horses. Let’s face it, the butchers and diners don’t want old meat. They want it young and healthy!

13. Remember, animal consumption is socially legitimate. Only 2% of the population are true vegetarians, another maybe 5% think they ought to be but don't manage to do it...that is only 7% of the population at most. If we allow the animal rights argument to prevail, than there really is no difference between the heinous and awful crime of killing a horse to use for animal food, (as will be the main use of horses harvested in Wyoming), or human food...and the heinous crime of killing a cow, a pig, or a chicken. The ultimate goal of animal rightists, which is a very, very radical and idealogic agenda, is to end all human use of animals and to eliminate all domestic animals which is to many of us a gross perversion of the moral and ethical underpinnings of our society, not to mention a dangerous, unhealthy, and unnatural way of being.

Okay, Sue, let’s follow your logic. If 7% of the population doesn’t feel good about eating meat, then how do you rationalize that even conservative estimates show that 80% of the American public is opposed to slaughtering horses? It’s very simply because we don’t view horses as food source animals. I am very much a meat eater. I consume meat daily. Beef, pork, chicken, fish – I eat it all. I don’t and never will eat a companion animal. Call me weird if you will, but I simply don’t eat pets. And obviously a majority of Americans feel the same way I do.

14. Those who oppose the eating of horses have never been hungry. Hungry people don't care where their meat comes from, they just want to survive.

They won’t survive long on horse meat…

15. Claims that horse meat is full of drugs that cannot be detected is nothing more than a red herring. The same kind of controls, safe guards, and testing protocols used to ensure that our beef, pork, and chicken is safe and residue free can be applied to horse meat...if it is produced and processed here in the U.S. where we have the ability to regulate and inspect it.

Oh Sue, you are so in denial. How can you sleep at night advocating to sell poisoned meat to unknowing consumers? You love horses…sure you do. You love the cha-ching, cha-ching! You say ” The same kind of controls, safe guards, and testing protocols used to ensure that our beef, pork, and chicken is safe and residue free can be applied to horse meat. It sounds very much like you are actually working to create an new industry in America – breeding horses for meat? I don’t think it’s going to work, because people like myself, the people who own and truly care about horses don’t want them to be food source animals. They are no different from our cats and dogs, but perhaps if you think really hard, you can figure out how to make a few bucks off all the shelter animals we euthanize each and every year. Put on your thinking cap, Sue. Many third world countries love to eat dog and cat. Seems like the path you are starting down with this drivel you are feeding to the American public.

The United Organizations of the Horse is a group of legislators and their cronies who believe they know better than the American public. It’s time for the real horse owners and true horse enthusiasts to stand up and say no more! Americans do not want companion animals slaughtered for human consumption! The UOH is a small number of Americans looking to exploit American horses. They do not know better than you and I. As a horse lover and owner, I very much resent these holier-than-thou know it alls who think they are better informed than I am and are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the non-horse owning public.

Please contact your Representatives and Senators and ask them to co-sponsor and support the Senate Bill 727 and House Bill 503 which will end the killing of our American horses and their transport out of the country for the same. Horses are not food source animals!!!

Bringing Horse Slaughterhouses to Your Town Will Likely Raise Crime and Violence Rates

Tell me again, Sue Wallis, why would you do this to your state of Wyoming and it's communities? Rep Butcher in Montana...what do you have to say to this?

"Workers exposed to the killing of large numbers of animals on a regular basis become disturbed and appear to lose empathy." This can only increase exponentially when workers kill companion animals - horses - versus animals that are food source animals. Particularly when you consider that horses scream in pain and fear, and the slaughterhouses they are killed in are not designed to properly restrain a horse's long neck and innate fear that result in them trying to elude the very inefficient and inhumane captive bolt meant to stun them. The workers are undoubtedly appalled by being part of this cruelty, until such point that they lose their ability to empathize with a living being's fear and pain.

Then consider that many horses are cut apart while still alive...

Below article excerpted from this article:

Probing The Link Between Slaughterhouses and Violent Crime

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/809521--probing-the-link-between-slaughterhouses-and-violent-crime

University of Windsor Criminology professor Amy Fitzgerald says statistics show the link between slaughterhouses and brutal crime is empirical fact.

In a recent study, Fitzgerald crunched numbers from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report database, census data, and arrest and offense reports from 581 U.S. counties from 1994 to 2002.

“I have a graph that shows that as the number of slaughterhouse workers in a community increases, the crime rate also increases,” she says. Fitzgerald says she was inspired by The Jungle to study crime records in U.S. communities where slaughterhouses are located.

She became fascinated by studies of the environmental effects of slaughterhouses that mentioned crime rates, without explanation, seemed to go up when the factories opened in communities.

Fitzgerald carefully weighed the figures in order to see whether a link really existed. She found that an average-sized slaughterhouse with 175 employees would annually increase the number of arrests by 2.24 and the number of reports by 4.69. The larger the abattoir, the worse the local crime problem.

She controlled for factors such as the influx of new residents when slaughterhouses open, high numbers of young men — even the number of immigrants.

“Some residents started to recognize that the crime rates were going up and started complaining, and the slaughterhouse companies were quick to blame the immigrant labor pool they were relying on,” Fitzgerald says. She found that abattoirs still seemed to raise the crime numbers when she controlled for these factors.

Nor can the violence be blamed on factory work itself. Fitzgerald compared slaughterhouse communities to those with comparison industries — dangerous, repetitive work that did not involve killing animals. These were not associated with a rise in crime at all, she says. In some cases, they seemed to bring the crime rate down.

“The unique thing about (abattoirs) is that (workers are) not dealing with inanimate objects, but instead dealing with live animals coming in and then killing them, and processing what’s left of them.”

More studies are needed to determine if crimes were being committed by factory workers or by others in the community, she says, and how exactly that kind of work could cause crime to go up. But the numbers leave few other explanations other than the slaughterhouses being somehow to blame.

It’s a case of science catching up to what has been folk knowledge since industrialized slaughterhouses began to appear in the 19th century: workers exposed to the killing of large numbers of animals on a regular basis become disturbed and appear to lose empathy.

But the etiology of the problem remains something of a chicken-and-egg puzzle. Do slaughterhouses desensitize workers to killing? Or, could the work attract people who are less sensitive to begin with?

Fitzgerald suggests a similarity between slaughterhouse communities and military communities, which have been studied for higher incidence rates of partner abuse.

“One of (the explanations) is the violence they witness and sometimes have to participate in might result in some kind of desensitization,” she says.

“There is something unique about the slaughterhouses,” says Fitzgerald. “There’s definitely a need for further research to figure out exactly what that is.”

Montana Mayor Too Smart to Bring The Environmental Disaster of a Horse Slaughter Plant to His Town

Hardin Montana Says No Thanks to Horse Slaughter Plant

CHICAGO, (EWA) - Montana Representative Ed Butcher's plan of building a horse slaughter plant in Hardin, MT has ended.

The city of Hardin unanimously passed Ordinance No. 2010-01 that amends the current zoning ordinance to prohibit the slaughter of more than 25 animals in a seven day period. The action effectively bars the building of a slaughter plant in Hardin.

Mayor Kimberly A. Hammond provided the following statement to Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA).

"I have no deluded thoughts or feelings about the need for proper disposal or care of unwanted horses.

As Mayor of a small city, it is my responsibility to make information available to our public, especially when it concerns public safety, health, and how their tax dollars are being spent.

The way our City Industrial Park is set up, a business is required to hook up to City Water and Sewer. A horse slaughter facility running at 200-400 kills a week would have brought our waste water treatment plant to a screaming halt.

Our City would have been forced to construct a new waste water treatment plant that would capacitate the slaughter facility, at the cost of our tax payers. The City most likely would not have been able to get aid with funding a 6-8 million dollar treatment plant.

I, as Mayor had our City Attorney draft an ordinance that prohibited slaughter houses within the city limits. Upon 1st reading, our city council did not like the verbiage that there would be NO slaughter facilities. They thought it was unfair to the small mom and pop operations that could be looking for a commercial plot. So we changed the language to only prohibit facilities that would kill more than twenty-five animals in a 7 day period.

Our decision was based purely on the adverse impact that a facility of this size and nature would have had on our City Waste Water Treatment Plant."

Mayor Hammond's concerns were well placed. Horse slaughter plants are notorious for their waste problems. Horses have almost twice as much blood per pound of body weight as cattle and it has proven very difficult to treat. In the three years Cavel International operated in DeKalb, Illinois, their discharge was in violation every month. The operation moved to Saskatchewan, Canada where it was caught discharging blood into the local river from a tanker truck. That operation was shut down last year because of health violations.

EWA applauds the city of Hardin, Montana for this proactive legislation to preserve the environment of their beautiful city.



The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues free, umbrella organization with over 100 member organizations. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids.

www.equinewelfarealliance.org

Canada Horse Slaughter Plant Investigated for Cutting Horses Apart While Still Alive

Hidden camera video also prompts food inspection agency investigation
By John Gibson

A slaughterhouse in Fort Macleod, Alta., owned by a Calgary company is under investigation by RCMP over allegations that it has been killing horses inhumanely at its facility.

Police opened the file after the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition made a complaint against Bouvry Horse Exports Ltd, which sells horse meat to international markets.

The animal rights group claims to have secretly recorded video showing horses at the Fort Macleod slaughterhouse being shot and then hoisted away by their legs while still fully conscious.

"It's currently under investigation. We're speaking with the SPCA as well," said Sgt. Brent Hawker, with the RCMP detachment in Fort Macleod.

"If there's a criminal offence that's been committed we'll lay charges."

A manager with Bouvry refused comment about the allegations.

According to the group that made the allegations, workers can be seen in the video repeatedly failing to kill horses with one rifle shot, and then leaving the animals in pain for a prolonged period.

"I feel that the footage from the Bouvry plant shows levels of suffering that are unacceptable," said Dr. Mary Richardson, a veterinarian with the coalition.

Another expert associated with the horse protection group said it appeared many horses were still showing voluntary movements and clearly breathing when they were suspended.

"This indicates these horses were likely conscious as they were being hoisted high into the air with one leg bearing their entire weight, and while their necks were cut down to the carotid arteries on both sides," said veterinarian Dr. Debi Zimmermann.

The coalition also complained to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which overseas the operations of slaughterhouses, alleging that the company has violated meat inspection laws.

The agency confirmed Thursday it has been investigating the company's killing practices at its Alberta plant, and another it owns in Massueville, Que., Viande Richelieu.

"The agency is validating and investigating the allegations presented in the video and actions will be taken to ensure vigilance and respect with regards to appropriate duty of care and humane treatment of animals," said CFIA media relations officer Guy Gravelle.

"The CFIA takes allegations of abuse very seriously and investigates all reports of abuse."


Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/04/22/calgary-horse-bouvry-slaughterhouse-rcmp-cruelty-inhumane.html#ixzz0lrxIttjh