RSS
Olympic attendees can expect to be discouraged from ordering dishes made from dog meat, the "fragrant meat" eaten in China, a short AP article today reports. If a restaurant is designated as an official Olympic eatery, then the servers will "patiently suggest other options to diners who order dog." Dog is eaten in Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos, to name a few. This little warning is prudent considering the recent US ban on horse slaughter that effectively shut down the export of horse meat to those same countries.
A Different Menu at the Olympics
.
Friday, July 11
13 comments:
What ban on horse slaughter in the US? Anyone wishing to send their horse to slaughter can still do so. Over 70,000 horses have been transported out of the country so far this year.
Like I said, there is a ban on horse slaughter in the US. The point is, we just don't seem to be able to handle what other peoples eat in other parts of the world. Makes us awful self-righteous, you know.
Theresa, there is NO ban. Anyone can open a kill plant (except AZ, CA, TX and IL and I believe legislation is pending in WI and NY) and anyone can send their horse to slaughter. How do you explain all the horses that have been exported if we have a ban on slaughter? Just because we don’t want our horses slaughtered, doesn’t make us self righteous. We aren’t telling other countries what they can and cannot eat. They are free to eat whatever they choose. India’s culture doesn’t accept eating cows. Does that make the US bad because we eat beef? Do you propose we change our culture and stop eating beef? Should the US open kill houses in India to export the beef to the US? I’m sure we would be as welcome there as the Belgium and French kill houses were here. That is there culture and we have ours. In our culture, we don’t eat dogs, cats and horses. That doesn’t mean we are right and they are wrong. Asia sees nothing wrong with eating dogs and cats and skinning them for fur. In our culture, we don’t accept that and we would never allow them to open kill plants to butcher them. If a country wants to eat horse meat, let them slaughter their horses. Why should we supply our horses? We don’t supply our dogs and cats to Asia.
In most European countries, smoking is allowed everywhere. Does that make us self righteous because we don’t allow smoking in most public places? Other countries cultures do not allow women to attend school. Perhaps we should become a third world country so we don’t appear self righteous. What an absolutely ridiculous argument you are using.
Do you propose we adopt other countries cultures or only as it relates to horse slaughter?
It's simple. We have the supply, they have the demand. We have no problem shipping our cars, trucks and whatever else might, per chance, still be made in the US of A. It's called trade.
Again, my point was that we are so self-righteous that all hell would break loose if Americans went to the Olympics in China and figured out they were served dog meat without knowing it. Even if they ordered it, and it was their own ignorance, all hell would break loose.
Another spin on words? All the existing horse slaughter plants are closed in the US. No horses are slaughtered here. That constitutes a ban in my book.
The fact is, some Americans are self-righteous prima-donnas with nothing else to do by try to shove their beliefs up everyone else's asses.
There was no trade involved in horse slaughter. The plants were foreign owned, paid no federal tax and shipped their product and profits overseas. How is that US trade? The only money made was the $200 to the sell-outs selling their horses to kill buyers and the $2.00 or $3.00 per head A&M received. What did we gain? And let’s not forget our hard earned tax dollars that went to their frivolous law suits that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Judge’s time, court time and overhead all paid by our tax dollars. Seems to me if you don’t like our laws, pack up and go back to your country.
What do you call a nation that is supposed to be humane, selling their horse for $200 to be butchered alive, not because they couldn’t afford it but because they no longer had a use for it? I would call that greed and not call us self righteous but a disposable society. When the novelty wears off, just dump it. It doesn’t matter if it’s alive, a cell phone or a tin can – just get rid of it. To me, that is more pathetic than being self righteous. I still don’t get the self righteous thing. Every country has different cultures. What makes our culture self righteous but the cultures of other countries not self righteous? How do you equate feeling that eating your companion animal is revolting to being self righteous? Self righteous would be condemning those that feel differently. We aren’t doing that. Those of us trying to end slaughter are not condemning their culture. I don’t think they’re beneath us or that it’s wrong that they eat horsemeat, dog or cats. I do have a problem with letting foreign countries make fools of us as did France and Belgium with the slaughter plants. They ignored our laws and our regulations and made millions and I’ll bet they laughed all the way to the bank. They gave us $200 for a 1,200 pound horse and sold the horsemeat for $20 to $40 per pound. The sad thing is we are continuing to let them do it.
You want to use the supply and demand theory so are you proposing we let Asia set up shop in the US as well? There is a huge demand for cats and dogs and we have millions.
If something is banned, that means it is no longer available. No matter how you twist words, as long as our horses continue going to slaughter, there is no ban.
You seem to be a very angry person and don’t think very highly of Americans. If you’re living here, why not move to one of the foreign countries that has a culture that better suits you?
Vicky, first off do you own a horse? Because I have one that needs to go to kill sale and Id gladly fix you up if you dont. Gorgeous 2 yr old palomino thats broke to ride. You can have him Vicky hes YOURS!
Second Id say we ARE a bunch of self rightous asses that we DONT ship our dog and cat meat to 3rd world countries when we have no problem letting a slaughter facility aka "humane society"( a nice tree hugging name of coarse)kill them by the millions for such offenses such as peeing on an expensive rug, or chewing up that racket ball racket. Why the hell is it somehow ok to drug overdose an unwanted animal and throw its remains in a landfill and feed bacteria and worms instead of people??? can you answer that???? Lastly....Our ORIGINAL Americans the NATIVE AMERICAN DID eat his horses, dogs, and other animals when they were no longer useful so maybe YOU should move to another country? Or maybe we should just live and let live? What a novel thought! If you dont want to sell YOUR HORSE to slaughter I say thats fine, but who the hell are you or anyone else to tell me what I can/should do with MINE? Can you awnser that?
btw...when the kill market was strog a 1000 lb horse was worth a THOUSAND dollars. People were careful not to let them starve THEN.
Wow, you pro slaughter folks really need some anger management. I don’t own a horse but I sponsor three. I have friends and family that own horses and I work with rescues across the country. What are you doing to help? Do what you have to do with your horse. If you’ve had him for two years and he isn’t worth putting down by a vet, you need not say more. That speaks volumes.
BTW-the kill market is as strong as it ever was. The same number of horses are being slaughtered so you can’t use that as an excuse. The values are down because of the economy. When we were in the “back then” as you refer to, gas wasn’t $4.50 per gallon and a bale of hay didn’t cost $10.00. Keeping slaughter around isn’t going to fix the economy. The gas is still going to be $4.50 and the hay will still be $10.00. It’s very telling that you will neglect your animal because you can’t sell him for $1k. Perhaps you shouldn’t own horses. They’re expensive and if you don’t want the responsibility that comes with being an owner, why own them?
The values are down because you have organizations like the AQHA that won’t address over breeding. It’s more important to rake in the registration fees. 136,000 foals last year – 36,000 more than the number of horses slaughtered. Over 100,000 higher than the next highest foal counts, TBs. 80% of the horses going to slaughter are quarter horses. There is your problem. Start breeding for quality instead of quantity and you’ll see the prices rise. If you have a surplus of something, you cut back. You don’t keep producing the same amount and throw out your inventory.
What does this have to do with the Chinese needing to protect themselves by protecting Americans from themselves? On the other hand, this whole discussion proves my point rather well. Some Americans are just plain stuck!
and you have proved MY point, ten fold.
Ms. Vicky you sure have went and stepped in it this time. You make waaaay too many "assumptions" and we all know what that makes you.
Im a life long horse owner, show judge, showman, horse owner, breeder (of very high quality on a very small scale) I shoe and vet my own horses, I have saved hundreds from slaughter buying at slaughter sales and, retraining& rehabbing them FOR YEARS. Ive already done more for more horses than you ever thought about. I PAID professional horse trainers to start them for me for YEARS, and did ALL of the finish training MYSELF. Ive put my own blood,sweat, and tears into horse's all my life and Im PRO-SLAUGHTER as is 99.9 % of the people that are as close to the horse industry as I am. So...just maybe you ought to take your non-horse owning nose out of MY BUSINESS????? ya think?
TWO...Ive not owned the Palomino colt for 2 years, Ive owned him for TWO WEEKS! I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THE COLT and he was sold to me with a genetic disease that causes seizures and collaspe. Supposedly..Im the only owner thus far that noticed anything wrong and bothered to have him taken to the vet and tested!!! So....call me crazy Id sure like to re-coupe some of that money I spent on that colt now that hes a hopeless, useless, POS! He will end up on a Japaneese mans plate and it IS quite unfortunate that that is where he belongs. Unless you want to feed him for the next 30 years?
The fact that Id rather he feed people that worms & bacteria speaks volumes about YOU! You presumptious, wasteful, well fed, meat eating, tree hugging American.
Like I keep saying and you keep avoiding, WHY, HOW, and WHERE Do people like you get off telling me how I SHOULD feel, and what I SHOULD do with MY HORSES?????? Please answer that, Because I am really interested in your answer.
Lastly, Im not an angry person, thats not to say that certain things dont anger me. i.e. people that dont own horses pusing legislation regarding them.
You’re not angry? Read your comments. I haven’t stepped in anything. What difference does it make if I don’t currently own a horse? My family and friends are life long horse owners and four of them run successful horse rescues. I’d be more than happy to have them join the discussion and you’ll hear the same thing.
I’m just trying to understand how an owner could intentionally send their horse to be butchered alive especially by someone that claims to have rescued horses from slaughter. Is $200 worth more than giving your colt a humane death? I never told you what to do.
Let me ask you this since no pro slaughter person will give me an answer. Most pro folks contend that horses are livestock, i.e. slaughter for food. Those of us opposing slaughter contend they are sport, companion and service animals, i.e. race, therapy, law enforcement, etc. All functions that livestock don’t and can’t perform. I suspect they want them classified as livestock so they can be slaughtered. If they are livestock, why don’t horses follow any of the regulations required for livestock animals? Slaughter horses are given drugs clearly marked not for food animals, they don’t have health papers or chain of ownership. All of those requirements must be followed for livestock. If slaughter was to return domestically, you can be damn sure, horses would follow all USDA regulations required for slaughter animals. That means the drugs that are necessary to maintain a horses health (bute, wormers, etc.) could no longer be given to horses. That means shutting down the racing industry as well as many of the service sectors. Mounted police need healthy, sound horses. Horses that are used in therapy and to help soldiers with head injuries regain their balance must be healthy and sound. Do the pro folks think that horses should be exempt from the requirements as they have been in the past?
I’m also curious what you think would happen to the dog and cat overpopulation if the shelters and humane facilities started paying owners to dump their animals as they do with horse slaughter. How many horses do you think would still be sent to slaughter if the kill houses stopped paying owners to dump their animals? Remove the incentive and I’ll bet that would eliminate the “unwanted” horse issue.
Any reason that you didn’t comment on the AQHA?
Vicky, now we are getting somewhere. You are asking good questions and bringing up issues legitimate to you. I can answer all of your inquerys.
Let me say first though that I do agree with you about overbreeding being a good part of the problem with cats, dogs, and horses as well. Until there are strict controls on breeding with liscensure required, rescue regulated, & all parties owning large numbers of inspected and shut down if they arent up to snuff, not having slaughter opens a can of worms that only creates a living nightmare for too many horses. I see it everywhere and its getting worse as the economy adds further insult to the injury.
You say:
"I’m just trying to understand how an owner could intentionally send their horse to be butchered alive especially by someone that claims to have rescued horses from slaughter. Is $200 worth more than giving your colt a humane death?"
As far as a "humane death" It is your OPINION that death by a hammer gun to the brain is less humane than euthansia. No way you, I or anyone else can try that sceanario out to know one way or the other. As far as the medical facts go, hammer gun causes instant brain death, and as you know the brain is the center of all sensation. What you are claiming as "butchered alive" is not the fact at all. With slaughter the heart does beat for a few minutes longer BUT the BRAIN ( center for sensation) is ALREADY DEAD.
On the flip side of that argument euthansia stops the heart and the BRAIN (again center for all sensations) is STILL ALIVE for a few minutes. The fact that the body is so overdosed that it "looks" nice and peaceful to us not experiencing it DOES NOT promise that nothing is felt or experienced. If you ever were to see a euthansia gone bad I can promise you its not only not nice at all to see, nor does it have any resemblance to a peaceful or "humane" death. Unless you think fliping, flopping, convulsions and violet collaspe is peaceful and "humane" So...the bottom like is your ASSUMING that euthansia is more humane. Basically YOU WANT to believe that. After hearing Dr. Michael Boden tell the world that death by hanging was the MOST humane method of execution, and MORE HUMANE than lethal injection for the exact reasons I state above ( brain death vs. heart death) I have to question your assumption alltogether. My opinion is based on medical fact, you opinion on the subject is based on what you WANT to believe. Neither of us can try it out and report back, So....we each can only do what WE are most comfortable with for OUR animals.
On the money issue, well, the colt cost me $600 (a ridiculously cheap price for a trained two year old sired by a world champion thats even a breyer horse model) and BTW you can thank there being no strong (the key word here is STRONG) slaughter market for that calibur of horse being next to valueless due to no bottom dollar value. EVEN SO... that $200 would recoupe a full ONE THIRD of my investment back whereas taking him to be put down will cost me ANOTHER $250 and now this worthless animal has cost me $850!! Not to mention his remains are feeding worms instead of PEOPLE. All that besides the fact Ive literally doubled MY LOSS while I question the humaness of lethal heart stopping overdose of DRUGS.
So...MY OPINION is that MY HORSE is a LIVESTOCK animal and this PARTICULAR one most definatly is a LIVESTOCK animal as he has no value or use as a COMPANION animal and even though its through no fault of his own that doesnt change that fact.
You said:
"Those of us opposing slaughter contend they are sport, companion and service animals, i.e. race, therapy, law enforcement, etc. All functions that livestock don’t and can’t perform."
Oh hell Vicky, I know a man that rides a COW! has the damn thing broke to ride, uses it in parades and trail rides on it. Has for YEARS! Hes not the only one out there either, just the only one Ive seen with my own eyes. The rest Ive seen in Western Horseman magazines. So...your logic would take us down the path that COWS arent livestock animals either there just arent enough COW WHISPERER trainers out there YET to make "companion" and service animals out of enough of them! We really ought to quit eating them then and start training people to train them to be fair about it now shouldnt we? What about goats? Tons of people here have them for pets and companion animals, and the people that do raise them for meat the meat isnt sold to this country. Ooops! there went that "we" dont eat the meat argument right out the door.
So...if we only allowed people signed up as MEAT Horse producers to raise horses for a non-tainted FOOD product & only useing products on them deemed to have safe withdraw periods for slaughter animals would you be ok with it then? (You really SHOULD answer this question because Ive NEVER got an answer from a anti-slaughter person on that one EVER) and... BTW for the record, I agree with you that ANY meat safety issues to humans should be addressed with ANY and ALL livestock animals PERIOD! Including horse meat. BTW there are plenty of safe wormers out there that have as short as 8 day withdraw periods for slaugther animals that are also used on horses.
On your AQHA assumption. There are very, very, FEW registered quarter horses being slaughtered and that has always been the case. When kill buyers submit a ticket on a horse marked "QH" it only refers to TYPE, type only meaning not a tall thin TB TYPE or Draft type etc. QH TYPE is the most desirable slaughter animal as TBS are too lean, and Draft types have too much bone, so 80% of kill horses ARE NOT QUARTER HORSES they are only of typical STOCK HORSE TYPE marked "QH" on a ticket that tells nothing of the horses pedigree, and 99.9% of slaughter horses are GRADE horses of very low quality and NO BREED PAPERS OF ANY KIND. So as usual...fact vs fiction on the AQHA propaganda the anti-slaughter crowd spews on a regular basis. Now....I will agree with you on this point, I dont think ANY breed organizations should be promoting the idea of breeding ANY KIND of horses in this current nightmare situation we are now in. Just as most people look down on breeding cats and dogs. Registered or not it we all know it contributes to the numbers that end up in execution facilitys also known as "humane societys" or "Shelters" Pretty funny to me how putting a touchy feeley name to a "pet" and "companion" animal execution facility somehow makes it "ok" with your camp. Not only "Ok" but even worth your hard earned dollars to support! How about INSTEAD legislation CONTROLLING breeding of "companion" animals to BALANCE supply and demand, and thus ELIMINATE the need for nicely named EXECUTION "shelters" for them? Wouldnt THAT make more sense?
Ahhh but alas we dont want to tell our FREE citizens what to do to THAT degree, because we are a FREE country! So we spoiled wasteful (talk about a disposable society attitude) Americans want it BOTH ways, and the only way to do that is to PRETEND we have "fixed" things. So give our companion animal EXECUTION facilitys, cutesy names like "humane societys" and "Shelters" all the while letting unbridled (sorry about the pun) breeding continue. and now...we ban horse slaugther facilitys in this country claiming that its barbaric, and the hauls are long and cruel only to FORCE longer hauls to countrys where the methods ARE questionable and somehow we have "fixed" the problem and can now brag to the rest of the world "We" dont slaughter our unwanted horses because "we" dont eat that kind of meat. Arent we just the high minded bunch of HYPOCRITES! WTF??????
Hey...why dont you or one of your "rescues" come and get this Palomino colt from me? That way you can "save" him. Hes free on my part & Im sorry that hes not worth the cost of the haul, but hey....its all about being the good guy right? Ill have Theresa post his picture so you can put a face to him. Makes him seem more like your new "companion" dont you think?
It's done. I wrote about the colt here: When Beauty is Dangerous It had to be the hardest thing I've ever written.
Post a Comment