According to an AP article that I read today, State Rep. Tom Loertscher (R-31) is asking Congress to back the return of horse slaughterhouses here in the US. Loertscher believes this move would ease financial strains on local ranchers, farmers and horse owners, as “most people can’t afford to ship their horses outside the U.S. due to low market values for horses and high transportation costs.”
The article states Rep. Loertscher would like to see horse slaughterhouses operating again in the United States to deal with the glut of unwanted horses resulting from the faltering economy and that has led to neglect and abandonment.
The last domestic slaughterhouses closed in 2007. Currently, horses from the US are sent to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico.
What are your thoughts, should the US ban the operation of domestic slaughterhouses? Should we even care?
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Gato got runned over by Marcus many moons ago. Be ye daft, 2486? 
Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
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The horse lovers are not going to believe this.
I don’t know whose slaughterhouse Loertscher is backing, but I do know that US bills are pending to allow horse slaughterhouses in N Dakota and Montana, there may be bills for other locations too. The ironic thing about these bills is that they seem to have been stimulated by yet another bill that’s been in the works for awhile. It calls for a ban to the shipping horses to Canada or Mexico, if they’re being shipped for slaughter.
The Equine Rescue and Protection people have been pushing for the latter bills passage. If fact they seem to be the people who were behind the bill to begin with. In their zeal to keep our horses from being turned into food stuffs in Mexico and Canada, they’re opened the door to a reemergence of equine slaughterhouses in the US.
Something has to be done with horses that have outlived their usefulness. US slaughterhouses sounds like a good way to handle them to me. It’s too bad the Equine rescue and protection people have to take it on the nose for such a simple solution to set into motion.
Another tree hugger bites the dust.
Anyone who eats beef then argues against slaughtering horses is a hypocrite. I’m against the idea of killing horses, but I’m also against killing cows, chickens, or pigs for meat. I’m in the minority I understand, so sure, let ‘em kill the horses here. It’s going to happen anyway.
Of course, we should have the ability to have horse slaughterhouses here in the US. There should have never been such a ban in the first place. Why in the world should our domestic horse owners have to ship them out of state, let alone the country?
What right do our elected federal representatives, officials and government bureaucrats have to tell private citizens what they can do with their private property? What right do they have to tell us that we cannot dispose of our own animals and livestock?
I applaud and commend Rep. Loertscher for standing up to Congress. I commend Rep. Loertscher for defending our rights at the state level. Can you imagine how much better things would be if similar behavior was practiced on a national level? Now that would be true “change.”
Thank you Rep. Tom Loertscher.
This is just another instance when something distasteful simply has to be done, and no one wants to be responsible for it.
I don’t know much about horses, having never had one myself, but what are your options when you absolutely have to dispose (sorry for that word, couldn’t think of another) of such a large animal?
I really don’t know.
the same people who gripe about sending horses to slaughter houses are the ones complaining about the price of a bag of pet food for their doggy and cat and the price of hay ect.
When did horse slaughter houses shut down? I remember as a youngster they were in operation here in Idaho. This is actually a topic that I have not thought about in many years. I remember hearing my folks and their friends talk about sending the horses to the glue factory. As I recall, there was one right down the road from where we lived.
Do you suppose that since the disposal of horses is such a huge problem now that that is one of the reasons that the owning of horses has been on the decline in the past few decades? When I was a kid, we all had horses, now it is rare to find anyone who doesn’t live on a farm/ranch to have a horse.