Passing Camelot's Torch

Equine Protection Network
www.EquineProtectionNetwork.com
August 8, 2008

EPN Response to Pro Slaughter Vet Dr. Sarah Ralston of Rutgers, Ralston Refers to List Members as "humaneanics"

The recent EPN Newsletter with the EPN response to a pro slaughter
paint breeder drew all positive responses from readers who supported
our position of owner responsibility, except for one response from a
pro slaughter vet who admits to being frustrated at not being able to
change our views. The vet's name has been removed because they
declined the EPN offer to post their response, along with others that
we received.

The positive responses included,

"The breeder/Owner is the responsible for the horses not other tax
payers. If you can't afford to keep them don't breed them, that is just
common sense."

" I always felt it was such a demeaning way for irresponsible owners
to "get rid" of their unwanted horses....they need to squeeze the
last couple hundred dollars out of their horse no matter what the
animal has to face for it."

"My sentiments exactly!"

"We don't eat them, we put them down humanly what is it about a horse
that you can't do that? STOP BREEDING!"

"Sending a horse to slaughter or having them "humanely" put down and
then burying them still does not solve the issue of why are we
killing perfectly healthy horses. You hit upon the reason when you
asked "why did you breed them? Until American horse breeders start
breeding knowing that they have a buyer in place for each foal
produced, we will have an over abundance of horses."

Dr. Sarah Ralston's Response to EPN Offer to Post Views

"I have given up on trying to talk reason to those with your
views .... since it would only generate more rancorous responses if
sent to the other subscribers, who are apparently equally humaneniac
((My word for the PETA wannabees). In my experience there can not be
civil dialogue on this issue it is just a real shame that the
majority of Americans are so far from nature and "real" life they can
not see the farce of the anti-slaughter movement. Yes there were
abuses but abolishing the slaughter plants has only made the
situation worse as predicted by the AAEP, AQHA and AVMA!!

My response to the Ralston's statements that there is not a humane
difference between the captive bolt and lethal injection, and if the
issue was just about disposal, why would we care about what happens
to the carcass.

Dr Sarah Ralston,

I am a professional in the horse industry.

· Owned and operated a successful horse farm that boards on
average 10-15 horses and has a waiting list for owners wanting to
board their horses with me;

· Employed by Brook Ledge Horse Transportation, including
managing their layover farm for the largest Standardbred sale in the
World;

· Employed on Thoroughbred & Standardbred breeding farms that
have foaled out Triple Crown winners;

· Trained and showed my quarter horses to state and regional
championships on the AQHA circuit in the Youth and Adult divisions;

· Employed at various horse barns

· Owned horses for 40 years

As such I am offended by your referral to me as a "humaneniac ((My
word for the PETA wannabees)" and your assumption that I cannot carry
on a civil dialogue, or that I would allow anything but to be posted
on this list.

The EPN advocates for owner accountability and responsibility, and we
work with law enforcement assisting them in investigating and
prosecuting, if necessary, owners who violate the law, including
dealers and rescues because the law applies to us all. The EPN is
also opposed to slaughter because I am an American and the
consumption of a horse is offensive to me.

I stood up in 1996, a professional in the horse industry, and proved
that the management, conditions, handling, and transport of horses at
some horse auctions was cruel and in violation of several laws and
NOT accepted horse industry management practices, and the transport
of horses in double deck trailers was wrong.

I was immediately labeled with adjectives meant to discredit me,
simply because the people and organizations who supported the
inhumane transport and conditions at the auctions, none of which are
acceptable horse industry management practices were able to
articulate that I was wrong, instead they resorted to name-calling.
Is that a civil discussion?

During my 40 years in horses, I have subscribed to numerous horse
publications including: Equus -30 years, Quarter Horse Journal- 20,
Horse Illustrated, Horse of Course, Performance and Practical
Horseman, The Horse, Horse & Rider, Western Horseman, and numerous
regional publications.

I have never heard or read a published study or article that
advocates the use of a double deck trailer to transport horses, nor
have I seen ads for these trailers for horses in any of those
magazines.

Nor I have been advised when my horse founders, suffers a broken leg,
or any other career ending injury or life ending injury or condition
for that matter, to send him to an auction. Nor I have been advised
to starve my horse. The recommendations for sick and injured horses
is to administer first aid until the vet arrives to treat the horse,
and if necessary to have the horse put down. Yet when I attended
these non-catalogued horse auctions that is exactly what I observed.
Because I stood up and said that, this is "cruel and inhumane" I was
labeled with a term that in the horse world is considered a
negative, "an animal rights activist". Never mind that none of the
conditions or management practices were accepted by the horse
industry.

Now Dr Ralston you refuse to participate in a discussion on this issue for
fear it will not be civil; but Dr. you are the one who stooped to
calling me a raving lunatic because I disagree with you on the
slaughter issue. I am an American and we do not eat horses. I am
offended at your attack on my culture, calling me a "humane raving
lunatic" because my culture does not eat horsemeat!

Definition of Maniac Raving with madness; raging with disordered
intellect; affected with mania; mad. A raving lunatic; a madman

Are you proposing that equine vets come to their clients armed with
the mechanical captive bolt and knife to slit their throat so that
when clients bury their horses we do not contaminate the ground? I am
not being sarcastic, I am dead serious. What method are you proposing
that owners should employ when it is time to put their horses down?
Please give me the names of equine veterinarians who use the captive
dead bolt in their private practice when called upon by their clients
for euthanasia?

Is this what you are proposing because the drugs from lethal
injection may contaminate the environment? Are you willing to stand
up and tell horse owners that they should have the vet captive bolt
their horse? I can give you the numbers of all my boarders and you
are welcome to call them up and tell them that they can no longer
have the vet out to give their horse a lethal injection and bury it
on my farm. I am dead serious Dr., just say the word & I will give
you the numbers.

My owners do not want their horses sent to slaughter, nor do they
want them sent to a renderer. They want them buried and/or cremated.
They want them killed via lethal injection, not a gunshot, and not
the captive bolt. I have had, and held horses put down via lethal
injection. I have had, and witnessed horses being shot. I have
documented the collection and the transport of horses to slaughter
week in and week out for five years, and I have seen the slaughter.
Lethal injection is calm and peaceful. Gunshot is violent and
disturbing and a mess to clean up. So disturbing that I will avoid it
at all costs.

You may find it interesting that the man who does the shooting for
the rendering company, who shoots animals every day for a living, did
not like shooting horses. He told us, "Horses are just different".
Are you going to tell me he is not in touch with "real" life and
nature??

Dr Ralston, if you and the AAEP believe so strongly that there is not a
humane difference between the captive bolt and lethal injection, then
why with the whole world watching and an opportunity to put this
issue to rest once and for all, did the vets who euthanized Eight
Belles choose to use lethal injection and not the captive bolt?

Dr. Charles Liskey, D.V.M, an equine surgeon with a private practice
in California addressed the AAEP at one of their annual conferences
several years back. He made the observation that it would be quite a
practice builder if he were to respond to a client call for
euthanasia by telling the client they would have to move the cars
from their driveway because after captive dead bolting their child's
pony, he was going to have to bleed it out. He stated that no private
practitioner is going to respond to their clientele this way when
called to put a horse down.

As an American, you will never convince me it is OK to eat a horse, a
dog, a cat, or any other animal that Americans consider non-food
animals. So does that make me a raving lunatic, a madman? I think
sociologists would beg to differ.

Dr Ralston, you are right, when the horse is dead, if the method is humane,
what does it matter what happens to the carcass? That is where
culture comes in to the equation, because culture determines how we
dispose of our dead, how we live, what we eat, how we marry, bury our
dead, our jobs, and our laws. Does culture make scientific sense,
maybe not to you, but it is a powerful influence, just ask any
sociologist.

The issue is not about cruelty, it is not about the method of death -
it is about the disposal of the carcass - it is about the fact that
we are talking about EATING a horse, an animal that as an American, I
do not eat and no science will ever convince me it is OK to eat. Why?
Because it is against my culture. Just as you will never convince me,
it is OK to stop shaving my underarms, and my legs - like some
foreign women do-you will not convince me it is OK to eat a horse.
That is culture. All the science in the world will never stop me from
shaving my underarms because as an American woman, we shave under our
arms!

Dr Ralston, you are right about the costs being lower if horses were
classified as a food animal. So why is the government being allowed
to tax me unfairly? Because America has decided that the horse is a
non-food animal, and has classified the American horse as a sporting
and recreational animal, taxed and revered as such

Keeping Slaughter Legal

If we are going to keep slaughter legal, and it is except in 4
states, (CA, IL, OK and TX), thus declaring horses a food animal,
then the taxes on horses must be repealed. Do you think the states
are going to give up the state sales tax revenue? I do not think so
because they are financially strapped now. Why give up billions in
state sales tax revenue so a few people, less than one percent, can
sell their horse to a foreign owned slaughterhouse, which does
nothing for their coffers?

Lethal injection or gunshot with disposal in a landfill, burial,
cemetery, rendering, cremating, all of those create demand for
American owned companies providing those services and benefiting the
states who earn revenue on the sales tax charged on the items and
services. Companies providing animal memorials, dead haulers,
pharmaceutical companies, animal cemeteries, and the list goes on,
all benefit from horses not being slaughtered.

State laws regulate the disposal, including the burial of dead
animals. PA and I believe NJ, state that the carcass must be covered
with 6' of good earth. That is not a shallow grave. The argument that
people do not follow that, can also be applied to the fact that the
humane slaughter regulations are not followed either. Same with the
commercial transportation of horses to slaughter act are not being
followed, nor are they being enforced.

According to the law only a veterinarian may buy and administer the
solution. Therefore, the random animal put down on an unincorporated,
rural property by lethal injection and backhoed is not going to cause
any ground water toxicity. Are you telling me that the vets are so
irresponsible that they are going to say nothing to their clients
about proper burial if there is a risk to wildlife and other animals
from eating the carcass?

What about the contamination from the carcasses of rodents and other
animals exterminated on farms by poisons? In incorporated less rural
areas, a vet performs the euthanasia and a dead hauler or owner takes
the carcass to a rendering plant, landfill, cemetery, or cremation
facility. The cost of private cremation is relative to one – two
months board depending on the area with communal cremation even less.

What about "green burials" Human remains from certain faiths
prohibits embalming and requires burial in a pine box. There are
untold chemicals in the human remains, especially from a person who
died from a long-term illness and was on opiate-based pain
medication. The EPA has not found any problems with ground
contamination from these burials.

The collection and the transport to slaughter is full of lies, fraud,
cruelty, and criminal acts. The slaughter was not humane because the
horses were terrified and were hit numerous times. The abuses have
not been addressed; one only has to look at the continued violations
of the Commercial Transportation of Horses to Slaughter Regulations,
violations of local and state laws. When are you going to realize
that many of these people involved in the collection and transport
are nothing more than common criminals as demonstrated by their
continued violations and convictions? Law enforcement officers and
prosecutors familiar with these dealers and haulers agree with me,
are they raving lunatics also?

I have seen people, my own farm neighbors who grew up butchering
their own animals for 40 years, shocked and appalled at the slaughter
of horses. These people are in touch with real life and nature, every
year they plant their garden, raise their steer, shoot their deer,
and butcher the steer. They know horses are not food animals Dr., so
like me, these Americans, they are repulsed at the slaughter of a non-
food animal.

I have also watched how the businesses involved behave when they know
they are being watched and when they believe that they are not. They
put on a performance for the inspectors. Not to mention the
preparation done in advance of the planned visit to, "observe the
conditions". I watched as New Holland underwent a metamorphous in
preparation for the USDA research studies conducted by Temple Grandin
and Carolyn Stull. What they observed and documented is not the way
it works at New Holland or during the transport, I know because I was
taking notes, photographing and videotaping week in and week out.

I will never change my opinion on whether or not it is OK to
slaughter a horse because I am an American. I have listened to the
pro slaughter arguments for the 40 years I have been in horses. I
have listened to the lies and spin put on the industry's method of
disposal.

I always knew in my gut it was wrong. America does not need slaughter.

As an American, you will never convince me it is OK to eat a horse, a
dog, a cat, or any other animal that Americans consider non-food
animals. So does that make me a raving lunatic, a madman? I think
sociologists would beg to differ.

It will never be an accepted practice for the vast majority of horse
owners who call on their veterinarian to humanely euthanize their
horse, to have their vets crush the skull of their beloved horse with
a retractable gun and then slit their throats so other cultures may
eat them.

No Dr Ralston, it is a very simple issue. Do we humanely euthanize non-food
animals in this country and culture, or do we cruelly slaughter them?

If there were a solution, which did not render the meat unusable,
there could be a different debate, but there, is not. All we have to
do is look up the words in a dictionary:

Humane: compassionate;

Euthanasia: the putting to death painlessly;

Humane Euthanasia: The good death;

Slaughter: great and violent destruction of life, massacre, to kill
with violence.

We are a democratic society. When we legislate social policy, it is
by the majority of the "reasonable community", the people who vote.
If given the chance tomorrow, Americans would overwhelmingly, at
least 80%, vote to outlaw the slaughter. Despite special interests
and lobbyists, who have stalled the American Horse Slaughter
Prevention Act in Congress, the fact remains that there are no
slaughterhouses in the United States where once there was 14. Why?
Because this is the United States of America, where horses are
revered and not classified as food animals.

It is not going to happen. Thank God for America and God Bless
America!

Christine Berry

EPN
Christine Berry
Equine Protection Network
www.SaveAmericasHorses.com
www.HoofPAC.com

HORSE SLAUGHTR FOR PROFIT
OUR COUNTRY SAYS THAT'S OKAY?

West Palm Beach, Florida, September 19, 2008 Senator Goodlatte made a statement that the horse rescues in our country can only take in 7000 horses. Where did these numbers come from, what research was done? With all the funding in our government, is there not enough to hire someone to do proper research? This is far from the truth. Our one rescue takes in 250 to 300 horses a year. The horses do not live here forever. They are rehabbed if needed and then re-homed. Many do not need rehabbing; they just need to find a good home. There are over 550-horse rescues in the country, his numbers do not add up. Let's not forget the over 10,000 organization that are equine based or use equines in their program, some have memberships of over 5 million and we have over 4.6 million horse owners in the US. You want us to believe the horses cannot be absorbed and utilized. That is a lie. Yes some horses are old and infirmed and need to be put down but we have learned that is less than 5% of the horses going to slaughter every year. Based on last years figures of horse slaughter that would account for 4500 horses per year. You want an answer to that? Responsible horse owners should have enough money (approximately $125 to $200) to humanely euthanize their horses. If you do not have the funds for that, possibly you should not own a horse. How can we have laws in our country that are based on incorrect facts and figures?

Charlie Stenholm wants us to believe that horses bound for slaughter are old and infirmed, when the facts are less than 5% are old and infirmed. The majority of the horses are young, healthy and in good flesh. How can someone who has a financial position in an issue be a credible source of information? It has been reported that Charlie Stenholm receives $3.00 for every horse that goes to slaughter. With 90,000 horses going to slaughter that is a very nice additional income. Are we really expected to believe that the slaughterhouses are going to give him a bonus of $3.00 per horse for old and infirmed horses? Come on. I recently heard a phrase "the dumbing of America." How about giving us a little credit?

The AQHA, (American Quarter Horse Association) has notably been pro-slaughter. Quarterhorses and Thoroughbreds are the most sought after for human consumption. One would think that an association representing either one of these breeds would do whatever they can to protect them from this cruel act. Now this is not the most ironic part of this story. Recently, Bill Brewer, who has served as Executive Vice President to the AQHA for 16 year's gave a speech at the AQHA 2008 Convention. In that speech he stated the following when referring to the decrease in registrations ad transfers, "That's never happened before as membership has almost always been tied to registrations and transfers. What that begins to tell us is that our members are staying connected and involved. However, because of the market conditions I described earlier they are doing so with the same number – or fewer – horses." Then he went on to state the AQHA has an idea for an answer to this problem. This somewhat changes AQHA's role in the industry because we have always assumed that we don't "control" the supplier – in our case that would be breeders. But perhaps there are things the Association can do to encourage people to breed enough good horses to meet today's demands. Now this is a pro-slaughter advocate, did he say in one sentence that there are fewer quarterhorses and they need to find a way to encourage breeding. Isn't one of the arguments for pro-slaughter that we have too many horses and isn't one of the problems over-breeding? So in essence, not only is the AQHA condoning horse slaughter but it will aid in their new registrations. Here is a thought. The reason there are less transfers are because the quarterhorses are going to slaughter, and we are making it easier and easier for individuals to just dispose of their horses with no regard to their welfare. But then again with a new baby born, the AQHA not only receives funds for a new registration and that fee but quite possibly a new member also. I guess this is not ethnic cleansing but it could be construed as "breed cleansing" for profit.

When in our country did we decide that the individuals or the organizations that have an apparent and obvious gain in a situation are allowed to govern the laws in their favor? When have we decided that abusive and inhumane treatment to an animal is acceptable because some individuals are making a profit off of the cruel and inhumane treatment? When did we decide to encourage abuse and neglect of animals and allow it to be hidden under the guise of "slaughter" What is this country coming to? When will we say ENOUGH?

Jennifer Swanson
Jswan0415@aol.com www.PTHR.org

I enjoy the discourse taking place surrounding your article on, "Hate Radio." I understand many of your points, and take no offense at all to any of them, yet do understand if I do not totally agree.

Keep up the good work.