Reports that hundreds, possibly thousands, of healthy Australian racehorses are being sent to the slaughterhouse each year are "upsetting", the federal government says. Racing Australia's official data shows about 34 horses every year end up at slaughterhouses - a figure amounting to less than 1 per cent of retiring racehorses.
But ABC's 7. The CPR said up to horses are being killed weekly at a Queensland abattoir and on average 56 per cent are racehorses. Three of them had been trained by Gordon Elliott at his state-of-the-art stables in County Meath, Ireland. He told Panorama none of the three animals were sent to the abattoir by him.
The horses had retired from racing due to injury, he said, and were not under his care when they were killed. Elliott said two of the horses were sent to a horse dealer "to be rehomed if possible, and if not, to be humanely euthanised" in line with the regulations.
He said he gave the third horse to another rider as requested by its owner. And he said the first time he learned of their fate was when Panorama contacted him. Elliott said he has ensured the appropriate and proper treatment and welfare of animals that have been in his possession and has rehomed a substantial number of them.
Animal Aid's cameras also captured what appear to be breaches of rules designed to protect animals from unnecessary cruelty. The regulations say horses should not be killed in sight of each other.
The footage recorded horses being shot together 26 times over the four days of filming. Prof Daniel Mills, a veterinary behavioural specialist from the University of Lincoln, who has seen the footage, said: "A gunshot going off is going to be startling, seeing another horse suddenly drop, these are all going to be very distressing for a horse in this situation. The regulations also say every effort should be made to ensure a rapid death.
Horses may leave the racing industry at any stage of their life, as foals, during training, during their racing career or when they retire. The primary reason for horses being withdrawn from racing is poor performance, with other reasons including illness, injury or behavioural problems. The majority of racehorses will have a racing career of only years yet their life expectancy is years.
Whatever the reason or age at which it occurs, all racehorses will eventually cease racing. There is a high level of public expectation that these horses will be appropriately cared for in their post-racing life, not least because they have been bred and used for sport and profit in a multi-billion dollar industry.
Around 13, Thoroughbred foals are born every year in Australia [ 1 ]. There has been a gradual reduction in foal births in the past decade, from an annual peak of over 18, in the period At least 2, of these foals will never be registered for racing and only around 2, will eventually go into breeding, which means around 8, adult Thoroughbreds will exit the Thoroughbred racing industry every year. The bill died in the Senate.
Similar efforts since then have fizzled despite bipartisan support from prominent lawmakers with Vice President Mike Pence voting in favor of horse slaughter prohibition in , when he was an Indiana congressman, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doing the same.
Nine times legislation to ban horse slaughter has been introduced in Congress, and eight times it has failed to be enacted into law. In , Congress passed a budget that barred the USDA from using taxpayer funds for inspection at horse slaughter plants, effectively creating a temporary ban on horse slaughter that Congress has renewed with each subsequent federal budget.
At about the same time, state law in Texas and Illinois also were used to shut down the last three U. Many see horse slaughter as existential threat to racing. While McBarron and the other kill buyers adapted by exporting horses to Mexico and Canada, they also have found new customers — some of the same people who decry horse slaughter, in fact.
Purchasing horses at auctions and private sales, McBarron and other kill buyers post photos of the horses on Facebook and other social media websites and offer potential buyers a chance to save them. The kill buyers can sell the horses to slaughter plants for about 60 cents a pound, according to McBarron, but first try to find online buyers. Yet again. They die. To date, according to Meadows, the only information available about action taken in response to her allegations of McBarron is he received a warning from the Department of Environmental Quality for burying horses on an adjacent property.
After Meadows published her allegations, McBarron built a fence about 10 feet high that he said was an attempt to restrict the view of his property from animal rights activists. Her forearms were scraped. Her left shoulder was bruised. Two days earlier, Meadows explained, she climbed a tree while trying to secretly shoot video at the property of another kill buyer.
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