BLM says it has 'no legal recourse' to stop wild horse slaughter Note the 13th paragraph of this story; take a look at evil through
the words of Jim Tucker of Cavel Horse slaughter facility DeKalb,IL.
Billings Gazette
April 22, 2005
BLM says it has 'no legal recourse' to stop wild horse slaughter
By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press
RENO, Nev. -- Animal activists criticized the Bureau of Land
Management on Friday for allowing six previously protected wild horses to
be slaughtered for meat, and said it proves federal safeguards repealed
last year need to be reinstated.
The BLM is investigating how the mustangs ended up at an Illinois
slaughterhouse, but the government has "no legal recourse" to prevent such
slaughters since a 34-year-old law was changed in December, agency
spokeswoman Celia Boddington said.
The BLM sold the six horses that had been rounded up in Wyoming to a
private owner in Oklahoma earlier this month, the agency said.
The sale was authorized under the change in law in December. The
amendment by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., directs the agency offer for sale
any excess mustangs that are older than age 10 or were unsuccessfully
offered to the public three times under a separate, long-running adoption
program.
"Although it was six wild horses whose blood was spilled, it could
easily have been 60 or 200," said Trina Bellak, president of the American
Horse Defense Fund.
"Virtually any and all of the wild horses sold recently under the new
Burns sale authority are in jeopardy. The change was a disaster waiting to
happen and now it has," she said.
The BLM might step up its screening process for potential horse
buyers, Boddington said.
"We regret this incident occurred, but these horses were private
property," she said.
"We certainly do our best to vet those potential buyers to make sure
they have a real interest and intend to provide long-term care to these
animals," she said.
BLM won't release any information about the person who purchased the
mustangs, but Nancy Perry, vice president of the Humane Society of the
United States, said the purchaser was an Oklahoma man who claimed to be a
minister who wanted the mustangs for a youth camp.
Officials at the processing plant defended their disposal of the
mustangs in a "humane manner" while recycling them into food for foreign
markets.
"We don't feel the government should be deciding for livestock owners
how they dispose of their animals. This just gives the BLM the same options
that a farmer or rancher has," said Jim Tucker, general manager of Cavel
International Inc. in Dekalb, Ill.
Tucker said Cavel "euthanizes the animals in a humane manner" -- with
a gun-like "penetrating captive bolt" shot into the forehead. It's the same
method used at cattle slaughterhouses and approved by the American
Veterinary Medical Association, he said.
"We always felt here that we are recycling a resource and producing
food," he said.
Cavel typically pays 47 cents a pound for useable horse meat, or
about $300 for a 1,000- pound horse that produces about 600 pounds of
horse meat, Tucker said.
"It doesn't come anywhere near what a useable horse commands at
auction," he said.
Burns authored an amendment repealing the slaughter ban at the urging
of ranchers concerned about overpopulation of the horses and their effect
on the range.
About 37,000 wild horses and burros roam the Western range, about
9,000 more than the BLM has said the natural forage can sustain. The
animals are captured during periodic government roundups.
"I'm sorry to see these animals destroyed," Burns said.
"The man who purchased these horses from the BLM lied and said they
were for a church youth group. He then turned around and sold them to a
slaughterhouse," he said. "I continue to believe the program is working, as
nearly 2,000 horses now have new homes and people to care for them, but
it's a shame that six didn't make it."
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Reps. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and Ed
Whitfield, R-Ky., have introduced legislation to repeal the Burns measure.
"What has transpired here is a wake-up call to the Congress and
evidence as to why immediate action should be taken on my legislation to
restore the ban on the commercial sale for slaughter of our nation's wild
horse heritage," Rahall said.
The current excess horse program is separate from the BLM's adoption
program, in which younger horses are sold individually at auctions and
remain protected under the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
Those adopting horses must keep the animals for one year before they
receive ownership title. Under the new program, buyers get immediate
ownership.
2005 Associated Press
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