Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Survey Says: The number of unwanted horses is rising!

So I was reading yesterday in the October 2009 edition of Horse Illustrated about a recent survey that was put out by the Unwanted Horse Coalition (UHC). I thought that this was a interesting topic because right now there are no slaughter houses in the United States that are open for the slaughtering of horses, and this may be a contributing factor. For those of you who didn't know, horses that are being slaughtered have to be shipped to Canada and New Mexico for slaughter.

From November 2008 to January 2009, more than 23,000 horse owners, non-horse owners, and equine industry stakeholders offered their opions about the severity of the unwated horse problem, what is causing it and how to possibly resolve it. They thought that the results would be different in different parts of the country, but shockingly enough, they all have identical opinions on why horses become unwated, who's responsible and what should be done about it.

The results of the survey showed that more than 90% of the people who participated feel that the number of unwated horses, including those that are abused or neglected, is growing. Then 22% of the people believe that this was more of a problem three years ago, and 87% believe that this issue is becoming an even larger issue than it was three years ago.

The major reasons why people believe that the number of unwanted horses is rising is because of the economy, THE CLOSURES OF SLAUGHTERHOUSES, changes in breed demand/indiscriminate breeding, and the expense of euthanasia and carcass removal.

Some things that can help this problem include: EDUCATING horse owners!!! (I just wrote a whole paper about this last semester, and what horse owners need to know before getting into horse ownership to prevent unwanted horses and the inhumane slaughtering that occurs). Some other things that can help are increasing the numbers that go to rescues and retirment facilities, re-opening the slaughterhouses, and lowering costs of euthanasia, and giving options to horse owners who need them.

Basically, its a sad reality, and this problem is not going to go away today, or tomorrow, or the next day. I just hope that we can find a medium ground to help some of these horses who are going through a living hell everyday.

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