The BLM helicopter roundups are inhumane
The tragedy of unwanted and neglected horses is always hard to talk about, but it is perhaps the most import issue facing the horse world right now. Over the past few days we have been linking to the sudden increase in coverage that the national media has been giving to the US horse slaughter debate. At the risk of a vast oversimplification, the issue for me boils down to one question: is reopening slaughterhouses the best option for helping the thousands of unwanted and neglected horses in the US? As I have written several times before, I hate the idea of horse slaughter and I have to think that there is a better option. The most important step in my mind is to prevent horses from being unwanted and neglected in the fist place by finding a way to stop breeders from producing so many horses that won’t have loving homes throughout their lives. Everyone hates taxes, but a one-time tax on each horse that is born would help deter excess breeding. That being said, the problem for horses that are already unwanted and neglected is that many of them are being shipped inhumanely to Mexico and Canada for slaughter or rounded up and put in pens by the Bureau of Land Management. If the media’s recent tone towards horse slaughter is any gauge, it sounds like slaughter advocates are closer than ever to getting Congress to allow slaughterhouses to reopen. So, I pose the question to you Eventing Nation…
Go eventing.
