Persuasive Essay On Horse Slaughter

Words: 1063
Pages: 5

Most horse people would describe horses as beautiful giants and that they symbolize freedom and power. Many question why Americans would ever think of them as something they would consume like they do with beef. Ever since horses started to actually be viewed as companion animals the use for their meat has become frowned on in the United States and slaughter facilities have been shut down. However this has caused major problems such as inhumane living conditions, shortage of land and a decline in financial support. Although there are many controversies about whether horse slaughter should be legal in the U.S or not, the over-population of wild mustangs has become a big problem and a solution that would help control this would be controlled …show more content…
The article “The Journey to Slaughter for North American Horses” states “Following World War II, weak and lame horses were slaughtered in US and Canadian facilities exporting the affordable meat for lower-income consumers in Europe where beef was scarce” (Stull). Bringing back horse slaughter in the US would mean that we can make sure that when horses are sent to the facilities that it will be humanely. It would also mean that we could make it one of our exports to the countries that see horse meat as a delicacy; this would help our economy flourish and not go into a recession again. Some statistics in the article state that in the early years of slaughter being legal, “there were 16 federally inspected facilities in the US slaughtering over 320,000 horses per year (USDA, 1997) and 4 plants in Canada processing about 23,000 head of horses per year (Stull). Many people don’t like the idea of slaughtering horses because they are now seen as companion or they think it is used as a way out for some owners. People at Equine Advocates, “strongly believe that horse slaughter promotes the inhumane treatment of horses, horse theft and other illegal activities and the violation of cruelty laws” (Redford) but this idea of controlled horse slaughter is where a certain number of horses that are either old, weak or lame are taken to the slaughter facilities and used for human consumption