Stop Horse and Seal Slaughtering Now!

Look here! In 2001, more than 55,000 horses were killed in the United States and processed for human consumption. In addition, many thousands of live horses were transported across the border to Canada for slaughter. After these horses are killed, their flesh is shipped to Europe and Asia for human consumption. Their owners are often totally unaware of the pain, fear, and suffering their horses endure before being slaughtered.

megan : Horse meat is not eaten in the U.S.; it is exported to serve specialty markets overseas. The largest markets are France, Belgium, Holland, Japan, and Italy. The demand for horse meat has been substantial for many years, and prices are high. But because horses do not contract mad cow or foot-and-mouth disease, demand for their meat increased in 2001 after outbreaks of those diseases resulted in decreased supplies of beef, pork, and lamb. In fact, more horses were slaughtered in 2001 than in 2000, ending a ten-year downward trend. Most horses destined for slaughter are sold at livestock auctions or sales. The cruelty of horse slaughter is not limited to the act of killing the animals. Horses bound for slaughter are shipped, frequently for long distances, in a manner that fails to accommodate their unique temperaments. They are usually not rested, fed, or watered during travel. Economics, not humane considerations, dictate the conditions, including crowding as many horses into trucks as possible.
Often, terrified horses and ponies are crammed together and transported to slaughter in double-deck trucks designed for cattle and pigs. The truck ceilings are so low that the horses are not able to hold their heads in a normal, balanced position. Inappropriate floor surfaces lead to slips and falls. Some horses arrive at the slaughterhouse seriously injured or dead. Although transportation accidents have largely escaped public scrutiny, several tragic ones involving collapsed upper floors and overturned double-deckers have caused human fatalities as well as suffering and death for the horses.    Under federal law, horses are required to be rendered unconscious prior to slaughter, usually with a device called a captive bolt gun, which shoots a metal rod into the horse's brain. Some horses, however, are improperly stunned and may still be conscious when they are hoisted by a rear leg to have their throats cut. In addition, conditions in the slaughterhouse are stressful and frightening for horses.  Horses of virtually all ages and breeds are slaughtered, from draft types to miniatures. Horses commonly slaughtered include unsuccessful race horses, horses who are lame or ill, surplus riding school and camp horses, mares whose foals are not economically valuable, and foals who are "byproducts" of the Pregnant Mare Urine (PMU) industry, which produces the estrogen-replacement drug Premarin. Ponies, mules, and donkeys are slaughtered as well. Many of the horses that HSUS investigators have seen purchased for slaughter were in good health, and bought for only a few hundred dollars.  These animals can be put to much better use than being shipped to other countries to be slaughtered. Please help us stop this act of genocide.

Seals:

317,672 seals have ben killed in the last 102 days 98% of the seals where three months or younger.

 Harp seals are the primary target of the commercial seal hunt. Fully 95% of the seals killed over the past five years have been harp seal pups between 12 days and 12 weeks of age. To a much lesser degree, hooded seals over one year of age are also killed. Canada's commercial seal hunt occurs on the ice floes off Canada's East Coast in areas: the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  

Sealing is an off-season activity conducted by fishermen from Canada's East Coast. They make, on average, a small fraction of their annual incomes from sealing—and the rest from commercial fisheries. Even in Newfoundland, where 90% of sealers live, there are only 4,000 fishermen who actively participate in the seal hunt each year. The Canadian Marine Mammal Regulations, <http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/F-14/SOR-93-56/index.html> which govern the hunt, stipulate sealers may kill seals with wooden clubs,  and guns. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, clubs and hakapiks are the killing implement of choice, and in the Front, guns are more widely used. It is important to note that each killing method is demonstrably cruel. Because sealers shoot at seals from moving boats, the pups are often only wounded. The main sealskin processing plant in Canada deducts $2 from the price they pay for the skins for each bullet hole they find—therefore sealers are loath to shoot seals more than once. As a result, wounded seals are left to suffer in agony—many slip beneath the surface of the water where they die slowly and are never recovered. Over the past three years, more than a million seals have been killed. In 2004, 365,971 seals were killed—the largest number of seals killed in Canada in more than half a century. The last time this many seals were killed—in the 1950s and 1960s—close to two thirds of the harp seal population was wiped out.
And the actual number of seals killed is probably far higher than the number reported. Many seals are shot at and injured in the course of the hunt, and studies suggest that a significant number of these animals slip beneath the surface of the water, where they die slowly and are never recovered.

Please sign this and help us end this act of cruelty!