A group of horse industry leaders and organizations have banded together behind an umbrella organization, the United Organizations of the Horse, to provide information on and protect the rights of horse owners in the United States.
Its purpose is to support "the humane care and management of horses, and the continued viability of the equine community in the United States of America," according to the group's Web site. A key early initiative is to muster resources to oppose bills now pending in Congress that would ban the transportation of horses to other countries for the purpose of slaughter.
The last horse slaughterhouses in the United States closed down in 2007; now unwanted or unusable horses are trucked to Canada or Mexico.
Wyoming State Rep. Sue Wallis, one of the group's founders, told the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune that, "Once that animal has been euthanized, whatever happens to that carcass is the right and responsibility of the owner." To that end, the group is drafting legislation that would require the humane handling and euthanasia of a horse for any reason, the Star-Tribune reported.
The wild horse herds on public lands in Western states are becoming an ecological problem, she said, as more horse owners who can no longer afford to care for the animals turn them loose. Furthermore, as most other countries routinely include horse meat in their diets, the prohibition on horse slaughter is denying those cultures a source of protein.