“Killer horses” bought to be killed (US)

Oh, look. Two humans, disguised as a killer horse, have been bought at auction and head to a cattle truck to be taken to Canada where they will be processed into burgers and sausages. They have been reading too many AP stories and think they are going to Claude's Happy Haven for Unwanted Horses where they will be rehabilitated while studying French cooking. Besides they have always wanted to travel. Bon appetit.

Oh, look. Murdering horses are being bought up by all kinds of really nice people at auctions who want to rehabilitate them with love and affection because these savage equines really didn’t mean to hurt anybody.

Wait a minute. These “killer horses” the AP likes to call them now haven’t even killed anybody, not once, ever. They are horses being bought by people who take them to places so they can be murdered. They aren’t nice people at all, and they are rightly called “killer buyers.” Even these cutthroats admit this all might be “stressful.”

But wait. Oh, I see now. The article is written by someone who can’t read and write American enough to make up the right headline, or whatever, he is dumb.

Anyway, the whole thing is these horses just keep being born all the time with the help of a lot of humans who think it will make them millionaires or something but then they don’t know what to do with oh so many horses. Let’s kill them. Okay, but there are still just too many no matter how many we get murdered in Canada and Mexico now to make drug-infested burgers and sausages out of. We don’t care cause we don’t eat it over here, and besides the French say all those cancer thingies cook out or something.

Here’s how it starts, then the link:

RUSHVILLE, Neb. — At dusk, after all the fancy horses had been auctioned, Doug Barnes settled into a seat at the sale barn and got down to business. Three, four, five or more horses ambled into the ring at a time.

The auctioneer stopped making sales pitches. He looked straight ahead at the familiar visitor from Fort Collins, Colo., waiting for him to tip his hand. Barnes didn’t disappoint.

In about 30 minutes, Barnes bought 25 so-called “killer horses.” Their new owner would subject them to what animal rights groups say is a growing type of abuse: trucking them nearly 700 miles to Canada for slaughter, circumventing a U.S. ban on the practice. Much of the meat is eventually exported to countries in Europe and Asia for human consumption.

Stacy Segal, a horse specialist at the Humane Society of the United States, and other animal rights activists want a ban on exporting U.S. horses for slaughter abroad.

“They’re jammed onto trailers with no regard for breed, size, age, temperament or sex and get no feed or rest,” Segal said.

Last year, when state-imposed bans closed the last three U.S. horse slaughterhouses, a record 78,000 horses were exported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics compiled by the Humane Society. That’s a 138 percent increase from 2006.

Statistics show that 76,100 horses have been slaughtered in Canada and Mexico so far this year. But the actual figure is likely higher because Canada hasn’t yet reported two months’ worth of slaughter numbers.

Barnes and others acknowledge that the long trip is stressful on the animals, but they blame animal rights activists who successfully pushed for all U.S. horse slaughterhouses to shut down. They say the increased exportation of horses is better than the alternative: horses being neglected and abused by owners who don’t want them or can’t afford to take care of them.

Casper Star-Tribune.