The horse? Sacred? Then why are the National Congress of American Indians lobbying for horse slaughter? For the same reason everyone else does. To make money off supplying horse meat to people who want to eat it.
Pro-horse slaughter Native American Indians are using the same old rhetoric and lies trying to justify this heinous industry. So like everybody else looking to make money off of horse slaughter — they will say anything — even disgrace their heritage to accommodate this evil. So please do not use the words sacred, horse and slaughter.
See extracts from a report written by the Associated Press, and posted in the business section of the www.ChronicleHerald.ca:
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Navajo Nation is jumping into the fray over a return to domestic horse slaughter, drafting a letter to federal officials in support of a New Mexico company’s plan to begin exporting horse meat next week.
The tribe’s support for Valley Meat Co. comes one week after Robert Redford and former Gov. Bill Richardson joined the opposite side, saying, among other reasons, that they were “standing with Native American leaders” to protect cultural values.
But Erny Zah, spokesman for Navajo President Ben Shelly, said Wednesday that the nation’s largest Indian reservation can no longer support the estimated 75,000 feral horses that are drinking wells dry and causing ecological damage to the drought-stricken range.
“It’s a sensitive subject to begin with because horses are considered sacred animals, so you just can’t go out and euthanize them,” Zah said.
“That would go too far against cultural conditions. At the same time we have a bunch of horses that no one is caring for, so it’s a delicate balance.”
Because of the horse overpopulation, the tribe already is rounding up and selling wild horses, Zah said. Some of those, he said, end up being shipped to Mexico.
Supporters of a return to domestic horse slaughter argue it is a more humane solution than shipping unhealthy and starving animals to facilities south of the border for slaughter under unregulated and often cruel circumstances.
The National Congress of American Indians, representing tribes across the country, is also lobbying in support of Valley Meat Co., saying overgrazing by feral horses is causing serious environmental and ecological damage.
Tuesday's Horse 
Very sad that the Navajo Nation has believed the lies of Wallis and her lying money grubbers. Just shows that predators like Wallis, are looking for the vulnerable to use, in their nasty bloody goal of annihilating indigenous horses for gain. The holocaust continues.
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The one thing I do know about these tribal leaders is the fact that a lot of them are lawyers and like money. All of them live a lot better lives that the tribal members out on the reservations. These people have nice homes and new cars just like most upper middle class Americans. I had a friend that was a White Mountain Apache that worked at the same electronics company that I did when I lived in AZ and she said that none of the managers that lived on the reservations would put any government money toward helping the poorer tribal members such as push for better and more up to date equipment in the few clinics and doctors on the reservations. These reservations are vast expanses of mostly arid land in New Mexico and AZ that without water its useless. And on the reservations the houses are junk heaps and the yards have junk cars up on blocks. There is no law that forces any Indian to live on the reservations. They can live anywhere they please. The smarter ones left.
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This is illogical. Let’s say for sake of argument they are in favor of managing feral horse numbers on their lands. How is opening up a processing plant that contracts kill-buyers to go to auctions & bring them truckloads will solve the feral horse issue on their land? (1) Kill buyers aren’t doing wild horse round-up. (2) It’s not cost effective to go deep in the desert and corral bands of wild horses when there are riding horses standing quietly at auctions and craigslist ads. (3) Nobody has discussed *who* would even get permission to enter tribal lands to gather horses to bring to that plant. Do they want outsiders on their land, chasing their animals? Or, if they’d rather do it themselves, do they have the vehicles (big trailers? helicopters?), corrals, trained workers, and funds to get into the wild horse round-up business?
What people fail to realize is the $125 mustangs they can buy from BLM sales costs a *lot* more to gather, sort, house, and re-sell than $125. Who do they expect to do that work (while still being able to buy/sell the horse to slaughter at profit)? Is this one of those poorly-thought-out Wallisms: promote slaughter as the cure for everything, quietly expect federal and state taxpayers to subsidize it?
And the other Wallisms I don’t get: If the (non-native) Americans are crying we need slaughter to manage the riding/harness horse population, why go out of your way to court tribal leaders. If there is a surplus of “unwanted” riding horses, why go seeking possible new supplies of even more horses? Is there an overpopulation in the horse industry — or not?
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They exist in every camp. Look at at Wounded Knee.
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I always thought that Native Americans revered animals as sacred totems, to be honored and given the respect that is due them. I cannot even imagine a culture such as this that would wish for them to be killed in such a horrible, disgraceful manner. Shameful, and too have lost a lot of respect for this culture and so very sorry they have lost their heritage enough to believe that any animal, sacred or not, should be maimed, injured and killed in such a callous way.
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I will lose respect for the American Indian – just disgraceful!
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What the Navajo are saying doesn’t even make since on one hand they can’t euthanize because they are sacred and yet they can send them to slaughter??? HA What a joke and I hope to god people can see through this farce???? Again it come down to MONEY, MONEY < MONEY… I personally am so sick of it, shut them ALL down once and for all… With all the data on our side I honestly can't imagine a court would allow this, but certainly wilder things have happened for this evil horse slaughter… When as a country are we going to wake up?? Really is so very sad to see this huge corruption to the Politician's to the GAO, to the Kill buyers, to the transport, to the slaughter itself, to yes even FSIS, to USDA to Suey to Doucy…. Just unbelievable
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First off, there have been unconfirmed reports of the vast numbers of ‘feral’ horses in the Navajo State – running anywhere from 70,000 to 90,000, nearly three times the wild equines that roam 10 Western States that are characterized as ‘overpopulated’ – for well over a year. The Navajo & Hopi territories cover a tri-state conjunction of only about 17 million acres, and that many animals dead, dying or roaming free would certainly be easy enough to spot, yet there have been no visuals, either video or photographs, to show these massive herds.
Second, and not to vilify this Nation, but part of their water issue is ground-water wells that have been capped off because the water is polluted by uranium from mining. If some attention were given to filtration of this water… As a consequence, Navajo livestock are dying; where is The Congress when existing means of support for the Navajo is endangered?
No Where.
I assume this view of slaughtering horses comes with some assurances of the profitability margin. It would be interesting to see how this ‘business’ will profit the Navajo and Hopi Nations.
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“saying overgrazing by feral horses is causing serious environmental and ecological damage.”
Sounds like something Sue and/or her partner, Dave would say. Then there are all those energy companies that need all that water too. They want horses out of NV, WY and elsewhere.
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75,000 feral horses drinking their wells dry and causing ecological damage to the reservation? Sounds like this just came out of the mouth of Sue Wallis or Douche Duquette. Indians have been rounding up wild horses for a long time and selling them to slaughter buyers. This isn’t a new thing. The new thing is that they are “lobbying” for De Los Santos. Can’t euthanize them due to their sacredness, eh. But can send them to a horrible death by slaughter whether it’s Mexico or New Mexico. What a bunch of crap. Wonder who is behind this latest attempt to legitimize the slaughter of horses.
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@timparmly, To answer you question, the same people that hire the lobbyists to make the rounds of the offices of the senators and the reps in DC making sure that no politician, especially a senator, never moves S.541 up for a vote.
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