Editorial: Protecting our wild horses

Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has announced that slaughtering horses for human consumption will continue, despite a budget cut by Congress late last year that was designed to cripple rendering plants and effectively stop the practice.

Congress stopped short of banning the slaughter of horses last fall and instead cut all funding for the salaries and expenses of the federal officials who inspect slaughterhouses. Horse meat is rendered in three slaughter plants - two in Texas and one in Illinois - and sold for human consumption in Asia and Europe. Some of it also ends up in U.S. zoos.

By eliminating funding for the inspectors' jobs, Congress had intended to temporarily halt the practice until it could agree on a more permanent fix. The move was inspired by reports that - because of an amendment slipped into the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill - the federal government was allowing the sale of certain federally protected wild horses to any buyer, including slaughterhouses. In April, 41 formerly protected wild horses were sold to such plants.

According to the Associated Press, agriculture officials on Tuesday said that federal law requires the inspections, regardless of funding. So slaughterhouses now will foot the bill for the inspections.

"This action is a direct defiance of congressional intent," Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., a key advocate of the funding cut, told the AP.

The inspections funding cut, made in October as part of a broader agriculture spending bill, was passed by overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. Michael Markarian of the Humane Society said the Agriculture Department is "thumbing its nose at Congress."

Those who opposed the inspection funding cuts have said they would result in the horses being sent to slaughterhouses in Canada in Mexico, where their deaths would not create American jobs or income.

But Americans don't need jobs slaughtering aging pets or federally protected wild horses for human consumption. Given the Agiculture Department's stubborn stance, Congress needs to revisit this issue sooner, rather than later, and ban the slaughter of these animals.