American Horses Exported To Mexican Slaughterhouses

EL PASO, TX – American-bred horses are being exported to slaughterhouses across the border in Mexico.

According to the Humane Society, some of the horses are kept in state-owned pens prior to exportation. At these pens, the horses are often crammed into overcrowded trucks and treated inhumanely, officials with theorganization said.

Video footageobtained by Humane Society membersshows horses being whipped. Once they arrive to the slaughterhouse, the horses are killed by being stabbed in the back of the neck.

One pen where horses are kept before exportation is located in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The horses there appeared to be well fed and in good condition. A Mexican man, who lives right across from the plant in Mexico, said hundreds of horses arrive at the plant under the cover of night. They are transported to Mexico as early as the next day, he said.

“I am devastated by the extent of the cruelty bestowed on these poor animals at the hands of human beings,” said Betty Hoover, the Executive Director of the Humane Society in El Paso.

The last horse slaughterhouse on American soil was closed last month after a court ruling by a district court. In Texas, the last slaughterhouse was closed this January after a 1949 ban on horse meat was re-enacted.

The prohibition of horse meat in U.S. meat markets has resulted in many American horses being exported to Mexico, where the demand for horse meat remains high. “Horse meat is less expensive than beef in Mexico – and with the poverty level there – it’s a way for some of the people there to get meat,” said Hoover. “That doesn’t make it right … it needs to be outlawed.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 20,000 horses have been exported to Mexican slaughterhouses this year. At the same time last year, only 1,100 horses had been exported.

Thursday, representatives of the Humane Society of America held a press conference on the steps of the Capitol. They demanded Congress enact The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which would prohibit American horses to be exported for slaughter.

Hoover hopes the legislation is enacted before thousands of more horses are slaughtered. “It just breaks my heart … I am totally devastated by the extent of the cruelty involved.”

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Written and reported for broadcast by Darren Hunt

Written for the web by Joe Villasana