Animal Welfare Facts vs. Animal Rights Fiction

By Sue Wallis
State Representative, Wyoming

There's a massive difference between animal "rights" and animal "welfare!" Livestock growers engage in the "welfare" of animals; animal rights drones are led by con-artists who engage in the conversion of human emotion into big bucks to fill their personal bank accounts.
Yeah, I'm all for family farmers and ranchers, but in the case of one animal rights advocate, who I call *Con-artist, who's pretty much single handedly destroyed our horse industry, and shipped all of our jobs and opportunity to other countries, I will not align with any who align with Con-artist. Ever!

Now Con-artist and other animal rights king pins want to finish the job by shutting off access to the only markets we have left. We've already lost three-quarters of our herd and who knows how many generations and generations of valuable genetics. If we don't turn this around now, there will be nothing to replace the horses we have managed to hold onto today.
You need to know that Con-artist is the chief king pin animal rights guy who's truly a slick con-artist leading an unscrupulous animal rights agenda.

Because of his undue influence, Con-artist was able to stop domestic, humane horse slaughter, and therefore is entirely to blame for the inhumane transportation of horses over 1,000 miles across our borders.

When this country had horse plants scattered from coast to coast no horse bound for slaughter ever was hauled more than a few hundred miles. That is the way it should be, and that is what we fully intend to achieve. We will not allow this unethical, unprincipled "nonprofit" thug to destroy our beloved way of life or our culture. I am bound and determined to help ensure a future for my children and grandchildren so that they, too, can grow up with the prospect, or at least the possibility of making a good living in the horse business, and of having the joys of horses in their lives.

Con-artist is an uncaring monster who has caused more horses to suffer from starvation, disease, neglect, and long transportation to other countries where we have absolutely no jurisdiction to ensure it is done humanely...and who has caused immeasurable emotional and economic suffering to horse business families who have seen their life's work and the value of their hard work and investment disappear.

Take a good long look at the pathetic pictures on many of Con-artist's reports. And if that doesn't already turn your stomach, go to http://amillionhorses.com and see some more of the trail of devastation and despair that Con-artist is apparently so proud of achieving!
As to ridiculous statements about if we don't eat them here--(which is a lie, because some Americans obviously do)--why would we process them for foreigners? Last I checked, this country was exporting somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3 Million metric tons of beef and 2.3 Million metric tons of pork. So, if we can ethically and responsibly export millions upon millions of pounds of other meat, why in the world can we not ship a tiny fraction of that as cheval? Meat which will be, oh by the way, processed in small, well-managed plants under the highest standards of humane care instead of gigantic factory plants doing thousands an hour. How is that such a terrible thing? It is not. It is a good and honorable purpose for animals that need to be respected and handled right that preserves their intrinsic value, gives people a viable reason to breed them and improve the breed, and doesn't waste their lives for no good reason. (Except that it lines the pockets of this very slick, vegan Con-artist who has figured out that convincing Americans generations removed from how their food is produced, or how livestock people make a living, that every horseman and woman is an evil, uncaring monster who just wants to abuse horses, is the shortest way from their checkbooks to his pocket, not to mention a great way to leverage taxpayer dollars into his pocket.)

Since when did one person's disgust or repulsion over someone else's food choices give them the right - then unchecked powers - to destroy the rights of supposedly free Americans?

Jews don't eat pork. Hindu's don't eat cows. You don't see Jews and Hindus rising up to deprive their neighbors of those foods. Why in the hell does Con-artist think he has the power to deprive those of us who are perfectly comfortable with the idea of cheval, and who have enjoyed it for generations, and still do around the world, the right to use this meat if we want to?

And yes, reality shows some Americans do eat horses...and we always have.

Horses were, always have been, and always will be regulated under the U.S. Humane Methods of Slaughter laws exactly like every other species. There were NEVER any citations issued for improper killing of horses. NONE. Not Ever. Animal rights groups use videos that have obviously been edited and manipulated, and most aren't even in the United States, but instead - some backyard, poorly run, and non-regulated plant in Mexico or South America. Horses bound for slaughter in the U.S. are the ONLY species of livestock that is regulated by the federal government. For years, it has been illegal for anyone to ship a horse to slaughter in a double deck truck. They are also not allowed to ship a horse that can't stand on four legs, is blind, is pregnant, on and on and on. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/animal_dis_spec/horses/horse_transport.shtml.

Are you starting to see the problem here? Literally every over-dramatized statement animal rights drones make is an absolute, complete LIE! There is no abuse of horses in processing plants, certainly no more than any other species of livestock processed for food. Horses bound for slaughter are already regulated for more stringently than any other species of livestock.

There is a very viable niche market in this country for horse meat. In fact, since the plants were closed we are now importing more than 400 tons of horse meat from Canada per year. Yes, that's right. You can process horses in Canada under CFIA where we have an equivalency agreement and import it into the US where it becomes USDA inspected as it comes across the border...but we are not able, (although we will be in very short order) to get USDA inspection in this country. So, our horses are practically worthless by the time you put all of the transportation cost on them to the only market we have left in Mexico and Canada.
Livestock growers know that there is absolutely no economic benefit (not to mention the moral and ethical considerations) to abusing animals of any kind. If horses were really being abused in the ways certain animal rights drones claim, you know as well as I do, that the meat would be very low quality, and probably unusable, and that is not something that our high-end international or domestic customers would stand for.

I have been leading the fight to restore humane horse processing in the United States; something we're proud to say we're very close to

fully achieving.
Con-artist's group is solely responsible for the devastation of the horse industry, as they were the driving force behind closing the Texas and Illinois plants through state action, and solely responsible for the annual riders on Ag Appropriations that prevented anyone in other states from opening a horse plant. As a direct result of their actions the horse industry has been decimated. Just one indicator is that every single breed registry is down over 70% - 70%+ fewer colts being born means 70% less jobs, less opportunity, and the disappearance of a treasured livestock culture and way to raise our kids, and way to make a living. With horse plants once again opening, we finally have light at the end of the tunnel, and a tiny bit of hope that we can restore the intrinsic worth and dignity to all horses, restore their worth and value, and ensure the long term preservation and improvement of the species. This has been a long, exhausting, and hard fought battle between a bunch of poor, broke, horse people willing to give it all to save their way of life, versus a gigantic, over-funded, unethical leviathan group of con-artist animal rights advocates with no scruples.

And it is not over yet. Con-artist has personally promised to obstruct our efforts by drumming up "local opposition" and litigating against our every positive step, and we are seeing exactly that with every tiny gain we make.

Because I have been at the forefront of that struggle, I have been the bulls eye target of a very personal and vicious campaign fully funded and promoted by Con-artist. I have personally seen them in action, time after time, their disregard for private property rights, their willingness to destroy lives, their callous disregard for families, and their willingness to distort truth and lie in the most astounding and brazen ways. Their infiltration of USDA is to the point that they are over-zealously regulating the dog and pet breeding industry completely out of existence, and promoting criminal offences and jail time for the "crime" of breeding bunnies or gerbils.

Why in the Hell USDA -- the Department of AGRICULTURE -- as in "food producers" has seven inspectors to do nothing but inspect traveling elephants, of which there are less than 70 in the whole country, at the same time they have the exact same number of inspectors, seven, to deal with any major disease outbreak in the entire Nation...Why? Because Con-artist has a revolving door with the agency where they use their millions (lured off well-meaning but grossly ill-informed people) to buy off livestock growers so they can destroy us all. Already we are seeing the pressure to impose the kind of ridiculous regulation forced on the pet breeders and exotic animal people onto animal agriculture...after all, if a bunny or a puppy should be protected, why is a lamb or a calf any different?
Rich, fat cat animal rights Con-artist's warfare against us makes for a cruel, depressing, costly and exhausting interference for simple country people who just want to be left alone to make an honest living.

* I will not give Con-artist free advertising by stating his name or group. This is why I accurately call him by his actions: Con-artist