Groups in federal court to block horse slaughter

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Federal officials failed to consider environmental hazards when they issued permits for the first legal horse slaughters in the U.S. since 2006, attorneys for groups seeking to halt the opening of two slaughterhouses said Friday.

The Department of Agriculture issued the permits in June, and a New Mexico company and an Iowa company plan to open their slaughterhouses on Monday. Animal welfare groups have sought a restraining order.

Bruce Wagman, a lawyer for Colorado-based Front Range Equine Rescue, told a federal judge in Albuquerque on Friday that no environmental impact study has ever been done to examine the effects of horse slaughter. Horses are given more than 100 drugs not approved for other feed animals, he said.

"We just don't know about the dangers that lie ahead," he said.

But lawyers for the federal government said there is no proof that any hazardous material would harm the environment if horse slaughter resumed.

"There is speculation. There is innuendo. But there is no evidence," said Andrew A. Smith, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney's office.

Congress effectively banned horse slaughter in 2006. But the ban was lifted in 2011, renewing an emotional and divisive national debate over whether horses are livestock or domestic companions, and how best to deal with untold thousands of unwanted, abandoned and often starving horses.

Valley Meat Co. of Roswell, N.M., has been at the forefront of the fight, pushing for more than a year for permission to convert its cattle plant into a horse slaughterhouse. Meat from the slaughterhouses would be exported for human consumption and for use as zoo and other animal food.

After more than a year of delays and a lawsuit by Valley Meat, the Department of Agriculture gave the company the go-ahead in June. USDA officials said they were legally obligated to issue the permits, even though the Obama administration opposes horse slaughter and is seeking to reinstate the congressional ban.

Another permit was approved a few days later for and Responsible Transportation of Sigourney, Iowa.

Pat Rodgers, an attorney for Responsible Transportation, said horse slaughter actually helps the environment by reducing a large population of wild horses destroying American Indian lands and causing public safety problems.

"The truth is...there is no old horse home," he said in court Friday. "There is no Medicare for horses."

Horse rescue and animal welfare groups, ranchers, politicians and Indian tribes about are divided over what is the most humane way to deal with the country's horse overpopulation.

Some Native American tribes, including the Navajo and Yakama nations, are among those pushing to let the two companies open their slaughterhouses. They say the exploding horse populations on their reservations are trampling and overgrazing rangelands, decimating forage resources for cattle and causing widespread environmental damage.

The Navajo Nation, that nation's largest American Indian reservation, estimates there are between 30,000 to 75,000 horses on its land, including many horses that the officials say are dehydrated and starving after years of drought.

On the other side, actor Robert Redford, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, current New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and New Mexico Attorney General Gary King are among those who strongly oppose a return to domestic horse slaughter, citing the horse's iconic role as a companion animal in the West.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/groups-federal-court-block-horse-183537881.html

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