Opponents of the New York City Council bill to phase out horse-drawn carriage rides (Intro 943) have again trotted out a tired refrain in their persistent efforts to stymie reform: falsely asserting that the 160 horses at issue will be condemned to slaughterhouses unless the carriage wheels keep turning.
The carriage horse owners are presumably as unfamiliar with the wide network of horse sanctuaries and rescue options as they are with the extraordinary decline, and impending collapse, of the rickety horse slaughter industry in America.
I share these two observations as someone who has spent more than three decades leading major national animal welfare organizations. During that time, I oversaw two of the nation’s largest horse sanctuaries and worked with a wide network of equine rescue organizations across America.
And I also have been fighting the horse slaughter industry for 30 years.
In 1990, there were 400,000 American horses butchered in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for human consumption. That number is now down to 25,000 — a 95% reduction in the number of American horses facing the terror-stricken march up a plank into an abattoir.
In 2007, I helped lead the successful effort to shutter the last three horse slaughter U.S. plants. Congress has consistently renewed that domestic slaughter ban ever since. What remains of the trade are 25,000 American horses, gathered up by kill buyers and hauled to slaughter plants across our northern and southern borders.
But that despicable trade is thankfully vanishing, too.
Just six weeks ago, driven by concerns about the spread of New World screwworm, the U.S. Department of Agriculture suspended the export of American horses to Mexico for slaughter. Just prior to that announcement, one of Canada’s two horse slaughter plants was shuttered. And there is major momentum in Congress to permanently prohibit the live export of American horses for slaughter abroad. We’ve asked President Trump to make permanent the limits on live exports of horses for slaughter to Mexico.
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, with its many partners, are absolutely prepared to assist with placement of every one of these horses if carriage owners relinquish them.
In May, Center for a Humane Economy and a partner organization helped secure the release of approximately 2,000 beagles from a laboratory-animal supplier. We had roughly 10 qualified adopters for every dog. Had there been 20,000 dogs needing homes, we’d have responsibly handled that volume of animals without a hitch.
The tragic and avoidable death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan, who was thrown from a runaway carriage, punctuates the urgent need for reform. These battered, often elderly horses cannot safely navigate their way through streets and pathways swirling with 42 million visitors a year, chaotically and noisily moving on foot or in pedicabs, scooters, taxis, cars and trucks.
For decades, city officials have tightened regulations and promised stronger enforcement. Yet deaths, injuries, and close calls for horses mount.
If these horses are released from their yokes and harnesses, they can spend the rest of their lives grazing on pasture instead of standing on asphalt, breathing fresh air instead of exhaust fumes, and hanging out with others of their kind and not working 10-hour days only to be stabled in a jail-like parking garage.
The transfer of 160 horses to safe environments is not an obstacle to passing Intro. 943. It is a promise that the animal welfare community is fully prepared — and thrilled — to deliver on.
Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, is author of two New York Times bestsellers, “The Bond” and “The Humane Economy.”