Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Horse Slaughter laws - What's your opinion.?

All animals can be pets. What's wrong with eating pets, or putting them to some other good use in their death?

The estimated current free-roaming population exceeds by nearly 11,000 the number that the BLM has determined can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses. The maximum appropriate management level (AML) is approximately 26,500.
(As of Feb. 7, 2013, there were 15,705 horses and 1,348 burros in corrals and 33,664 horses in pastures. The combined figure of 50,717 animals in holding compares to the BLM's total holding capacity of 52,986.) All wild horses and burros in holding, like those roaming Western public rangelands, are protected by the BLM under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
Congress appropriated $74.9 million to the Wild Horse and Burro Program in Fiscal Year 2012, which ended September 30, 2012.

The BLM 74.9 mil for just wild horses and we wonder why we are broke. We need horse slaughter in the US and to be able to eat them as well.
I make a large part of my living with draft horses doing Historic wagon trains.

should be an entrepreurial opportunity for some small business. hire a few folks, buy a few horses.

a million dollars for a processing plant, and another million for a stand alone rendering plant next door, and voila! a rural economic development project that helps the entire state.

folks turn ratities loose around here because they can't afford to feed them any longer.

me to , i bet it would make some good Bar-B-Q

I had a guy begging me to come shoot burros and horses off his ranch. He said they could no longer get within 1K yards of them they had hunted them so hard and could not keep the numbers in check. I hate that the guy did not mention that they were protected. Makes me think a little less of him that he was begging me to come break the law. I was actually putting the trip together to go shoot the feral animals when I learned on this site that it was illegal.

If they were destroying his property, then they wouldn't be illegal to shoot with his permission .

They eat horse in Belgium, France, and Italy. I have eaten it before and will eat it again next time I am in europe. It is a very lean meat and very tasty. In the countries where they eat it they view it as being more healthy than beef. tom

Maybe we could go back to real baseballs.

Don't see a problem with processing them.

There are folks that love to eat them,let them.

After raising horses and having to shoot a few due to injures i have no problem,Better than turning them out and them starving.

I like frog legs, alligator, turtles, and an occasional snake. No possum, coon, nor any other land dwelling carrion eaters except maybe a pork chop... them things will eat anything.

But a horse? Would kindly remind me of eating my automobile or any other type of transportation.. Maybe if I was real damn hungry and somebody didn't tell me it was a horse..

Actually a horse do look like a very large squirrel..

Awh Hell! bring it on... been known to try anything... once

The blm can fine you for having horses on their / our land and it is very hard to get compensation from them for the wild horses damage to your private property. I can understand why the guy would want to shoot them. We do need processing plants for horses.
There were 3 facilities in the US when the law passed. How would you like it if as one poster said, you have 2 mil in equipment land etc and 30 employees and one day they pass a law that shuts your doors puts you out of business. All to feel good.

So will Packer fans.

REALLY?

Well we don't have a horse problem around here,matter of fact,most horses around here get treated better than most folks.
That being said..don't think I could order a horseburger.
Never tried it,never will.
Everyone else....enjoy!

All I need is some recipes.... I remember my mother being quite fond of horse roast as cold cuts for sandwiches.

Load 'em up, ship them out!

Horse meat is ok, at least it doesn't taste like chicken. The fat can have an orange tint that I don't care for. I have a lot of time in wild horse country northern Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming.
When I moved back 12 years ago I was suprised at the number of people from all over the world who come here to drive the Wild Horse loop from Green River to Rock Springs over White Mtn. and Pilot Butte.
We have had a run of dry years here and the trail the solid hoof horses leave almost look like someone went through with a Rome plow. If we have wagon trails from the 1840's those horse trails will be there for ever. They can tear a range up so nothing can use it.
To my knowledge there are two herds with true Mustang blood. The Steins Mtn. Oregon and the Pryor Mtn. MT.
If you go from Pyramid Lake NV to Spanish Springs BLM has huge holding pens of animals that aren't suitable for adoption. They will spend their lives in those baked adobe pens.

It was insane when the Feds decided to spend billions of dollars on wild horses. Such a waste.

Biggest letter writing campaign ever up until that point when Wild Horse Annie got her bill passed. And now all those little princesses who never had a pony to take care of, worship "Cloud" and friends.
Horses can be great, or they can be absolute culls. The wild ones are mostly nasty. Meat. And darn little of that. A shame. Well-managed herds could be kind of cool, but now, a complete wreck.

Around 5 percent or more of the horse population dies every year. Old and infirm and unsound horses should go to slaughter. Making it illegal just makes the ride to get to Mexico much longer and inhumane.

Killing sound wild horses is a whole different issue. Wild horses and burros are protected on Federal lands. Some states protect herds on state land. On private land the rules go out the window in most cases.

Killing horses for food in this country is hard to sell for the same reason we don't eat dogs.

I didn't read the entire thread..but horse buyers have been working sales for many yrs. buying up horses for glue and dog food.