Too many horses
I am pretty sure that I have mentioned before that, at least in Washington state, the Indian reservations are responsible for irresponsibly producing shockingly huge numbers of incredibly fugly horses that no one wants to buy. Well, guess what happens when you keep producing animals that no one wants to buy?
"Tribal rangeland managers now estimate 20,000 wild horses are overrunning Indian Country in Washington, Idaho and Oregon, with an annual foal crop raising the population by some 20 percent a year."
Of course. BECAUSE YOU DON'T GELD THE COLTS!
It's not all that tough to prevent more horses from happening. In Rural Washington, it's pretty easy to find a vet who will lop off balls for about $60 - 80 a horse. This is far more cost-effective than having the horse population increase by 20% a year when you can't afford to feed what you have and no one wants to buy it. Yet, even here in ultra-liberal Seattle, where owning an unspayed dog would get a drink thrown at you at a cocktail party, this article fails to seriously address the obvious solution:
JUST STOP BREEDING!
"The group is exploring adoption and contraception, but issued a draft report that declares some wild horses will have to be killed to rebalance the ecosystem. The coalition believes horse-slaughtering facilities are needed now — starting with a plant at Warm Springs."
Ha. What the group sees is an opportunity to cash in on a lucrative industry and make a whole bunch of money off the animals they irresponsibly bred. And why should the normal rules apply to them? Nothing else does. So it's perfect - with the economy slow and not so many people dumping their paychecks at the casino, let's get into the horse slaughter business!
Worse yet, we have someone who calls herself a rescuer taking the low ground in this article:
"Jenny Edwards, executive director of Hope for Horses, a nonprofit horse-rescue organization based in Woodinville, said that while she is no fan of slaughter, it is a necessary option. "We have to be big boys and girls about this, be realistic," Edwards said.
'It was part of the economic circle of life. It was the legitimate outlet for horses that were unusable for other purposes.'"
Jenny, how DARE YOU call slaughter a "legitimate outlet" for horses. Really, now you're okay with horses being stunned with a bolt (that can miss time and time again as the horse desperately fights to escape the box) and then being strung up, throats cut and bled out? How DARE you insinuate that anyone anti-slaughter is somehow an immature child? I think you and everybody else needs to put on their "big girl" pants and pay for euthanasia and disposal like the rest of us. A bullet doesn't cost much, and is a humane way of ending a horse's life. I'm pretty sure burying horses is legal on most if not all of the reservations so again, that's a pretty cheap solution. What it doesn't do is pay someone a cash prize for their irresponsible backyard breeding - and a cash prize is what everybody wants!
Yes, prepare for the next "the rules don't apply to us" Indian industry - horse slaughter. Don't say I didn't tell you so! You're going to see this in other areas of the country, too.
