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New Mexico plant banned from horse slaughter

A New Mexico plant is permanently blocked from slaughtering horses for human consumption. Bruce Wagman, attorney for the group Front Range Equine Rescue, which joined the lawsuit filed against Valley Meats by the New Mexico Attorney General, says the company was found in violation of state water quality, food safety and nuisance laws, “And then just last week Valley Meat surrendered, gave up, said it would never slaughter horses again and there’s a court order now that says there will never be horse slaughter either at Valley Meat or by any of Valley Meat’s affiliates or associates.”

Horse slaughter is currently blocked on a federal level because Congress has not approved funding for horse processing inspectors. Wagman tells Brownfield Ag news a major goal of Front Range Equine Rescue is to have the U.S. make it illegal to slaughter American horses for food domestically and in other countries.

In the past three years the group has been fighting the New Mexico plant, a plant in Missouri seeking to process horses closed down because it was not granted a wastewater permit from the state’s natural resources department.

He says there’s a known network in the U.S. that supports so-called ‘kill buyers’ at some major livestock auctions, “Truly a local Joe, a local person who wants to purchase a horse by themselves is outbid by the kill buyers. So, it’s an auction situation. The horse goes to the highest bidder.”

Wagman says those known buyers, or their associates, purchase the horses for slaughter outside the country. He says in a few cases, Front Range has been able to outbid those buyers or work with them to let it have the horses so they can give them, in his words, “a noble end.”

AUDIO: Interview with Bruce Wagman

 

 

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