In the United States, horses have not been killed for human consumption since 2007, when Congress withdrew funding for slaughterhouse inspectors.
The animals are sold for a "symbolic amount" and issued with identification papers clearly stating "not to be killed for human consumption".
(Was it given hormones and antibiotics?) None of these questions, however, make any consideration of whether it is wrong to kill animals for human consumption.
These uses of animals are so institutionalized, so normalized, in our society that it is difficult to find the critical distance needed to see them as the horrors that they are: so many forms of subjection, servitude and — in the case of killing animals for human consumption and other purposes — outright murder.
Every year, the Japanese send a fleet of ships to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to kill and process for human consumption a large number of whales using a loophole in the International Whaling Treaty which allows for "scientific research".
It's estimated that around 190 million animals are killed each day for human consumption.
and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Representatives Dan Burton, R-Ind., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., sponsored the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, S. 1176/H.R. 2966, which would prohibit killing American horses for human consumption in the United States and would also stop the cruel practice of transporting horses across the borders to Canada and Mexico for slaughter.
Killing American horses for human consumption is simply not acceptable.
But let's be clear about this: the practice of killing America's horses for human consumption never stopped, and the numbers of those slaughtered didn't decrease.
The surveillance programme targeted sheep older than 18 months, both those sheep routinely slaughtered in abattoirs (healthy slaughter) and those sheep either found-dead or killed but not intended for human consumption (fallen stock).
