Senate Bill 23-038, which is scheduled for a Feb. 2 hearing, would bar horses in Colorado from being slaughtered for human consumption.
David Zalubowski - staff, AP
A state Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources hearing is scheduled for Feb. 2 on a bill that seeks to keep horses in Colorado from being slaughtered for human consumption.
Senate Bill 23-038 is sponsored by state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Lafayette, and state Rep. Lorena Garcia, a Denver-area Democrat.
The bill would make it illegal in part to buy or sell a horse, mule or burro if a person knew or reasonably should have known the animal would be killed for use for human consumption. Violating the law would be a misdemeanor punishable by a mandatory minimum $1,000 fine, and any subsequent violation within a 10-year period would be a felony punishable with a minimum $5,000 fine.
The law also would require that notice of the crime of unlawful equine slaughter be given at livestock auctions and on bills of sale.
Roland Halpern, executive director of Colorado Voters for Animals, told The Daily Sentinel’s editorial board Tuesday that it’s presently illegal for horses to be slaughtered for human consumption in the United States.
In 2007, Congress eliminated funding for Department of Agriculture horse meat inspectors, which Halpern said shut down the three plants in the country that were keeping horses in Colorado from being slaughtered for foreign consumption.
The concern for Halpern and other horse activists now is domestic horses that are being shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter for human consumption. He said horses are skittish, which makes it hard to stun them for slaughter, and if the stunning process fails they are conscious while being dismembered.
Because horses aren’t raised as food animals in the United States, many also receive vaccines and drugs not intended for use in animals to be consumed by humans, he said.
Crowds take in the adoptable horses at the Mesa County Fairgrounds on Friday, Nov. 5, 2022.
Scott Crabtree
He said that about 70 to 75% of horses that go to slaughter are American quarter horses, with instances involving wild horses being far less frequent. The Bureau of Land Management pays up to $1,000 for people to adopt wild horses and burros removed from public lands, and has taken steps to try to keep adopted-out animals from being illegally sold for slaughter. But Halpern said the law prohibiting that is hard to enforce.
Halpern said the Colorado bill has a lot of support, and the only opposition he anticipates is from the American Veterinary Medical Association. He said it has voiced concern that if slaughtering horses isn’t an option horses will be abandoned and left to die or starve, which the association considers less humane. Halpern said while horse abandonment and neglect occurs, he hasn’t been able to document a widespread problem, and to the degree to which it occurs it isn’t the result of a slaughter option not existing.
Scott Beckstead with Animal Wellness Action, a supporter of the Colorado bill, cited polling showing that 84% of Americans oppose the slaughter of horses for human consumption. He said that in the mid-1990s 350,000 American horses were being slaughtered domestically and in Canada and Mexico. In 2021, just over 23,000 were shipped to Canada and Mexico for slaughter, and he believes the number for last year was even lower, he said.
“For those of us who love horses, it’s a very positive trend,” he said.
But he said there’s still a market for horse meat, and the bill comes in response to that demand.
