The Equine Welfare Alliance is Dedicated to Ending the Slaughter of Horses

It's another dark day for animal rights here in Canada. Today Mark Biederman, an equine veterinarian near Windsor, Ont. said, "thousands of horses have been slaughtered for meat in the wake of Ontario’s decision to end the Slots at Racetracks Program." Biederman estimates 50 per cent of the province’s nearly 4,000 broodmares have been or will be slaughtered. Ontario announced the end of the slots program March 31. Money earned from slots at tracks was split between the horse industry, track owners and the province. It generated $345 million for the horse industry each year. Biederman said the cancellation of the program “makes no sense.Everyone was benefiting. The horse industry was getting $300 million and the province was getting $1.2 billion [each year],” he said.

But it wasn't enough, Ontario's debt ridden budget office figured the track was getting to much and the province could generate more income by putting the slot machines in huge city-centered casinos. Meanwhile thousands of horses and people who've both given their lives to the sport/industry are being axed. It's easy to feel bad for the trainers and handlers who've given their energy and their hearts to their charges. Horses run at their best when they feel loved and well treated by those who live with them. That's the workers not the owners. The owners sit in big houses and trade in the lives of living creatures who are now running for their lives.

It's even easier to feel despair about the horses themselves who've given their best, who've fulfilled their end of the bargain upfront, and now are considered to be expendable, the same as a machine, young, healthy and led off to slaughter because they are no longer producing 'profits' for the owners. It's all part of history's worst lie. The lie told so often by those seeking earthly power by telling the fearful humans they have a 'dominion' deal and that "god" has created everything, including horses, for the benefit of the 'special' animals called humans. It makes me wanna puke. It's the same lie that allows humans to force cattle into feces filled feedlots, to cram thousands of salmon in pens feeding both on antibiotics and unnatural diets, the same lie that allows profiteers to lace the earth with chemicals and feed the world Frankenfoods.

Anyway, it's not totally dark out yet, there are many individuals and groups that don't believe the Big Lie, one group, started by John Holland, call themselves 'The Equine Welfare Alliance, the conscience of the horse industry'. They are dedicated to ending the slaughter of American Horses and the preservation and protection of our Wild Horses and Burros on public lands. Though EWA is US based it has partners in 18 countries, including Canada. They work everyday to insure humane equine treatment at all stages of their lives with the goal of ending the slaughter of our magnificent cousins for food everywhere. Please help them in any way you can.

Meet Sugar and Spice, two of John Hollands’s 

  rescues that were the inspiration for their logo.