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All Systems That Are Symptom Based Fail ~ Treat The Cause NOT The Symptom
It seems our SYSTEMS today, all of them are symptom based, which we all know treating the symptom of anything will never end the cause of the symptom. No this is not a riddle it is fact and a sad fact at that.
Here are some examples that we at Zuma’s face every day.
Symptom: Child abuse and neglect
Systems solution:
Remove child from home, diagnose child as if child is cause of abuse and neglect, medicate child, mandate that parents provide better living environment for child. re-evaluate situation with no family counseling or intervention.
Treat the symptom; neglected child… not the cause; bad parenting. Less than 10% success rate.
Zuma’s Solution:
Begin court mandated family experiential learning and quine assisted learning along with individual child behavior modification. Have paid facilitators move into family home to keep child safe.
If a family member poses real danger, have home under 24 hour police surveillance.
Work with the family not just the child mend the entire family. Less cost involved and less trauma to the child.Removing a child from his or her family is far too traumatic.
Symptom;
Perceived un-wanted horses population
System Solution; Horse Slaughter Plants in US or Horses in the wild rounded up into holding pens
Zuma’s Solution
Develop breeding licensing with fees high enough to cover the administration cost
Mandate all horses be registered with the state, create a medical horse history for each horse
Charge all horse owners and End of life Tax on all horses, this annual tax held by the state will follow the horse for its life time and be available to end the horses life humanely.
Mandate licensing of all stallions charge high fees for breeding stallions
Create a use tax for everything horse, this tax will be a state tax held to develop a humane end of life solutions for horses
Dart wild horse herd for birth control every three years manage the herd size to the land set aside for them.
As you see we at Zuma’s are cause based solution system- VS – the current system of treating symptoms
Given enough time our cause based system will cure the cause and there will be no more symptoms
Equine Welfare Alliance Press Release 5/13/09
Horse slaughter dream a financial nightmare
CHICAGO, (EWA) – The dream of the AQHA (American Quarter Horse Association) and its affiliate the MQHA (Montana Quarter Horse Association) to bring horse slaughter back to the US may have just been dealt what may be its death blow. The blow came not from anti-slaughter advocates, nor public revulsion, nor Congress, but from a horse slaughter industry insider whose op-ed, Meat plant: a cautionary tale, appeared on April 30th in the Western Producer, a subscription-only Canadian online animal agriculture journal.
“Natural Valley Farms died the day the decision makers chose to kill horses”, says Henry Skjerven, an investor and director of the defunct Natural Valley Farms (NVF) slaughter complex in Saskatchewan, Canada. Skjerven tells the story of how NVF, which had originally been built to process cattle during the BSE crisis, ended in a $42 million financial disaster following its decision to kill horses for the Velda Group of Belgium.
The story broke just as the AQHA and Stan Weaver of the MQHA, were celebrating the passage of Montana bill (HB 418).
On April 5, EWA broke the news that the plant had been closed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in December. In his article, Skjerven refers to the plant’s confrontational interaction with the CFIA over the plant’s “composting” and other issues. Unlike beef that can be used in pet food, horse byproducts must be disposed of properly because they contain substances such as the wormer, Ivermectin, which can cause fatal encephalitis in some breeds of dogs.
Blood disposal appears to have been equally problematic for NVF as with other horse slaughter plants. Not only do horses have twice the quantity of blood as cows, but the blood is notoriously difficult to treat. The bacterial agents used in standard cattle digesters fail to provide acceptable discharge levels because of antibiotics often found in horse blood. As a result, pollution follows the horse slaughter industry where ever it goes.
During debate over HB 418, the Montana Senate Agriculture committee dismissed evidence of these problems as anti-slaughter propaganda. Even the testimony of former Kaufman, Texas mayor Paula Bacon was ignored when she told of blood rising into people’s bathtubs in her town. But unfortunately for NVF, the CFIA was not so easily assuaged.
Even Butcher has admitted that any horse slaughter plant that is built in the US will have to be operated by an EU group like Velda because the horse meat market is in Europe and they control it. Now Velda needs a new home, but in his op-ed Skjerven, says, “horse slaughter never brought a single minute of profitability to the company.”
In the end, it may not matter that HB 418 is unconstitutional, nor that a horse slaughter plant in the US could not export its horse meat without USDA inspectors, nor that the industry has committed a thousand sins against horses and the environment. If investors in a horse slaughter plant cannot be comfortable in knowing they will make a profit, there will be no plant built.
If Stan Weaver and the AQHA want horse slaughter they may have to do the killing themselves.
Get the Facts on Horse Slaughter from the Humane Society
The following is an excerpt from the Humane Society’s Article “Get the Facts on Horse Slaughter.” Read the full article here.
How many horses are slaughtered each year?
Prior to the closure of all three foreign-owned plans in the United States, more than 100,000 horses were being slaughtered in the United States and processed for human consumption.
Now, tens of thousands of live horses are transported across the border to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. After these horses are killed, their flesh is shipped to Europe and Asia for human consumption. Their owners are often unaware of the pain, fear, and suffering their horses endure before being slaughtered.
Who eats horse meat?
Horse meat is not eaten in the United States; it is exported to serve specialty markets overseas. The largest markets are France, Belgium, Holland, Japan, and Italy.
How do unwanted, surplus horses end up at slaughterhouses?
Most horses destined for slaughter are sold at livestock auctions or sales. The cruelty of horse slaughter is not limited to the act of killing the animals. Horses bound for slaughter are shipped, frequently for long distances, in a manner that fails to accommodate their unique temperaments. They are usually not rested, fed, or watered during travel. Economics-not humane considerations-dictate the conditions, including crowding as many horses into trucks as possible.
The above is an excerpt from the Humane Society’s Article “Get the Facts on Horse Slaughter.” Read the full article here.
A Grisly End for America’s Horses
(Excerpt reprinted from the Humane Society’s Website. Read the full article here.)
Frenzied hooves beat against the wet cement as horses of all colors and ages file through the line. Poked with an electric prod, they are forced down the crammed alley of the Mexican horse slaughter plant. As the chute opens, the workers whistle and holler. A gray horse slips, falling to his hind legs. Panicked, he lunges forward and takes his final steps into the “kill” box.
An American horse enters the kill box at a Mexican slaughter plant.
As the horse drops his head to smell the blood, a worker grabs his long mane and plunges a knife into his neck, Stunned, the horse throws his neck and, ten seconds later, is stabbed again. As the horse collapses to the ground, the workers break out in a cheer. A chain is wrapped around the hind leg of the horse-paralyzed, but not yet dead-who is then strung up to “bleed out,” his throat sliced open as his heart continues to beat.
Similar, grisly scenes play out day after day for the thousands of American horses exported to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered for human consumption in countries such as France, Italy and Japan. Until early 2007, there were three foreign-owned plants in the U.S. killing horses for human consumption. Those plants have all closed due to action on the state level.
Despite these closures, the horse slaughter industry is still in business, and thousands of horses endure long, hazardous journeys to slaughter plants across U.S. borders to meet the foreign demand for horse meat. Legislation now pending in Congress, the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009, would prevent any new horse slaughter plants from opening in the U.S. and prohibit the export of American horses for slaughter for human consumption.
Read the full article here.
Legislation for Horse Slaughter Will Not End Export or Abandonment Issues
by Valerie James-Patton (read the article in its original context here).
In December 2008, a resolution called the Horse Industry Policy, was submitted by Wyoming State Rep. Sue Wallis, and former South Dakota State Rep. Dave Sigdestad, to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Agriculture and Energy Committee. The NCSL is a non-governmental lobbyist organization which serves the nation’s 50 states legislators to advocate and lobby for the interests of states before Congress and federal agencies.
Rep. Sue Wallis is also the Vice Chair of NCSL’s Agriculture and Energy Committee. NCSL adopted the Horse Industry Policy resolution on December 11-13, 2008, at the NCSL’s Annual Fall Forum in Atlanta, Georgia. The passage of the policy provides the authority for NCSL staff in Washington D.C. to lobby on Capitol Hill and establish the position of the States.
Admitting her personal contempt against animal welfare organizations with this resolution, she stated that “without question, animal agriculture in the US is under siege by radical animal rights organizations-this doesn’t win us the war, but it is a significant skirmish, and we have one more valuable tool in our arsenal.”
She also publicly thanked former U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (responsible for the Burns 2004 amendment removing the protection of America’s wild horses) who she said was “instrumental” in getting the resolution out of the Agriculture and Energy Committee, and onto the General Session floor for debate and the committee vote.
It was the passage of this resolution, The Horse Industry Policy, that prompted several state resolutions which are opposed to prohibiting horse slaughter, transporting or exporting horses for slaughter, and also seeking to allow the return of the U.S. horse slaughter facilities. The Horse Industry Policy “urges Congress to oppose legislation that would restrict the market, transport, processing, or export of horses, to recognize the need for humane horse processing facilities in the United States, and not to interfere with State efforts to establish facilities in the United States.”
Is the Horse Slaughter Movement Funded by Horse Breeders?
The slaughter of horses for human consumption is no longer legal in the U.S. Sadly more than 100,000 horses each year are shipped to Canada and Mexico to satisfy the palates of “gourmands” overseas. Upwards of 90 percent of the horses sold for slaughter are healthy, sound animals, according to USDA statistics. Of that 90 percent, some are bred solely for the slaughter market, others come from farms providing horse urine to pharmaceutical companies and others are horses with cosmetic or minor conformation issues which make them valueless to the breeders, many of whom are producing a hundred or more foals yearly.
Several states, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, among others, are studying or considering opening horse slaughter plants under the guise of providing a more “humane” method of disposing of “unwanted” horses than shipping them in trucks cross country for slaughter in Canada or Mexico. There is also a well-funded, but virtually unknown national movement afoot, with bills pending in Congress, to allow horse slaughter for human consumption once again.
This issue is not about treating horses humanely or dealing with “unwanted” horses. It’s about profit, pure and simple. For example, the wording of the North Dakota bill includes “… to meet overseas export markets for horsemeat…” Clearly, sponsors of this bill see a market opportunity, thinly disguised as a way to “solve” a conveniently overstated problem.
As the movie line goes, “Follow the money.” Who would profit if a horse slaughter facility were to open in any given state? We know the slaughter facility will make money; that’s a given. But so will the people who supply the horses destined to become someone’s dinner. Who is lobbying for these plants to reopen? It’s my guess that it’s the potential suppliers who see the slaughter business as a way to make money off an “unwanted” or “valueless,” product, to quote the North Dakota bill’s sponsor.
For a breeder, each year’s “crop” of foals has a percentage of colts and fillies who do not meet the breeders’ standards. The North Dakota bill is sponsored by a rancher who raises Quarter Horses, which, coincidently, is the most common breed to be sent to slaughter. His last sales catalog listed 80-plus young horses for sale. Were there any “unwanted” or “valueless” horses sent to slaughter because they didn’t make “the cut”? Horse breeders, as well as horse associations, surprisingly, are some of the most vocal supporters of horse slaughter.
Other lobbyists for the horse slaughter movement claim a slaughter facility will alleviate horse “overpopulation” by providing breeders and others with a place to send horses (for a profit) to a “humane” death rather than let them face starvation, neglect or abandonment because the owner, for whatever circumstance, is unwilling to care for the animal. Horse slaughter proponents won’t tell the public that the death of a horse in a slaughter facility is anything but humane. They also won’t share statistics that don’t support their cause. For example, cases of abuse, neglect and abandonment, not to mention horse theft, actually went down when the slaughter plants closed. Supporters also won’t tell the public that there are dozens of rescue facilities, not to mention horse-loving youths and adults, who would willingly take a breeder’s “unwanted” horse and give it a loving home.
Horse slaughter is a highly emotional subject with “facts” bandied about with little but anecdotal evidence to back them up. Factual information can be found in the USDA records, as well as from organizations that track this type of activity. If, after researching the issue for yourself, you feel moved to contact legislators and share your opinion in opposition to horse slaughter, be prepared for a fight. Too much money is on the table for breeders, ranchers, kill buyers/shippers and foreign and domestic investors in slaughter facilities to let this issue die.
Here are the links to some websites you may wish to visit:
Article about horse slaughter provided by the Humane Society of America
Article in Agweek supporting horse slaughter, primarily in North Dakota
Contact information for federal legislation to further protect horses
There is no “unwanted horse” population in the US, don’t believe this propaganda!
In recent years some industry groups and other supporters of horse slaughter which consistently fight passage of federal legislation to ban horse slaughter have claimed that there exists a huge “unwanted horse” population in the United States.These organizations, which include the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Quarter Horse Association, have been lobbying Congress to block passage of the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (PECA) on the premise that slaughter offers a humane way to dispose of these animals, a necessary evil without which horses would be subjected to neglect, abandonment and abuse. In short, they argue that horse slaughter improves horse welfare.
Ironically, these groups were largely silent on issues of equine welfare prior to introduction of the PECA or its predecessor, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. Yet now that the horse slaughter industry is seriously threatened the coalition’s partners are citing animal welfare as the basis for their pro-slaughter stance.
The truth is that, no hard data exists on an “unwanted horse”
population. The Unwanted Horse Coalition’s own website states:
“No accurate figures document how many unwanted horses actually exist, their age and sex, the breeds represented, how many are purebred versus grade, their most recent use, their value or what happens to them in the long run. Tens of thousands of horses that could be classified as unwanted are being sent to processing facilities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico each year.”
In short, the coalition has absolutely no evidence to support its claim that horses going to slaughter are “unwanted.”
What is clear is that killer buyers working for the slaughterhouses are outbidding other buyers at auction because they have a financial incentive to do so. The market for slaughter horses is set by the international demand for their meat in other countries, not by the number of “unwanted horses.”
Here are the facts:
* Horse slaughter is a brutal, predatory business that purposely seeks out healthy, marketable horses. A U.S. Department of Agriculture study revealed that more than 92% of horses going to slaughter are in good condition.
* The notion that without horse slaughter there will be flood of abandoned horses is simply unfounded. When the number of horses slaughtered in the U.S. fell by approximately 90% between the early 1990s and the early 2000s there was no correlating increase in abandoned, neglected and abused horses. Likewise, equine cruelty investigators in Illinois report that horse abandonment and abuse cases actually dropped during the temporary closure of the Cavel slaughter plant in the early 2000s (the plant is now permanently shut under state law). In California, not only was there no increase in horse abuse and neglect cases following passage of the state’s stringent anti-horse slaughter law in 1998, but there was a 34% drop in horse theft.
* Horse slaughter actually encourages abuse and neglect.
Unscrupulous owners who tire of caring for their horses have the easy outlet of dumping their horses into slaughter. Cruelty investigators report multiple instances where owners stop feeding or providing veterinary care for their horses prior to selling them to slaughter.
Such neglect is illegal.
* There is no statistical evidence to support claims that more horses are being abandoned following closure of the domestic horse slaughter plants. Abandonment is illegal and any instances of abandoned equines (or other animals) should be reported and prosecuted.
Ultimately, those supporting horse slaughter – allegedly in the name of equine welfare – suggest that the horse slaughter industry provides a service for the humane disposal of unwanted horses. Nothing could be further truth. While there may not be a home for every horse, horse slaughter has no place in a society that cares for its horses.
Responsible breeding and ownership, coupled with veterinarian- administered euthanasia when necessary, are the answer – not slaughter.
E. Idaho lawmaker wants US horse slaughterhouses operating again
A southeastern Idaho lawmaker wants horse slaughterhouses operating again in the United States to deal with the supposed “glut of unwanted horses resulting from the faltering economy that has led to cases of neglect and abandonment.”
WRITE TO HIM AND TELL IDAHO NO TO HORSE SLAUGHTER: http://www.idahostatesman.com
Tell Idaho this:
Please stop dealing with the perceived horse overpopulation problem after the fact and approach the subject from its root cause: irresponsible breeding.
Let us take the current Brand Inspectors and put them to work in the following areas:
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License all stallions and let the fees for the licensing go to cover the brand inspectors fees.
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Start charging a breeding fee for every foal born. Call it an “End-of-Life Fee.” This fee would be held by the states. The fees should be steep enough to cover end-of-life costs, along with help in replacing the lost revenue from the horsemeat sales that can no longer take place due to the closing of the slaughter plants.
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Impose the “End-of-Life Fee” as a tax to all who profit from horses. This tax would be required of horse shows, horse races, equine goods, large animal veterinarians, Veterinary hospitals, and the like. The tax will replace the lost revenue from horse meat.
What this all boils down to is money. Don’t let horses suffer the human greed. The revenue stream can be replaced, so that horses maintain their dignity with a dignified end of life clause for all breeders.
Americans, stop buying into this crap!
Horse slaughter is no longer legal in the US, but horses are being shipped to Canada and Mexico, where slaughterhouses remain in operation. For reasons this author cannot fully understand, there are still people in this country who buy into wildly-exaggerated claims that American horse owners are trapped into a situation where they have no choice but to starve/abuse/abandon their horses because they can no longer sell them to the killers. This is sick sick sick. Horse rescues abound and will take surrendured horses if their owners truly cannot afford to feed them anymore. Stop believing the well-crafted bull**** spun by the pro-slaughter crowd. It is the product of a greed-without-conscience mentality that is the embarrassment of our generation.
Please read this excellent article: http://unnecessaryevils.blogspot.com/2009/03/legislation-for-horse-slaughter-in-us.html
