YAKIMA — A Northwest Indian tribe urged federal officials to explain their position against slaughtering horses in the United States, calling it “absurd” to prohibit the practice.
The question of equine slaughter has been a hot-button issue in the West, where horses hold an iconic role as loyal companions. Animal welfare groups have expressed outrage at the idea of resuming domestic slaughter, which Congress effectively banned in 2006 by cutting funding for federal inspection programs. Others, including some animal welfare groups, contend the ban has resulted in increased horse abuse and abandonment and booming wild horse populations on state, federal and tribal lands.
No group is perhaps more affected by the matter than the Yakama Nation, a Washington tribe with an estimated 12,000 wild horses roaming across its sprawling reservation in the arid, south-central part of the state, Yakama Nation Chairman Harry Smiskin said in a March 29 letter to President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
“We don’t understand why it is OK to slaughter many animals in this country — certainly the White House and the USDA have meat on their cafeteria menus every day — but for some reason horses are considered sacrosanct,” Smiskin wrote. “We should not manage these horses based on purely emotional arguments, storybooks or movies we all saw as children.”