USDA Approves Horse Slaughter Inspections in NM

The US Department of Agriculture has consented to the use of millions of US taxpayer dollars for the inspection of a New Mexico horse slaughter plant. This decision is contradictory to the US House and Senate appropriations committee’s vote not to give any funds to equine-slaughter inspection in the fiscal year of 2014, as decided last June. Animal-welfare groups such as The Humane Society of the United States and the Front Range Equine Rescue plan to challenge the USDA’s decision on public health grounds. “America’s horses are not raised as food animals, and they receive numerous substances during their lives making them unfit and illegal for human consumption,” says FRER president Hilary Wood.