Horses unfortunate enough to have owners with empty pockets are seeing an alarming increase in abuse.
Take a look at some recent examples:
In Wyoming, the U.S. government rounded up 668 wild horses in November and December 2013. The horses were taken to holding pens in Wyoming and Colorado with no wind breaks or shelter from bitter cold weather and snow. The description of those horses huddled together with no way to hide from the whipping wind and snow is beyond frustrating, but the photos are even worse. The government can’t afford to care for these horses, which begs the question of why it is rounding them up. Lacking necessary funds to care for the horses properly, the government has just locked them up in conditions that no one else would be allowed to provide. When criticized for the holding pens, the Bureau of Land Management said the horses were fine. In which case, I think the BLM officials should stand in the holding pens with the horses for as long as the horses have to remain there. If the U.S. government can’t afford to round up horses, it should stop.
Then there’s the emaciated horse that was shot in the head in December 2013 in Arizona but survived. The news photo tells the story more than the words. This horse was not kidnapped from a nice barn and randomly shot. It was on the slow road to death long before the bullet was fired. Someone wanted to get rid of this horse.
Also in December 2013, an abandoned horse was found digging in the snow for food near Oregon’s Mount Hood. Investigators say the scene suggests that a truck and trailer pulled over and turned the horse loose. Nice.
And I don’t know what’s going on with desperate owners in cash-strapped Ireland these days, but reports of abuse are skyrocketing, and the government is spending millions of dollars to round up unwanted animals and “cull,” or euthanize, them.
This is not acceptable. It is not legal to round up homeless people and stick them in an unprotected paddock, nor is it acceptable to shoot them, abandon them or euthanize them in large numbers. As the world unites on climate change, it also must plan a future for animals that is humane and fair, no matter how poor their owner and how tight the world’s resources.