By Nancy Perry
I have a picture hanging in my office. It’s my reminder. It tells me why I do this work.
The picture shows a chestnut horse in the crowded pens of the Dallas Crown slaughterhouse in Kaufman, Texas. He is peering directly at the camera. His look seems inquisitive and imploring at the same time.
I was in Washington, D.C., at the instant the picture was taken. My colleague Kathy called from the scene. “Isn’t there something we can do for those horses stuck in there?” she asked.
The plant had stopped slaughtering for a few days. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January that a Texas law prohibiting the sale of horsemeat was valid—and prohibited the continued slaughter and commercial sale of horsemeat. With no plan in place for the sudden enforcement of this 1949 law, Dallas Crown just stopped its grisly work.
But trucks continued to arrive with horses. The pen was brimming with animals like this chestnut gelding, all waiting patiently for whatever would happen next.
Kathy’s voice had an urgent tone to it. I’ve heard it before. It comes from people who are bearing witness, who can see with their eyes and feel in their gut what needs to be done. It’s the voice of crisis.
I have been working on the effort to ban horse slaughter for many years. But my end of the job has always been to lobby for the laws and policies to safeguard America’s iconic animal. I’ve not been a front line eyewitness to the carnage.
Kathy’s call and the larger events in Texas posed both a challenge and an opportunity for us.
To take a step back: The slaughter industry argues that it exists because there are unwanted horses in America. This foreign-owned industry would like people to think that it is doing us a favor by butchering surplus animals and selling the meat to markets overseas. That, of course, is a different kind of chestnut. This is the same kind of thinking that gave us the famous cliché about destroying the village to save it.
I dialed the president of The HSUS. Wayne Pacelle didn’t hesitate to respond. We faxed a letter to the plant offering to take custody of the horses. We made our case to the industry’s lobbyist.
Before long, we received a terse note back. No thanks.
Early the next morning, all the horses at Dallas Crown were led from the pen into the slaughterhouse. Because the court had closed all avenues for legally transporting horsemeat out of the country, this appears to have been slaughter for slaughter’s sake alone. The plant later announced it was closing to “restructure.”
Among the horses killed that day was my chestnut. Yes, I’d started thinking of him as mine. This was a horse that had nobody else in the world. I secretly harbored hopes of someday meeting this horse and whispering calming words to him.
The chestnut horse exists now only in this photograph. I look into his eyes. Sometimes I wonder how long it will be before this horror is ended.
He urges me on. His eyes remind me that others are waiting—horses I will never see, or touch, or speak to. He is speaking for them now.
So, when another court ruling came down in a different federal case last week, I turned to his picture and I thought of a fresh batch of horses caught in the pipeline.
We learned on March 28 that the last operating slaughterhouse in the United States to butcher horses for human consumption, the Cavel plant in DeKalb, Ill., would be shut down the next day. Again, we drafted a letter asking that horses inside its walls and those on their way to the plant be instead sent to sanctuary. We offered to take all they would provide.
Our observers reported that arriving trucks were turned away the next morning. We later learned that most headed back to their point of origin and returned the horses to their owners. From there, we heard, most were sent on to Mexico and Canada for slaughter there. Our observer on the ground that morning relayed hearing kicks on the walls of the plant and occasional whinnies from the inside. There were horses we couldn’t see. These were the creatures next in line for death when the killing machine came to a halt.
Could they be spared?
No, apparently not. That same morning, these horses were reloaded on a truck. Destination, unknown.
The Humane Society of the United State’s victory in that court case stopped all domestic slaughter of American horses. It was a historic moment, one to cheer. Still, driving home that night, I felt a wave of sadness. I pictured the horses on the trucks, rolling along with no food, no water, no rest. Would they end up in a far-away Mexican slaughter plant? We are pushing for federal legislation to prohibit the export of horses for slaughter, but until it passes, the border remains a loophole the industry can exploit. As I thought about these horses, I imagined that among them was another chestnut.
The weekend was a whirlwind. The court ruling would be contested. We had to prepare. My thoughts drifted from these horses to the larger issue. Then on Monday morning, I got a phone message.
A man wanted to sell us his horses. He had trucked them out of the slaughter plant in Illinois. We call men like this killer-buyers. They buy horses at auction for the slaughter industry.
I called the man back, half expecting this to be a hoax or an angry horse slaughter industry representative with a mind to taunt me.
The man on the other end of the phone, however, sounded genuine. He asked how he would feed his children now. He wondered what he should do with this load of horses. He had been stuck with them since Cavel shut down. I asked where in the pipeline his horses had been. Had he been en route when news came?
I fought for composure when he replied.
“Hell, my horses were already inside. I just wish we’d gotten them there before the ruling. Instead, we had to reload them and move them back to Wyoming.”
Yes. These were the same horses whose kicks and whinnies our observers had heard.
Never before had horses been inside a slaughterhouse—within feet of the killing floor, within sight of the blood and the gore, within earshot of the captive bolt and the saws—and then walked out to the light of day again.
These horses had to be saved.
“We can’t buy your horses,” I told the man on the phone. “but maybe we can help you decide to give them to us?”
Thus started 30 hours of often tense, usually breathless, negotiations. In the end, we agreed not to disclose his identity. So let’s say his name is “Joe.” Joe called us back in a few hours.
Countless people at The HSUS lent their talents. We had to identify sanctuary options. We needed a staging yard, paperwork, veterinary help – all of it arranged in the hope that Joe would follow though.
At times he seemed reluctant. At times we were out of touch and we worried that Joe had changed his mind.
The horses were waiting at a stockyard in Cheyenne, Wyo. The press was sniffing around the story. The stockyard operator was getting nervous. The horses didn’t know, of course, but the next hours would decide: Would they be forced to endure another long and miserable truck ride to the death chamber? Or would they be spared to live in open pasture for the remainder of their days?
At 3:33 p.m. Joe’s fax arrived. The horses were ours. They would live. They were “The Miracle Horses.”
My colleagues Keith Dane and Allen Schwartz arrived at the stockyard. Their initial assessment was that, while these horses were not in great shape, their problems primarily stemmed from the harsh treatment and long hours related to transport. Most would be make a full recovery.
Nicknames came quickly—“Tank” for the heavyset horse, “Slim” for the skinniest horse.
In our headquarters offices, photographs arrived. Once again, I found myself looking into the eyes of slaughterhouse horses. But these animals would be spared the fate of my chestnut.
Word of the rescue spread through our offices. I can barely express the relief, the sense of accomplishment, the joy we felt.
This time, being in Washington was not enough. Our field team was tired. They needed help. I got on the plane for Cheyenne. Yes, I’m a Washington lobbyist. I’m an animal person. And I’m a horse person too.
Now, I can tell you: I’ve looked into the eyes of these Miracle Horses. Not just their pictures. I’ve touched every one of them. And they have touched me.
The court fight may continue. Standing in front of me, their bellies full of fresh hay and their future bright, are 29 of 100,000 reasons why we must work on to make the decision stick.
Nancy Perry is Vice President of Government Affairs for The HSUS, an attorney and a life-long horse fancier.
