GM, partner. This is The Oxer. The newsletter that takes you out of your tack room and into the global equestrian industry.
🐴 Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
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Horse Poop: How it’s being turned into energy.
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Slaughtering Horse Slaughter: The problem still exists, though.
What happened?!
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Carbon Hoofprint founder and equestrian Megan Fellows has partnered with Wellington International to oversee a newly created focus on sustainability at its flagship Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF).
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Fellows will focus on turning horse manure into natural gas or hydrogen.
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This project would be the first of its kind in North America.
Our jump on the subject
As of this writing, the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) has already been underway for over a month. We’re curious to see how effective Fellows’ work was in making a grand equestrian event more sustainable (maybe in a future Oxer edition 😉).
Here’s a list of some of the other sustainability feats that have been in place at this year’s WEF…
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Biodegradable straws made out of seaweed
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Cold water stations that don’t produce waste
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Sponsor signage being donated for art projects
Hopefully your Coke Zero won’t take like sushi when you’re at this event.
What happened?!
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A report by the Center for a Humane Economy, Animal Wellness Action, and Animals’ Angels reveals that while the extraterritorial slaughter of American horses is decreasing, around 20,000 American horses still face a merciless journey to slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico.
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Horses used in various industries are opportunistically obtained by “kill buyers,” kept in poor conditions, and transported in crowded trucks before being butchered for foreign markets in China, Italy, Japan, Russia, and a few other nations.
Our jump on the subject
While it’s true that horse slaughter is being slaughtered, 20,000 horses killed a year is 20,000 too much. Interestingly, the report covered “extraterritorial slaughter”, meaning that these horses get killed off American soil.
The horses, however, do come from the U.S. so there are bad actors in the country that send horses across the border for untimely death. The press release of the report stated that these bad actors—“kill buyers”—take horses “used in racing, show rings…farms, and even as companions.” The horse meat is then sold to “shrinking pockets of foreign markets in China, Italy, Japan, Russia, and a few other nations.”
The good news is that it is indeed a “shrinking market” since only thirty years ago 350,000 horses, or 17.5 times last year’s amount, were sent for this purpose.
Are you looking to help reduce horse slaughter in the U.S.? You can donate a buck or fifty to the three organizations that conducted this research…all of which are fighting for both the rights of horses and other beloved animals.
Take your time to digest these stories and let us know what you think by replying.
Grab the muck bucket,
The Oxer
