We are asked time and time again why are there so many skinny, old, neglected and injured horses at auctions. Most auctions are part of the slaughter pipeline for horses in the United States. Horses are moved across the United States from auction to auction as they make their way to Mexico or Canada. Kill buyers purchase horses and send them to auction closer to one of the borders near Mexico or Canada or they’ll get a large enough group of horses and transport them to the border themselves. When they have skinny horses, they will typically try to offload them at auctions and replace them with fatter horses.
Last month we were actually able to have a professional film crew and photographers at the auction as the new reality TV show Horse Rescue Heroes was being filmed. One of the photographers has done an amazing job capturing what we see every time we go to auctions.
The main auction we purchase horses from is a large auction that sells approximately 100 horses every week. We are unable to go to this auction every week because we do not currently have enough funding or have a large enough quarantine facility to rescue horses weekly from this auction. There is not an excess of over 400 horses a month in Middle Tennessee that are being taken to the auctions by their owners, these horses come from many other places as they make their journey along the slaughter pipeline. We see horses from Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other states at this auction, some still wearing the tags from the auction before. Many of the horses are sick from traveling so much and all varied weather conditions. Many of the horses we rescued at auction are extremely dehydrated because they have gone for days without water.
Many older horses end up at auctions because their owners decided to get rid of them due to their age. We constantly see older horses in very bad shape at auctions, many of them are suffering from chronic medical conditions and need humane euthanasia to free them from their constant suffering. These horses typically end up at auction because their owners do not want to deal with everything that’s involved with being responsible for a suffering horse, euthanasia is expensive and difficult to deal with. It is much easier to give the horse away free on the internet or take it to an auction.
The sad thing is that law enforcement will sometime encourage people who have horses that are being neglected to get rid of them within a certain amount of time. Most of these neglected and abused horses are taken to auction when their owners are given an ultimatum by law enforcement. Since the horse is no longer in the home, law enforcement will not press charges and the horse is sold at auction in extremely poor condition.
We have seen many cases of animal control / law enforcement actually taking horses that have been seized from animal abuse cases to auctions to be sold. This is usually due to a lack of resources for the agency, horses are large animals and most agencies do not have the facilities to take care of them. When we are aware of these situations happening, we always let the animal control / law enforcement know we will take their horses.
We have been at auctions when law enforcement is called because of neglected horses at the auction. If law enforcement questions the owner who has their horse at the auction, typically nothing ever happens. If they are talking to a kill buyer / horse trader they tell law enforcement that they recently got the horse from another auction and the horse was in that condition when they purchased it. Law enforcement isn’t going to do anything about that because obviously when the kill buyer / horse trader purchased the horse just a few days ago it was in that condition. Law enforcement says “It’s not the current owner’s fault the horse is in such horrible condition and the owner has the right to resell the horse at the auction because they are the rightful owner.”
If they talked to somebody who brought in a neglected horse, they will probably hear that they were reported to their local law enforcement who told them they had to get rid of the horse.
Believe us when we say this is extremely frustrating, but the only thing we can do is purchase as many horses as we can responsibly rescue and get them the help they need.
The way to stop the chronic suffering of horses in the slaughter pipeline being sold at multiple auctions and experiencing long transports with no food and water is for the export of horses for Slaughter to end. There is hope that that could happen, but it’s going to take a lot of public awareness to get support for the SAFE Act. The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act (H.R. 961/S. 2006) is federal legislation that would prevent the horse slaughter industry from reestablishing operations in the U.S. and prohibit the export of American horses abroad for slaughter. To learn more about the Safe Act at this link: https://secure.aspca.org/action/safe-act-2019 We have hope that someday the Safe Act will be passed and the horror that we see these horses going through in the slaughter pipeline will be put to an end. Until that day comes we will save as many horses out of the slaughter pipeline as we can.
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