Manitoba needs to end inhumane horse exports

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/03/2019 (2398 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Under the cover of night on Feb. 18, Canadian horses were loaded onto a Korean Air flight at Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport, headed to Japan. They would travel 15 hours, via Alaska, in small wooden crates, without food or water. They were bound for slaughter.

This was not the first such flight out of Winnipeg, just the latest of at least seven in the past year, according to the advocacy group Canadian Horse Defence Coalition. The Winnipeg Humane Society says 4,846 horses were shipped from Canada to Japan in 2017, making us one of the greatest exporters of live horses in the world. Both groups agree that this has to stop.

Though horses are considered companion animals rather than food animals in Canada, and are not typically found on menus (other than in Quebec), Canadian horse meat is considered a delicacy in some other countries, specifically Switzerland, Kazakhstan and Japan.

Selling our horses for slaughter and consumption overseas is a multimillion-dollar business, one that operates with obvious disregard for many animal welfare, environmental and ethical concerns.

For Canadian horses sent to slaughter abroad, the flight is just one step along their torturous journey. Transported from all over the country to departure points in Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton, horses bound for Asia must first endure gruelling ground travel.

Though the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) published updated farmed-animal transport regulations last month — to much criticism from animal advocates — permitted travel time for horses was reduced by little, from 36 hours to 28. During this time, horses can still go without food, water or breaks, all before even being loaded onto planes.

Sinikka Crosland of the coalition says the group launched a lawsuit against the CFIA last fall on behalf of exported horses, for violating two parts of the Health of Animals Regulations.

According to the regulations, Crosland says, “Horses over 14 hands high, or larger than a pony, are to be segregated (alone in crates).” However, two to four horses are often witnessed and photographed crammed into crates together.

Another regulation Crosland claims is routinely violated concerns head clearance. “A horse’s head is not permitted to come into contact with the top of the crate,” she says, “though we do see this happening, where ears are seen to poke through the netting at the top.”

Additionally, she says, “we need to take into consideration the entire time without food and water, from loading at the feedlot, transfer to the airport, then unloading and ground transport in Japan.”

Even for animals meant to be killed, this exceeds accepted humane practices in Canada.

And therein lies perhaps the greatest concern regarding our country’s live export of horses: the inability to ensure their humane treatment, by Canadian standards, upon arrival overseas. “Once horses have arrived at their destination country, there is no guaranteed way of confirming that their welfare concerns will be dealt with promptly,” a statement from the Winnipeg Humane Society reads, “or that they will be slaughtered humanely.” Japanese animal protection laws are considered weak compared to international standards.

Though some Canadians may be surprised to discover our country’s major horse export industry, even more shocking is learning where these horses come from. Some, Crosland says, appear to have been handled and cared for. “We have seen horses with braided forelocks and docked tails being shipped to Japan.” Others come from actual horse farms, where the animals are intentionally bred, by the thousands, for their meat.

With growing global concern regarding the immense environmental effects of animal agriculture, particularly in North America, it seems highly problematic that Canada is farming animals that the vast majority of Canadians are not even eating, as well as transporting them great distances across the country and putting them onto carbon-heavy airplanes.

This, coupled with the obvious animal welfare concerns that contradict Canadian culture and standards, render Canada’s live horse export industry truly unethical.

According to one online petition, nearly 150,000 signatories agree: it’s time to end the live export of horses from Canada.

Jessica Scott-Reid is a writer and animal advocate, originally from Winnipeg and currently based in Germany.