Calling Out The Mass Bailing Horse Rescues
I’ve been reading all the posts and comments about horses headed to slaughter both domestic and wild, and I am disheartened about how the well-meaning people are being asked to give away their hard earned money by a few mass bailing rescues at (so called) kill pens. So for anyone who is in ANY doubt about these so-called horse rescues and their legitimacy, here is some truths about the industry.
Kill pen mass bailing rescues, many of which are working with the kill pen owner as a go-between, use live social media feeds, often showing horses being held in cramped corrals, horses that look sick, and/or have injuries in order to whip up a feeding frenzy amongst their followers. The object being that their followers provide money to help pay a “ransom”. for a horse because if “you don’t donate to have the horses released into their care, those horses are taking a field trip to a slaughter house in Mexico and/or Canada. This is no sightseeing trip, the horses are literally being driven to a horrendous death.
Now the “rescue” typically gets the money they ask for, sometimes more, and load the horses into their own trailer or one provided by their partners in crime and head off into the sunset, leaving the people who donated feeling they have righted a wrong with their contribution to saving that one horse or horses from the horrors of shipment and slaughter.
But, there’s a problem: The mass bailing rescues are asking for money for horses that are NOT scheduled to ship to slaughter at all. Yes, we know horses do ship (you can see how many on the at the USDA livestock shipping records) but those horses are most likely held in a different area where the public are not allowed.
You may remember that back in 2017/2018, it was the kill pen owners (traders) who were asking for money (bail) to save a horse. Given that the literal meaning of the word bail is the temporary release of an accused person awaiting trial, on condition that a sum of money be lodged to guarantee their appearance in court. It’s as if, upon payment of a fee, the horse or horses will be let go on their own recognizance and be required to follow up with some kind of horse probabtion officer once a week.
Now in 2017/2018 horse meat wholesale prices were running around $2-4 (US) per pound. So the minimum amount a trader would get for shipping a horse to slaughter was $2000. Yet they would set a horse’s bail amount at between $300 and $400. How do I know this? I fell for it myself ending up with a pony that grew to be the tallest pony I have ever seen, and never likely to see again.
But I digress.
So let’s ask a question: why on earth would a for-profit business (kill pen owner/trader) pass up the offer of $2000 for horse meat et all and choose to sell a whole, live horse to the public for $400? It just doesn’t make any sense.
But when you factor in that the horses the traders offered to the public were never destined to ship for slaughter, it makes perfect sense. The horses sold to the public were either not legally allowed to ship due to USDA requirements, were deemed too skinny, too small, or too sick, to make selling and tranporting them to slaughter profitable.
If fact, the Ministries of Agriculture and Treasury in Mexico requires an International Health Certificate for the import of animals from the United States. The certificate, issued by a veterinarian authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), must certify that the horses in the shipment are examined and deemed to be clinically healthy. The veterinarian must also certify that the horses will be transported in clean and disinfected vehicles and have or will not come into contact with other animals not included in the shipment. The horses held at the auction (sick or otherwise) have undoubtedly come into contact with other animals and therefore cannot legally ship to Mexico.
And it only gets worse.
Over recent years there has been shift. Due to investigations by Animal Activist Groups and individuals, the horse traders found themselves under scrutiny. Some were fined, others prosecuted for misrepresenting the horses they sold. Not wanting the attention from the public and/or government agencies, the traders offered less and less horses for the public to “save”. Some traders even went out of business. And it was around that time that the MBAR’s came out of the woodwork.
Calling themselves horse rescues, most with very easy to get non-profit status’, the MBAR’s began using social media to do exactly what the traders had been doing but with more drama than the Kardashians could dream of achieving.
They, or should I say their CEO’s, began to create fake emergencies (tears and sobbing included at no extra charge) using live social media feeds to spew out fake deadlines and other frenzy-inducing rhetoric to their cult-like followers telling them “the horse will ship IF You don’t Help Us save them”. The MBAR’s encouraged anyone who has empathy to send money in order to “save” 20, 30, or 40 of these “poor souls”.
And, of course, they did!
It all makes you wish for good old days of horse trading where a local individual would purchase horses from a trader at just over meat price and go on their merry way knowing the horse would be sound and that they could return the horse if it didn’t suit their needs. After all, they knew the trader, he or she was local and word would get around fast if the trader was anything other than upfront and honest in his dealings.
But back to today…
Time and time again, these MBARs have been, and still are, defended by their army of followers and other players in the industry. I have read statements such as “I don’t care where my money goes as long as that horse is safe” or “at least I saved one horse, what did you do?” All this does is defend and perpetuate an industry that is based on lies and deceit.
You have not saved a horse from slaughter when you give up your hard earned money to the MBARs.
This year (2024) wholesale horse meat prices shipped from the United States are between $0.63 and $2.20 per pound. So assuming the whole horse is processed even if we go with the low end (wholesale $0.63 per pound) and estimate that the average horse weighs around $1000 lb, kill pen buyers will get $630 for every horse they ship to slaughter. Of course, if we took the higher wholesale meat price of $2.20 per pound we are seeing some serious money change hands. So why on earth would they “sell” that horse to a mass bailing rescue and lose money on the deal? They wouldn’t, well not if they wanted to stay in business.
The horses the mass bailing rescues are asking you to send money for were never going to ship to Mexico or Canada. They might be “shipped” to another auction if they don’t sell but they will not be headed to slaughter.
So next time you are tempted to donate your money to bail a horse from “slaughter” take a good, hard look through the social media pages of the horse “rescues” who are pleading for your money.
Note how much money they are asking for to buy the horse from the kill buyer. (One of these mass bailing horse rescues recently posted, “We can purchase her for $450 and get her out of here and taken care of.”)
Then do the math. If the money they need is lower than the meat price of that horse, put your money back in your wallet where it belongs.
Read more about this trade at https://animalangels.org
