The society says once the horses have recovered, they will be available for adoption. It says it already has 30 rescued horses at its facility.

“We need Florida horse owners to help us by taking in some of the healthy, beautiful, sound horses already at our ranch to make space for the new rescues that are in terrible shape,” says society president Jeanette Jordan.

Jordan said the society feed bills are already over $6000 a month. “Our funds are running low and we sure could use help!” The society was called in after the animals’ plight was reported to local police.

Seventeen horses have been mysteriously slaughtered and butchered in Miami-Dade since January. The SPCA suspects the killings are feeding a black market for horse meat. There is a reward being offered for information.
Miami Herald Staff

Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers is now offering a $3,000 reward in the case.

Earlier this month, the Humane Society of the United States announced a separate $5,000 reward through the organization.

In addition, www.sunsentinel.com reported Wednesday that Chris Chiari, a candidate for a Broward seat in the Florida House, contributed $2,000 to the reward fund.

Since January, 17 horses in Miami-Dade and two in Broward have been found killed and butchered, most of them in rural areas. Police and animal-rights advocates think that people might be killing the horses to sell the meat on the black market.

Detectives asked anyone with information to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

Shirley Dempsey says that she was taking pictures of the countryside with her children when she came upon the farm, where she says she found at least a dozen neglected horses and other animals.

“One of the dogs, I kept tripping over him because he wanted me to play with him,” said Dempsey. “He had a bone. He wanted me to throw it and it was a horse’s hoof that he was chewing that still had bone connected to it.”

Dempsey says that many of the horses were losing their hair due to some type of fungus, and she says she could see bones protruding through their skin.

“The mama horses are just as big as the baby horses and they’re still nursing them,” said Dempsey. “There is no food for the animals or water for them to to drink.”

The case is now being investigated by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department as well as the Humane Society of Missouri. At present, investigators say that the circumstances are not severe enough to warrant the seizure of the animals.

The Johnson County Sheriff says that he will file a report and send it through to the county prosecutor for review.

Dempsey says that this is not the first time that the owner of the farm had been accused of animal abuse, but she says that fate may have been looking out for the animals this time.

“I think they’re lucky I found them, because at minimum the sheriff is aware and so is the public,” said Dempsey.

The organization announced Tuesday that it is offering $5,000 for tips, an increase from the standard $2,500 reward.

Since January, 17 horses in Miami-Dade and two in Broward have been found butchered or dead and abandoned in rural areas. Police and animal-rights advocates have said they think the horses are dying to fill the demand of a growing black market for horse meat in South Florida.

Police tiptoe around questions about who is doing the killing and why, but animal rights advocates believe the meat is being sold on the black market to people from other countries where horse is a delicacy.

“It’s a real ugly problem we’re trying to take hold of and eliminate,” said Richard Couto, an investigator with the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has recently looked into six horse killings. “Extremely, extremely difficult to find the people that are doing the slaughtering.” (Read “The Dead Polo Ponies and Their Millionaire Owner”)

Investigators have discovered animals with slit throats and slashed tendons. Some have been stabbed to the heart, and some might have been butchered alive. The meat is often harvested in unsanitary conditions — on the sides of roads, in dirty barns, with tools that might not be clean — but Couto says some people are still willing to pay $7 to $20 a pound.

Ivonne Rodriguez had never heard the horror stories, never seen the pictures, until her horse, Geronimo, disappeared from his pasture one February morning. She missed work to post fliers and canvass her neighborhood, asking others if they had seen the good-natured pinto who liked apples and was friendly around children.

A few days later, she got a call from her father. The horse’s remains had been discovered under a palm tree, partially hidden by fronds. It had been decapitated and butchered, apparently by thieves who took its meat. “Not only is it disturbing, it’s hurtful,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a pet for God’s sake. It’s not been raised to suffer a death like that.”

The killings have continued, the latest over the weekend. On Monday, Couto stood over a horse carcass with about 200 pounds of meat removed. Its owner found it butchered over the weekend, its cappuccino-colored foal alive and still nuzzled against its body.

The horse’s remains were burned, but a nauseating stench still lingered around the body, which lay just a few feet from its old home.

Miami-Dade Police Capt. Scott Andress, whose agency is among those investigating the horse slaughters, said the cases are tough to solve because they usually happen in rural areas where there are no eyewitnesses. He said his officers are working to confirm whether the horse meat is being sold to consumers. “We had received anecdotal evidence in the past that there might be some sort of black market activity,” said Andress, commander of department’s Agricultural Patrol Section. “We started hearing more about it after Jan. 11, which was the first case we got this year.”

Couto says the black market for horse meat is both active and profitable. “Miami-Dade and South Florida is a melting pot,” Couto said. “We have a lot of people, we have a lot of international people, from Asia, Europe, South, Central America and the islands. A lot of these countries, horse meat for human consumption is legal. These people grow up eating this meat.”

H.R. 1018, passed by 239-185,and introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., requires the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to make humane management of horses an agency priority,  diminishing the need for costly roundups and large-scale housing of captive wild horses.

The bill, if adopted by the Senate and signed by the President, is expected to save millions of tax dollars each year, directing BLM to use fertility control more widely and allowing the agency to let horses to occupy more of the public lands they once inhabited.

“BLM’s current program of rounding up wild horses and keeping them in federal holding pens is a fiscal and animal care disaster,” said Wayne Pacelle, The Humane Society of the United States’ president and CEO. ”We have got to get off the current treadmill of spending millions of tax dollars rounding up wild horses and caring for them in captivity, and instead make wider use of fertility control as a humane population management tool.”

In addition to prioritizing on-the-range management over roundups, H.R. 1018 prevents the commercial sale and slaughter of wild horses, as well as the wholesale killing of healthy wild horses. Last summer, in response to self-inflicted financial problems and mismanagement, the BLM announced that it would consider killing 30,000 healthy wild horses and burros in federal holding centers across the United States rather than implementing common sense, cost-saving management methods.

“It is unacceptable for wild horses to be slaughtered without any regard for the general health, well-being and conservation of these iconic animals that embody the spirit of our American West,” said Chairman Rahall. “This legislation will ensure the continued presence of those wild horses that make their homes on public lands.”

H.R. 1018 allows horses to occupy lands that they formerly occupied, allowing the BLM to find additional, suitable acreage for these animals. Further, it requires consistency and accuracy in the management of wild horse and burro herds, and creates sanctuaries for wild horse and burro populations on public lands. Other management tools contained in H.R. 1018 – more aggressive adoptions, contraception and other management efficiencies – provide long-term savings.

The House soundly rejected an amendment by House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings, R-Wash., to narrow the bill to deal solely with the issue of wild horse slaughter.  This bill would not have addressed the cost savings or humane management options, and it was voted down 348 – 74.

Background:

• For more than 30 years, wild horses and burros had been protected from commercial sale and slaughter since the passage of the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
• A midnight maneuver by former Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., gutted these longstanding protections.
• In the 110th Congress, similar legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives by more than a two-to-one margin with a vote of 277 to 137.
• HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle testified before the U.S. National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee in support of the Release Our American Mustangs Act (“ROAM”) Act, H.R. 1018, in March 2009.
• In April 2009, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee approved H.R. 1018.

…Before reading this article, keep in mind the 100,000 horses that will ‘go to processing’ each day. This is nothing short of murdering an innocent animal that is capable of being so much more than just dog food. I’d love to hear from someone that supports these bills…

Several groups are pushing to renew the horse slaughter in the U.S., possibly starting in Oregon. Proponents are pushing Congress to introduce a bill to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume inspecting horse meat for human consumption.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs also are considering building a slaughter and processing facility – possibly for pet food – on their reservation north of Madras. The project was recommended last spring by a coalition of Northwest tribes. The success of either idea is far from a done deal, however.

A congressional spokesman says bills that favor the horse slaughter face a chilly reception.

And a tribal spokesman says it’s too early to say much about a reservation slaughter facility.|

Supporters of horse slaughters say it’s a way to deal with tens of thousands of unwanted horses. Factors in the glut include uncontrolled breeding, closure of the last U.S. horse-processing plants and an economy that left many owners unable to pay for feed and care.

“We think it is very fair and accurate to say there are probably 100,000 horses that would go to processing today” if a plant were available, said Wyoming state Rep. Sue Wallis, a rancher in favor if reinstating horse slaughtering.

Animal-rights advocates say slaughters are inhumane and repugnant.

“This is a predatory business,” said Chris Heyde, spokesman for the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C., who called reports of horse abandonment exaggerated. “It is making a political game out of a serious issue.”

Until two years ago, as many as 100,000 horses were killed annually in the U.S. for meat for foreign markets.

A federal court ruling in 2007 closed the nation’s last horse-processing plant – Cavel International in DeKalb, Ill. – on the heels of two Texas closures resulting from a state decision to enforce a 1949 ban on horse-meat facilities.

- Associated Press on horse slaughter.

A bizarre and gruesome debate stirs in South Florida.

Why are slaughtered horses turning up all over the place? And if it’s for their meat, as some believe, who’s doing the eating?

The South Florida SPCA believes the same people have killed at least a dozen horses, stripping them of their flesh and selling it on the black market for up to $20 a pound.

Miami-Dade police say only a couple of horses have been butchered in opposite ends of the county. The incidents appear unrelated, they say, and no one can prove the horses were killed for meat.

But in nearby Miramar, just outside Miami-Dade, two pet horses were killed in May, worrying authorities that the killings were spreading.

“That’s what it appeared to be, is a killing for meat,” Miramar police spokeswoman Tania Reus said. “When you come across a carcass and see a head and very little else, it’s pretty clear.”

The theories on what’s going on with horses in South Florida vary widely. Too many clues and tips have led nowhere.

Plus, it’s a confusing crime for Americans to understand. Eating a horse just seems weird.

South Florida news media were quick to pick up on the story of Geronimo, a quarter horse stolen from its pasture and later found tied to a palm tree and slaughtered in March.

Then the two Miramar horses were found slaughtered at their ranch in May. Then, on June 19, another in Miami-Dade horse was found tied to a tree and dismembered.

Soon, news reports began referring to the killings as a disturbing trend, carried out by amateur butchers.

A Miami-Dade spokesman called it “creative journalism.”

“What we do know is that these are two events that appear to be isolated,” police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said. “It’s nothing like the spree of horse mutilation that people make it out to be.”

Richard Couto, a spokesman for the South Florida SPCA, thinks police are embarrassed they haven’t made any arrests.

“They’re lying to you, period,” he said. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s the same group of people doing this.”

Horses are turning up with the same body parts removed, the same pieces of plastic on the ground, presumably left behind from whatever containers they used for the parts, Couto said. And police aren’t even counting the horse carcasses that have been discovered but were not reported as crimes by owners, Couto said. Instead they’re classified as illegal dumping.

“My guesstimation is there are 50 horses going down each week,” Couto said. “Many people close to the SPCA have been approached by guys with coolers, offering horse meat.”

When asked whether more than two slaughtered horses have been found in Miami-Dade, Zabaleta said, “Well, it depends on how far back you go.” Maybe there have been a dozen if you go back a year, he said. He forwarded the question to a police captain handling the case, but attempts by the St. Petersburg Times to get an answer were unsuccessful.

Couto said the animals are obviously being killed and sold as meat, and selling or eating horse meat is illegal.

He’s only half right. But it’s easy to see why he’s confused.

Very rarely does horse meat turn up on an American menu, even though it’s considered to be sweeter, less fatty and higher in protein than beef. To some, it tastes beefier than beef. It’s popular in France and Japan.

At the Meatman, a St. Petersburg shop that sells gourmet and exotic meats, an occasional European customer will come in and ask for horse. The shop doesn’t stock it but is happy to order the USDA-approved meat from a reputable foreign supplier.

“It’s just as legal as goat,” co-owner Frank Craft said. “It’s supposed to be a tasty meat.”

Told about horse meat sales at the St. Petersburg shop, the SPCA’s Couto said, “He’s looking at jail time.”

When the Florida Department of Agriculture’s food safety division was contacted, a woman answering the phone wasn’t sure whether selling horse meat was legal. She forwarded the call to another woman, who checked with her supervisor. She came back and confirmed yes, selling horse meat for human consumption was illegal.

But when asked to cite the Florida statute, she forwarded the call to someone else, who read Chapter 500.541, which states that it’s unlawful to sell horse meat unless it’s stamped and marked as horse meat.

Which means selling or eating certified horse meat is okay in Florida, and thus okay for shops to sell, like at the Meatman.

But that wouldn’t apply to any meat that may or may not be coming from the slaughtered horses in Florida.

The Animal Welfare Institute, which is based in Washington, has assisted with black market horse meat investigations and doubts such a practice would be very profitable.

“If someone’s willing to spend $20 per pound for horse meat, it’s not going to be from someone handing it out of his trunk,” said Chris Heyde, deputy director for the institute.

There are no legal horse slaughterhouses in this country. The last one was closed in Illinois two years ago, but they still operate in Canada and Mexico. Some states, such as California and Illinois, have banned the sale and consumption of horse meat completely.

The Animal Welfare Institute, which does not oppose the consumption of meat but is a watchdog for safe and humane treatment of animals, helped persuade U.S. lawmakers to close the horse slaughterhouses because too many practiced cruel and unsanitary methods, Heyde said.

Still, certified and stamped horse meat is a lot better than street horse meat, he said.

Heyde assisted a 2004 investigation in which a guy in Philadelphia was buying sick or old horses at auction, killing them and selling the meat as cheap beef.

Is it possible this is happening in South Florida?

Yeah, it’s possible, Heyde said. But why would anyone do that when there are so many cows around?

Miramar police Detective Yessenia Diaz, who is investigating the May slaughter, has heard that some Latin cultures believe horse meat has healing properties for people with low blood count or anemia.

But until she or the Miami-Dade police are able to catch whoever is responsible, she realizes that’s just one of many ideas out there.

When you’re trying to wrap your head around such a crime, she said, any and every motive seems plausible.