{"id":774333,"date":"2023-12-11T07:43:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T12:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=774333"},"modified":"2023-12-11T08:40:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T13:40:32","slug":"they-shoot-horses-dont-they-horses-make-things-extra-complicated-when-we-debate-how-humans-should-treat-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=774333","title":{"rendered":"They Eat Horses, Don’t They?: Horses make things extra-complicated when we debate how humans should treat animals"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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The belief in human supremacy over other living beings is tenacious, particularly when the other living beings are thousand-plus-pound animals who have a habit of challenging domination. Other domestic animals \u2013 dogs, cats \u2013 have settled into a niche in human society. But when it comes to horses the relationship is inherently complicated. In Canada, horses are designated as livestock. The animals we view as pets don\u2019t typically end up on our plates, yet every year thousands of horses in Canada are purpose-bred to be eaten.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

LI ROBBINS:<\/strong> When Black Beauty was a foal he led an idyllic life, gambolling around a pond in a large pleasant meadow… The 1877 novel by Anna Sewell, billed as \u201cthe autobiography of a horse,\u201d was a cri-de-coeur against such commonplace cruelties. It encouraged readers to consider life from a horse\u2019s point of view in an era when they were seen as instruments of labour and symbols of wealth, in both cases required to do man\u2019s bidding. It became one of the best-selling books of all time…<\/em><\/p>\n

Wickedness and ignorance, when it comes to the treatment of horses, are sadly not relegated to previous centuries. Just last year a horse in Ontario was dragged behind a moving vehicle until her hooves bled, a case that sparked outrage on social media and disgrace for the perpetrator \u2013 a horse trainer. The provincial court sentence was a mere $2,500 fine and a five-year ban from involvement with horses \u2013 but only in the province of Ontario…<\/em><\/p>\n

The belief in human supremacy over other living beings is tenacious, particularly when the other living beings are thousand-plus-pound animals who have a habit of challenging domination. Other domestic animals \u2013 dogs, cats \u2013 have settled into a niche in human society. But when it comes to horses the relationship is inherently complicated. They can be \u201cpasture puffs\u201d grazing their days away; they can be Olympic athletes. They\u2019re viewed as near-magical in therapeutic and educational settings; they\u2019re innately dangerous flight animals. Horses are symbols of freedom; horses are sashimi on the hoof.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s this last point that\u2019s particularly troubling. The animals we view as pets don\u2019t typically end up on our plates, yet every year thousands of horses in Canada are purpose-bred to be eaten. Which animals we consider okay to eat and which we don\u2019t may be an unresolvable debate. Regardless, loading terrified horses onto planes so restaurant patrons abroad can enjoy their flesh at its freshest rubs many the wrong way…<\/em><\/p>\n

The complexity of equine welfare in Canada is perpetuated by horses\u2019 official status, designated as livestock and governed by property law… \u201cHorses have some entitlement under the Criminal Code, but that\u2019s not quite as strong as a right,\u201d says Vancouver-based animal-law lawyer Victoria Shroff. \u201cAnimal rights are still very much aspirational and notional.\u201d Ms. Shroff, along with a growing number of animal-rights lawyers, sees a need for laws that recognize animal sentience, acknowledging that animals are \u201csomeones rather than somethings.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Some jurisdictions have taken this step, including Britain with its 2022 Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. But acknowledgment of animal sentience in law has lagged behind both public opinion and science. Back in 2012, a group of neuroscientists published the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, a scientific stamp of recognition that yes, animals are conscious beings with feelings too. In Canada, Quebec is the lone province with an animal-sentience law, and horses continue to be slaughtered for meat in that province.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we bring in these provisions they have to get embedded into the law as more than a declaratory statement,\u201d Ms. Shroff says. \u201cThey have to become something actually realized in how animals are treated. Otherwise, it\u2019s just a nice sentiment that doesn\u2019t take you very far.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Legal recognition of animals as sentient is unlikely to spell the demise of meat eating. But it does have the potential to lead to more humane slaughtering processes and greater oversight. Britain\u2019s 2022 act, for example, calls for the establishment of an \u201canimal sentience committee\u201d to review and report on government policy connected to animal welfare.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the United States, David Favre, professor of law and editor-in-chief of the Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University, proposed a new legal category for animals in an influential 2010 article called \u201cLiving Property: A New Status for Animals Within the Legal System.\u201d As \u201cliving property,\u201d the law could view animals as individual beings and \u201creach legal results that are beneficial to the animal\u2019s personal needs and wants,\u201d Dr. Favre says…<\/em><\/p>\n

In real life, people who spend time with horses delight in the specificity of the human-equine bond…I am not alone in viewing an animal as kin \u2013 according to recent surveys (and non-ironic utterances of the phrase \u201cfur baby\u201d), the concept has become well ensconced. Which is why, these days, it\u2019s not uncommon to hear a person refer to an animal as a companion rather than a pet, or for some advocates to suggest the term \u201cowner\u201d be replaced with \u201cguardian”…<\/em><\/p>\n

As it stands, protections for horses are left mostly in the hands of their individual humans. Lucky for us, horses are often \u201cgenerous,\u201d as horse people like to say, meaning most tolerate a certain amount of human bumbling… Ren Hurst, author of Riding on the Power of Others,… views riding a horse as akin to an adult abuser who coerces a young human victim into agreeing to abuse. \u201cBasically [horses] are brainwashed and fully indoctrinated into the cult of domestication,\u201d writes Ms. Hurst, a former trainer and rider.<\/em><\/p>\n

Admittedly it\u2019s challenging to make a case that horses are \u201cdesigned\u201d to be ridden. For one thing, their backs ache, as do ours (possibly more so, since we don\u2019t carry saddles strapped to our spines). But like Ms. Hurst, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is as interested in the ethical issues connected to riding as the physical ones, stating that \u201cin a perfect world horses would be free to pursue their own lives and humans wouldn\u2019t make demands of them.\u201d A breathtaking statement, and one unsubstantiated by proof. How could it be? You can\u2019t ask a horse what her perfect world would be.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like it or not, ours is an imperfect world. So perhaps… it makes better sense to treat horses in the way the Jane Goodall Act \u2013 which passed its first reading in Canada\u2019s Senate in June \u2013 proposes to treat wild animals, through an \u201cIndigenous understanding that all life forms of Creation are interconnected and independent.\u201d In this view, we are by necessity stewards \u2013 it is our responsibility to make good decisions for horses. \u201cBefore we say horses shouldn\u2019t be ridden, we can do our best to improve how we are educating people to understand what their horse is telling them, and to make it okay to listen,\u201d Ms. Rohlf says. <\/em>SOURCE…<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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