There are currently four Canadian slaughterhouses and three in
Mexico. At either border, the horses are unloaded for processing
and then re-loaded into a sealed trailer bound for their final
stop. The conditions in which they ship and the distance they
travel are just a few of the problems with the current slaughter
pipeline. “I think it’s a worse solution mainly because of the
distance the horses have to be transported,” said Dr. Tom Lenz,
past president of the AAEP and former chair of the Unwanted
Horse Coalition. “I think the transport is the big welfare
issue. When I talk to people about this issue, you try and
separate, ‘Are you opposed to eating horse meat, or are you
concerned about how the horses are transported?’ If the latter’s
the concern, we need to put into control stronger regulations.
If they’re not being followed, we need to find a way to enforce
them.” Before 2007, a horse’s average journey was 550 miles from
the time he was designated as “for slaughter” until he arrived
at the slaughterhouse