Haven of horrors
So what will happen to the 75-95 horses that will be “put out to pasture” if Mayor de Blasio’s expensive and inhumane-tohorse-and-human-alike horse carriage plan passes the City Council this week — on the same day they vote for a raise?
Despite vague pie-in-the-sky talk of wondrous lives rollicking in pastures, what really happens to horses too often mirrors what happened this week when a massive rescue operation exposed a haven of horror of animal cruelty.
On Wednesday, law enforcement, along with a huge team from the ASPCA and partner organizations, rescued over 650 — yes, 650 — sick, emaciated, abused, injured, dying, dehydrated, cold, neglected and barely-able-tostand horses, dogs, cats and farm animals from a Hoke County, N.C., animal “shelter” called “The Haven — Friends For Life.”
Tim Rickey, senior vice president of ASPCA field investigations and response, said what his staff of trained medical personnel and animal handlers found at the unlicensed facility was horrific. They found more than 300 dogs, 250 cats and 40 horses, along with numerous farm animals living in unimaginable conditions. Horses were emaciated, dogs injured, sick, lame and dying — one with a large, untreated tumor in his eye. Cats had open wounds and illnesses.
Rickey told me, “A horse and a dog crashed (collapsed), and the dog went into convulsions,” and the medical team is fighting to keep them alive.
“These are unacceptable living conditions, we have animals with upper respiratory conditions, puppies with parvo, dogs and cats with injuries — and I’m afraid we’ve just scratched the surface,” Rickey lamented.
By Friday all the animals had been evacuated and were being transported to ASPCA and other safe facilities where massive teams of veterinarians will try to save as many of these suffering creatures as possible.
Law enforcement swooped in and operators Linden and Stephen Spear were charged with four counts of animal cruelty and three counts of felony possession of a controlled substance.
So in reality, Mr. Mayor, this is what can happen to horses when they’re sent out to “pasture,” and snatched from their owners who love and care for them the way our proud carriage drivers do.
Mindy Levine, an animal activist — meaning she rescues and takes in animals, not just talks the talk — and wife of Yankees President Randy Levine, said, “I encourage everyone to go to equinerescuenetwork.com or to other reputable websites to view the list of ‘kill auctions,’ where many of the customers are kill buyers and slaughterhouses who buy the horses for their meat. When an auction sells a horse by the pound, it’s a good indication that the horses are intended for slaughter. Recently, I bid against a kill buyer at an upstate New York auction for a sweet, lovely mule who now has a safe and secure home but it broke my heart to see the others — family pets, retired racehorses and others who deserved a chance but who could not be saved and were loaded onto trailers parked outside and then transported to the slaughterhouses.”
Put out to pasture often means put out to slaughter. New York City Council members, I urge you: Vote with your consciences, not your wallets. To donate to the ASPCA rescue effort,
visit aspca.org