A US appeals court has lifted a temporary ban on domestic horse slaughter, clearing the way for companies in New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa to open while an appeal stemming from a lawsuit by animal protection groups proceeds.
The issue has divided horse rescue and animal welfare groups, ranchers, politicians and native American tribes about what is the most humane way to deal with the country's horse overpopulation, and what rescue groups have said is a rising number of neglected and starving horses as the west deals with persistent drought.
The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver lifted the emergency injunction it issued in November after the Humane Society of the United States and others appealed the ruling of a federal judge in Albuquerque.
The judge had decided the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) followed proper procedure in issuing permits to the slaughter companies.
The plants would become the first horse slaughterhouses to operate in the US since 2007. Congress effectively banned horse slaughter by eliminating funding for inspections at the plants in 2006.
It restored that funding in 2011, but the USDA did not approve the first permits for horse slaughterhouses until this summer.
Lawyers for the plants have argued that the plaintiffs are in court because they are morally opposed to horse slaughter and are looking for a way to delay the plants while they lobby Congress for a ban.
Proponents of a return to domestic horse slaughter point to a 2011 US government report that shows horse abuse and abandonment have increased since domestic horse slaughter was banned.
Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, calls the practice barbaric and says blocking a return to domestic horse slaughter "is an issue of national importance and scale."
