The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has amended the regulations under the Commercial Transport of Equines to Slaughter Act to extend the protections now afforded to horses that are transported directly to slaughter facilities to include horses bound for slaughter, but first transported to intermediate collection points, such as assembly points, feedlots, or stockyards. The new rule will go into effect on October 7, 2011.
In its recently-released report entitled “Horse Welfare: Action Needed to Address Unintended Consequences from Cessation of Domestic Slaughter,” the Government Accountability Office called on USDA to adopt these proposed rules to more broadly define “equines for slaughter” so that federal oversight is extended to more of the transportation chain for horses going to processing facilities.
Background
In 2001, USDA adopted rules that subjected commercial transporters of slaughter horses to federal regulation for the first time. The rules require shippers to certify the fitness of horses to travel and provide them with water, food, and rest for 6 hours prior to being loaded for transport. Once loaded the horses cannot be shipped for more than 28 hours without being off-loaded for 6 hours and given the chance to rest, eat and drink. During transport, horses must be checked every 6 hours to ensure that no horse has fallen or in distress. Shippers must segregate stallions and aggressive horses from others, provide enough room for the horses during transport, and use trucks equipped with doors and ramps that allow safe loading and unloading. The rules prohibited the use of double-deck trailers to transport horses to slaughter after December 7, 2006.
In November, 2007, concerned that some horses bound for slaughter were not being protected because they were being delivered first to an assembly point, feedlot, or stockyard, USDA proposed to redefine “equines for slaughter” to include these horses. USDA received over 90 comments during the comment period, including comments from the AHC.
Rule Changes
The final rule makes several changes. The primary change, which was in the proposed rule, broadens the application of the Act by expanding the definition of “equines for slaughter” to include “any member of the Equidae family being transferred to a slaughter facility, including an assembly point, feedlot, or stockyard.” Previously, the rule only applied to horses moved directly to a slaughter plant. In effect, the rule change moves-up the point at which the regulations apply in the process of moving horses to a slaughter facility. The rule changes provide equines delivered to intermediate points en route to slaughter with the same protections regarding food, water, hour limits, and the prohibition on double-decker trucks, as those horses moved directly to plants.
This change eliminates the possibility that horses en route to slaughter could be transported to an assembly point in a double-deck trailer and without any of the protections afforded under the regulations. USDA believed equines were delivered to these intermediate points en route to slaughter in part to avoid compliance with the regulations. The final rule change eliminates that possibility.
Additional New Definitions
This final rule also adds several new definitions, which were not in the proposed rule. These are definitions of:
Assembly Point: Any facility, including auction markets, ranches, feedlots, and stockyards, in which equines are gathered in commerce.
Feedlot: Any facility which consolidates livestock for preconditioning, feeding, fattening, or holding before being sent to slaughter.
Stockyard: Any place, establishment, or facility commonly known as stockyards, conducted, operated, or managed for profit or nonprofit as a public market for livestock producers, feeders, market agencies, and buyers, consisting of pens, or other enclosures, and their appurtenances, in which live cattle, sheep, swine, horses, mules, or goats are received, held, or kept for sale or shipment in commerce.
USDA notes that these definitions are intended to be consistent with common industry and dictionary definitions of these terms as well as with the definitions established by the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration.
In the narrative adopting the new rule, USDA noted that it will consider all horses delivered to an assembly point, feedlot or stockyard to be equines for slaughter and subject to the regulations unless the owner/shipper presents an official certificate of veterinary inspection and the original copy of a negative equine infectious anemia test chart or other documents indicating the names and addresses of the consignor, consignee, owner and examining veterinarian for any horse being shipped, or other evidence that the horses are not bound for slaughter.
In addition, the condition precedent for the Act and rules to apply requires that the horses in transit are actually “being transferred to a slaughter facility.” Simply shipping a horse to a facility, event, farm, ranch or sale would not subject the horse or the transport process to the Act and the regulations.
