• New Mexico slaughterhouse employee films himself fatally shooting a horse

    YouTube

    The above screen shot shows a video posted by horsehumane on YouTube. horsehumane reposted a video originally posted by Tim Sappington, which shows him fatally shooting a horse.

    By The Associated Press

    An employee of a southeastern New Mexico slaughterhouse has posted a video online showing him fatally shooting a horse in the head.


    That has sparked outrage among animal activists and led to death-threat calls to the Roswell meat company, which is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get a horse slaughter plant in the area.

    A maintenance contractor with Valley Meat Co. is shown in the video bringing a horse out of its pen, swearing at activists and then killing the horse with a single gunshot, KOB-TV reported Thursday.

    Rick De Los Santos, a part-owner of Valley Meat Co., said he has been slammed with hate calls and death threats since the video hit the Internet.

    "I didn't have anything to do with that video. That's the honest truth," De Los Santos said.

    De Los Santos said the contract worker, Tim Sappington, shot the video on his own time and at his own home.

    "He shot a horse. That's what he eats. It's not against the law to slaughter your own horse," De Los Santos said. "Now, putting it on YouTube, I would not have done that."

    Last year, De Los Santos sued the USDA to resume the inspections necessary to open what would be the nation's first new horse slaughterhouse in more than five years.

    The suit alleges USDA inaction on the company's application was driven by emotional political debates and has cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    Many animal humane groups and public officials were outraged at the idea of resuming domestic horse slaughter, including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.

    But others — including some horse rescuers, livestock associations and the American Quarter Horse Association — support a return to domestic horse slaughter.

    They point to a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that shows horse abuse and abandonment have been increasing since Congress effectively banned horse slaughter by cutting funding for federal inspection programs in 2006. 

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Moo-dini: Steer's life spared after slaughterhouse escape

    View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

    By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A young steer who broke out of a slaughterhouse in northern New Jersey, swam across a river and ran through city streets, was being taken Wednesday to an animal sanctuary in New York where a “comfy straw bed” awaited him.

    The black-and-white steer was rescued by a volunteer with the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary who picked him up Wednesday morning after tracking down the slaughterhouse, said Jenny Brown, a co-founder of the nonprofit center in south-central New York.

    The animal appeared to be a cross between an Angus and a Holstein, and a veterinarian, who was required to inspect the steer so he could be legally transported across state lines, gave him antibiotics, she said. He  seemed to be shaken up and was pretty banged-up from his escape, including having a problem with his back leg.

    “We can give him a comfy straw bed and put him in a safe place where he is going to be loved and respected,” Brown said, noting that he was likely being used as a beef cow and would have ended up as steak on dinner plates.

    The steer’s adventure began late Tuesday night, when he fled the slaughterhouse and went careening through the streets of Paterson, said the city’s chief animal control officer, John DeCando.

    Mike Stura / Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

    'Mike' the steer escaped a New Jersey slaughterhouse and is seen here in a trailer on his way to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

    “It was unbelievable. It was like ‘Dodge City,’” he said, noting that after escaping, the steer came across basketball courts, where he “stopped for a minute,” then he jumped into the Passaic River and swam across to the other side.

    “You had to see the spectators -- people were rooting for the cow,” he said.

    As police and animal control attempted to corral him, the steer escaped once more. At one point, he ran into a police car, but no one was injured in the escapade, DeCando said.

    Finally, DeCando managed to tranquilize him, and within four minutes the animal was asleep and snoring like a “newborn.”

    It's not clear how the steer got out, but DeCando said he figured the animal knew what was in store for him.


    But instead, the steer’s “long run, long haul” had a “happy ending,” DeCando said.

    “The owner of the slaughterhouse guaranteed me, and also the officers, that that cow deserves to live, and, yes, he does. So the cow is going to a farm. He’ll live out the rest of his life,” he said, adding that was why the slaughterhouse owner was not charged in the incident.

    Under an intense media spotlight, such escapees can often end up going to a farm only temporarily or even be sent off to another slaughterhouse, said Brown, noting that was why they wanted to reach out to make sure the animal has a good home.

    “There is this phenomenon in our society when, where one gets away, everyone wants to cheer for that one animal, yet you might go home and eat … an animal just like that one that night and never put any thought to it,” said Brown, whose group rescues animals that have escaped abuse, neglect or the food industry. “That’s what’s wrong with our industrialized food system, is that it’s completely out of sight and out of mind.”

    The steer has been named Mike, after the volunteer who rescued him, Brown said.

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