Horses are being smuggled out of Britain
to European slaughterhouses.
These are not just horses that have been bred for this trade.
Any horse can end up being exported to slaughter
from outgrown children's ponies through to ex-sports horses
sold with the best of intentions and in the belief that they could never
end their lives in a slaughterhouse.
The Kept Animals Bill will bring in a number of benefits for all animals.
It's not just horses,
but there are two key elements for horses which are around the livestock worrying
which will bring in additional powers for police
to be able to investigate cases of livestock worrying.
And that is on horses and ponies, be it in fields or out on roads.
The second element is related to our founding campaign as World Horse Welfare.
So that is a ban on live exports to slaughter.
While we know that no horse, pony or donkey, has been
officially declared as going for slaughter in recent years,
that there is a trade an under the radar trade in horses being moved out
of this country
and some of those horses will end their lives in a European slaughterhouse.
What we need is anyone that's resident in the UK
to take our action and write to the Prime Minister and urge him
to make sure that this Bill passes into law.
Time is running out on this, so we need to act now.
But why,
in this day and age does this still happen?
That's a really challenging question to answer, because this trade, we believe,
is linked in to other activities, other criminal activities.
When we look at the cost implications, the value of the horses
that are being moved out and the cost of moving a horse out of the country.
It just doesn't add up.
So we believe that these horses are being moved,
they're being re-passported, so horses that are potentially being signed
out of the food chain,
are being given fraudulent passports, to allow them to enter the food chain
once they're moved into Europe.
But on top of that,
there's also other criminal or illegal activity
around that, where they might be using, for example, Red Diesel.
They might be using some of these movements to hide other activities,
which all will then add up into a much bigger picture around criminal activity.
And it's not just low value animals that are being sent abroad to slaughter.
The sad reality is that with the identification
passport system that we've currently got in place, it means it is far too easy
to give any horse.
So that could be your family pet.
That could be an ex-competition horse, your childhood pony, even.
It's far too easy to reissue them with a fraudulent passport to show
that they're signed into the food chain, when in reality they have been signed out.
So any horse can enter this trade.
During these illegal operations
it is the horses whose welfare is being compromised.
This is a welfare issue for horses.
I should say, it's a welfare and it's a biosecurity issue
because these animals are being moved under the radar, meaning
we can't trace them. We don't know,
we think,
a number of them are going to be ending their lives in European slaughterhouses.
But the way they're being transported, the conditions being transported in
are in lots of cases are going to be poor welfare conditions.
They're also going to be in vehicles, that do not meet the standards
that we'd expect for the length of journey that those animals are undertaking.
And also we question whether some of those are fit
for the journey that they're undertaking.
So it's really when they're on the radar, we can check all of that it’s
when they're being moved under the radar, that that becomes a real problem
To these people,
horses are just commodities.
They cut corners where they can to make as much money as possible.
Welfare is not a priority for them.
So we gather evidence on the ground.
So we have investigators that go out to the ports
and they try and understand the movements through the ports
and try and gather the evidence.
In terms of that compliant but also that non-compliant trade
and also then work with enforcement agencies to feed through
the intelligence we’re gathering so we can see effective enforcement,
both at the ports but also through that whole movement
from GB outwards, and that work that we do is not just obviously within
the UK, will also share
any intelligence that we receive or any evidence we get further
afield with other countries, those horses are passing through.
So we use the evidence that we gather
to influence legislation and policy, as we've been doing with the Kept Animals Bill
to make sure that it's effective
and it's going to work and it's going to put a stop and improve
welfare for the horses and ponies that the legislation is there to protect.
To do this work
and as a charity,
we rely on your donations to make sure that we can influence policy.
We can collect that evidence to make sure that we protect
the horses and ponies and stamp out this cruel trade.