| Every year, 30,000 'meat'
horses leave Poland for the slaughterhouses of Italy.
There is no rest, no water and no food for many on the
road to misery - a five day journey across six countries.
Viva!'s campaign has helped to save some 70,000 horses
a year. With your help we can save the rest.
A Trade in Misery
In markets across Poland, farm horses, foals and even
children's ponies are sold to dealers and loaded into
trucks - almost all to face a terrifying and painful
journey to Italy where they will be slaughtered for
meat. The stressed and frightened animals have no idea
of what lies ahead - for the most unfortunate of them,
that will be a journey of perhaps five days, without
food, water or rest. Sold to supply the Italian appetite
for horse meat, these intelligent, sensitive creatures
will face every abuse that will enhance the profits
of those who buy and transport them.
Many of the trucks in which they are transported are
old and most are inadequate and overloaded. Roads twist
and turn through the mountain passes and the helpless
horses inside are exhausted by their constant struggle
to remain standing. They frequently lose their balance
and fall. Once down , they are trampled, urinated and
defecated on and wounded by their companions.
At staging posts, horses are either dragged off the
truck with chains or subjected to violent treatment
to induce them to stand. This can involve brutal kickings,
beatings with heavy sticks or the use of electric goads.
To save time and money, feeding and watering is minimal
at best and non-existent at worst. By the time they
reach Hungary, just halfway through the journey, many
are dehydrated, collapsed or even dead. By trailing
these transports, Viva! has found that rest periods
are routinely ignored and papers falsely stamped to
say the horses have been tended to.
Once they reach their destination, they are bundled
from the lorries and unceremoniously slaughtered. Shot
with a captive bolt before having their throats cut,
many are inadequately stunned. After bleeding and butchering,
they end up on Italian dinner plates. Shockingly, recent
investigations have discovered that some Italian salamis
for sale in British delicatessens and supermarkets contain
horsemeat.
Anonymous victim
The little grey mare who is pictured on this page has
become the symbol of our campaign. We never knew her
name but she was filmed at a Hungarian 'rest' stop.
She had fallen and the truck had to be emptied to reach
her. The other dejected animals were off loaded, trembling
and shivering, their spirit utterly broken
The grey was made to stand, liquid manure pouring from
her body. It was then the dreadful wounds caused by
trampling could be seen. She could barely move and collapsed
on the loading ramp where she was destroyed. Her exhausted
companions were immediately reloaded and the truck continued
into the night towards Italy.
We are winning
The good news is, Viva!'s campaign is working. . From
meetings with politicians and ministers to national
protests, we have mobilised the biggest popular campaign
for animal welfare Poland has ever seen. This sad little
horse has appeared all over Poland in magazines and
newspapers, on bill boards and leaflets, in bus shelters
and on TV as part of our campaign. Her death has helped
to save the lives of tens of thousands of other horses.
Since Viva! opened offices in Warsaw three years ago,
horse exports have collapsed from 100,000 to 30,000.
Poland's chief vet attributes the spectacular fall in
numbers of horses exported to the "social pressures"
created by our campaign.
But there is still more to do: 30,000 horses is still
30,000 too many. The Polish government argues that the
cruelty has ended but we know that is not true. We have
to provide new evidence of abuse to keep the media onslaught
going, produce new materials and support the 90 local
groups we have established. In short, we need to keep
up the pressure to save the remaining horses.
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