Investigator Exclusive: Ohio horses slaughtered in Mexico

The Investigator Tom Meyer found the horsemeat supply line to Mexico and Canada begins in the heart of Ohio's Amish country.

Court actions may have shut down American horse slaughtering operations last year, but now just as many horses, an estimated 100,000 a year, are being hauled across the border to be butchered for human consumption overseas.

Most everyone agrees horses have it much worse now than before the courts ended slaughter in the United States.

So-called "killer buyers" usually buy the majority of horses up for sale at LeRoy Baker's horse auction in Sugarcreek, Ohio, which is about 75 miles south of Cleveland.

Channel 3 News found horses are crowded into a maze of stalls.

Once they're sold for their meat, they're loaded onto double decker trucks which are designed for cattle.

"The USDA is in the process of completely prohibiting their use because they are so inhumane to transport horses on," Chris Heyde of the Animal Welfare Institute said. But Baker disagrees, saying horses have plenty of room.

Many of the horses that leave Sugarcreek are hauled more than 30 hours without food and water. They travel nearly 2,000 miles to Mexico with a brief rest in Texas.

At one Mexico slaughterhouse, workers use a sharp knife and jab the horse's spinal cord repeatedly, if necessary, to parlayze the animal. "You hear the screams in these plants and it's absolutely a barbaric method of slaughtering," Heyde told the Investigator.

Baker disapproves of the technique and said not all plants use it. In Canada, he explained, horses are shot in the head. Baker argued there's nothing wrong with butchering horses. In most cases, the horses sold for slaughter are old and unwanted. Baker said it must be done for environmental reasons. "If you start burying 100,000 horses a year in American farms, that's going to get into the water supply," Baker said.

"Killer buyers" can get up to $600 a horse for slaughter. The meat is considered a delicacy in places like Japan, France, and Belgium.

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act would outlaw the transporting of horses to slaughterhouses anywhere.

The legislation is stalled in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D) and Congressman Steven LaTourette (R-14th District) are co-sponsors of the bill.