Horse Theft

For those who’ve not handed over their heart to an animal, it can be difficult to fathom how devastating it can be to find a beloved pet missing or dead.

Horse theft in the U.S. today is enjoying a resurgence, driven in no small part by the ‘horse slaughter’ industry — operating at breakneck speed and making a fortune for its more astute participants. If the horses can be silently ‘disposed of’ into the slaughter pipeline, they can — quite literally — disappear without a trace.

Until confronted with the loss of an animal deemed ‘livestock’, most people remain blissfully unaware that this can and does occur. It is only when someone loses an equine that they begin to realize that the stage was set long before to accommodate those who would, without conscience, destroy an animal for even a very modest financial gain.

Coming up to speed in time to save a missing animal can prove difficult, at best. Each state has their own rules and regulations, offices and branches of government. Law Enforcement officials can be woefully unprepared to deal with livestock theft — preferring to work within the confines of their own positions which, most often, deal with human issues and concerns. Lawmakers are only now beginning to enact laws designed to adddress the issue of maiming, killing or ‘disappearing’ the pets of those they seek to control or destroy — although the issue has long been known as a ‘tactical weapon’ of domestic violence and other perpetrators for decades.

Thus, discovering where to go to report such crimes can often be difficult to ascertain and finding an ‘interested party’ within the government beaurocracy in the comparatively short timeframe before the horse is resold or even destroyed can prove to be virtually impossible.

The entire system, unfortunately, is woefully outdated and shockingly flawed.

Some are working to see that this is corrected — if you would like to volunteer to serve in this capacity, please contact us at the Equine Hotline: 888.723.8083.