ALLEGAN-- When Wendy Bierling brought wild mustangs to her Allegan farm last year, she found few takers-- and the horses wound up statistics on a list that's growing nationally: Unwanted horses.

This week the American Veterinary Medical Association's animal welfare committee weighed in on the issue of unwanted horses as it touches on abuse and neglect, the treatment of American mustangs, and the latest hot topic, the possibility that horse slaughter will resume in the United States, after a shut-down in 2006 when  funding for inspection of the slaughterhouses inspection was eliminated.

Here are some startling numbers on unwanted horses, according to the essay:

Nearly 100 horses either die or are euthanized for every 50 horses that go to slaughter and at least 200,000 equine carcasses must be disposed of annually. Prior to 2007 one third of these were being processed for human consumption, with the remainder being cremated, buried, digested, disposed of in landfills, or rendered.

When the number of unwanted horses is combined with the 30,000 plus feral horses deemed unadoptable that are being maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on privately owned sanctuaries, plus the 7,000 to 8,000 horses held in short-term holding facilities operated by the BLM awaiting adoption (temporarily unwanted), plus an unknown but substantial number of horses housed at rescue and retirement facilities waiting for a new owner, one can readily see that the number of truly and/or potentially unwanted horses constitutes a substantial number of horses that must be managed now and in the future.

Locally, unwanted horses have stressed the abilities of county animal shelters to care for them.

In 2004, the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) sponsored an Unwanted Horse Summit in Washington, DC. for members of the AAEP and AVMA, as well as representatives from the horse industry and breed organizations, animal welfare advocacy groups, the USDA and Congress.

The Unwanted Horse Coalition of  veterinarians, horse industry organizations, and animal welfare advocacy groups was formed to educate horse owners on how to "Own Responsibly" and to develop novel solutions to the problem of unwanted horses.

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