Why Do Councils Delight In The Death of Horses?

'It's a waste of animals' lives': A new film looks at why 2,000 horses are killed by Irish councils every year

Is it possible that while investigating the situation, they didn't spot it's not a waste of life at all for one party, it's direct exploitation; someone is cashing in on the collection of loose horses and their 'disposal' for councils and then again will get a good price at the carcass stage too. 

The ACS are the carcass collection company who are the firm who have the major national contracts for 'horse control' and who the guardai call at first sight of a loose horse. At 950 euro of tax-payers' money a pop, for coming out to collect each horse - a figure that every other rescue or even horse owner could work miracles with - they just keep that. 

The ACS registered business address is in Riga, Latvia - home of the biggest animal body parts factory in Europe and is a handy destination for the slaughtered horses too. They don't have to take them to a factory to be killed in Ireland first, the not even slightly glorified knackers lorry drivers carry a gun. That way, they can save time and money and the horse can already be considered a 'fallen animal' and they well get more public funding and a thank you from the councils, for disposing of the bodies.

Then of course there is an explicit policy by councils now, which we are all upset about (especially when councils came down so heavily on no-kill pet shelters and threatened not to give them their measly 5-20k a year support, if shelters didn't agree to kill animals not re-homed in 6 weeks) So the councils' policy is to NOT look for owners, re-home or keep horses in a pound even over night, so old or new owners could be found. This is literally not only 'a license to kill' but incentivised killing and big, big business. The article says that horses are kept five days in a pound and release fee is 700 plus more each day held. I know for definite of horses, microchipped, not on the road, had owners, who had passports and several of the horses were in foal were seized and were dead within the few hours, the owners were granted the right to check them and arrange for them to be brought home.

The moral of the story is, next time you see a horse out - don't call the guards, try and usher him or her in somewhere safe and call a rescue like my lovely horse or post a photo here and somebody good and decent and competent will respond....very different from the council, guards and ACS classic combo.