In the middle of the night, terrified Canadian horses were driven to the Winnipeg airport and crammed onto Korean Air Cargo Flight 9214.
The flight took off at 4:55 am on 12 September. Their journey will be nothing short of torturous. Large draft horses are forced to endure long flights overseas confined in tiny crates. The entire trip can take more than 24 hours, during which they have no opportunity for food, water or rest. The conditions are stressful, dangerous, and sometimes deadly.
The plane is flying to Japan, where the horses’ final destination will be a slaughterhouse. They’ll likely be shot with a bolt gun, bled to death, and then butchered for meat.
Representatives of Animal Justice and Manitoba Animal Save were there to bear witness to the skittish horses arriving at the airport and document the suffering they endured.
In the last election campaign, the governing Liberals promised to ban the live export of horses for slaughter. But despite this promise from more than a year ago, so far there has been no action. Thousands of live horses are still being exported from Alberta and Manitoba every year to be slaughtered for food in Japan.
Continued delay to make good on the government’s commitment will doom more horses to suffer and die needlessly.
Please join us in asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau to make horses an immediate priority in Parliament, and ban live horse exports as quickly as possible.
Banner: “Boeing 747-8HTF ‘HL7610’ Korean Air Cargo” | Alan Wilson | CC BY-SA 2.0
