Horses Are Not Cars, and Tragedies Are Absolutely Preventable
Horse being exploited in Illinois parade; Flickr photo by Tom Adamson (http://flic.kr/p/Nsves)
Horses being forced to pull a buggy in a small-town Iowa parade became frightened today and bolted into the crowd. At least one person has already died, and a couple dozen more were seriously injured, most of them hospitalized, it seems.
You can read the New York Times article here. But I’ll give away the conclusion in advance because it’s the mind-boggler that’s leading me to post this:
Chief Roling said this was the first time he could recall any sort of chaos like this at the parade. As for next year’s event, he said there was no way he could think of avoiding another mishap of this nature.
“This is just something that happens that we can’t prevent,” he said. “It wouldn’t be any different from an accelerator sticking on a car and running through the crowd.”
Uhhhh, really? You can’t think of any way to prevent this from happening again? You know, like not putting horses through this stress and danger ever again? Like putting both compassion and respect for the horses and the safety of your community ahead of entertainment?
And someone needs to explain to the chief that this actually is quite different from an accelerator sticking in a car. Accelerators are designed by humans and aren’t designed to stick and generally don’t stick; humans have a great degree of control in creating them and determining how they will work. But horses are living, thinking, feeling, individual beings, not machines or parts of a machine that we can manipulate and control; we cannot program them to uniformly act and react in certain ways, just ignoring anything that may be happening around them. And we can predict that horses — prey animals — will become frightened and understandably react to that fear when we put them in situations where they don’t belong and are vulnerable, for our petty amusement.
What happened to these people is tragic, but not at all unpredictable and not at all the fault of the horses – about whose condition and injuries the article says nothing, by the way, and that, sadly, is predictable too.
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
Stephanie, I absolutely love your posts. :) Whenever I hear something crazy, I too automatically react with sarcasm, but sometimes I’ll read something soo crazy (like the comments of police chief Roling), that I’m just left dumbfounded. I love that you manage to somehow keep your cool, and respond with your usual sarcasm no matter how crazy the story is. :) Thanks for all the great posts!
You scooped me! I was going to make my re-entry with this inanity.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of “preventable” and “necessary” (as in “unnecessary suffering” and, I suppose, “necessary” suffering?). It simply is not in the consciousness of someone who uses animals on a daily basis–and has for their lifetime–to consider not using them as an option. I’d imagine this would be particularly true for those who directly profit from that usage. As vegans, the first thing we say when we hear a comment like the above is exactly what you wrote. Of course it can be prevented! Don’t use the horses to begin with! It’s so clear to us, and so sad that there are so few of us.
Our job is to bring respect and justice–defined as allowing other sentients to live their natural lives–into the consciousness of those who assume that those other sentients are mere tools, vehicles, food, clothing, and other products for our use. Thanks for doing that.
Thanks, H. :) Ah, Mary, I’m so sorry to have pulled this one out from under you. I was all kinds of tense over incessant neighborhood fireworks that were interfering with sleep and work and needed a stress outlet — but still, if I’d known, I’d have let you have it. :)
I assume the “man-killing” horses were immediately put down, since they are clearly a public menace. *sigh*
Thank you for covering this article. I wish Chief Rolling could read your stance on the situation. I am confused and appalled by his quote. Is he really so incompetent as to believe there is NO WAY of preventing mishaps like that?? I am just flabbergasted. In the downtown area of my city, we have horse drawn carriages that I get outraged over every time I step into that area. I watch the ‘drivers’ whipping the horses as their poor hot and overworked bodies lug around so much weight behind them. I would really like to protest but I am not so sure that people will realize how wrong it is to exploit those horses, especially if those people are meat-eaters. I feel like if they can justify killing animals, they can easily justify using them to pull around a carriage full of people…but anyway, thanks again! I look forward to each one of your articles. <3
Iowa is not animal friendly, period. When you drive through the state (and I live here), and see all the terrible confinement buildings that are packed full of innocent pigs, chickens, turkeys and other creatures that are just waiting to be slaughtered, you know that kindness and compassion towards animals is not foremost in most people’s minds here. Animals are viewed and treated as commodities and not as fellow living beings who feel pain, fear and who suffer when mistreated. Of course the Chief would make that sad statement. Horses will continue to be featured in their parade and parades all around the world. If he actually did make a stand against horses in future parades, he would probably be voted out of office. Attitudes change so slowly, especially when it comes to how one should treat animals, and especially in areas where animals’ rights are considered nonexistent. No, I never read what happened to the poor horses after the tragedy either, and wondered at their fate. As to comparing horses to cars – there are so many things wrong with that statement that I won’t go there. Those of us who love animals know that this kind of thinking has to be turned around. Until then, animals will continue to pay the price when human beings want food, entertainment, and everything else we misuse God’s creatures for.
I agree that animals are treated horrifically all across the world and my first reaction when reading the New York Times excerpt was the exact same as Stephanie’s but my second reaction was that anyone with any common sense and even an iota of intelligence would have the same response. Upon reflection I think it’s quite probable that Chief Rolling is just saying what the lawyers have told him to say. If the accident was preventable then the organizers of the parade (the town? the county?) are responsible. You know someone is being sued so lawyers are telling responsible parties what to say and of course abdicating all responsibility would be the main defense.