Horse lovers, honestly, just pass this post up.
Folks interested in knowing where your medicines and foods come from -- here's a quick note about Premarin, by Pfizer.
Click quoted text for a Discovery News article about Premarin, horses, and horse rescue (they leave you on an up note in the article, thankfully):
The active ingredients for Premarin—used by around nine million women to relieve menopause symptoms—come from the urine of pregnant horses. The mares are confined to narrow stalls for 20 hours at a time while hooked to collection devices, MSNBC reports. The foals of these mares usually go to auction, where they are often snapped up by bidders known as "horse killers," who send the horses to feedlots. There the animals are fattened before slaughter, according to the report.
Bp
7 comments:
I did a piece on this about five years ago. Unless it's changed, it's not just 20 hours of confinement - it's for several months of their 11 month gestation period. And the foals are sold to feedlots that then sell them to people who eat them as a delicacy, in France and Japan, by a story I read. (Can't find it on the net, but I've got a copy." Very ugly.
Hey Bpaul, a friend of mine is a flyfishing nutcase and has taken me twice now, once for a weekend on the McCloud, which, accoridng to him, is one of the premier spots worldwide. In any case, I didn't catch any fish, but I had several on the line for a bit, and had blast learning how to throw that line around. And christ, the McCloud - just jaw dropping.
The McCloud is famous for being absolutely gorgeous. Not particularly easy, however. At least by reputation.
Learning to cast and control you line on the water is the entrance fee for fly fishing. Many don't make it past that point -- it's a pain in the ass, frankly. However, it's worth the price of admission.
There is a quote from some famous fly fishing writer that I can paraphrase: It's hard to complain about pursuing an animal that insists on living in such gorgeous places.
If you are in Ptown, I'd be glad to go down to the casting ponds with you at Westmoreland and see if I can give you some tips.
Bp
I'd love to, Bp. Hope to get up there in the next year or so, I guess. Got a very old friend there. Gotta say so long before I go Outback.
Up here we call those horses "PMU" (Pregnant Mare's Urine). In fact most PMU farms are in Canada. There used to be a massive amount of them, leading to a huge overpopulation of low grade horses (hence why so many ended up at slaughter) but things have changed.
An association called NAERIC (North American Equine Ranching Information Council), has really helped by offering registration of foals, promoting stock, and basically causing the farmers to take better care of the horses as well as breed good quality horses that have a market value, rather than ones that will for sure end up at slaughter.
Much of the PMU industry in Canada has closed now, mostly due to loss of contracts. But there is definite improvement thanks to NAERIC in the ones that are still around.
Thanks for the expert commentary Mel -- I appreciate it. I didn't know whether to bring this post to your attention or not, it was such a bummer.
Plug your magazine would ya? Ya'll have a home page?
Bp
Sorry for being late getting back to this. Yes the mags (Pacific & Prairie Horse Journal and Canadian Horse Journal) do have a website -- www.horsejournals.com. /plug :)
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