Animals' Angels, Inc. heads largest transatlantic campaign ever initiated to fight horse slaughter

BALTIMORE - March 21, 2014 - PRLog -- Animals’ Angels, Inc. is proud to announce the commencement of the largest transatlantic campaign ever initiated to fight horse slaughter. Aiming once again to target the slaughter industry from the consumer side, a highly influential alliance led by Animals' Angels USA is further exposing, in a new report, the painful conditions and cruelty endured by slaughter horses that become food.

A new report outlines how business in the US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina & Uruguay is still in clear violation of EU regulations. Humane standards are breached, overlooked and blatantly ignored.  The horses are not the only victims to the industry; the consumers are as well.

"The momentum to end horse slaughter has never been stronger.  Our own investigations, combined with the united force of this year's alliance, go hand in hand to speak as one unified voice.  Now is the time for horse welfare advocates across the globe to pressure law makers in all countries for a complete ban on horse slaughter," said Sonja Meadows, President of Animals' Angels USA.

Animals' Angels has joined with animal welfare organizations in four European countries that import horse meat originating from the US, Canada and Mexico; Global Action in the Interest of Animals (GAIA, Belgium), Eyes on Animals (Netherlands), Tierschutzbund Zurich (TSB, Switzerland) and L214 Ethics & Animals (France).

Some history: Last year's EU Campaign took consumer awareness to a whole new level. A full year's investigation done throughout five countries generated the most detailed examination of the horse slaughter industry known, from the auction to grocer's shelves.  In addition to exposing the cruel trek taken by slaughter horses, we were also able to prove unequivocally that horse meat was being mislabeled and fraudulently sold.  The sharing of our findings had grocers pulling horse meat from their shelves.

We expect this year's campaign will put additional pressure on Belgian and Dutch horsemeat importers, Equinox, Visser & van Walsum, Multimeat, and the exporting company Bouvry. These companies are still misrepresenting the meat being sold to consumers, no other necessary improvements made nor any stricter standards implemented.

The 2014 campaign started with simultaneous press releases of our partner organizations in France, Belgium and Switzerland. It created massive interest from the media, and has already been featured by multiple news outlets, television stations and newspapers across Europe.

Initial results include another Swiss grocery chain pulling all horsemeat products from its shelves and large scale discounter Lidl joining the campaign by appealing to the EU Commission and other supermarket chains to stop importing American horse meat.

The Alliance has also reached out to the EU Commission requesting a meeting to share all findings.  We anticipate a continued working relationship for positive change.