Questions about the horse-drawn carriage industry
Editor,
In light of the recent events where, Jake, a carriage horse went down due to icy roads in Downtown Savannah, it is necessary to raise some questions about the industry itself.
Horse drawn carriages are not a necessity. They exist solely for the pleasure of people and to make a profit for their owners.
Accidents are not uncommon (Google: horse drawn carriage accidents) and since the horses have no protections under the Animal Welfare Act, there is no way to be sure that the horses are being cared for properly.
Savannah has put city ordinances in place but these are only welfare improvements. The horses may be less miserable but they are still miserable.
I propose that this industry be banned completely as other cities have done. Carriage horses are not things to be used.
They are sensitive, sentient beings, who are forced to work in all kinds of extreme weather conditions, pulling carriage loads of people while navigating dangerous city streets. They work in noisy traffic breathing vehicle exhaust fumes, nose to tailpipe for hours on end.
It is inhumane.
And no one wants to answer the question about what happens to them when they are no longer profitable. Are they allowed to live out their lives in happy retirement? Who pays for their care after they can no longer work?
Do the owners put aside money to retire their horses and keep them safe and happy or do they sell them to kill buyers (Google: Kill buyers for horses) who ship them across our borders to Mexico or Canada where horse slaughter is legal?
What you think of as a fun or romantic ride is anything but if you are the horse that is treated as a commodity and not a living being.
Ruth Arnone, Organizer Savannah Animal Advocacy
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2018.
Agreed!
Well said. Take a ride down Wheaton St at afternoon rush hour… I always feel so badly for the horses. I often see the carriage operators focused on their phones and not the crazy traffic around them. Not sure why the companies choose to send outgoing carriages during 5 o’clock traffic. Traffic is bad enough as it is.
As you point out, they are not pets. These 2,000 pound Draft horses have been bred for hundreds of years to do the work they are doing. They are expensive to feed, take up a lot of space, require special draft horse shoes, worming, vet visits, etc. We can reasonably estimate care for each of these horses to be about $7,000.00 per year.
Mean while horse meat can be sold by the pound. 2,000 pounds, that’s a lot of meat. Transport and slaughter is brutal. Google: Horse Slaughter Business
If you take 10 horses (no idea how many any one carriage company owns, this is for estimate purposes only) out of work, the owners now have an $70,000.00 bill and no income.
What are your provisions for purchasing and re-homing all of these horses? Do you own property? Are you adopting all or any of them? Don’t say “someone” will solve the problem. You are advocating for this measure on humane grounds, what responsibility are you taking for what happens to these animals post job?
Really the answer to preserving the historic character of Savannah’s squares is to bring it back to the 1870’s. Pedestrians, pedal vehicles, trolleys and horses only after 7:00 PM. Now we have no traffic problem and an area that is MORE likely to draw tourist dollars as we become totally charming
Regulate the heck out of carriage horses. Agreed. No horses out when the temperature goes over 90 or under 35. Ban cars from the squares after dark unless the car carries an ‘historic district resident’ sticker. Now we have people strolling happily in the evenings the quiet broken only occasionally by the braying of trolley drivers and the soothing clip clop of a safe and comfortable horse doing what draft horses have been bred to do for hundreds of years. Crazy idea? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Finally, the argument that carriage horses “exist solely for the pleasure of people and to make a profit for their owners.” is silly. The same argument might be made for sellers of ice cream cones, cookies and cocktails. What a glum world this would be.
“Strolling happily in the evening, broken only by the” frequent gunshots, sound of a mugger running quickly up behind you, crash of a broken car window as a thief sees a grocery bag inside, rattling of a locked door as a burglar tries to jimmy the lock, cries of a beaten, wounded victim sprawled on the sidewalk–and oh ,yes, the clickety click of a shopping cart being wheeled away from Kroger’s. Forget the muggers, the shooters, the thieves, the strongarm boys–stop that old lady with the cart!