Poll Results

I recently ran a poll about the slaughter issue. The answers were (1) No horse should ever go to slaughter in USA, no matter what. (2) The slaughter plants we had were humane and well regulated. (3) The plants in the US need to be open with better regulations and enforcement and plants built to accommodate the equine mentally and physically.
The poll was created because of several comments in one of our recent blog posts. Some of our anti-slaughter friends made statements claiming all slaughter supporters are trying to get the new transport bill stopped. We all think the system we had was humane, well regulated and the meat was perfectly safe. I said there must be more than two sides to this, because back at the ranch, we don’t feel that way. So certainly not all pro horse people are making the statements the anti slaughter side claims we are.
After I posted the poll I was told how stupid it was to have 3 choices, how unscientific it is. Well, I never claimed to be a scientist so it’s OK for me to be unscientific. Yes, I did have a couple miss spelled words but the only way to correct them was to delete the poll since it received a few votes almost immediately after I posted it. I didn’t think two missing L’s were a big deal. Apparently they were to the folks on the AB forum.
I used three questions to throw off people wanting to vote just to force the results to be the opposite of the point I was trying to make. Question number 1 was unnecessary but there only to keep people from stacking the poll. My true point was to show very few people truly believed the system we had in place was perfect. Sorry to those of you who worked creating several accounts just to vote anti slaughter several times, sorry to those of you who emailed all of your unknowledgeable friends, told them to come vote, and pick #1. Sorry your vote stacking didn’t really pay off this time because it wasn’t the point of this poll at all. I knew the “No horse should go to slaughter in the USA no matter what” would win. I know there are people on the anti slaughter side who do nothing all day long other than think of ways to sway the polls and solicit voters for said polls.
The real questions were numbers 2 and 3. Of the total 219 votes, number 3 got 77 and number 2 got 10. Yes, a whopping 4% of the voters felt our slaughter system was always humane and well regulated. I don’t know about the other 86 people who voted for slaughter in the US but I know I did not email or pander for votes to support my way of thinking. I most certainly didn’t create several Google accounts so I could vote more than once...
So many anti-slaughter supporters make blanket statements and present them as facts. They make wild accusations with no factual accreditations what so ever. In fact when asked to back up those so called facts more than once with some sort of accreditation and it was never done. Not one time was a publication linked or a research credited. Not one single “fact” given could actually be backed up with any information by any credible source anywhere.
So, we do agree on one thing. The system was not perfect. Now what we SHOULD be doing is working together for a better system for the American horse. We should all be working together for new plants, better regulations with a higher standard of enforcement. The way the no slaughter in the US is working now is pretty miserable for the horses. It may feel all warm and fuzzy to the anti slaughter folks but the horses just aren’t feeling it.
Poll Results
(1) No horse should ever go to slaughter in USA any matter what -132 - 60%
(2) The slaughter plants we had were humane and well regulated - 10 - 4%
(3) The plants in the US need to be open with better regulations and enforcement and plants built to accommodate the equine mentally and physically - 77 - 35%
219 total votes