Slaughterhouse workers typically kill a horse by firing a retractable steel bolt into its brain.

Wild horses in the West sometimes die after breaking a bone or contracting a disease spread by bloodsucking insects.

Here in the Garden Spot, a veterinarian with a hypodermic needle might inject a lethal dose of barbiturates.

No equine death is pretty, said Denise Clardy, a Manheim horse owner active in horse rescue work.

Nor is the long-running debate over commercial slaughterhouses for horses.

The wrangling flared up again last month when Congress reinstated federal Department of Agriculture funding to inspect horse meat for human consumption.

That opens the gate for the return of the U.S. slaughterhouses, which were shuttered when animal welfare groups got the government to ban inspections in 2007.

The prospect sharply divides equine interests.

Some people say humane killing is a vital way to deal with unwanted animals, along with with expanded rescue facilities and education programs promoting responsible horse ownership.

Others argue that any surplus of horses is more perceived than real –– and that it's unconscionable, in any case, to render Trigger into food for people, dogs or zoo animals.

"All horses go to heaven," Lancaster animal welfare advocate Kris Harker wrote in the heading of a letter printed last week in the Sunday News. Now, "thanks to Congress they have to go through hell."

But other horse factions say growing numbers of equines have been suffering since 2007 when buyers started shipping them en masse to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada.

"We are relieved to, again, have legal and regulated horse slaughter," Lancaster Township horse owner Ginny Gibble said in an email.

Such an alternative is important for people "who cannot afford to cremate, bury or compost their dying horse," Gibble added.

Others say they'd like to see the meat from euthanized horses used –– sent to starving Africans, for example –– instead of wasted.

"We do need slaughterhouses here," Clardy said. "There are people who want to save every animal on the planet but it cannot be."

'Creatures of flight'
America has 9 million horses, according to the Government Accountability Office report completed before Congress lifted its de facto slaughterhouse ban.

The GAO reports that 138,000 American horses were sold and processed for meat in foreign countries in 2010. A 660 percent jump in exports of horses to Mexico and a 148 percent increase in exports to Canada since 2007 were reported by the GAO.

Some of that traffic begins with local horse sales.

But it's hard to estimate the volume, said Mike McDermott, office manager for New Holland Sales Stables Inc., the county's largest equine auction.

Because dealers buy horses for multiple customers, he said, "I really don't know how many that are purchased out of here go to Canada."

Private dealers sell some New Holland horses to slaughterhouses, McDermott noted, but "we don't have a slaughterhouse rep purchasing horses here.

"We really don't have a side" in the issue, he added. "Our company offers horses for sale regardless of what the end user ultimately does with them."

McDermott said sales of carriage and work horses to Plain sect buyers have helped keep business steady despite a steep decline in the overall horse market.

Skip Seifert, vice president of the Pennsylvania Equine Council, said it's unlikely that the percentage of local horses sent to slaughter has changed much since 2007.

No horses should be making the trip, according to animal welfare activists, who claim that many horses are stressed and sickened awaiting the bolt gun.

The Humane Society of the United States is "extremely disappointed" that Congress has again legalized slaughter, said Sarah Speed, the Pennsylvania chapter director.

Among those in the HSUS corner are the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Veterinarians for Equine Welfare and U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who in June reintroduced a bill to stop horse slaughter permanently.

Parties on both sides agree that young, serviceable horses sometimes get killed along with old ones. But they disagree over much else, starting with whether slaughterhouses are necessary.

Speed says they aren't.

"In four years as the Pennsylvania state director," she said, "I have never had a case of neglect or cruelty that the Pennsylvania animal community was unable to handle."

Seifert and others contend it's impossible to accommodate the burgeoning U.S. herd without euthanizing some animals.

The population of aging, unusable equines has grown in recent decades as improved health care and feed have extended their life spans, Seifert said.

Seifert, a York County horse trainer, says he will care for his 19-year-old disabled equine until the end of its natural days, a luxury not everyone can afford.

Nor should every animal be given a home, he added.

Horses are "creatures of flight" evolved to run at the first sign of a predator or perceived threat, Seifert said. They cannot always be taught to overcome bad or dangerous behavior.

Meanwhile, the colicky economy is reportedly causing more people to neglect or even abandon their mounts.

Clardy says she's seen local horses hungry and rib sprung.

PEC Secretary Joan Pauley said horses that have been abandoned at stables or turned loose and allowed to become feral are a growing specter in the East.

Closure four years ago of the last three U.S. slaughterhouses, in Texas and Illinois, dealt the recreational horse industry a hard economic kick, Pauley added.

"What happens when you shut down slaughterhouses," she said, "[is that] you flood the low end of the market."

A so-called kill-buyer might purchase a skinny unwanted horse for around a dime a pound, said Dave Duquette, president of the Wyoming-based United Horseman, a group that condones slaughter.

Unless they have the heavy equipment to do the job themselves, Gibble said, horse owners would pay at least $100 –– and potentially much more –– to have a horse euthanized and disposed of.

Speed counters that the market should not be propped up by an overseas penchant for dining on horse flesh.

"The truth is that horse slaughter is perpetuated by a demand ... in France, Italy and Japan," she said. Horse meat is considered a delicacy in those countries but has never captured U.S. tastes.

Still, Duquette said, meat processors are weighing opening plants in numerous states in the South and West.

That's encouraging and unsettling at the same time, Pauley said.

"It's very difficult to come out and say you're pro-slaughter," acknowledged Pauley, who added that "half my members support it, half my members don't.

Seifert said "a considerable majority [of horse owners] are not necessarily opposed" to domestic slaughterhouses.

"All of us would rather see a horse adopted out," but there's neither enough space nor resources, Pauley said. "It's a sad problem all around."

Contact Sunday News staff writer Jon Rutter at jrutter@lnpnews.com.