Animal right groups make horrific discovery involving horse shipments from Winnipeg to Japan

In June, CityNews reported findings from a joint investigation between Animal Justice and Japanese-based animal rights group Life Investigation Agency.

That showed over 60 per cent of shipments of live horses to Japan for slaughter, many of which departed from right here at Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport exceeded the federally mandated 28-hour limit. 

But unfortunately, we are now learning that the horses’ grueling journey isn’t just long, it’s fatal. 

Japanese government records obtained by LIA show that 21 horses have died due to the traumatic experience in just the past year. 

Alleged causes of death included dehydration, stress, pneumonia, and other medical issues. 

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“This new information was absolutely shocking to me and it shows the industry is even worse than we ever really imagined,” explained Kaitlyn Mitchell, director of legal advocacy for Animal Justice.

“Horses are dying, they’re dying on the plane, in the hours and days after they land, many of them are becoming seriously injured on the plane and none of it seems to be being reported to the CFIA.”

Japanese government data also some mares have also died shortly after due to arrival.

“It’s illegal under Canadian law to ship a horse in the final 10 per cent of their pregnancy. So if that is how far along these horses were, this was already a violation of the law, it also puts them at risk of birth complications and that is what we saw here these poor horses are actually dying because of the complications that are caused by transport. They shouldn’t have been transported in the first place,” said Mitchell.  

In contrast to these latest revelations, Earlier this year a representative of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) told a House of Commons committee that they were only aware of five horse deaths related to air shipments since 2013. 

“If 20 horses are dying every year throughout this industry, that means hundreds have died in secret no one has even known about their deaths and we’ve continued on this end business as usual we’ve been talking about shutting the industry down for years but the flights continue, there have been two flights this month alone.”  

Bill C-355, which would ban the air export of Canadian horses for slaughter, cleared the House of Commons earlier this year and is now in the hands of the Senate.