Today, 9/26/2011, just outside Washington, DC, in a hotel in Alexandria Virginia, a motivated group of equine welfare activists is meeting to bring together ideas and coordinate action to confront the many important issues that face horses, their owners, and those who care for equines everywhere.
The acknowledged leaders of the equine welfare movement have been organized by the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance and the Animal Law Coalition.
Dr. Ann Marini, principal author of a landmark scientific paper linking the common horse anti inflammatory drug phenalbutazone and death in humans eating horsemeat has been instrumental in spearheading the conference.
The moderators are author R.T. Fitch and EWA Vice President Vicki Tobin.
Keynote speaker for the meeting is longtime equine welfare advocate John Holland of Virginia. Other nationally known speakers the first day are Jo Anne Normile, founder of the famous race horse rescue organization CANTER, Barbaro author Alex Brown, Equine Director Keith Dane of the U.S. Humane Society, and Marini.
The meeting will include a strategy session targeting anti-horse slaughter legislation currently in Congress and pro slaughter efforts by a small Wyoming based group of activists.
The Tuesday session will begin with an address by Virginia Rep. Jim Moran (D). He will be followed by law University of Maryland law professor Valerie Stanley, and Katie Fite, a wild horse and public land use expert. Nancy Perry, vice president of government relations of the ASPCA has been a longtime leader in the effort to end horse slaughter.
Suzanne Roy of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign will speak on the continued efforts on the part of the federal Bureau of Land Management efforts to decimate western herds.
Tuesday’s session will end with a detailed analysis and refutation of a controversial GAO report on horse slaughter.
Participants in the conference include many important horse experts and advocates from all areas of the academic, medical, political, and social spectrum of the horse world.