Twelve horses killed in Canadian freeway accident

[ridingsafely]

Calgary - Alberta – Canada: Twelve horses killed in Canadian freeway accident

A 50-foot transport trailer carrying 44 horses tipped over on Deerfoot Trail killing 12 horses (Calgary Herald - 18 October, 2008).

Read more at:
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id=90288671-be80-4c87-ba88-54c865134390

 

[lucretia]

very sad but also inspiring the way everybody chipped in to help.

 

[xspiralx]

Is it even safe to be transporting 44 horses in one vehicle?

 

[hellybelly6]

I couldnt read the article. Unfortunately, animals are treated as 'farm products' rather than living creatures. I presume these animals were going to slaughter. I always feel its better to travel on the hook than on the hoof. I do not like slaughter, but if its going to happen, then surely its better to do it locally with minimum travel.

 

[lucretia]

and ruth was second in te seven year olds and pippa was third in that

 

[event_ryder]

I live in Calgary and have to drive the Deerfoot highway to get to work- it was an awful accident to have to drive past. The load of horses were mostly young horses and ponies headed to a nearby feedlot. It was amazing to see how many people stopped to help... by the time I drove by they had many people there, including Spruce Meadows' horse ambulance, vets, the ALberta Equestrian Federation (AEF)... my friend who is staff at the AEF was there to supervise and agreed that all the emergency crew and volunteers did an amazing job taking care of the horses.

 

[dieseldog]

[ QUOTE ]
I couldnt read the article. Unfortunately, animals are treated as 'farm products' rather than living creatures. I presume these animals were going to slaughter. I always feel its better to travel on the hook than on the hoof. I do not like slaughter, but if its going to happen, then surely its better to do it locally with minimum travel.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree it is better to do it locally but the US has banned Horse slaughter and now they either have to go to Mexico or Canada. I don't know where these horses came from.

 

[lucretia]

excuse my random post above, i am not sure how it got there its from another thread entirely. but having lived in canada it is pretty scary there on any major freeway not so much cos of the speed and the volume of traffic but because of the sheer size of the vehicles. i suppose this is because canada is less populated than the most of the US so it is better economic value to ship very large quantites of anything, not just horses. a 50ft trailer is another ten feet or three (approx )meters longer than the maximun permited length of a non articualted vehicle (well horsebox anyway!) in europe so think about the truck of a funnel or a whittaker, take out the living etc and add another third on the length if you need some idea of the size of these things. no wonder so many small and young horses can be squashed in.