Alberta woman's horses slaughtered

[Catherine]

I found an official web site. It explains traceability of live stock and what is required. I suspect you will understand it better than I do. As far as I can tell there is no way of identifying an individual horse. There doesn't even seem to be much need to prove ownership. The big concern is about where the horse has been.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$departm...trace14212

The ex-husband would have had the identification number for the location of the farm.  Gas is pretty cheap in Alberta and the ranch would have a horse trailer so transportation would not have cost much. Selling the horses for slaughter would have made some money. 

I hate to speculate why a man would kill his ex wife's horses. I assume he thought the horses were his ex wife's property.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/charges-laid-...-1.3912551


The real problem is how lax the slaughterhouse was about proof of ownership and a total lack of identification of individual horses in Alberta and Canada in general.  

Anyone could take some horses and sell them. Also horses being sent into the food chain could come from anywhere. There is no real way to know which horse you really have.

I think the horse owner was too trusting and it was a costly mistake. She should have tried to move the horses as soon as the ranch owner died. It would have been a safer choice.