A Pennsylvania man accused of trafficking horses into Canada to be slaughtered has been charged in St. Lawrence County, the first time a New York law banning the practice in place since 2023 has been enforced.
On Wednesday, state police arrested Robert M. Seitz in the town of DeKalb, stopping him around 2:24 a.m. for a traffic violation. According to police records, investigators with the state police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit inspected his truck and trailer, and found that the horses in the trailer were tagged for delivery to a slaughter facility in Canada.
Seitz was arrested and given an appearance ticket to return to DeKalb Town Court at a later date. The horses were removed from Seitz’s custody and given over to farms for protection.
State police said they had been tipped off about the illegal transportation on Aug. 28 when the state Humane Association alerted the Warren County District Attorney’s Office. They credited working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the nonprofit Animals’ Angels.
On Thursday afternoon, after the news of the Wednesday arrest had broken, those groups put out a joint statement shedding some more light on how the investigation came together.
“For years, Animals’ Angels has followed these trucks, documented their movements and worked to expose the kill buyers who profit from sending horses to slaughter,” said Sonja Meadows, founder and president of Animals’ Angels. “Our investigators’ detailed documentation and knowledge of this particular kill buyer were instrumental in making this operation possible. This stop demonstrates why persistent field investigations, careful documentation and collaboration with law enforcement are so critical. We are deeply grateful to the State Troopers and everyone who acted on the information provided, and we hope this marks the beginning of consistent enforcement throughout New York.”
In the statement, Meadows shared that the authorities had found and removed 25 horses from Seitz’s custody, and the horses had been followed from a farm in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, owned by Bruce Rotz. Rotz has not been charged in this case.
Speaking with the Watertown Daily Times Thursday afternoon, Meadows said there are no comparable laws in Pennsylvania, but said she thinks New York’s authorities could charge Rotz for violating this state’s laws.
“He is the largest U.S. shipper to slaughterhouses in Canada at this point; last year alone he shipped 1,600 horses through New York,” she said. “I do believe that what happened yesterday will make his life a whole lot more difficult, and enforcement action will be easier after this.”
Meadows provided a series of photos to the Watertown Daily Times showing the conditions on the Rotz property; the photos showed a thin horse, others in crowded conditions, one apparently in distress lying on its side and two trucks. One of the pictured trucks appears to match the description of the red 2007 Freightliner Seitz was pulled over while driving on Wednesday.
In the jointly released statement, another group called Horsepower was identified as part of the operation.
Karin Spencer, founder of Horsepower, told the Watertown Daily Times in an interview that she had worked with the Humane Association to turn the information gathered by Animals’ Angels to the appropriate authorities. Spencer, through Horsepower and her company Spencer Strategic Solutions, lobbies for animal rights and pro-equine legislation in Albany. She and the group were prominent advocates of the 2023 bill outlawing the shipping of horses through New York to slaughterhouses.
“The Humane Association reached out last week, because they were hitting some roadblocks trying to get anyone’s attention on this,” she said. “We’ve all worked together, we all come to the table with different skill sets and connections, so I started agitating from the legislative route.”
That took her to state Sen. Daniel G. Stec, R-Queensbury, who represents part of the border region where many of these horses are carried over.
“We brought in Senator Stec, briefed him and gave him the information to start making calls to state police,” Spencer said. “It’s one thing for us advocates to do it, but it’s a different thing when a state Senator calls.”
In a statement, Stec lauded the combined efforts to achieve the arrest.
“This operation demonstrates what can happen when advocates, legislators, prosecutors, and law enforcement work together toward a shared goal,” he said. “This stop sends an important message that those who profit from this brutal trade cannot assume New York’s law will go unenforced.”
Stec joined with a majority of the state Senate to support the 2023 ban legislation; only Sen. Mark C. Walczyk, R-Sackets Harbor, voted against the bill, with two other senators excused from voting.
Spencer, the lobbyist with Horsepower, said the issue of horse trafficking for slaughter is bigger than one man or one arrest. She cited data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that shows trucks pass over the border with horses at least every few weeks, although not all of those equines are destined for the slaughterhouse.
Those that are to be killed are sent to the last remaining slaughterhouse that processes horses for meat in Canada; the Viande Richelieu slaughterhouse in Massueville, Quebec.
While the slaughter of horses and the consumption of horse meat has been illegal in the U.S. since 2007, horse meat features in French and Quebecois cuisine and is legal across Canada. Canada also ships a large portion of its horse meat to Japan and Europe.
Spencer said New York and Pennsylvania have horse auctions that see animals end up on the road to slaughter. She said there’s an auction site in Unadilla, Otsego County, and another in New Holland, Pennsylvania. Horses not sold at those auctions tend to move around the region before they’re marked for slaughter.
“They pass horses between themselves, and then they throw them in a tractor trailer and bring them back up through New York, via I-81 or I-87,” she said.
Spencer said she’s been working for years to end horse slaughter, which she said is particularly cruel because horses are not raised to be food and have instincts that make the process painful and inhumane.
“It’s a gruesome process for horses, much more so than cattle because when they slaughter cattle for beef they can immobilize them and stun them,” she said. “You can’t do that with horses. As a prey animal, they’re fighting to the bitter end, they’re harder to stun, so when you try stunning them, it doesn’t work. So they end up being slaughtered alive and hung up to bleed out while still conscious.”
She said that after the national ban on the slaughter of horses, it took years to convince authorities that something needed to be done about the supply of animals across the borders. Mexican slaughterhouses also take in horses for meat.
Spencer said that it’s taken some work to get results from the 2023 law in New York. She said she’s hopeful this arrest is just the start of a crackdown on the industry and more statewide attention on the issue.
‘“We were hoping if we got one, we could get the ball rolling,” she said.