One equine medicine specialist has concluded that New York City carriage horses are "completely angst-free," after taking some horses' temperatures for a totally unbiased study, he swears.
According to the Daily News, Professor Joe Bertone of the Western University of Health Science tested a (very small) pool of thirteen carriage horses at the Clinton Park Stables on West 52nd Street, over the course of three days in August. Bertone analyzed levels of cortisol—a hormone produced in humans and animals under stress—by taking saliva samples from the horses and checking their body temperatures four times a day.
What did Bertone, who "came up with the idea for the study himself," surmise? "I couldn't find more content animals. They were very relaxed," he told the News. The tabloid did not include any hard data in its report. However, Bertone also noted that stressed-out horses don't sleep well, and during this particular study, "in the mornings we heard them snoring." Only happy creatures snore, that's just science.
It's perhaps worth noting that the entire study was funded by a $5,000 grant from the horse-carriage industry. And coming from the News, this sort of biased horse reportage is, itself, old news. Last spring the paper launched an official Save Our Horses campaign, complete with a cover story and digital petition pushing back against the anti-carriage horse movement.
Reached by phone, Nicolas Delon, Faculty Fellow of Animal Studies at NYU, was skeptical of Bertone's methodology. Carriage industry sponsorship aside, Delon says, "The time frame is very short, and very small." And as for those cortisol measurements, "[Bertone] did not measure stress levels... when they are being beaten up; when they get into road traffic accidents." Remember Pumpkin?
Professor Delon also pointed out that there's more to a horse's welfare than his or her stress levels. There's also "provision of adequate food, water, shelter, lack of diseases, parasites and other pathogens" to consider, not to mention freedom to "express natural behaviors." In the case of carriage horses, this might include the freedom to "gallop, exercise, play, and hang out together."
Holly Cheever, Vice President of the New York State Humane Association, has done her own investigation into the conditions that carriage horses face. NYCLASS, an animal rights group making a hard push for the carriage ban, asked Dr. Cheever for her thoughts on the Bertone study earlier this week, and she offered this colorful counterpoint:
"Measuring cortisol levels as an indicator of stress levels is not always a reliable indicator. For example, pregnant sows suffering in the hell of gestation crates, exhibit the stereotypic behaviors that exemplify psychosis, but tend to have normal cortisol levels, allowing the pork production industry to claim that gestation crates are a humane housing system. The question for the New York carriage horse industry is not whether the horses' lives are survivable, but rather whether they are humane."
Mayor de Blasio campaigned on a promise to abolish horse carriages in NYC, but the City Council has yet to bring any proposal to a vote.
