Kathy Anderson remembers the call she got from a Nebraska woman who needed to reduce the number of horses on her ranch.

She couldn’t break even by taking them to auction because of the depressed horse market.

Vets charge for euthanizing the animals, and horse rescue operations are full.

“What am I supposed to do? Shoot them and leave them with the dead cattle?” the frustrated woman asked Anderson, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln associate professor of animal science.

The rising cost of feeding horses — coupled with the closing of the last horse slaughter operations in the United States — have led to an increase in the number of unwanted horses nationally and in Nebraska.

“It’s the perfect storm,” said Tom Lenz, a Kansas City-area veterinarian and chairman of the national Unwanted Horse Coalition.

There are stories of horses being released in state parks, left to wander highways or tied to trees and abandoned.

That hasn’t happened yet in Nebraska.

But there is evidence of the growing number of unwanted horses in this region.

More owners are trying to donate horses to UNL, which uses them in teaching, Anderson said.

“We’ve gotten a few calls from people who can’t afford to feed them anymore and are hoping to donate,” she said.

The most colorful regional story comes from Lenz about a friend of his who took cattle to a sale barn, stayed for a while — and found three abandoned horses in his trailer.

And there appears to be an increase in neglect cases in Nebraska, although there are no statistics to back up the anecdotal tales.

“In the past year, we have had more horses come through our doors than any year I can remember,” said Kristi Biodrowski, lead cruelty investigator for the Nebraska Humane Society.

But the society doesn’t accept unwanted horses as it does dogs and cats, Biodrowski said.

Lancaster County hasn’t seen abuse or neglect cases in several years, but Jeff Wild of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture noticed more calls than normal last winter about horse abuse and neglect across the state.

Those cases are turned over to local sheriffs, he said.

Nebraska’s horse rescue operations are seeing an increase in calls as well.

“I’ve been inundated. I’ve probably turned away 80 since the first of the year,” said Lin Beaune, who operates EPONA horse rescue and sanctuary north of Kearney.

The problem in Nebraska is primarily backyard breeders who no longer can make money on horses because of rising costs, she and other rescue operators said.

“I had a call today from a man who wanted to get rid of three or four horses because he can’t afford them,” she said. “It’s terrible. It’s a crisis.”

Opinions differ on the effect of closing U.S. slaughterhouses, the result of pressure from animal rights advocates.

One side blames closing the slaughterhouses for pushing down prices of horses and hopes to undo the ban on slaughtering in the United States.

The other believes the economy is to blame and hopes to expand the ban.

Many equine vets, breeders and others blame at least part of the increase in unwanted horses on the loss of the slaughterhouses, the last of which closed in 2007.

“It’s one of the dumbest things they did,” said State Veterinarian Dennis Hughes.

Horses still are bought at auction for slaughter in Canada and Mexico, but the price for low-end animals has dropped.

There’s no bottom to the market, said Mike Black, veterinarian with the Nebraska Equine Veterinary Clinic in Omaha.

“You can buy a horse for $10 at a horse auction,” he said.

So some breeders are trying to get rid of extra horses, and others have gone out of business.

But animal rights groups say overbreeding and rising food and fuel costs are the real culprits.

“It has nothing to do with the slaughter plants,” said Val Hinderlider, who operates Break Heart Ranch, a Nebraska rescue service. “I think that is propaganda. It’s the economy laying waste to our horses right now. The economy and the overbreeding.”

Nancy Perry, vice president of government affairs for the Humane Society of the United States, said nearly as many horses are going to slaughter, but now they’re going to Mexico and Canada.

And the number of horses bound for slaughter always has been low. About 950,000 die each year in the United States. That’s about 10 percent of the population. About 100,000 go to slaughter, Perry said.

The national society is eager to stop exporting, she said.

Most owners who take a horse to an auction wouldn’t tolerate abuse, Perry said. But sending a horse to auction is convenient. And owners don’t have to think about the possibility of what will happen to the horse, she said.

Perry and rescue operation owners said death at a Mexican slaughterhouse is worse than at the former U.S. operations.

Hinderlider said there’s no food or water on the trip to Mexico, and the killing is particularly inhumane.

“I’d shoot my horses before I’d let them go to a death like that,” she said.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.