The role of the horse has been diverse in North America during the last century, including slaughtering horses for meat products intended for human consumption. Although horse meat is not culturally preferred in the diets of Americans and most Canadians, it is an acceptable meat source in the diet of Mexicans. The peak in the number of horses slaughtered in North America occurred in the 1980s, with as many as 350,000 horses per year. Over 90% of these horses were processed in the US, with the resultant meat products exported overseas. Public concern grew in the 1990s in the US on the alleged conditions of handling, transport, and slaughter of horses. Welfare concerns were focused on the utilization of the double-deck trailers, long transit duration without feed or water, use of an electric prod, and lack of provisions for injured, pregnant, old, or very young horses. This societal pressure promulgated the development of federal regulations on the safe and humane commercial transport of equines to slaughter. However, by the end of 2007, the last three processing plants in Texas and Illinois were closed due to state and federal laws. Closure of the processing plants precipitated a dramatic increase in the number of US-origin horses transported to slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico. With this shift in destination, welfare of the horses was compromised by increased duration of transport, inspection processes at the US borders, and the handling and stunning at slaughter facilities, especially in Mexico. Guidelines, regulations, and assessment tools for welfare of slaughter horses have been developed and implemented in Canada. The number of "unwanted" and neglected horses has increased in the US with the closure of the processing plants. The existing rescue and rehabilitation facilities in operation throughout the US do not meet the needs to care for these horses due to limited capacity and funding. Major challenges in the future sustainability of the industry will depend on several factors including the cultural preference for horse meat in the diet, the public's concern for the care and handling of horses during transport and slaughter, the impact of additional regulations, and the continued availability in the supply of horses, particularly those originating from the US.

There is widespread contact with animals throughout human society, for example, in the production of food, clothing, and pharmaceuticals; for companionship and security; in research and education; in religious activities; or for sports and entertainment. In setting animal welfare recommendations and standards, governments and others acknowledge and take account, to varying degrees, the many and varied viewpoints through broad stakeholder consultation. Decisions on animal welfare standards occur in a context where politicians, regulators and others are influenced by adverse welfare events that are publicized in the media and by lobbying by animal industry and animal rights groups. This means that it is often difficult to establish a balanced dialogue in the public arena. Nevertheless, these viewpoints are influential in driving change in animal welfare and are expressed in developments in legislation policy and international markets.

• Genomic selection tools are radically changing the way dairy cattle genetics is organized worldwide by providing the means to reduce generation intervals and accelerate genetic progress. As a result, young genomically selected bulls are quickly replacing progeny-tested bulls in the top lists. • To achieve moderate reliabilities in genomic predictions, large reference populations of progeny-tested animals have to be assembled, and this number increases dramatically for traits with low heritability. International cooperation becomes imperative, both for joining databases of genotypes and for obtaining phenotypic information translated into the respective national scale (Interbull multiple-trait across-country evaluation estimates). • Keeping the Interbull conventional international evaluations (based on national conventional estimated breeding values) as a source of phenotypic information for the national genomic predictive models requires maintaining conventional evaluation models at the national level. • Interbull is establishing a new framework to incorporate genomics into international evaluations. The main actions include intensifying networking opportunities; validating national genomically enhanced breeding values; and developing genomically enhanced multiple-trait across-country evaluations, Intergenomics, and a genomic data repository. to express their estimated breeding values (EBV) in the scales adopted by the importing countries. Without a common basis for comparing breeding animals from different origins, the genetic merit of bulls used for artifi cial insemination has been derived from their progeny information, obtained, in most cases, only in the country of origin of the bull while ignoring differences in trait defi nition, evaluation model, measurement scale, management practices, environmental conditions, genetic makeup, and selection goals. Members of the scientifi c community and the dairy breeding industry acknowledged this challenge as early as 1975, and after years of cooperative work, the International Bull Evaluation Service (Interbull) was created in 1983 (Philipsson, 2005). The objective was to support the dairy industry with accurate genetic information on bulls of the major dairy breeds for use by importers and exporters, thereby facilitating selection of the best genetics for different countries, environments, or breeding goals. Interbull was developed as a joint effort of the International Committee for Animal Recording; the European Federation of Animal Science, or EAAP; and the International Dairy Federation to become the main international forum for the development and standardization of methods and procedures in dairy cattle evaluation. The information exchange promoted by Interbull has clearly helped participating countries improve national systems and benefi t greatly from the international genetic evaluations carried out by the Interbull Centre. As a cooperative action between the participating countries, Interbull does not compete with the national genetic evaluation centers, but is rather an auxiliary service. The authority over publication of breeding values in national scales remains with each of the countries. This very successful partnership among competitors, exporters, and importers is a result of permanent and intense networking, making all the actors involved jointly responsible for the choice of methods and for the quality of the results obtained. The Interbull international evaluations are computed by a linear multiple-trait across-country evaluation (MACE) of national conventional EBV from the participating countries (Schaeffer, 1994). In MACE, bull progeny contributions from different countries are treated as different traits, with genetic correlations lower than unity. Consequently, the use of foreign information is accounted for by considering genotype-environment interaction, as well as differences in modeling, the genetic base, and trait defi nitions. Currently, Interbull MACE evaluations yield international EBV (IEBV) for a range of 34 traits and 6 breeds, expressed on as many as 30 national scales (currently, data from 73 populations are included) that are used extensively worldwide for semen marketing. Interbull has been a reference for international cooperation since 1983 at both the scientifi c and the industry levels, but the dawn of genomic selection in dairy cattle has taken this cooperation to a completely new level. The aim of this article is to present how dependent the “genomic