Sunday, December 21, 2008

SLAUGHTERGATE!! CONTINUED....

MESSAGE FROM JOHN HOLLAND:

TV Station KHOU has done a powerful piece on the USDA cruelty documents that Julie Caramante and Animal's Angels received through her FOIA. It features Steve Long and Julie and it is both powerful and graphic.
http://www.khou.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=315146

Here is a text version off of Texas Cable News

http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/txcn/houston/stories/khou081219_jj_horse-slaughter-transportation.7b642747.html
Thousands of U.S. horses slaughtered in Mexico for food
10:56 PM CST on Friday, December 19, 2008
By Brad Woodard / 11 News
Steve Long is a noted author as well as editor of Texas Horse Talk magazine. You can say he knows horses.

Thousands of U.S. horses slaughtered in Mexico
December 19, 2008

“They are the essence of beauty, everything about them, the way they move, the way they talk to each other, their personalities, they’re just magnificent,” he said.
He says that horses are not only deeply woven into the fabric of Texas History, but they are also great icons of the American West.
Still, despite that honor, records show that nearly 50,000 U.S. horses have been transported to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for slaughter and ultimately destined for the dinner tables in Europe and Japan.
“It’s an obscenity. It’s a horror. It’s something that makes me want to throw up,” said Long.


Records show that nearly 50,000 U.S. horses have been transported to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for slaughter and ultimately destined for the dinner tables in Europe and Japan.
Believe it or not, Long isn’t talking about the slaughtering practices in Mexico, although he finds them disturbing.
Long is talking about the horse slaughter industry, that until recently, thrived here in Texas and the United States.
“This is the biggest animal rights scandal since the Michael Vick case. This is slaughtergate,” said Long.
In fact, records show that there are two Belgian owned horse slaughtering facilities in the state. He says one of the facilities, Dallas Crowe, is in Kaufman, Texas and that the other facility, Beltex, is located in Fort Worth.
In 2006, 11 News reported that employees at both facilities used captive bolt guns and air guns on the horses instead of knives. That technique involves driving a steel bolt into a the brain of a horse.
Both Texas facilities were forced to close last year. Officials say that the closure came after a federal appeals court upheld a 1949 state law banning horse slaughter for human consumption.
Despite that action the slaughter horse business continues.
Julie Caramante is an animal cruelty investigator for the organization called Animal’s Angels and she often works undercover.
She said that it took her three years to obtain photos that document violations of the transportation of horses taken to Beltex between January and November of 2005.
“I saw horses that were dead in trailers, with their legs ripped off, with their faces smashed in, eyeballs dangling, and these horses, some of them were still alive. They were just standing there,” said Caramante.
Many of the injuries reportedly occurred when the horses were transported on double-decker trailers designed to haul cattle.
The U.S. banned that type of action last year, but there’s a loophole, said Caramante. She says that the double-deckers can still be used to haul horses thousands of miles to feedlots, like the one in Morton, Texas. It’s owned by the Belgian company, Beltex.
“They feed them and get them fattened up. The ones that live go to El Paso and then off to the plant in Mexico,” said Caramante.
While it’s currently illegal to slaughter horses for human consumption in Texas, 11 News has found that at least two states are considering measures that would make it legal.
Those who support horse slaughter say they’d like to see it resume here in the U.S. because of laws that protect horses from cruelty. They say it is a well regulated industry that provided humane euthanasia.
“Such things are laughable. And it would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. U.S. humane laws have done nothing for the horse,” said Long.
E-mail 11 News reporter Brad Woodard

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE LEGISLATURES CONSIDERS PRO-HORSE SLAUGHTER RESOLUTION – AGAIN

Dear Humanitarian:

At its December 10-13 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL) will once again consider a resolution designed to promote the cruel and foreign-driven horse slaughter industry. Similar to the resolution considered – and defeated by Agriculture, Environment & Energy Committee– at the NCSL summer meeting, this resolution paints horse slaughter as a humane and necessary industry and calls on Congress to oppose the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.

Here are the facts:

Horse slaughter is a cruel, predatory and profit-driven industry – not a humane service for ‘unwanted’ horses.
· Unlike humane euthanasia, horse slaughter causes enormous animal suffering and results in a brutal death.
· Most Americans oppose horse slaughter and the public has called on the United States Congress to ban the practice.
· States that have played unwilling host to the foreign-owned slaughterhouses (Illinois and Texas) have made their opposition to the industry clear by passing laws to ban horse slaughter.
· In addition, California voters passed a ballot measure against horse slaughter while Delaware passed a resolution in support of a federal ban. Last year, an attempt to promote horse slaughter in South Dakota was defeated in the state legislature. Should NCSL approve the pro-slaughter resolution it would be acting entirely out of step with current state actions.
· Conditions in Mexican and Canadian horse slaughter houses, where American horses are still slaughtered, are horrific with some facilities stabbing horses in the spine multiple times to induce paralysis prior to slaughter.
· The US-based plants, while still operational, were hardly better. Recent information obtained by Animals’ Angels (WARNING: GRAPHIC) through FOIA show that horses at US plants regularly suffered horrific injuries and conditions including:

o Bloody, battered faces
o Legs missing or hanging off
o Eye balls dangling from their sockets
o Mares giving birth to their foals at the slaughterhouse
o Horses dead on arrival

· A federal ban on horse slaughter will end this cruelty and NCSL is out of step with the majority of American voters in opposing the measure.
· Wild horses are not unwanted or in need of a home, there is more than enough public land for all wild horses to roam free. In addition, Madeleine Pickens has been working with the Bureau of Land Management to provide a home for every horse currently in BLM holding facilities.

What You Can Do:

If you are from a state listed below please take a moment to call or email your legislator and urge them to oppose and speak out against this misguided resolution during the conference. Be sure to share the above mentioned facts with them so they are aware of how cruel this industry is and out of step the resolution is with current public opinion and legislative actions.

For more information on horse slaughter and how you can help make a difference please visit www.every5minutes.org.

Sincerely,
Chris Heyde

********************Christopher J. HeydeDeputy Director, Government and Legal AffairsAnimal Welfare Institute PO Box 3650Washington, DC 20027Tel: (202) 337-2332 ~ Fax: (888) 260-2271www.awionline.orgwww.compassionindex.org
For over 57 years, AWI has been the leading voice for animals across the country and on Capitol Hill. Please join us in our ongoing campaigns to reduce the sum total of pain and fear inflicted on animals by humans. Sign up for AWI eAlerts to receive the latest news on what you can do to help us protect all animals: http://www.awionline.org/joinus.