Kinship Circle | Letter Campaigns

2/11/09: Horse Slaughter Bill Is Back In 111th Congress

SOURCE OF INFORMATION / BACKGROUND

ХааUnited States-100,000 horses slaughtered for meat.
ХааConyers-Burton Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009 (H.R. 503) Reintroduced
ХааPREVENTION OF EQUINE CRUELTY ACT

LEFT PHOTO: Foals at slaughter. RIGHT PHOTO: Horses at the Ciudad Juarez [Mexico] plant are stabbed in the back until the spinal cord is severed, then hoisted so their throats can be slit. JERRY LARA: San Antonio News-Express.

While irresponsible owners purposely sell a handful of horses into slaughter, most arrive at the slaughterhouse via livestock auction, where unsuspecting owners sell the animals to slaughterhouse middlemen known as Уkiller buyers.Ф Despite the fact that the US plants are no longer in operation, killer buyers continue to purchase and haul as many horses as possible from livestock auctions around the country to the slaughterhouses that have now relocated to Mexico and Canada.
Animal Welfare Institute, PREVENTION OF EQUINE CRUELTY ACT

CONTACT INFORMATION + SAMPLE LETTER

CONTACT INFORMATION Х Print/Send This Letter

To identify your federal legislators and find contact info, try:
аааХ Congress.org: www.Congress.org
аааХ Project VoteSmart: www.vote-smart.org/
аааХ USA House of Representatives: www.house.gov
аааХ USA Senate: www.senate.gov
аааХ HSUS - Find elected officials: community.hsus.org/humane/leg-lookup/search.html
аааХ Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121

The Honorable Representative [YOUR REP'S NAME HERE]
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Senators [YOUR SENATORS' NAMES HERE]
The U.S. Senate, U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

*Kinship Circle cannot guarantee validity of email addresses. During campaigns, recipients may change or disable their email addresses. Emails from government, corporate, or institute websites may be incorrect.

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SAMPLE LETTER Х Print/Send This Letter

Dear Representative and Senators:

The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009 (H.R. 503) is back on the legislative calendar, after moving through the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan approval in the last Congressional session. Please help pass this measure to ban the possession, shipping, transporting, purchasing, selling, delivering or receiving of a horse or horseflesh for human consumption.

I am counting on you to support H.R. 503, reintroduced 1/14/09 by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. and Rep. Dan Burton. I encourage my Senators to introduce and endorse a companion bill that also activates an export-for-slaughter ban on our nation's horses.

In 2007, state courts closed America's last three equine processors in Texas and Illinois. Still, the lack of a federal law let over 100,000 horses go to slaughter in Canada and Mexico in 2008.

To reach kill plants, horses are jammed in double-decked cattle trailers that hurt their heads and necks. Food, water and rest are withheld for 24 or more hours. Horses arrive weak and injured. Some are dead by journey's end. Others kept in the over-packed trailers endure hot or cold weather extremes. Horses who collapse are brutally offloaded.

Slaughter is excruciating for these easily excitable animals. Horses are goaded into the kill box with fiberglass rods. Workers pummel their faces, necks, backs and legs. The captive bolt pistols used in Canada often don't work on such long-necked animals, and leave them thrashing in pain.

In Mexico, killers use a "puntilla knife" to sever a horse's spinal cord. Investigative footage from a San Antonio News-Express expose in 2007 shows alert horses stabbed repeatedly around the withers. When a horse finally falls, he is merely paralyzed while workers dangle him by his hind leg and slit his throat. Some horses even remain sentient when dismembered.

Violent slaughter should never be an alternative to rescue, adoption or humane euthanasia. Furthermore, without a federal law horse kill plants may reopen in states where they are not currently banned.

As a constituent, I ask my Representative to back the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503). I urge my Senators to initiate similar legislation to end slaughter and domestic/global transport of horses for human consumption. Your feedback is very important to me.

Thank you,

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DEBUNKING THE "UNWANTED HORSE" MYTH Х Print/Send This Letter

This horse was bought by a woman who lives in Michigan. Photo: Sally Ryan for The New York Times.
Horses Spared in U.S. Face Death Across the Border

SOURCE: Animal Welfare Institute, PREVENTION OF EQUINE CRUELTY ACT

Pro-horse slaughter organizations and individuals have consistently fought the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act and Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, claiming there is a huge "unwanted horse" population in the U.S. Proponents of this unsubstantiated claim, including the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Quarter Horse Association (all members of the Horse Welfare Coalition, a group founded and led by the slaughterhouses and represented by former US Representative Charlie Stenholm of Texas) have lobbied Congress to block passage of the federal ban.

Their premise is that slaughter improves horse welfare Чmdash; offering a "humane" way to dispose of these animals, a "necessary evil" without which horses would be subjected to neglect, abandonment and abuse. In truth, no hard data exists to back claims about a burgeoning population of "unwanted horses." It is clear that killer buyers working for slaughterhouses are outbidding other buyers at auction because they have financial incentive to do so. The market for slaughter horses is set by the international demand for their meat in other countries, not by the number of supposedly unwanted horses.

A truly humane veterinary organization has emerged to counter the bogus claims of these veterinary and industry organizations. Veterinarians for Equine Welfare (VEW) was founded by a group of leading veterinarians to help educate the public about horse slaughter from a veterinary position.

"Horse owners currently have two options when their horse has reached the end of his or her trail: They can pay to do the right thing (re-home or euthanasia) or be paid to do the wrong thing (send to slaughter). A few thoughtless folks choose to do the latter, and it should not be an option."
Чmdash; VEW co-founder Dr. Nicholas Dodman

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