Rescuers struggle to save horses from slaughter

[douglas9]

HITCHCOCK — Jennifer Sylvester caters to guests of varied temperaments at the East Texas equine sanctuary where she works: sweet horses, mean horses, mellow horses.

She takes in — and dotes on — horses considered useless by former owners. The organization she works for, Habitat for Horses, is part of a loose network of 100 or more rescue groups across the country determined to provide a safe place for every imperiled horse.

Sanctuaries like hers face a new urgency: To save American horses from being slaughtered across the border in Mexico and Canada.

So far this year, some 55,000 such horses have been shipped to Mexico and Canada and butchered in plants there. In Mexico, conditions are far worse than they faced in now-closed U.S. operations.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA102107.01A.horserescue.3422322.html

[zalinda]

1. The message here is, be careful what you wish for.

I know people don't want horses to be eaten, but face facts they are being eaten. Would you rather regulate how they are killed, or let them be sent to a place where there is no regulation. In a perfect world all animals would live to be a ripe old age, being taken care of by their loving owners, such is not the case.

zalinda

[michaz]

2. Oh come on!! Ridiculous remarks.

These animals should not be eaten! And they certainly shouldn't be skinned before they have even been bled out! Do some more reading on the slaughtering of horses and what vets are now saying. It is barbaric to say the least! And don't give me the crap about "who is going to take care of them", there are many people doing that now and many more who will.

[zalinda]

3. You don't like to face reality much, do you

The fact is that horses are being slaughtered and eaten, every day. There are about 90,000 horses slaughtered every year according to ABC news, just where are all these horses going to go? I also don't like the fact that dogs and cats get killed every year because people just don't want them any more. But I thank regulation so that when they do meet their fate, they just quietly go to sleep.

I know that horses can become wonderful companion animals, but some people also look at them just as live stock, no different than cattle. Closing the slaughter plants didn't stop the animals from being killed, it just moved their deaths to a different country, where they could suffer more.

When you want to prevent something you have to think far ahead of what you are wanting to do. In this case, it would have been better for the horses to have a plant in Illinois or Texas than to close them down. They didn't think ahead that horses would be shipped out of the country.

The problem comes with breeding too many horses, and other companion animals for that matter and until THAT problem is solved, companion animals will suffer. That is reality.

zalinda