Published October 10, 2003

Letters to the Editor published in The Facts:

AMERICANS CAN LEAD A HORSE FROM SLAUGHTER

The American Horse Protection Act would ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption and the transport of horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter.

Today in Texas, the two foreign-owned horse slaughter plants killed hundreds of horses to feed the rich in other countries. Horse meat in France goes for about $15 a pound. These plants happen to be the only horse slaughter facilities left in the United States. To think that this happening in our great state of Texas.

Many people believe that only the old, sick, crippled horses get sent to slaughter. This is just not true. Would you eat an old sick cow? The killer buyers for the slaughter plants go to auctions all over the United States and purchase young, healthy American horses. Often the horses are transported for hours in cramped conditions without food or water on their way to a horrendous death.

A recent poll showed that a vast majority of Texas voters (77 percent) oppose the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Please ask your congressman in Washington to co-sponsor the American Horse Protection Act, HR 857.

Julie Caramante, Pearland