I urge you to support H.R. 857, a bill that would prohibit the Slaughter of
horses for human consumption and the trade and transport
of horseflesh and live horses intended for human consumption. The foreign-owned
horse slaughter industry has slaughtered and exported for human consumption over
3 million American horses in the last 2 decades.
You have said you would never support the cruel treatment
of animals and believe that states do an effective job of assuring animal
welfare. Sir, you are very wrong to believe that the State of Texas is
effectively making sure that the horses at Dallas Crown in Kaufman, TX, and
BelTex, located in Ft Worth Texas, are treated in a safe and humane
manner.
Have you personally visited these last two remaining slaughter houses in the
United States? It is impossible to blind your eyes to the truth if you see
for yourself the disgraceful inhumanity of horse slaughter. Or will you
sit in your comfortable office and merely believe what you have been told? These
animals are put in abusive situations starting at the killer-buyer auctions,
then the double decker transport to the holding pens at the slaughterhouses, to
the actual act of hitting these horses repeatedly in the head to
"stun" them. They are hoisted and skinned before their hearts
stop beating.
I understand that you believe in free trade and feel that government
restrictions on the trade in livestock and agriculture products should be
kept to a minimum. This is good in theory, but is not always a practical
application.
Because horses in America are not food animals, veterinarians commonly prescribe
and treat horses with potent drugs that may reside in the horseflesh and be
dangerous when consumed by humans. In addition, flysprays, topical medicines,
dewormers and pesticides are regularly used on horses which contain warnings on
the labels about usage on animals meant for consumption. I cannot
understand why you would NOT want to restrict the distribution of unsafe meat,
whether it was cows, horses, or any other animal.
Please remember, the Asians eat dogs and cats.
I ask you, Sir: If the Asians or the Chinese wanted to open a
slaughterhouse to kill our unwanted dogs and cats (millions) and ship their meat
back to Asia or China or Korea, would you be agreeable based on your "free
trade" logic?
I respectfully ask you to rethink your position on H.R. 857. I feel you
simply have not done enough research on the subject, for if you had, you would
not dismiss this simply as a "free trade" issue.