Letters for July 03, 2004
Letters to the Editor published in The Galveston Daily News:

Columnist Is Wrong About Horses

Carla Gillogly could not be more wrong in her opinion about horse slaughter.
Simply because we have horses does not mean we should eat them or profit from
their slaughter.

By that sophomoric reasoning, we should also eat dogs and cats, since there
are plenty of them roaming the streets. We should at least profit from their
slaughter, because I’ve heard there’s a market for them in Asia. There’s got to
be a buck in there somewhere for us.

Heck, why stop there? This argument could also be made for legalizing drugs.

Heaven knows the drugs are out there, and there is a market for them, so why
shouldn’t we profit from the sale and use of drugs?

Because it is wrong, that’s why. Because illicit drugs are illegal for a
reason — they rot human souls. And so does the needless, inhumane slaughter of our
companions. Horses, like dogs and cats, are companion animals, and we don’t
eat our companions, just like we don’t eat other humans. It is an abomination.
It is a betrayal of natural law.

Mary Teel Castillo
League City

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Horse Slaughter Is A Waste Of Resources

I read Carla Gillogly’s opinion in The Daily News with interest. I wasn’t
sure whether to laugh or cry. The subject certainly is not funny to a horse
lover and owner, but her ignorance was amusing.

She seemed to believe that Texas profited in some way from the two slaughter
plants, which the state has said are illegal, according to our constitution.
These are foreign-owned companies who ship overseas and employ a small number
of Texans. The only reason they continue to operate is that they have filed an
injunction against the state.

She mentions horses being raised for consumption — that’s a new one. Horses
are raised for many things, including the making of estrogen for us older gals
who would not use animal estrogen if they realized that a mare has to be kept
pregnant to get the estrogen and then the babies are sent to slaughter as “
surplus” of the industry.

I have personally been around several horses this last year that were plucked
from slaughter trucks by concerned citizens. One of these “surplus” animals
was a thoroughbred less than 2 years old. He currently resides here in
Galveston and is the apple of his adopted mom and dad’s eye.

The others, also refugees from the racing industry’s throwaway policy, have
gone to good homes in the area.

Talk about wasting resources! If there is an overabundance of horses, then
their owners should have them humanely put down, not thrown into small trucks
and sent off to be strung upside down and have their throats slit.

Ms. Gillogly should tackle a subject she has researched.

Sharon Tipton
Galveston

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No Overabundance Of Horses In U.S.

Carla Gillogly wrote in her June 30 column, “If there is an overabundance of
horses, they will be put to death in one way or another ... We cringe only
because we are unfamiliar with the thought.”

There is no “overabundance of horses in America.” And slaughter horses are
not “unwanted,” they just happen to be for sale.

They are picked up by killer-buyers at auctions across America. Despite what
the Belgian and French slaughter plant owners have been saying for 30 years,
they do not provide a “service” in disposing of “unwanted” horses.

See Dallas Crown’s price list for walk-ins, which is posted in their main
lobby. The company will pay 18.6 cents per pound for a horse weighing 1,100
pounds or more and much less for smaller horses. They don’t want skinny horses.

The fluctuating price for killer-buyers is closer to 40 cents per pound.
Rescue candidates do not end up at horse slaughter plants. European and Asian
diners don’t want to eat old spent horses any more than we want to eat old spent
cows.

We cringe at eating horsemeat because its rejection is ingrained in our
Judeo-Christian American culture.

Leviticus 11 rules out the consumption of animals that are not cloven-footed
or chew the cud.

In 732 Pope Gregory II ordered the Benedictine missionary Wynfrith Boniface,
archbishop of Hesse, to forbid consumption of horseflesh by his Christian
converts in order that they may be seen to differ from the surrounding Vandals,
who ate horsemeat as part of their pagan rites.

For 150 years my family has owned property adjacent to the present site of
the Dallas Crown horse slaughter plant in Kaufman. I have seen the horses
waiting for slaughter; I know their condition.

Mary S. Nash
Kaufman

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Slaughter For Consumption Is Illegal

Are you aware that it is illegal to slaughter horses for consumption in the
United States? But we slaughter thousands of horses every day to ship overseas
to be a dinner for other countries.

The argument is that these slaughter plants are doing us a service by
bringing huge amounts of income for the United States and disposing of sick and dying
horses.

These slaughter plants are owned by foreign companies. Do you really think
they are letting that “income” support the United States? I don’t think so.

If drugs were legal in other countries, would it be all right for the United
States to grow and process drugs to ship over seas? It might be illegal here,
but other countries say it’s OK, so what is the harm?

Leslie Lambkin
Lone Star Equine Rescue
Springtown