Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 6:51 PM

Subject: Stolen horses recovered by TSCRA brand inspectors at Beltex and Dallas Crown horse slaughter plants

Dr. Gibbs -I just found Brian McCuistion's article on the Internet at http://agnews.tamu.edu/livingroom/safetyseat/theft.html titled

"'The TSCRA currently receives, on average, one report per day of a stolen horse,' Gibbs said, 'That may seem small as a number, but on the whole it's a significant number of cases.'"

"To help prevent thefts, the 1997 Texas Legislature empowered the TSCRA to place brand inspectors at equine slaughter facilities where meat is exported for human consumption. If a stolen horse is sent to a slaughterhouse, inspectors at least have some chance of finding it."

I am trying to determine (1) how many stolen horses have been reported to the TSCRA since the brand inspection program began on September 1, 1997 and (2) how many stolen horses have been recovered at the two Texas horse slaughter plants through the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association brand inspection program since September 1, 1997.

Do you have those statistics? If not, do you know who might have them? I have contacted Todd McCartney and Larry Gray at the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association office in Fort Worth, but Mr. McCartney wrote to me that "the # of horses reported stolen to TSCRA is not a figure I can get my hands on easily. It is not a figure we use, so it is not an item totaled in our database. It could be discovered but only by man hours reading summary reports submitted by each one of our 31 officers."

On the question of how many stolen horses have been recovered at the two plants by TSCRA brand inspectors, Mr. McCartney wrote, "Since we started inspecting horses at the two plants we have recovered 837 [horses]. However, we can't pull up how many of those were apprehended at the plants. Again, that would take man hours to discover. It is simply not a number that is totaled."

From your quote in the above article, "The TSCRA currently receives, on average, one report per day of a stolen horse", it sounds like you might have better information than Mr. McCartney or Mr. Larry Gray. Would you be willing to share that information with me?