Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 11:14 AM
Subject: American live horse slaughter for human
consumption in Europe
Mr.O'Reilly -
Please expose an illegal business operating in
Texas. French owned Dallas Crown in Kaufman, Texas and Belgian owned
Beltex in Fort Worth are harvesting our young fat healthy horses and sending
their meat to Europe and Asia for human consumption. This is in
violation of Texas Agriculture Code Section 149. Currently, Beltex and
Dallas Crown are the only horse slaughter plants in the United States,
but another plant is under construction in DeKalb, Illinois.
They shatter a horse's skull with a penetrating
captive bolt, string him up by one hind leg, slit his throat, and wait while
his beating heart pumps the blood from his body. This is the same method
used for slaughtering cattle and hogs, but the plant equipment is not designed
for horses, so the captive bolt is administered with human error rather than
by a precise machine. I have seen an undercover video made by the Humane
Farming Association showing a horse being stunned multiple times before he
finally fell to the ground. Horses are smart and sensitive, and
they panic when trapped. The HFA undercover video is heart wrenching.
Killer-buyers from as far away as Minnesota and
Florida buy horses at auction then haul them to Fort Worth and Kaufman in
double deck trailers designed for cattle. The horses are forced to stand for
long hours with their heads bent in an unnatural position. Although
double deck trailers have been outlawed in some states and are to be phased
out by federal regulation, killer-buyers continue to use them. Why?
Money. More horses fit in a double deck trailer. Who cares if they
suffer? They're going to die anyway.
- Texans joined forces earlier this year to
defeat HB 1324, a bill to legalize horse slaughter for human consumption.
Some Texas Senators said they received more mail and phone calls on the
horse slaughter bill than on all other bills combined.
- An opinion poll conducted May 4-6, 2003 by
Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for Blue Horse Charities revealed that an
overwhelming majority of Texas voters (72%) are opposed to the slaughtering
of horses for human consumption.
- According to statistics from the California
Bureau of Livestock Identification, after voters outlawed horse slaughter
for human consumption in 1998, reports of horse theft dropped in California
by 34%.
- The European Union tariff structure favors the
Belgian and French slaughterers who come to America and harvest our fat
young healthy horses. Their import tariff on American beef is 20%, but the
European Union import tariff on American horsemeat is only 5.1%.
- HR 857, the American Horse Slaughter
Prevention Act will prohibit the slaughter of American horses for human
consumption and will prohibit the transport of slaughter horses across
international borders.
The two Texas slaughter houses continue to operate
in defiance of Texas law because they filed a federal lawsuit on September 26,
2002 to block prosecution by the Tarrant County and Kaufman County District
Attorneys. That suit is still pending.
Now Belgian owned Cavel International is
rebuilding their horse slaughter plant that was destroyed by fire on March 31,
2002. Illinois State Representative Bob Molaro has proposed a bill to
the Illinois State Legislature that would ban Illinois horse slaughter.
We don't eat our horses. Why should we let
French and Belgian slaughterers profit from their meat?
Dallas Crown owner Olivier Kemseke said,
"Most of them here are cripples or have back problems or are crazy in the
head."
This photo was taken at Dallas Crown on Sep 1,
2002. Do these horses look sick and crippled? No. They look better
than any horse I ever rode while growing up as a kid in Kaufman.
