Texas sends horses to slaughter

[douglas9]

Source: Laredo Times/Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Horses are filling some state-owned livestock pens along the Texas-Mexico border before they head to a grisly slaughter for their meat in Mexico.With the only three horse slaughter plants in the U.S. closed, the industry has turned to Mexico and Canada to kill horses for their meat largely for export abroad for diners.

As of this week, the U.S. exported 20,196 horses from Texas for slaughter in Mexico. That's up from 1,109 over the same period last year, U.S. Agriculture Department statistics show.

Through the week of Sept. 22, the latest date for which statistics were available, 29,741 horses had been exported to Mexico for slaughter from Texas and New Mexico, compared to 6,331 for the same period last year. Arizona and California showed no exports of horses for slaughter.

The Humane Society of the United States criticized the Texas Department of Agriculture for allowing companies to use taxpayer-funded pens to help get the horses to slaughter.

Read more: http://www.zwire.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2290&dept_id=569392&newsid=18882802

[tomreedtoon]

1. They shoot people, don't they?

So what's wrong with giving a horse the same treatment Texans give people?

[michaz]

2. It makes me sick!!!

[Javaman]

6. do you eat meat? nt

[cosmik debris]

3. 4 points

Horses are property. They are not people. They do not have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Slaughtering animals for food is as old as our species. If you don't like it, don't do it. But you can't expect everyone else in our species to change their behavior because you don't like it.

If you are upset about the way the horses are treated in the process of slaughter, tuff shit. We don't have any control over what happens after the horses leave our jurisdiction. If you want the horses to be treated more humanely, you should work to reopen the American slaughter houses so that our government will have some influence in the treatment of the animals.

When farm animals reach the end of their useful service, their owners can either sell them or take them out to the back pasture and shoot them. So the real question is whether people are fed, or buzzards are fed. If you prefer to feed the buzzards, that's fine, but you are not in the majority. Most of us would prefer to feed people.

[Hayduke Lives]

5. I've tried it

I accidentally ordered it off a menu in France recently. It's sort of a cross between beef and pork. It wasn't bad, but I would not order it again. I like horses.

I'm reminded of the scene in Pulp Fiction where they're in the car discussing which animals should be eaten: Horses have personality...therefore we shouldn't eat them.

[madrchsod]

4. one dedicated woman in dekalb illinois,

with the help of some friends, shut down the last horse slaughter house in the usa. i thought people in texas and new mexico loved horses like we do here in northern illinois.i guess i was wrong.

[AnneD]

7. Don't blame Texas....

the legislature has been trying and have successfully stopped a slaughter house on this side of the border and this popped up on the other side. The legislature will try to ban the transportation of horses to slaughter to prevent it. We have a large number of horse owners and a large division in the Harris County sheriff's department that tracks down horse and livestock thefts.

Believe me when I say horses are very beloved in Texas and this is an anathema. It's a cowboy thing. We keep trying to plug the leak but there is another that will spring up.

We are hopping mad about this:grr:

[pop goes the weasel]

8. to be expected

With the forced closure of the Texas slaughter house, it was obvious that the horses would simply be shipped to Mexico where the slaughter conditions would be less humane.