Thanks to the fabulous friend to the animals, KHOU's reporter Brad Woodard, the ongoing horror of horse slaughter is not being forgotten by the media.
When I saw Woodard's most recent piece on the issue, which aired on Houston's KHOU on Friday, December 19, I was reminded of the terrific film "Charlie Wilson's War" which dealt with the US covert intervention during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and ended with the voicing of Wilson's fears over the long term consequences of having intervened but then stepped out while the country was still in crisis.
The animal advocacy world is faced with an analogous situation, wherein the success of bans on the US slaughter of horses for human consumption cannot have a long-term positive outcome unless they are followed by the passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act; that act also bans the transport of horses from the US to other countries for slaughter.
As Woodard's piece explains, "records show that nearly 50,000 U.S. horses have been transported to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for slaughter and ultimately destined for the dinner tables in Europe and Japan."
Supporters of US horse slaughter point to the cruelty of long journeys to Mexico, and to the lack of any humane standards at the slaughterhouses there; the horses can be clumsily stabbed to death. Woodard tells us that supporters contend that the industry in the US had been run humanely. But he shares shocking photos of the conditions horses were found in during transport to slaughter within the US. And we hear an anti cruelty investigator tell us:
"I saw horses that were dead in trailers, with their legs ripped off, with their faces smashed in, eyeballs dangling, and these horses, some of them were still alive. They were just standing there."
We learn that horses are still transported on double-decker trailers for thousands of miles to feedlots where they are fattened up before their journeys to the slaughterhouse in Mexico.
You can watch Woodard's excellent report on line at:
http://tinyurl.com/82f3r9
While some of the images are upsetting, it does not show the actual horse slaughter. The video on the HSUS website does, and is worth watching if you can stomach it, as it brings home the urgency of the situation. Whether or not you intend to watch the video, please go to the HSUS page at http://tinyurl.com/yv59ay
from where you can send a note to your legislators urging them to support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.
Please make sure to thank Brad Woodard and KHOU for the superb coverage. It is important for stations to know that viewers appreciate coverage of animal issues. And in this day and age of web news, it doesn't hurt, and pleases their web advertisers, to know that people all over the country, or world, are watching.
You can email Woodard directly at bwoodard@khou.com, and you can leave a comment on the story's web page. But most importantly, please send a comment letting the station know of your appreciation in order to encourage similar stories in the future. KHOU takes comments at http://www.khou.com/contact/
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals" and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.