The House of Representatives of The Horse Slaughter Capital Of The United States (formerly known as Texas) today (4/23/03) saw fit to pass a bill that will change state law to favor horse slaughterhouses owned by Belgian corporations that cruelly kill as many US horses as they can get their hands on to ship the meat overseas, primarily to France and Germany, where it sells at high prices - the equivalent of up to $15.00 per pound.
While our children are watching and dreaming of Spirit, Stallion Of The Cimmaron, real horses are being herded into crowded trailers and hauled, sometimes hundreds of miles from your state and mine, to Dallas Crown in Kaufman and Beltex in Fort Worth to die for profit. Seven to eight hundred horses a week.
The horses bleed to death, hanging upside down by one back leg. Stallions, mares, babies, pregnant horses whose unborn foals suffocate as the mother bleeds out, to be cut from the mother's womb as she is gutted. The flesh of baby horses is a delicacy, overseas. We don't eat our horses here in the US.
After quietly operating outside of Texas law for years, the two horse slaughterhouses faced being closed. The butchering of 50,000 horses a year would stop. But the Texas House choose to place its sympathies with the owners of the illegal plants, and rushed to cradle the foreign owners in its collective legislative arms, and offer comfort by changing the law so that the illegal plants would be legalized, and the flow of profits to their overseas pockets would not be interrupted.
If the Texas House has its way, the flow of terrified horses into the kill chute will continue, forced with shocks from electric cattle prods to go into the kill box, their nostrils filling with the smell of the blood of the horses before them. Eyewitness reports and undercover videos show horses rearing and throwing themselves in terror, and agonizing injuries being inflicted before the horses are knocked down and hung to be bled and butchered.
This bill does not just affect Texas and Texas horses. Estimates from county filings show that as many as 97% of the horses butchered in Texas were trucked in from other states. Gathered up by meat buyers and auction barns - some stolen, some Mustangs, like Spirit, which are supposed to be protected under federal law.
The horses come from 47 of the 48 states in the continental US. In 1998, California voters passed a law banning horse slaughter and the sale of horses for slaughter by an overwhelming majority. The Texas voters won't get that chance. Although letters and telephone calls against the bill continued to pour in right up to the moment of the vote, the House placed foreign interests over the interests of Texas voters and US citizens from other affected states. There is still time to stop this bill from passing into law. The bill must now pass the Texas Senate, before going to the governor for his signature. If you care, please take a moment to write or call your Senator if you live in Texas, and voice your objection to this bill. You can find your Senator on the web, by going to:
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If you do not live in Texas, please take a moment to voice your objection to this bill to the Senate Leader, Lt. Governor Dewhurst, by telephone, letter, or through the e-mail form at the link below. Point out that horses in your state are also affected by this bill.
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst Capitol Station P.O. Box 12068 Austin, Texas 78711 512 463-0001
E-Mail Senate Leader
Please help stop this senseless and cruel killing of our horses!
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