AR-News: Please make 2 calls for the Horses

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Dear Friends, 

Due to some recent media, we are asking you to please call, fax and/or e-mail 
the following IL Representatives, and urge them to support the bill to ban 
horse slaughter.  If they or their aides tell you there is no bill before them, 
please stress that if and when there is a vote to ban horse slaughter, you 
want them to support the ban. 

FYI - The letter to the editor below has some great talking points you can 
use, when making your calls, about why horse slaughter is so wrong.   

Please contact Lindner and Osmond in their district offices through April 
19th. 

Rep. Patricia Lindner 
dstrct65 at aol.com 

District Office 
32 Main St. 
Suite A 
Sugar Grove, IL 60554 
Phone:  (630) 466-9791 
Fax:  (630) 466-7124 

Springfield Office 
204 N. Stratton 
Springfield, IL 62706   
Phone:  (217) 782-1486 
Fax:  (217) 782-1873 

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Rep. JoAnn Osmond 
osmondjoann at aol.com 

District Office 
976 Hillside Ave. 
Antioch, IL 60002 
Phone:  (847) 838-6200 
Fax:  (847) 395-9277 

Springfield Office 
201 N Stratton 
Springfield, IL 62706 
Phone:  (217) 782-8151 
Fax:  (217) 557-7207 

The following is from the: 

Gurnee Review 
April 15, 2004 
Angela Sykora 

Osmond voted against the ban and said she spoke with officials from the 
Department of Agriculture who had nothing but good things to say about the Cavel 
International, a DeKalb-based slaughter house that ships horses overseas. The 
business burned to the ground and will reopen soon. 
  
Osmond added that while Americans choose not to eat horse meat, Europeans and 
Asians consider it a delicacy. 

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The following is a great letter to the editor that was in the Illinois Leader 
today. 

Constituent urges Rep. Lindner et al to reverse horse slaughter vote 
Thursday, April 15, 2004 

I have been reviewing the pro and con arguments on SB1921 ["11 letters 
skewering horse slaughter company," January 27, and "Protect companion animals," 
January 23] the bill that would ban horse slaughter plants in Illinois for the 
purposes of producing horse meat for human consumption. I've learned that there 
are just three of these plants still operating in the United States. Two in 
Texas are in danger of closure because they are operating in defiance of state 
law as currently established. And the third, Cavel International in DeKalb, 
burned to the ground but has been rebuilt and wants to reopen its operations. 
Let's start with an important premise. The consumption of horse meat by humans is 
illegal in the United States. The horse is considered a companion animal, 
like a dog or a cat, and therefore, cannot be eaten on United States soil by 
anyone for any purpose. So why are there any horse slaughtering plants in the U.S. 
that produce horse meat for human consumption? There is a market in Japan and 
Europe, so the slaughter plants here export the meat. One advantage to 
exporting horse meat, rather than beef, is that the tariffs run approximately four 
times less. Since there are willing buyers, why not allow a business to operate 
that meets individual wants? First, an argument like that justifies 
pornography, strip clubs, chicken fights, drug legalization, and many other "live and 
let live" ideas that most Americans find unseemly and worthy of banning, or at 
least, strictly regulating. Second, what are the social and humane costs of 
allowing these horse slaughtering plants? The idea of gentle and beautiful 
horses crammed into double decker trailers and hauled across the country with 
minimal food and water is cruel and inhumane. The idea of gallant horses standing 
in line waiting for a bolt to be shot into their heads and having their throats 
sliced in front of their kind is also repulsive. These are not animals raised 
and bred for food. They are raised and bred for service, sport, and 
companionship. It is sad that rather than absorb a $150-$200 cost of euthanizing and 
burial, owners would sell their horses to a killer buyer for $200-300. There is 
no problem with rendering plants that handle dead horses for the purpose of 
reduction and recycling. The problem is killing otherwise viable horses for 
eating. By keeping the horse slaughtering business going, there is a profit motive 
to bandits stealing horses from private persons. How tragic for a young child 
to wake up and find their horse missing because someone wanted to make a 
quick buck. Anyone who has ever been around horses knows how smart and docile they 
are. They can smell the blood at the horse slaughter plant and hear the 
cries. Do we want DeKalb, Illinois to become the horse slaughter capital of the 
United States? For the price of 40 jobs, mostly gut sweepers? It's not worth it. 
The grassroots support for this type of legislation was tested in California 
in 1998. A voter initiative there has not received such a high percentage of 
support, before or since, than the 66% that voted for the ban on horse slaughter 
for human consumption. Public opinion polls have run as high as 85% in other 
states. There are many horse adoption and horse therapy facilities that would 
gladly adopt an unwanted horse. That is the least that these innocent animals 
deserve in our humane society. The web site "Horse Protection Society" tells 
the whole story. I urge my State Representative Patricia Lindner to reverse her 
position on this issue when the bill comes back for another vote when the 
legislature returns to session. SB1921 received 55 yes votes and only 54 no votes 
the first time it was called. The high-powered lobbying of the pro-horse 
slaughter groups worked the first time. It won't happen again as regular folks 
mobilize and weigh in with their views. 60 votes are needed to pass it. A Federal 
ban on this practice, HR857, has 180 cosponsors in the US House and even more 
committed supporters. A majority vote of 218 is needed there to supercede 
state laws. But let's handle this right here at the state level. 

Jon A. Zahm 


For the Animals, 

Jodie Wiederkehr 
SHARK 
sharkintl at aol.com 
www.sharkonline.org 








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“I personally cannot get overly worked up about the deprivation of human 
rights in a world where non-humans have no rights at all. Until animals and nature 
have rights, none of us have any rights at all because without animals, 
ecosystems and nature's diversity, rights are meaningless. Humans are a group that 
was never very successful to begin with. Overly territorial, obsessed with 
trivialities, violent, petty, and completely lacking in empathy for other 
species. The world would be a much nicer place without us." Captain Paul Watson 
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