AR-News: (US TX) Horse fans spur push to end U.S. slaughter

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

HOustonChronicle.com

May 1, 2004, 9:31PM

By JUDY HOLLAND
Hearst News Service 
WASHINGTON -- Kentucky Derby devotees and other horse fans are rounding up 
support in Congress to stop the slaughter of U.S. horses that would grace 
gourmet dinner plates in Japan, Belgium and France. 
Americans, who have a special love for the animal that carried pioneers into 
the Wild West, U.S. soldiers into battle and jockeys into racetrack history, 
are finding the notion of grilled horse steak and horse meat sushi extremely 
distasteful. 
When you watch a thoroughbred pulling ahead on the back stretch, remember 
that "the winner could be some Frenchman's entree," said Rep. John Sweeney, 
R-N.Y., chairman of the Congressional Horse Caucus, who has collected 209 
co-sponsors on a bill to ban the slaughter or export of U.S. horses for human 
consumption. 
"We view horses as athletes and entertainers," Sweeney said. "The American 
psyche is shocked by the notion that we are going to so inhumanely treat such an 
important part of our culture." 
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., a veterinarian who introduced a matching bill in 
the Senate last week, called the slaughter for human consumption of nearly 
50,000 of the nation's 7 million horses last year "barbaric." 
To draw attention to the equine issue, Sweeney and actress Bo Derek, who rode 
to fame on horseback in the movie 10, combed the halls of Capitol Hill last 
week and plan to do so again this week. Also lobbying lawmakers are actor Tony 
Curtis and his wife, Jill, who founded a horse rescue farm in Las Vegas. 
Derek, an avid rider, says she was "shocked to find out that horses are being 
slaughtered not for countries that have a famine, but for gourmet meals." 
"We're giving these magnificent animals a hideous death," Derek said in an 
interview. "No one knows it's happening." 
Curtis said he started to love horses when he began his film career. 
"The history of horses on our continent is extraordinary," Curtis said. "We 
wouldn't have discovered America the way we did without horses." 
U.S. soldiers and some civilians ate horse meat during World War II when beef 
was scarce, but now virtually all of U.S. slaughtered horse meat is shipped 
to Europe, primarily Belgium, France and Switzerland, as well as Russia and 
Mexico. 
While a dozen horse slaughter plants dotted this country 20 years ago, now 
there are just two in Texas, the Dallas Crown firm in Kaufman and Beltex Corp. 
in Fort Worth. Another horse-meat plant, Cavel International, is under 
construction in DeKalb, Ill., which has catapulted the issue into the state 
legislature. 
Texas banned horse slaughter for human consumption in 1949, but the law was 
never enforced. 
In 2002, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, now a Republican U.S. 
senator, issued an opinion saying that the 1949 law outlawing the sale, possession 
and transfer of horse meat for human consumption was still in effect. Tarrant 
County has filed suit in federal court to close the slaughterhouses. 
John Linebarger, an attorney representing both Texas slaughterhouses, said a 
lot of the horses are unwanted and sold to the plants for an average of $300 
to $400. 
"Some people would otherwise let these things die in the fields and rot," 
Linebarger said. 
Linebarger said horseflesh is very lean and is lower in cholesterol and fat 
than white meat chicken, which is why many Japanese and European physicians 
recommend it. 
"Horses aren't bred as a food item and so they aren't filled with hormones 
and chemicals," Linebarger said. 
full story:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2542523 

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    "The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those 
rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of 
tyranny. The question is not can they REASON, nor can they TALK, but can they 
SUFFER?" 
Jeremy Bentham 1748 - 1832 



         
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