End Equine Slaughter and Cruelty in 2011

  Approximately 100,000 horses are annually sold for slaughter, and every day that this bill does not pass means another 274 horses are brutally shipped, handled, mistreated, and inhumanely butchered.  Equines serve as companion, work, service and therapy animals, athletes and family pets.  Not only are tens of thousands of horses still bought, sold, and inhumanely carted for consumption purposes within this country, once they reach their destination they are met with even greater, unspeakable brutality.   Since 2002, several similar bills have been introduced to the House of Representatives and the Senate and each time they have been allowed to die despite overwhelming public, private and representative support.  Please help bring awareness to this issue by sharing this petition with everyone you know.  Call and write your representatives to act, this year, on behalf of equines everywhere. Thank you for your support!!
     We, the undersigned, respectfully ask for your immediate support to create and pass a bill banning the possession, shipping, moving, transporting, delivering, receiving, purchasing, selling and donating of horses, mules, ponies, donkeys and other equines, wild or domestic, which, for any purpose, are intended for slaughter both within and beyond our national borders.  We also ask that you pass a law ensuring their protection against cruelty, neglect, harsh handling and any other inhumane treatment at any time, and that sellers who are aware or suspect their buyers may have inhumane intentions or unnecessarily cruel methods of treatment be held equally punishable by law.  Furthermore, we humbly ask the House and Senate Leaders to afford these bills due process and schedule a hearing, as soon as possible, to be brought to the floor for a vote.  Given that an overwhelming number of House and Senate members take a bi-partisan stance to these measures, we, the undersigned, believe it is not unrealistic to have this bill created, modified, voted on, and passed within the year 2011.

     Approximately 100,000 horses are annually sold for slaughter, and every day that this bill does not pass means another 274 horses are brutally shipped, handled, mistreated, and inhumanely butchered.  Since 2002, several similar bills have been introduced to the House of Representatives and the Senate and each time they have been allowed to die despite overwhelming public, private and representative support.  Although it is rare to find opponents to this bill, of the few that do exist, many claim they fear what this bill might mean for other domestic animals intended for slaughter.  However, equines, unlike cattle, sheep, goats, chickens and other farm animals are neither intentionally bred or monitored by the USDA for consumption.

     American citizens overwhelmingly demanded an end to the operation of horse slaughterhouses and, since 2007, this barbaric practice is illegal on U.S. soil.  However, the dealers and sellers of equines quickly discovered they could operate as usual if they just shipped their dirty business to Canada or Mexico, where horse slaughter is no longer under U.S. jurisdiction.  Not only are tens of thousands of horses still bought, sold, and inhumanely carted (without food, water, space, veterinary care or rest) for consumption purposes within this country, once they reach their destination they are met with even greater brutality.  Many of these sensitive animals are repeatedly stabbed with a chisel or knife in the spinal column and neck until they are rendered paralyzed before being literally hacked to pieces, some while still conscious.  It is infuriating that despite our best efforts to end inhumane acts on our own soil, dealers have found a way to conduct their business as usual at the expense of even more cruelty and unimaginable pain.  This is  direct slap in the face to the American public who demanded these animals receive better treatment  and is certainly not what we intended when we passed laws to close U.S. horse slaughterhouses.  In order to prevent equines from suffering this inhumane death, it is essential that we stop their sale and transport to foreign slaughterhouses while they are still within the United States.  As your constituents and a huge majority opposing this atrocity, we are asking that you exhibit an immediate and positive voice on our behalf by bringing an end to equine cruelty and slaughter.      
 
     The slaughter industry violates the property rights of owners by removing their ability to sell horses as working or companion animals, removing any assurance they may have that their pets won't end up on an overcrowded transport truck, destined for a foreign dinner plate.  These animals have trusted humans for their care only to have their lives beaten out of them in the cruelest way imaginable in foreign neighboring countries with no USDA oversight or humane treatment.  Further, hundreds of horses every year are stolen from farms just so they can be sold in auction houses to the highest bidders, often the "death dealers," who immediately ship them to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.   Although it's horrific, aside from theft laws, there are none protecting these animals from the cruelty of the shipment and slaughterhouse that await them.   

     Within the last year, the value of horses has dropped significantly.  This is, in part, due to the passage of the 2007 ban on horse slaughter within the U.S.  According to the America[n Horse Council, there are an estimated "9.2 million horses in the United States...[and approximately] 90,000 to 100,000 unwanted horses have been sent to slaughter annually."  Therefore, about 1% of horses in the U.S. share this dismal fate.

     Critics of this bill might point out that if it were passed, owners who may not be able to care for their horses any longer might possibly have more difficulty finding a buyer.  Regardless, the overwhelming majority of owners do not want their animals purchased by those with intentions to slaughter.  Despite this criticism, valid concerns do exist.  Primarily, those over the ability to care for the nearly 100,000 horses which would then need to find homes the first year alone.  It would fall on individual buyers, owners, rescue groups and organizations to purchase (or acquire through donation), house, and care for these excess animals until the demand decreases.  Breeders will quickly realize, partially through eduction campaigns as well as through market demand, that it is unnecessary and futile to continue breeding horses at today's current rate.  As with any market, once the demand drops, so will the supply.  Given that the current price for horses is lower than it has been in decades and the fact that thousands of people would happily take on the challenge of helping place these animals if it meant they were no longer being cruelly shipped and slaughtered, the time to pass this bill is now.

     As citizens of this country, we need your help in protecting one of America's icons.  Equines serve as companion, work, service and therapy animals, athletes and family pets.  Please act on our behalf, as our elected representatives, and help put an end to equine slaughter and cruelty once and for all.  Or, if not for us, do it for the 274 animals which are brutally killed every day.  Thank you so much for your prompt consideration to this issue.

Sincerely,
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