Anti-slaughter folks make matters worse
Upon reading the letter from Christine Strewe ("Horses need much help from humans," Fence Post, Nov. 10) I have several things to say. I am not a horse owner, but I love horses, too.
People have been eating horseflesh since time immemorial. There are breeds of horses, the Breton, for instance, that were specifically bred to be used as food. This abhorrence of using horses as food seems to be an American cultural construct. Do anti-slaughter people have a problem with cows, pigs and chickens being slaughtered for food? If not, why not? Are their deaths any less vicious or less important?
Over 100,000 horses were slaughtered for export from the U.S. every year. Add to that the hundreds, if not thousands of mustangs that are rounded up from public lands, standing idly in feed lots, waiting for adoptions that will most likely never happen. At cost to the taxpayers averaging $1.50 per animal per day. What will happen to all the old, unwanted, lame or sick domestic horses that their owners can't sell or afford to keep? Will they just be neglected, abused and left to die in their barns and pastures?
How many horses are the anti-slaughter activists willing to adopt? One hundred head apiece? Two hundred? If slaughter is so reprehensible, it's time they put their money where their mouths are, and each be required to adopt dozens of unwanted horses.
Thanks to the anti-slaughter activists, horses are now being shipped longer distances for slaughter, in even more inhumane conditions than they were before slaughter was banned. Thanks for your hard work. Thanks for exposing even more horses to abuse and neglect.
People who own and breed horses are a huge part of the problem. Kids outgrow the pony? Sell it on. Get tired of taking care of the horse? Sell it on. Foal doesn't have the conformation, speed or color needed for its breed standard? Sell it on. But by all means, keep breeding more horses until you get the one you want and to heck with the ones that weren't. The lack of responsibility people show to their animals in this country is appalling. The six million-plus perfectly healthy dogs and cats that are put down every year are a testament to that.
Cattle, pigs and chickens are sentient beings, also. A horse is special because … why? Because you can hop over a fence on it?
How were the deaths of the horses in Wadsworth any kinder than the one they would have received at a slaughterhouse? Personally, I hold the anti-slaughter activists partly to blame for this horrible accident.
April Hughes
Wauconda