Horse slaughter horror on Texas front pages 9/30/07-Cross Post, Please

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It is essential for the media to receive positive comments when they publish animal related stories. Please write a quick letter to the editor of the SA and Houston papers and thank each for their excellent front page coverage of Horse Slaughter. Thank you. Margaret, Vegetarian Network of DallasP.S. VegNod has posted the SA story before but not the Houston story. Horse slaughter was on Texas front pages, Sunday September 30. The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonia Express-News both covered the issues in almost identical articles, headed 'U.S. ban on horse slaughter means a more gruesome death elsewhere; Rising numbers of the animals face primitive end at foreign plants" in the Chronicle and "Horse Slaughter on the Border: 'Killer buyers' get the animals for cheap and profit from their deaths" in the

Express News. Lisa Sandberg wrote the piece, with Michelle Mittelstadt also contributing to the Houston Chronicle version.Both articles begin:"CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO - The American mare swung her head frantically when the door to the kill box shut, trapping her inside. A worker jabbed her in the back with a small knife seven, eight, nine times."Eyes wild, she lowered her head and raised it as the blade punctured her body around the withers, again and again."At the 10th jab, she fell to the floor of this Mexican slaughterhouse, bloodied and paralyzed but not yet dead."She would lie there two minutes before being hoisted upside down from a chained rear leg so her throat could be slit and she could bleed to death. "The primitive procedure at the Ciudad Juarez plant is now the fate of thousands of exported U.S. horses since court rulings have shut horse slaughter operations in the United States."The roan mare was one of

nearly 30,000 American horses shipped to Mexican processing plants this year, a 370 percent increase from the number recorded this time last year."By the time she and her peers were led into this city-owned plant, they had typically traveled in packed trucks 700 miles or more, say the American traders who ship them."Some arrive dead. Many of the others come in 'fractured, battered and bruised,' said José Cuellar, the plant veterinarian."No one disputes that slaughter-bound horses have it far worse today than before U.S. courts, upholding state bans, closed two plants to horse slaughtering in Texas earlier this year and the nation's single remaining one in Illinois on Sept. 21."Animal welfare advocates who lobbied to end horse slaughter in the United States gambled that Congress would pass legislation by next year barring horses from being exported for slaughter and preventing horse slaughter plants from opening in states that don't have

bans. But the fate of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act is uncertain."We learn that "15,000 fewer American horses slaughtered this year since the U.S. operations closed compared with this time last year, even counting the jump in the number being shipped to Mexico and Canada" but according to horse slaughter opponent John Holland, "It made it better for (15,000) horses who are not being slaughtered, but it made it worse for those who are. No doubt about it." We read that the Juarez plant, described above, "has a couple of captive bolt guns, but they're inoperable about half the time. And when they do work, poor training can make their use almost as chaotic as the knives..." and "The knife wielders have to be nimble, with good aim, if they want to sever the spinal cord with a single blow. The man on duty one recent day had atrocious aim, with horses enduring as many as 13 jabs to the back before collapsing." The article quotes Temple

Grandin, whose work reduces stress for animals in slaughterhouses. She calls the "puntilla" technique employed in Mexico "horrific beyond belief" and "one of the absolute worst ways to kill an animal." She explains that even a clean jab to the spinal cord, which is rare, would still leave the animal with sensation in her head, conscious and in "absolute terror" while being hung upside down and having her throat slit. The story is lengthy and detailed -- over 2,000 words -- and accompanied by photos. The Express-News also has an audio slideshow. You'll find the articles on line at San Antonio Express-News: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico/stories/MYSA093007.01A.horseslaughter.3496288.htmlor http://tinyurl.com/22eewy Houston Chronicle : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5175642.htmlMost importantly, those pages have links to where you can comment on the article, joining in the public forum. Please participate. You

can also send letters to the editor.The San Antonio Express-News takes letters at http://www.mysanantonio.com/help/feedback/(Select "letter to the editor.")The Houston Chronicle has a fun page on its letters policy at http://webadv.chron.com/ads/ads_i/insidestory/your_letter.html and takes letters at viewpointsIt is vital that we encourage media coverage of animal issues.And please, go to https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2007_horse_slaughter3 from where you can send letters to your legislators urging support for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which, as the articles cited above make clear, is now needed more desperately than ever.Yours and the animals',Karen Dawn(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at

http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

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