Letter: Slaughter of horses must be stopped now

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 | 8:52 a.m.

The slaughter of domestic American horses is in itself an atrocity, but the slaughter of America's living legends, our wild mustangs, is over the top.

The United States hosts three foreign-owned horse slaughterhouses in the business of purchasing low-priced horses for slaughter and horsemeat export to Europe and Asia. And Belgian-owned Cavel International in DeKalb, Ill., had the privilege of slaughtering the first six mustangs (captured and sold by the Bureau of Land Management) under the new amendment to the Wild and Free-roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. The amendment came about via the rider Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., snuck into the appropriations bill signed by President Bush. The rider removes the Act's protection of wild horses from slaughter.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., are trying to stop this before thousands of wild horses end up on the butcher block. H.R. 297, introduced by Rahall and Whitfield, and S. 576 introduced by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., reinstate the federal protections that prohibit the slaughter of America's wild horses.

These bills, plus H.R. 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, deserve the support of all Americans, including members of Congress, who value our heritage.

TERRY WATT Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

Editor's note: Terry Watt is a volunteer with the American Horse Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization that works to protect horses, ponies, donkeys, mules and burros.