Joint Statement From Animal Protection Groups on Ruling to
Allow Horse Slaughter for Food Exports
March 14, 2006
A coalition of animal protection groups -- the Doris Day Animal
League, Humane Society of the United States, Animal Welfare
Institute, The Fund For Animals, Society for Animal Protective
Legislation, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, and American Humane Association -- are disappointed
with today's district court decision to allow for the
continued slaughter of American horses in violation of federal
law and Congress's clear directive. We stand by the majority
of Congress and the American people who want our horses protected,
not butchered for French and Belgian dinner plates.
We will continue with our efforts to enforce the clear legislative
mandate to stop horse slaughter for Fiscal Year 2006, either
by proceeding on the merits of the case or by seeking an appeal.
Yet even if we prevail on the merits, this case offers only
a temporary reprieve for horses -- the campaign to stop horse
slaughter is being waged on multiple fronts, and we are committed
to permanently ending this inhumane practice.
We will continue to support local communities most
directly affected by this bloody business in their
efforts to ban horse slaughter at the local level. We have also
asked the federal court of appeals for the fifth circuit to
reinstate the Texas state law banning the sale of horse meat,
which would shut down two of the three remaining horse slaughter
plants in the Unites States.
We will ask the hundreds of thousands of Americans who weighed
in to support this amendment to now
call on Congress to pass a permanent ban on horse slaughter
of human consumption. The American Horse Slaughter
Prevention Act -- H.R. 503 by U.S. Reps. John Sweeney, John
Spratt, and Ed Whitfield, and S. 1915 by U.S. Senators John
Ensign and Mary Landrieu -- will ensure that no American horse
is ever forced to suffer the long and painful journey to slaughter
at a foreign-owned plant for the culinary desires of foreign
gourmands.
Horses occupy a unique place in the history of our country,
and they deserve better than this.
