UNITED STATES: U.S. District Court judge allows horse slaughter plant to temporarily slaughter horses while lawsuit is underway.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) denounces a decision made on Friday, June 1, by the Honorable Frederick Kapala of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to allow a horse slaughter plant to temporarily evade prosecution under a newly-enacted Illinois law banning the slaughter of horses in the state for human consumption.

The measure, which was strongly supported by AWI's legislative arm, the Society for Animal Protective Legislation (SAPL), passed overwhelmingly in both chambers of the Illinois legislature and was signed into law by Governor Rod Blagojevich on May 24th. The next day, Cavel International Inc., the only horse slaughter plant in Illinois, filed suit seeking to invalidate the state law. Additionally, the plant requested injunctive relief, which was the subject of the June 1 hearing, according to a news release.

"By temporarily enjoining enforcement of Illinois law, [the June 1] ruling will allow Cavel International to resume its slaughter of America's horses, a practice that continues to be abhorred not only by people of Illinois, but by citizens all across America," noted Tracy Silverman, an attorney with AWI.

Cavel International sets forth a variety of arguments in its lawsuit to invalidate Illinois' new law, states a news release. Some of these same arguments were recently rejected by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a separate challenge of a Texas law banning the sale of horsemeat for human consumption.

In the coming days, the nationally-renowned law firm of Patton Boggs will be filing documents with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of AWI and SAPL in opposition to Cavel International's attempt to use the court system to legalize horse slaughter in Illinois.

Web posted: June 4, 2007

 

Now for Ted Slanker's Commentary . . .

The Truth of the Matter

We have owned as many as eight horses at a time and are very attached to our beasts of burden.  They are like members of the family, the same as are the other livestock on the ranch.

Horses eat grass just like cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits, and many other critters.  All grazing critters are nutritional perfection when it comes to what is and what is not good food.

Many people throughout the world eat horse meat.  I've eaten horse meat.  Many a soldier back in the horse cavalry days ate horse meat.  In all cases the people who eat or ate grass-fed horse meat were healthier because of it.

So, who in their right mind could figure that eating horses is a bad thing?  Yep, a modern brain-dead, grain-eating, citified, American kook.  That's who.

What's been the fallout from this irrational thinking?  Well, old horses aren't worth a plug nickel.  Horse lovers who used to sell off unproductive and lame horses are now forced to keep them until they die of natural causes.  This is total nonsense at the highest level and a waste of money, resources, and good food.

Well, on second thought maybe our government's foreign policies, financial policies, and trade policies are in the same running for the total nonsense category.  So the idea of a ban on eating horses is just plain real dumb.

Ted Slanker

P.S.  The beat goes on . . . see here.