Horse Slaughter - Argumentative Paper - 1527 Words

Horse Slaughter The topic of horse slaughter doesn’t usually come up very often in everyday conversation. Horse slaughter is more of an implicit subject, which your everyday person doesn’t know much about. Because it is highly controversial, it has gone through the cycle of being banded and then reinstated twice in the last 5 years. With being involved in the horse industry my entire life, I have witnessed the effects first hand. Some people see it as killing pets, animal cruelty, and morally wrong. However, I see it as a source of income, a way to stop the starvation and abuse of horses, an export industry for the United States, as well as a quality meal for in times of despair. The history of people eating horse meat dates back to†¦show more content†¦During the 1930’s low supply and high cost of pork and beef made horse meat rise in popularity. Again during World War II, people were again in the same predicament. Inflation during the early 1970’s raised the c ost of traditional meats; Time Magazine reported from Carlson’s, a butcher shop in Westbrook, CT, that they were selling over 6,000 pounds of horse meat a day. (Weil) In 2006, the House of Representatives voted to end horse slaughter; the bill passed to make the killing and selling American horses for human consumption an illegal practice in the United States. Today in the US, people do not consume horse meat on a whole sale basis. But because many other counties do, the exporting of horse meat is a huge industry. When the ban was in place, US horses were being transported to Canada and Mexico to be slaughtered instead. From 2006 to 2010 the increase in horses being exported to Canada and Mexico was 148 and 660 percent. They are loaded up on trailers and shipped across the boarders, often times going days without food or water until they reach their destination. The regulations, or lack thereof, are different than in the US. (Shesgreen) Valley Meat Co. owner Rick De Los Santos brings up valid points in his interview with NBC News last week. The majority of people, who are against slaughter, are getting caught up on the â€Å"ick† factor of killing our â€Å"pets†. However, the process is the exact same for cows and pigs.