Please Do Not Tap On the Glass

Here’s another very important DawnWatch alert about a subject I’ve posted about many times – horse slaughter. Please Please contact your federal legislators and urge them to support the act. There’s information about the act in the alert.

This is horrible to watch in places, especially listening to the men who callously send horses to slaughter. But you must watch. We owe it to these non-human animals to witness their suffering at our hands.

Last night, June 10, the Canadian show “The National” did an extraordinary 20-minute piece on horse slaughter. It explained that while the US has a temporary ban on horse slaughter, US horses are being trucked to any of seven slaughterhouses in Canada to be killed, and that the horse slaughter business in Canada has grown 75 percent as a result. The horses may be trucked from the US for 36 hours without food or water, and they face gruesome deaths when they arrive. The piece makes clear how urgently we need to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which would ban the transport of US horses to other countries for slaughter. Please visit the HSUS’ campaign Web site to learn more about how you can encourage the support of your legislators.

You can watch the CBS story online at
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/no_country_for_horses/no_country_for_horses.html.

It is includes distressing footage and a moving voiceover with sections such as:
“Inside the holding pens at Natural Valley Farms, the latest shipment of horses wait quietly for what the morning will bring. Race horses who’ve stopped winning, work horses who just aren’t working out, the pets of teenage girls who’ve moved away to college. “

It is hard to watch, but a good line to remember is “We must not refuse to see with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies.” At least click the link (stations count clicks) and watch what you can.

You can also post a comment on the bottom of that page. The National recommends:
“If you have a comment about a specific video that’s available on The National Web site, please post your comment using the Post a Comment form on the page where the video is located. That way, others can read your comment, and you can see what others are saying.”

It also says,
“The National wants to hear from you!
Part of what we hope to do here at The National is to create a discussion with our viewers about the stories we report each night on the program and on the website. If you have a comment or question about something you’ve seen on The National, please get in touch with us.

“We watch each video and read every comment that we receive. Some of the video and written responses we get will be selected for broadcast on The National in our Your Turn segment at the end of the program.”

Go to http://www.cbc.ca/national/yourturn.html to send your written comments or webcam videos.

Much of the information in the news video is available in print here:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/06/10/horses-slaughter.html or http://tinyurl.com/5t7cxv.

Please click on that page and click “Recommend this story” at the bottom of the text, above the comments. The National’s story is likely to give efforts to ban the transport of horses to slaughter a terrific boost. Please help make sure the show gets the commendation it deserves.

I send thanks to the many people who made sure we knew about the coverage!

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.)

Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews of Karen Dawn’s new book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals” and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.

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Filed under: animal rights Tagged: | horse slaughter