Amarillo.com

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/080906/opi_letters2.shtml

Web-posted Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Letters:

A case of galloping misinformation

One must assume Jay Novacek feels very emotional about defending
horse slaughter, because his Aug. 2 guest column is composed
overwhelmingly of misinformation.

He claims that House Resolution 503 will not "save a single horse"
because it does not address the use of horse meat in pet food. But
horse meat has not been used significantly in pet food for more than
20 years.

Novacek says the horses will simply go to Mexico for slaughter, but
H.R. 503 forbids the sale and shipment of horses to slaughter for
human consumption. It does not ban the slaughter itself. Therefore,
it will be just as illegal to send horses to Mexico for slaughter as
it is to send them to Texas.

Novacek touts the "61 other groups" opposing H.R. 503, but he doesn't
mention the hundreds of other groups that favor it.

Finally, he makes the long-discredited claim that neglect will
skyrocket if slaughter stops. Ample statistics show that no such
relationship exists.

The horses will be absorbed back into the population, as when the
demand for horse meat dropped in the 1990s, and slaughter fell from
350,000 horses a year to under 50,000.

John Holland

Shawsville, Va.