Animal Protection Issues
Horse Transport Violations at Beltex
Horse Transport Violations Documented at the Beltex Plant in Texas
www.animals-angels.com - 11.25.08 | Issues: Horse Slaughter
Animals' Angels, an animal welfare organization based in Maryland, last week received over 900 pages of documents and photographs from the United States Department of Agriculture taken during part of 2005 at the Beltex horse slaughter plant in Texas. Documents received 36 months after making a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, reveal an appalling number of incidences and an equally appalling degree of suffering sustained by horses. Evidence indicates alarming cruelty corresponding directly to horse slaughter.
The large FOIA document contains hundreds of photographs that graphically depict horses with open fractures, legs missing, battered and bloody faces, eyeballs dangling and what appears to be horses left to bleed to death. The document provides unimpeachable evidence for the immediate ban on the slaughter of American horses.
The photographs included in the FOIA document were taken between January 17, 2005 and November 17, 2005 at Beltex, the Belgian owned plant in Fort Worth, Texas. Beltex was forced to close this plant in 2007, after courts upheld Texas law that has banned horse slaughter since 1949. Beltex has since focused on its operations in Fresnillo, Mexico where it continues to slaughter American horses. In addition, Beltex still runs the second largest slaughter horse feedlot in the U.S. Horses from all over the country are tranported to the feedlot in Morton,TX before being sent to the Beltex slaughter plant in Mexico.
The FOIA request was submitted by Animals' Angels investigator Julie Caramante in November 2005 "I've been an equine cruelty investigator for a number of years," said Caramante, "and I've witnessed many horrific incidents of animal cruelty. But nothing could prepare me for the images contained in the FOIA. These pictures shocked me to the core. The pain and terror these horses endured is criminal. This just should not be, no excuses."
In commenting on the photographs, Sonja Meadows, Executive Director of Animals' Angels USA said:
"The pro-horse slaughter lobby continues to lobby for the domestic slaughter of horses, railing that transportation and slaughter of horses inside the United States is ever so much better, so much more humane than what happens in Mexico. These people say that U.S. humane laws protect the horses, that Mexico has no such laws. But this rhetoric is now exposed as nothing but disingenuous talk. The FOIA reveals unimaginable suffering was being perpetuated upon large numbers of horses on a long-term basis here in the U.S. We can only shudder at the scale of the suffering over the years. Animals' Angels will be investigating what actions were taken against those responsible for this horrific abuse."
Meadows is firm in her support of a Federal ban of horse slaughter. "From our own weekly investigations at auctions, feedlots and slaughter plants, the barbaric and inhumane treatment of horses goes on and will continue to do so until a Federal law is passed to end once and for all, the transportation and slaughter of horses for human consumption. The horse has played such an important part in the history of the United States and continues to be such an integral part in the lives of millions of its citizens. It is well overdue, past time for Congress to act and to pass a law to bring this miserable trade in horses for human consumption to an end."
Animals' Angels continues to send out its investigators to expose the abuse and suffering of horses and to ensure that those responsible within this brutal industry are held accountable for their actions. "However difficult and traumatic these investigations are," said Meadows, "Animals' Angels will remain true to its motto - 'We are there with the animals'"
Further information, video and pictures can be found at TRANSPORT VIOLATIONS AT BELTEX (WARNING! GRAPHIC CONTENT) on the www.animals-angels.com website.
