Posted on 10/17/2006 10:06:04 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Actress-turned-activist Bo Derek is spearheading a campaign to stop the export of horsemeat to Europe and Japan.
Three European-owned factories in the U.S. send some 26 million pounds of horsemeat overseas each year.
Now Derek, who first came to national attention in the 1979 movie "10,” has joined other celebrities and horse lovers in an attempt to shut down the plants — two in Texas and one in Illinois.
In September, the House of Representatives passed the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which bans the transportation and sale of horses for human consumption. But it’s unclear whether the Senate will vote on a similar bill before Congress adjourns for the year.
So Derek is in Washington meeting with senators to urge passage of the legislation. She joins celebrities including Willie Nelson, Christie Brinkley and Whoopi Goldberg in the effort, which is backed by the Washington-based Society for Animal Protection Legislation.
The issue is a personal one for Derek, 49, whose 2002 autobiography is called "Riding Lessons: Everything That Matters in Life I Learned from Horses.” She oversees a 130-acre ranch in Santa Ynez, Calif., that was once home to more than 30 horses. She now has six.
"I am not a member of any animal rights organization,” she told the Washington Post. "I am a big red-meat eater. I live in cattle country.”
She tells lawmakers she meets with that horses deserve a respectful death and burial. Horses that veterinarians put down with a lethal injection are not consumed because toxins remain in the meat. Their remains are cremated. When used for food, horses — like cattle — are stunned with a bolt gun and bled to death.
Most Americans are not even aware that horses are slaughtered in the U.S. for consumption overseas, several polls have revealed. Opponents of the horsemeat ban say horse owners should be able to do whatever they want with their horses, and they claim a ban would lead to the unregulated handling of unwanted horses.
Derek believes that concern is unwarranted. Last year about 90,000 horses were slaughtered out of a population of around 9 million, and if they weren’t bought by slaughterhouses the horses could be adopted by someone for riding because 90 percent of the horses sold at auctions are in sound condition, according to Derek.
But former Congressman Charles Stenholm, a lobbyist for the horsemeat industry, told the Post that "with all due sincerity to the naivete of Bo Derek, it is a horse welfare issue. Somebody has to take care of unwanted horses. There are just not enough people who want to adopt horses.”
He also said it could cost as much as $2,000 to have an unwanted horse disposed of.
But Derek is continuing the fight. She recently met with Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and convinced him to co-sponsor the bill in the Senate.
Anne Russek, a horse breeder in Virginia, is also working to get the legislation passed. She told the Post that while she has been able to lobby her own congressman, "Bo Derek can get to anybody’s congressman.”
Maybe. But a nice looking Rino Bo.
Hey, absolutely true story: When I was in middle school in Hawaii, they had some of the worst school lunches ever. Well after a couple of years, it came out that the guy in charge of meat procurement for the schools was actually buying kangaroo meat and pocketing the difference.
Gross.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
I've eaten it. It's much more like beef than dog.
We're not talking about North Korea, here!
One more dumb law to repeal, along with the ban on consuming dolphins.
I would suggest you shoot, hang, and butcher the animal all on your own. There is nothing that makes you savor the taste of a good equi-burger more than knowing your food comes from your own handiwork.
i own a few of my own and they, like our dogs, are part of our family.
Oh, I'd never eat a dog.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
In all honesty it is tasty, not as fat as cow, maybe a bit too lean. My in-laws are French and I tried it there. The French picked it up (so the story goes) when Napoleons troops were returning from Moscow and had no food.
I can't imagine Jews slitting throats and blowing up pork packing factories to enforce a nationwide ban on pork. I could imagine members of "the religion of peace" doing it though.
Not in the same class of meat. Buzzards won't eat dog unless it is properly prepared: Flattened multiple times by a truck and then cooked out in the Texas Sun for a week or more.
Stop (b)eating a dead horse?.......
My four year old says he won't eat any baby animals, but if they are adult animals he's ready to chow down. It's cute hearing his six year old brother discussing with him about why eating meat is okay.
trust me
nope
I'm not, either. After all, North Korea probably eliminated freedom all at once. We in America do it incrementally.
Or Hindus banning beef.
Horse and dog meat don't appeal to me, and I won't be chowing (ahem) down on them. De gustibus non est disputandum. But I can't see any way that's a reasonable moral position. Horses aren't endangered; in fact, they're abundant enough that the government spends a fair amount of time and money rounding them up and offering them for adoption.
If Europeans want to eat horse and we've got a lot of it, well, there's something to shove the balance of trade a little in our direction.
If the saddle club is for this ban, I won't be joining anytime soon.
I've had kangaroo and didn't like it at all.
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