
Horses are as much a part of our Texas heritage as the armadillo and the
Alamo. But last year, 91,757 horses were slaughtered in this country.
Their horse meat was sold to European companies for human consumption.
There are three surviving equine slaughter houses in the United States.
Sadly, Texas is home to two of them – in Kaufman and Fort Worth.
Kaufman’s mayor, Paula Bacon, recently spoke with Kinky about the slaughter
house that treats her community “like a doormat.”
Mayor Bacon said her community has been liked to about the dirty business
of horse slaughter. “We were told these horses were old and dying when, in
fact, they were young, healthy colts in excellent condition,” Bacon said.
Although the practice of slaughtering horses for human consumption has
been illegal in Texas since 1949, the slaughter houses in Kaufman and Fort
Worth remain open for business.
Kinky is joining Mayor Bacon and others in their efforts to shut down
the slaughter houses in Texas immediately.
“This ain’t the cowboy way,” Kinky says. “I’m going to be a governor for
the people – and for the animals.”
The ugly trade of horsemeat is one that is hidden from most American –
and the industry wants to keep it that way. Today, the American Horse Slaughter
Prevention Act, which would “prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving,
delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses
and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption,” is stuck in a
Congressional committee. Its only hope for passage is to continue raising
awareness of this issue.