Mexico Equine Advocates Appeal Globally for Help

Equine Welfare Alliance

July 8, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
John Holland
Equine Welfare Alliance
540.268.5693
john@equinewelfarealliance.org
Valerie Azar
Animal Recovery Mission
305.495.1435
valerieazar1@gmail.com
Mexico Equine Advocates Appeal Globally for Help
Chicago (EWA) –Equine Welfare organizations around the world are responding to an appeal by their Mexican counterparts requesting support in forcing an end to the blatant cruelty and abuse at the San Bernabe Slaughter Auction in the Municipality of Almoloya de Juárez.
A video appeal was released on July 3, revealing the common place abuse of equines heading to slaughter. In an incident that is said to be typical of the mistreatment, a pregnant mare with a broken foot was pushed off a ramp that resulted in her breaking both of her knees. In obvious agony, she was dragged off to slaughter.
A first petition with over 5,000 signatures was delivered to the Mexican embassy in Washington on June 27. The continuing appeal and a petition being circulated are calling for the Mexican government to shut down the facility. San Bernabe, the largest such unregulated facility in Mexico, has been in operation for 70 years and is well known for the extremely abusive treatment of animals in violation of many federal regulations.
American horse owners should be very concerned because U.S. horses are sent to this facility. It should be noted that US Horses were being sent to Mexican slaughter facilities long before the U.S. plants closed. Between the years 1989-2006, 775,474 U.S. horses were exported for slaughter to Canada, Mexico and Japan.
As long as horse slaughter exists, U.S. horses are in jeopardy of being sent to this and other facilities.
Equine Welfare Alliance along with the Animal Protection Association of Mexico, Animal Law Coalition, Animals’ Angels, APASDEM, Animal Recovery Mission, Commission for San Bernabe Market and Anti-Fur
Society call for global support to join us in an appeal to Enrique Peña Nieto to shutter the doors of San Bernabe forever.
We are appealing to all members of the U.S. Congress to prevent American horses from enduring the fate awaiting them at San Bernabe by swiftly passing federal legislation (S. 1176) to prohibit horse slaughter in the U.S. and export over our borders.
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The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues free, umbrella organization with 176 member organizations and hundreds of individual members worldwide. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. www.equinewelfarealliance.org
The Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) is a nonprofit 501c3 organization dedicated to raising awareness while fighting to stop illegal horse slaughter, shut down all illegal slaughter farms, animal sacrifice farms, animal fighting farms and halt the roundups of the American wild mustangs. http://animalrecoverymission.org Founder: Richard “Kudo” Couto