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Rescue at Rainbow Bridge
Rescue Rainbow BridgeUnlike most days at Rainbow Bridge, this day dawned cold and gray, damp as a swamp and as dismal as could be imagined. All of the recent arrivals had no idea what to think, as they had never experienced a day like this before. But the animals who had been waiting for their beloved people knew exactly what was going on and started to gather at the pathway leading to The Bridge to watch.
It wasn't long before an elderly animal came into view, head hung low and tail dragging. The other animals, the ones who had been there for a while, knew what his story was right away, for they had seen this happen far too often.
He approached slowly, obviously in great emotional pain, but with no sign of injury or illness. Unlike all of the other animals waiting at The Bridge, this animal had not been restored to youth and made healthy and vigorous again. As he walked toward The Bridge, he watched all of the other animals watching him. He knew he was out of place here and the sooner he could cross over, the happier he would be.
But, alas, as he approached The Bridge, his way was barred by the appearance of an Angel who apologized, but told him that he would not be able to pass. Only those animals who were with their people could pass over Rainbow Bridge.
With no place else to turn to, the elderly animal turned towards the fields before The Bridge and saw a group of other animals like himself, also elderly and infirm. They weren't playing, but rather simply lying on the green grass, forlornly staring out at the pathway leading to The Bridge. And so, he took his place among them, watching the pathway and waiting.
One of the newest arrivals at The Bridge didn't understand what he had just witnessed and asked one of the animals that had been there for a while to explain it to him.
You see, that poor animal was a rescue. He was turned in to rescue just as you see him now, an older animal with his fur graying and his eyes clouding. He never made it out of rescue and passed on with only the love of his rescuer to comfort him as he left his earthly existence. Because he had no family to give his love to, he has no one to escort him across The Bridge.
The first animal thought about this for a minute and then asked, "So what will happen now?" As he was about to receive his answer, the clouds suddenly parted and the gloom lifted. Approaching The Bridge could be seen a single person and among the older animals, a whole group was suddenly bathed in a golden light and they were all young and healthy again, just as they were in the prime of life.
"Watch, and see" said the second animal. A second group of animals from those waiting came to the pathway and bowed low as the person neared. At each bowed head, the person offered a pat on the head or a scratch behind the ears. The newly restored animals fell into line and followed him towards The Bridge. They all crossed The Bridge together.
"What happened?"
"That was a rescuer." The animals you saw bowing in respect were those who found new homes because of his work. They will cross when their new families arrive. Those you saw restored were those who never found homes. When a rescuer arrives, they are allowed to perform one, final act of rescue. They are allowed to escort those poor animals that they couldn't place on earth, across The Rainbow Bridge.
"I think I like rescuers," said the first animal.
"So does GOD," was the reply.
(Author Unknown
baby horses left die in the desert by Sheldon fish & game
Message #1258 of 1288 < Prev | Next >Sheldon Fish and Wildlife Service Runs Foals to Exhaustion and Leaves them to Die in the Desert.
27 June, 2006
By: Valerie James Patton, Susan Pohlman, and John Holland
On June 6th, the Special Research Group exposed a plan formulated by the Fish and Wildlife Service to eliminate the Sheldon range wild horses and pay “mass adopters” $300 a horse to take them. The report showed that one of the adopters was operating out of a stockyard used almost exclusively as a transshipment point for horses going to slaughter. The report went on to denounce the plans of FWS to hold a helicopter gather in mid-June which is the height of foaling season in that region.
The Fish and Wildlife Service responded to the massive public outcry, which included congressmen and even California Governor Schwarzenegger, by giving false assurances to all who inquired. Among other falsehoods, they stated that the foaling season was long over and that all the foals were at least three months old. Project manager Paul Steblein assured the public that they had done a helicopter survey and found all the foals in the refuge were at least three or four months old. The impossibility of such an assessment from the air was not lost on the horse advocates nor was the biological improbability. Their doubts and worst fears were soon to be justified.
Realizing that the gather could be a tremendous public relations debacle, the FWS took extra precautions. These were not precautions to assure the safety of the foals, but precautions to assure that their fate would never be known. New gates were added, armed law enforcement agents were posted, and the public was kept back two miles from the holding pens. Then, a few concerned citizens were allowed just enough of a carefully staged view of the captured horses to lend credence to the assertions of the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was masterful stage craft to cover institutionalized callousness and cruelty of breathtaking dimensions.
The gather, was done on Tuesday, June 20th. Immediately after the gather, FWS announced that all the foals had arrived with their mothers, and that none had been hurt. But almost immediately, a foal was trampled in the pens and was allowed to be taken away for medical care. The assertion that all of the foals had arrived safely with their mothers was belied by the fact that 16 to 18 of the mares showed signs of recently giving birth but had no foals with them.
FWS went on to say that only one adult horse had a minor injury. But there were horse advocates who knew better because they had listened to the radio communications between the FWS and the crews in the field as they discussed what to do with a horse with a broken leg. The decision had been made to shoot it.
The lies had only begun. The story of the lost foals began unfolding even as FWS personnel were busily cleaning up a stream of aborted foals from the mares in the holding pens. By Monday, the 26th, nine foals had either died at birth or been aborted in the pens, but there was worse news to come.
Two days after the gather, on Thursday, the 22nd, stories had begun trickling into the Sheldon office of foals abandoned on the refuge and dying of exposure and dehydration. A rescue mission was launched on Friday. The Catoor’s helicopter returned to the puzzlement of some uninformed onlookers, and an air ground search was made. To some it was a mission to rescue the foals, but to FWS it was more likely a mission to rescue the illusion they were trying to preserve of a humane gather. According to reports, by the end of the day, eight foals had been found. Five were dead and three were clinging onto life. It is reported that Fran Steffan (Forever Free Mustangs) took these foals to get veterinary care and that they are expected to recover.
As if all of this were not damning enough, the FWS announced that they are still planning to give Gary Graham, the agent that operates out of a slaughter yard, “a few” horses. “A few” turns out to be Sixty Two! Where will these horses go? If the answer is the Los Lunas stockyard of killer buyer Dennis Chavez, their ordeal has only begun. Horse stockyards are notorious for the diseases they harbor and there can be no doubt that the Sheldon horses, lacking exposure to these diseases, will be infected in a matter of days.
Mustang advocates have long decried BLM’s decimation of wild herds with little or no justification, but nothing even remotely like the Sheldon foal massacre has ever been documented. To date, nine foals died or were aborted in the pens and about fifteen foals were probably left to die a slow death in the high desert. Three of these foals survived days of abandonment, and one foal that arrived with the adults survived trampling in the pens. There are still many pregnant mares and foals under a month of age in the crowded pens awaiting their fate. But why?
Sheldon management has given a variety of improbable reasons for their obsession with eliminating their wild horse population. At first they said they competed with the pronghorn antelope and sage grouse, but when an FWS study was cited that concluded there was no adverse relationship between these species they changed their justification to the fact that the horses were damaging the water resources. This was never established in any scientific way (the last Environmental Assessment having been done in 1980 when cattle were wallowing in the streams and ponds) and has been highly contested by experts in wild horse behavior.
Whatever the reason, the FWS has invented a plan that uses taxpayer dollars to encourage people to take large numbers of the wild horses, while prohibiting individual or small adoptions. The result will be that people like Graham will take the money and the horses will pay the price.
We may never know the true reason for the Sheldon management’s inhumane war on our wild horses. What we do know is they are government employees charged with protecting our common heritage, and that when challenged they came back with a clear answer that they do not work for us and they will do what they very well please!
You can take action by contacting the US Fish and Wildlife service, your senators and congress people.
www.visi.com/juan/congress/
The US Fish and Wildlife Service can be contacted at:
www.fws.gov/
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “contact us”
This alert is based on data gathered by the Special Research Group, an entirely independent volunteer organization.
If you have questions or wish to supply additional information about this matter, contact John Holland at hollandtech@...
Please help save beloved horses. Time is ticking !
<<Home Niagara Falls Reporter Archive>>MOUNTAIN VIEWS: NEEDLESS EQUINE SLAUGHTER CONTINUES
By John Hanchette
OLEAN -- Newspaper editors and columnists would like to think that in a perfect world and enlightened democracy, the way it works is this:
Columnist writes impelling column on some cause or problem. Reading public responds and pressures politicians. Politicians draft legislation. Legislation passes and is signed into law. Problem is solved.
This, of course, is a forlorn hope. It rarely happens that way. The politicians, though, often go through the motions.
And so it is with the previously covered subject I seek to update in this space -- the widespread slaughter of horses for human consumption. Most Americans still seem blissfully unaware that more than 65,000 horses are slaughtered here each year in three United States butchering plants and shipped overseas so that well-to-do European and Japanese gourmands can eat them at $15 to $18 a pound.
When I first wrote about the subject late last year, the response was overwhelming. The Niagara Falls Reporter got letter after letter of appreciation for being informed on a little-covered subject, of outrage that the situation still exists, and of inquiry as to how the reader can help.
What has happened since to save American horses from such a grisly end?
Ummm, how about nothing?
Well, not exactly nothing, but nothing good from the standpoint of federal action.
Perhaps when you watched the Kentucky Derby last month, you saw NBC sports commentator Bob Costas sipping a mint julep from a commemorative cup -- and telling the viewers that for the first time, the traditional Churchill Downs race-day drink cost him $1,000 a pop.
That, he explained, is because the money from those expensive libations goes to establish Greener Pastures, a new humane retirement program for thoroughbred racehorses.
That's because the racing community, along with the general public, was shocked to learn that along with draft horses, farm animals, everyday plugs and wild mustangs, some of the most celebrated racehorses of all time -- including 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand, and Exceller, the only horse in history to beat two Triple Crown winners -- have ended up on foreign dinner plates. In fact, racehorses are preferred for butchering and eating for their lean, tender, muscular cuts that contain lower cholesterol.
Ellen-Cathryn Nash, president of a horse-rescue group called Manes and Tails Organization, says she has already saved from foreign devouring a son of the great Seattle Slew, a grandson of the famous Secretariat, and a great-granddaughter of Secretariat.
Members of Congress, at least those who pay attention to their constituents, tried to do something about all this in the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Act by simply refusing to provide new funding for the federal Agriculture Department meat inspectors who by law have to assure the health, hygiene, absence of toxicity and safe edibility of U.S. horse carcasses exported for human consumption.
Even that was no smooth sailing as Texas Republican congressman Henry Bonilla furtively tried to strip the denial-of-funding language from the appropriations bill during the closed conference committee negotiations that reconcile House and Senate intent preceding final draft. He was thwarted only after the National Horse Protection Coalition exposed him with an expensive full-page advertisement in The New York Times. President Bush signed the act.
But as bureaucrats do, bureaucrats in the Ag Department figured out a way to ignore the public will and the intentions of elected representatives in Congress. They simply accepted an offer from the slaughterhouses to pay for their own horsemeat inspections in a "fee for services" scheme that would use business funds instead of taxpayer monies -- a clear violation of congressional intent that Congress doesn't seem to give a hoot about.
Despite knowledge of the residues of carcinogenic drugs that are used on many racehorses, all the USDA twisted rules provide for is a rubber stamp on an export certificate of health signed by a veterinarian who is paid, when all is said and done, by monies from the owners of the killing plants. Talk about a system just begging for corruption.
There are three horse-slaughtering plants in the United States -- Beltrex Corp. in Forth Worth, Texas, Dallas Crown in Kaufman, Texas, and Carvel International in DeKalb, Ill. Among them, they do about $50 million-plus in sales a year. The locals have put more pressure on them than the feds. A move by the state attorney general in Texas to shut down the two Texas plants under state agricultural codes failed three years ago when high-priced Washington attorneys successfully argued federal law supersedes state law.
The Dallas Crown slaughterhouse in Kaufman has been ordered closed by the Texas Board of Adjustments after residents complained about the abattoir for years. The Kaufman zoning board declared the plant a public nuisance and health and safety hazard last year. The Belgian owners of the plant have filed a suit to appeal the board's decision.
Three months ago, a federal court in Washington, D.C., rejected the Doris Day Animal League's request for a temporary restraining order that would have extended the temporary ban on horse slaughter in the United States occasioned by the congressional appropriations action.
The killing plant owners claim only legal "humane methods" are used to end the horses' lives. You judge. Here is how it happens, according to Jill Starr, founder of the wild horse-rescue organization Lifesavers, Inc. in Lancaster, Calif.:
"Depressed and confused, (the horse) stands nervously on the cold, slippery floor. She is edging through a funnel-like chute and into a large wooden stall. Suddenly, her depression turns to terror. Her acute sense of hearing and smell, both way beyond human development, forebode her fate. (The horse) begins to tremble violently. She urinates on herself. She smells death.
"A worker appears, wielding a strange mechanical instrument. He brings it down with brutal, unyielding force. The retractable four-inch bold fractures the horse's skull, driving bone fragments deep into her brain. Again and again the bolt violently thrusts. But it does not kill. (The horse) collapses, writhing fully conscious, still alive, still aware, onto a conveyor belt. From somewhere, another contraption snares her leg, lifting her upside down, her head dangling towards the floor. Terror and pain bulge from the innocent mare's brown eyes.
"Then, the blade appears. With one vicious swipe (her) throat is sliced. Her heart continues to beat as her blood -- her life -- collects in a thick red pool on the floor. ... Tomorrow, she will be sold for dinner."
There are currently two bills in the congressional hopper -- collectively called the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act -- which would effectively end the killing of American horses for foreign consumption. They are numbered Senate 1915 and House of Representatives 503. It is unlikely they will become law unless you raise pluperfect hell with your elected officials in Washington. Even then, it's a longshot.
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John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can be contacted via e-mail at Hanchette6@aol.com.
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com June 27 2006
Bellydance..An ancient dance of Love & Passion
I am on a journey of dance. Unfortunately I started in my late 40's. It took me that long just to find a teacher. !Bellydance is only now getting popular here. I searched and searched for a teacher. Finally a great teacher by the name of Jannis returned my call. It was heaven for me.!! :) I continue to learn more and more about this wonderful dance. This dance brings us all together as friends. We dancers come from every counrty ,every religion and every political view. I look forward to meeting you all. Also please help stop the slaughter of beautiful horses. Act--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Jerry Finch Habitat for horses: Please contact your house and senate members .
Dear Member,
Many of you know me, and you know how deeply I have been involved in the battle to stop the killing of our horses. For the last five years I've walked through the mighty halls of Congress and through the killing fields of the slaughterhouses, doing everything I can to teach other to see horses not as meat products, but as sentient beings with emotions closely related to our own. That battle now leads me back to Congress, for the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (HR503) is about to be released from the subcommittee and introduced for a vote on the floor of the house. On Monday, three members of this organization will travel to DC, asking members of the House to vote for the bill. Once passed the House, it will go to the Senate, where we know we have a better than even chance.
I sent a notice out a few days ago, asking you to take action. Tonight I'm going to make it as easy for you as I can. Below is a letter, ready to be faxed to every member of the House. On the side is a link to the full, updated list of those members, with all the phone and fax numbers of all Representatives and Senators of the 109th Congress. It is available for download from the Habitat for Horses website.
Admittedly, the list of Representatives is long. It's an all day job to fax them, but you have several days to get it done. Even better, just call their office and say, "I'm asking that Representative XXX support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, HR503, when it comes out for a vote on the floor." It doesn't matter that you are from their state, call or fax anyway, but do call or fax your home state.
I wish I could impress on you how very important this is, but just to give you something to think about - we currently have around 400 horses under our care and control within this organization. We are working so very, very hard to feed them, care for their needs, train them and find them homes. Every time one of them dies, we all share the grief and hold tightly to the hope that no more will pass away. Yet tomorrow morning, the three slaughterhouses will murder around 700 horses just like ours, and they will be finished by noon. By this Friday, over 2,000 will have perished in the killing pens, each one as precious as those standing in our pastures.
We cannot stop their death, but we can stop the process. I know I'm not alone in my desire to bring it to an end, for I have talked with far too many of you about it. What I need you to do now, what I am begging of you to do, it to devote a few hours each day during the coming week to let the Representatives know how you feel. To stop the slaughter, all I'm asking you to do is to pick up the phone - or fax this letter. Just copy and paste it into a Word document, add the date, then your information at the bottom, and fax away.
When I walk in their offices next week, I would love to hear them say, "Habitat for Horses? Yes, we've heard from a lot of your members today."
Let's do this, my friends. Do it for the horses you love.
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Date
Dear Representative,
As a supporter of Habitat for Horses, I am writing to urge you to vote for H.R. 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. This bill, introduced by Representatives John Sweeney (R-NY), John Spratt (D-SC) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY), would prohibit permanently the slaughter of horses for human consumption overseas, as well as the exportation of horseflesh and live horses intended for slaughter, making sure that no American horse is slaughtered abroad.
Over the past 20 years, due to ever increasing public awareness of the trade of horses for human consumption, the vast majority of plants that slaughter horses are no longer in operation. However, 3 foreign owned and operated horse slaughter plants still operate in our country today despite overwhelming objection by the majority of Americans. The meat produced in these plants is sent to certain European and Asian countries where it is considered a delicacy.
Horses are an integral part of the American culture and I am extremely distressed over the fact that our horses, icons of our culture, are being slaughtered in foreign-owned slaughterhouses to please the palates of wealthy gourmets in Belgium and France.
Horse slaughter and human consumption of horse meat is not, and never will be, acceptable in American culture. Americans overwhelmingly agree that horse slaughter should be banned. Several national voter surveys reveal that 77%-94% of Americans feel that horses in the United States are not bred, raised or produced as food-stock, and as such should be afforded the same protection from commercial slaughter as are all other non-food producing animals.
The slaughter process is inhumane: Horses endure repeated blows to the head with stunning equipment that does not render the animals unconscious and many horses are still conscious during the remaining stages of the process. The transportation of these horses to the slaughter plants is also cruel and inhumane since they are hauled several thousand miles without water, food or rest in double-deck trailers, forcing them to travel in a bent position which can result in prolonged suffering and death.
Arguments from the AVMA and AAEP defending the “humanity†of horse slaughter are simply ludicrous. To suggest that a process in which horses endure repeated blows and are often slaughtered while conscious is somehow humane is not only absurd but also shows a total disregard towards the welfare of the animals these two organizations claim to protect.
I strongly disagree with the claims of the horse slaughter industry that it provides a way to dispose of old and ailing horses. This is simply not true: According to official data from the Department of Agriculture, 92.3% of the horses slaughtered are in good or excellent condition. Pictures of the slaughterhouses’ pens showing healthy, young horses further corroborate this data.
It is also false that the horse slaughter industry is rooted on a presumed “unwanted horse†problem as the horse slaughter industry maintains, simply because these plants are importing thousands of Canadian horses each year in order to cover the increasing foreign demand of horse meat. If there are so many unwanted horses in the US as they claim why they have to import them from Canada? The truth is that the “unwanted horse†theory is a bald-faced lie.
Horse slaughter promotes theft and abuse. After California banned it in 1998 horse theft dropped by 34% while there were no reported increase on abuse as the foreign-owned industry maintains. In addition, there was no documented rise in Illinois following closure of the state’s only horse slaughter plant in 2002.
Horses are our companions and partners, they carry our children in competition at the county 4-H fair, make our country proud in the Olympic games, win Kentucky Derbies and Triple Crowns, carried our soldiers into battle and helped our forefathers to settle this country. They deserve better than ending up served on the plates of fancy restaurants from Brussels and Paris.
Again, I urge you to vote for H.R. 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. I also respectfully request a response from you stating your position on this issue. Thank you for your time and consideration of this letter.
Sincerely,
Name
Address
Phone number
Happy Dancing Sawjja