During the last several months over 750,000 Californians signed petitions asking that an initiative be included on the November 1998 election that would ban the sale of California horses for slaughter for human consumption. If passed, this new law would prohibit the slaughter of California horses for human consumption or any transaction that would lead to the slaughter of California horses human consumption. Supporters of the Initiative state that horses deserve and are entitled to a swift and painless death and should not be put on double-deck cattle trucks and transported sometimes thousands of miles for days in the worst of conditions possible with no food or water. They also state that while some feel that the slaughter market has provided a ready market for low priced horses, in doing so, it has depleted the state of good inexpensive using horses, and prohibited many children and beginners from getting started, and deprived the state of the millions of dollars of revenue and income that these horses would have generated. The slaughter industry provides a quick no-questions asked outlet for stolen horses.
People fall victim to scams.
They donate their horses to promised good homes or organizations under false pretenses only to find that these animals have been slaughtered. The slaughter industry is bad business for California. Primarily foreign owned slaughterhouses, a hand full of killer buyers, a few truckers, and several other states and Canada benefit form the slaughter of California's horses. The humane death of horses in California will add to our economy and industry by their rendering and by-products. Many horses sent to slaughter are good sound usable horses that fall into a cheaper price range or a shippers contractual need to fill a quota with a slaughterhouse.