Karin was joking. Kyung Soon, who was raised in China, was not. And yet, tens of thousands of horses in our country are killed each year and shipped to parts of Asia and Europe. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it's safe to predict there will be an increased demand in the export market, too. In the United States, federally sanctioned and foreign-owned slaughterhouses in Texas and Illinois package and ship meat overseas.
Some equines sent to slaughter are old or infirm.
The Bureau of Land Management acknowledges that wild horses the agency rounds up for auction have ended up being killed for meat. Duxbury founded Project Equus, a nonprofit that investigates and helps prosecute animal abuse by horse trainers. But she's dedicating much of her time to public awareness about the horse meat market. This issue strikes me on a personal level. Horses carried us through wars and died for us.