Author: Erin Elizabeth

A recent review by ABC Action News in Florida has found that “an alarming number of Florida’s former prize-winning horses – including animals in the Tampa Bay area – end up abandoned, starving, neglected and bound for the slaughter in Canada and Mexico.” According to Morgan Silver, executive director of the Horse Protection Association of Florida and owner of Marion County horse rescue, operating since 1990, this type of thing doesn’t really happen anywhere else in the country because only Florida has this large a concentration of horses in the U.S. I had no idea this was happening in my backyard! “About 100,000 horses, including retired show and racing horses, are sent to the slaughter pipeline through Mexico and Canada each year – killed and shipped to the European Union for human consumption, according to the U.S. Humane Society. In all, an estimated 1.9 million American horses have been shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter since 2001 and there is no U.S. law to stop the practice. … U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, is co-sponsoring federal legislation to ban the export of American horses for slaughter.”1 To date, the bill is stalled in committee but Buchanan is working to “continue building support and co-sponsors for our bill.”1 Peggy Womack, who runs Turkey Creek Stables in Plant City, said her business is serving more and more like a rescue;...