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Jun 14, 2007 9:52 am US/Central
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Decision Coming On Horse Slaughterhouse
DeKalb Plant Remains Open While Appealing Law Banning Practice
CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. (Northwest Herald) ―
Despite McHenry County having more farm horses than any county statewide, the animals still are sometimes sent to slaughter.
Barbara Geittmann, executive director of Woodstock-based Hooved Animal Humane Society, said she had seen it done and staunchly was opposed to it.
"It's a moral issue," she said. "Life is life."
Although a local governmental decision eight years ago prevented the practice from happening closer to home, a court call today could render the procedure illegal.
After Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law banning horse slaughter at the end of May, a federal judge in Rockford is slated to decide today whether Cavel International Inc. must shut the doors to its DeKalb meat-packaging plant, the last site for horse slaughter remaining in the United States. Earlier this year, two such facilities closed in Texas, when federal courts upheld that state's laws banning the practice.
The Cavel plant was rebuilt after it burned down in 2004, and five years after its attempt to relocate to McHenry County.
Amid resident outcry, the McHenry County Board rejected the company's bid in 1999 for a conditional-use permit that would have allowed it to open shop in an old cattle-packing plant on a 4-acre parcel on Route 14 in Big Foot.
In 2002, McHenry County had the largest number of horses on farms of all counties in the state, according to the most recent statistics available from the National Agricultural Statistics Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Donna Ewing founded the Hooved Animal Humane Society in 1971, making the agency the longest-running equine-specific advocacy agency in the country. Ewing now runs Hooved Animal Rescue and Protection Society, in Barrington. She said she had been to Cavel, and viewed it as a viable, although not ideal, option for horse owners.
"Unfortunately, not everyone reveres their horses," Ewing said. "I'm all for people just euthanizing animals at home. That's ideal. But it's far from an ideal world that we live in."
Ewing said she had been to Cavel and witnessed treatment of horses equivalent or superior to what she had seen elsewhere.
"When their spirit is no longer with them, that does not concern me nearly as much as what happens to them as when they are alive," Ewing said. "Death is death."
Both Ewing and Geittmann agreed that responsibility ultimately rested with owners, and that some view the animals as commodities, not companions.
They both gave estimates for euthanizing a horse at $100 to $500. Cavel pays owners for their animals 30 to 60 cents a pound, Geittmann said.
Given that, Ewing pointed out, horse slaughter provides an alternative for owners who otherwise would provide substandard care for their animals.
Universities offer discounted euthanasia and noted that adoption is realistic for healthy horses, Geittmann said. The Hooved Animal Humane Society has found suitable homes for 53 of 65 horses that it has taken in during the last month, she said.
Agricultural equine population
County: Number of horses living on farms (state rank); Farm horses per capita
McHenry: 2,395 (1); .0090
Lake: 1,761 (2); .0027
Kane: 1,150 (4); .0029
Will: 1,447 (5); .0023
Cook: 609 (42); .0001
DuPage: 403 (65); .0004
Sources: USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service 2002, and U.S. Census 2000
(CBS 2 and the Northwest Herald are news partners covering stories in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. If you know of stories happening in this region, cont)