Around 90,000 horses are slaughtered in Canada each year, said Lisa Shaw, spokeswoman for Calgary Animal Rights Effort (CARE), with most of the meat exported to Europe and Asia.
"About 50% of them are coming up from the United States," she said. (http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2010/10/05/15583461.html)
What I see here is 45,000 horses a year are being sent to Canada to be slaughtered. There is, apparently, a market for horse meat. Although it is no where near the 100,000 cows slaughtered per day, or the 23 million chickens slaughtered per day (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_cows_are_being_killed_daily_in_america_for_food), to me that is still quite a few horses slaughtered.
Personally I love animals. I have a couple dogs, a cat, a rabbit, a snake and a hamster living in my house. I have no plans on eating any of them, but if ever there came a day when it was starvation or spot, spot would be on the spit.
It is illegal to put down your own pet, which I find ridiculous. The cost to euthanize a horse is $500 (http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=50783&catid=2).
Part of the problem is allowing the government tell us what is acceptable and what is not. If these animals were being slaughtered in the U.S. under all of it's regulations it would be more humane than what is done in Mexico. It is illegal, so the people who purchase these animals run them across borders to be slaughtered. This also costs the government $ in fees licenses and taxes."What to do with your animal?" is an age old question. People joke about eating dog or cat, which is done in other countries without issues. Why should horse be any different. I bet it would taste a lot like deer or elk.
