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Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he was proud to sign the law, calling it
"past time to stop slaughtering horses in Illinois." A
slaughterhouse in DeKalb has been shipping horse meat overseas,
where it is sold for people to eat. The practice has outraged people
who feel horses are more like pets than livestock.
A phone call to Cavel International's plant went unanswered
Thursday evening.
Two other horse slaughter plants in Texas were shut down this
year.
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United
States, called on the federal government to ban the export of horses
for slaughter.
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 "Thousands of horses face grueling trips to slaughter facilities
in Canada and Mexico unless Congress acts now to protect them,"
Pacelle said in a statement.
He said federal statistics show that 100,800 horses were
slaughtered in the United States in 2006. Another 30,000 were sent
to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.
Illinois lawmakers passed the ban after an appeal from actress Bo
Derek. In a statement this week, she applauded the end of the "cruel,
bloody trade in horse meat."
Opponents of the new law say there's no reason to treat horses
differently from cattle or other farm animals. They say that horses
are killed humanely and that the slaughterhouse creates jobs.
[Text copied
from file received from AP
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