Some animal-rights activists who have bombarded the state senate with opposition to a resolution generate little for their efforts but resentment.

Senator Wes Shoemyer, a cattle farmer from Clarence, wants to tell Congress to keep supporting horse processing in the united states and to offer incentives to create horse processing plants. He says the federal suspension of horse slaughtering is the most impractical thing he says he’s ever seen.

Horse-lovers throughout the nation have buried Senators such as Joan Bray with messages of opposition. Bray, a St. Louis animal activist herself, says somebody has misrepresented this issue throughout the country. She says 7,000 messages have jammed her e-mail and have "totally screwed up" her e-mail system. She says her staff has been busy fielding calls from people as far away as Massachusetts who don’t know what the resolution says.

Supporters of the resolution maintain the federal suspension of slaughtering sentences horses to a far uglier death because many will be neglected and starved by owners who can no longer afford to keep them when the horse gets old and its health declines.

The senate, irritated at the barrage of message it’s been getting, has voted 28-5 to send its message to Congress.

Concurrent resolutions such as SCR 35 seldom make any kind of an impression in Washington. But Shoemyer says other states are passing similar resolutions which might put some muscle behind the message.

 

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