When you see someone taking their young, healthy horse to an auction, do you think they know where it is going? Probably not. There is a good chance that horse will go to a slaughterhouse. Does that horse really deserve that fate?

When horses are bought at an auction by slaughterhouse employees, the majority of them are young and healthy horses because their meat sells for more money than the meat of old or sick horses. They are then transported long distances in crowded trailers with little to no food and water.

Though the plants in the U.S. have been shut down, live horses are being shipped across the borders, especially to Mexico, to be killed somewhere else. Pictures from the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) have showed the awful things that happen to the horses in these slaughterhouses. They are killed inhumanely, going through severe pain and suffering. Why do we have so many horses that need to be gotten rid of? Because we over-breed our horses. One in every five racehorses born will be a winner. The other four will most likely end up in a slaughterhouse. We need to learn to be responsible about breeding horses. When a horse was born, him being bred was an act of the owner agreeing to take responsibility for a living creature.

If the transportation of horses across our borders is stopped, and the U.S. slaughterhouses remain closed, we will have a country free from just one more cruelty toward animals. There are other alternatives to sending that horse to a slaughterhouse. What if the owner had privately sold their young, healthy horse so he could enjoy a happy rest of his life? What if that owner had spent the extra money to euthanize that horse and give him a painless death? Isn’t knowing that loyal companion will have a quick and painless death worth the extra money that euthanasia costs?

Imagine that a horse you know had a different life. It could have been sent to a slaughterhouse and killed instead of enjoying a happy life. If we end horse slaughter, it will not increase the amount of unwanted, neglected or abused horses. Horse slaughter was banned in California in 1998, and as a result of that horse theft dropped by 34 percent because there was nowhere to take and sell them.

You can help that horse at the auction and tens of thousands of other U.S. horses that go to slaughterhouses every year by raising money and donating it to the Humane Society of the United States, which has made ending horses slaughter in the U.S. one of its top priorities.

You can talk to your senators and representatives and ask them to support The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, which will ban horse slaughter for human consumption and the transportation of live horses across the border to be killed elsewhere.

You can help give our horses happy lives. We can stop this senseless slaughter.

Nora Cyra, Bothell