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HORSE SENSE
Periodic updates about issues and actions concerning New York City's Carriage Horses +
Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages
www.banhdc.org
Horses Without Carriages International
www.horseswithoutcarriages.org
PLEASE FORWARD TO FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES - In this issue: ** - Telephone Tuesday call the City Council ** Rescue Animals - Bobby II Freedom ** Learn more about the issue ** Ad - Our Town ** American Humane reports on the issue **
NOTE: the best way to receive this newsletter is to subscribe directly. Although I post it on other lists, sometimes (for reasons unknown) they do not approve it - so you are subject to their whims. PLEASE CLICK HERE to subscribe directly. If you want to see past newsletters - CLICK HERE for our archive.
5 AMAZING RESCUE ANIMALS - INCLUDING BOBBY II FREEDOM
One Green Planet - 9/17/14 - by Kate Good - 5 Amazing Rescue Animals Changing the World for Other Animals in Need -- This wonderful article talks about rescue animals and their impact. It includes puppy mill dogs; Timmy Sheep; Ray the pit bull; Tasha the cougar; and our own Bobby II Freedom
4. Bobby II: Carriage Horses
Bobby II is a rescue horse unlike many others. This special horse is a former NYC Carriage Horse. After serving seven years carrying the weight of a 2,000 pound cart and countless tourists, Bobby II was rescued by Equine Advocates. Due to the secretive nature of the horse-drawn carriage industry, very few horses are rescued from this life. When a carriage horse is too old, or too lame to work, they are auctioned off by their drivers. The only way to distinguish a carriage horse from any other work horse is by a numerical carving in their hooves. Most carriage drivers sand off these numbers to ensure the horses being sold to slaughterhouses are never connected back to the booming tourism enterprise.
Bobby II, however, maintained his carriage horse number and activists from the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages and Equine Advocates were able to arrange for Bobby's rescue. This old horse shows the scars of his years in this cruel industry, but his rescue and story serves as motivation for ending the horse-drawn carriage business.
TELEPHONE TUESDAY
Please take a few minutes to call your Council Member
We are starting a new initiative - Telephone Tuesday - to help you remember to make your call. On Tuesday (or any day) please take a few minutes to call your Council Member -- if you have not yet done so. Thanks to all of you who have made the calls -- particularly those who called from outside NYC. Thanks for caring so much.
Your participation is the only way to make a difference -- not standing on the side lines and expecting someone else to do it. If you do not make the small effort to call your Council Member, how do you expect they will know your views?
Nine months into the deBlasio administration and we are no closer to shutting down the inhumane and unsafe carriage trade than we were one year ago. Please contact your council member and ask him or her to support a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages. CALL THEM. Do not e-mail or fax. These methods of communication are likely to be deleted. Calls have much more impact and are less likely to be forgotten.
- NYC RESIDENTS: www.council.nyc.gov -- Call your Council Member.
- OUTSIDE NYC: Call Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito's office. 212-828-9800
Instructions
- http://www.council.nyc.gov/html/members/members.shtml
- Plug in your address to find out who your Council Member is.
- Look for the telephone number for the District Office.
- SUGGESTED SCRIPT - YOU: Good morning, my name is [your name] and I am a constituent. I live on [your address] I support an unconditional ban on horse-drawn carriages and I would like to know what [your Council Member's name] position is on this issue. You might also tell them it is a public safety issue and it is inhumane. If you live outside of NYC, call Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito's office and tell them were you live.
- COUNCIL OFFICE: the person who answers the phone may transfer you to someone else or suggest you call the Legislative Office or actually take the message.
- YOU: If they support a ban - thank them; If they are on the fence ask them why and if they would be open to receiving some links to articles. If they are against the ban - ask them why and if they would be open to receiving some links to articles.They might say that there a bill had not yet been introduced. Tell them that the Mayor has said a bill will be introduced soon and you want to know in general whether they would support a ban or not.
- IMPORTANT: If they say they would be willing to receive some information, ask them for the e-mail address of a specific person - maybe the Chief of Staff, maybe the Legislative Aide. Do not agree to send it to their office e-mail. You can say that you want to be sure someone receives it.
- Note: If the Council Office is not able to give you an answer, tell them that you will follow up in a week. Tell them this is a very important issue and you would like an answer. And follow up.
THESE ARE THE ARTICLE LINKS:
RESULT OF PHONE CALL: Please let us know what happened - e-mail us at coalition@banhdc.org
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ISSUE
You will not find the truth about the ban issue reported in the media. The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages has written many blogs on the carriage horse issue. Please take the time to read them. The name of our blog is CarriageHorsesNYC.
- WE REMEMBER SMOOTHIE - Smoothie died in 2007 as a result of a spooking accident. Note the picture and attitudes of the people surrounding her.
- OPEN LETTER TO NYC COUNCIL RE CARRIAGE HORSE BAN ISSUE - this was sent to the City Council
- IF ONLY THE MAYOR WOULD VISIT THE CARRIAGE STABLES ... the carriage drivers and their supporters continue to ask the Mayor to visit the stables. We wish he would and compare them to appropriate stables that the carriage horses do not enjoy. .
- IT'S A SAFETY ISSUE - discusses the nature of a horse and why they should not be on the streets of congested cities.
This image of Smoothie was taken as she lay dying in 2007. The poignancy of this photo is the body language of the men surrounding her. No one is offering her any comfort; no compassion; no soothing or stroking of her face as she dies. Heartbreaking to see but not surprising. This is the way we know the carriage drivers. Does anyone still think these people love their horses - "like family"?
HELP THE WILD HORSES - CALL YOUR REPS
by Shane and Sia Barbi
the Dodo - 9/18/14 - How To Solve The Wild Horse 'Problem' The wild horses are federally protected by the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and graze on tax paid land. This bill was later amended to rid the horses so the land could be used for government business. In 2004, an amendment called the Burn Rider Act allowed round-ups to rid them. Their loopholes for these amendments are usually false claims, like wild horses are "feral" and basically a pest on the land, despite recent news that fossils of horses were found in Wyoming, making horses more native than most animals in America. The BLM also claims wild horses were overpopulating, when in fact they take less than one percent of the land and gradually the herds are getting smaller. It is actually cattle that takes up most of the land (90 percent), and which are not native to the environment. Cattle and horses have always co-existed. But now the BLM wants all the land cleared, including the cattle, so they told ranchers to sue them in order to legally cull horse herds from the land, letting horse advocates blame the ranchers.
Indeed, in the BLM's own words, there is ten times more land available than needed per animal. Still, as of August, the BLM predicts "excess" horses will eat grass and cause weeds to grow on federal land. The BLM contracts two agencies to get "scientific" data on the horses. Since both agencies list their priority as using federal land for profitable government business, their research is biased against the horses.
The first agency, USGS Fort Collins Science Center (FORT) is paid by many government agencies and policymaking groups to generate evidence to back the client's desired policy. FORT does wild horse population and fertility control studies for the BLM. These studies are used to say it is right to get rid of wild animals in order to expand profitable government businesses, like solar and wind power.
The other agency, the USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) says it "provid[es] wildlife damage management assistance to protect agriculture, natural resources, property and health and safety," meaning the BLM pays APHIS to show them how to get rid of wild horses. There is no direct public control of APHIS, and no clear mention of their role on BLM web pages on horse roundups.
The only way to stop this is not to complain to the BLM, who was a part of the deal and just taking orders, but instead to complain to your elected representatives that were part of the legislation that made it possible to get rid of our federally protected wild horses. Congressional reps may not like animals, but they need your vote. Tell them to use our taxes to protect our horses, not try to get rid of them. And stop all horses, domestic and wild horses from horse slaughter.
Sadly, horse slaughter has and will always be legal until we pass the anti horse slaughter bill, named this year the Safeguard Act (read it here). This bans horse slaughter permanently, as well as the transport to other countries for horse slaughter. It's been sitting in Congress for 11 years without passing, because most people don't know about it. There are temporary bans on horse slaughter. For example, this year we have an annual ban that cuts USDA funding to inspect horse slaughter plants. The slaughter of wild and domesticated horses is a big business that the government wastes taxes for overseas profit. If this bill passed, it would be almost impossible to get rid of the wild horses in large amounts from slaughters' kill buyers.
THIS IS THE LINK TO THE BILL - CLICK HERE. You may also find the contact information for your Senators and Representatives.
NEW AD IN OUR TOWN, WEST SIDE SPIRIT, DOWNTOWN/ OUR TOWN
published this week
This ad will be published in these three newspapers this week under the Best of the Best: this is the text: The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages is an all-volunteer, grassroots group formed in 2006. Our goal is to shut down the inhumane and unsafe carriage trade, which has enjoyed many entitlements from past administrations in the way of low fees, subsidized rent, unenforced laws, and a laissez-faire attitude toward the horses' suffering. A turnover of 71 horses a year is recorded in this business, and we believe many are laundered through the Amish on their way to the kill auctions.
Countless accidents involving horse-drawn carriages have been documented, most caused by nervous, spooking horses, resulting in dead and injured horses and injured humans. It is only a matter of time before a person dies.
We say enough is enough and implore Mayor deBlasio to take the action he promised: Ban horse-drawn carriages and save the horses. Website: banhdc.org;
Blog: carriagehorsesnyc.blogspot.com;
Facebook: No Walk in the Park;
Twitter: BanHDCarriages
ASSOCIATED HUMANE REPORTS ON NYC CARRIAGE HORSE ISSUE
street laws are not being enforced
This is Humane News October 2014 by the Associated Humane Societies and Popcorn Park Zoo. We thank Associated Humane for including an article on the NYC carriage horse issue - see p. 22. This is what it says:
NEW YORK CITY: According to Elizabeth Forel of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, the ASPCA stopped enforcing the laws regulating the carriage trade. [in January 2013] The NYPD was supposed to take over. "Street laws are not being enforced and every cop I have spoken with is not aware that they now have this responsibility. So drivers continue to make illegal u-turns, leave their horses unattended and untethered and no one with the power to make a difference cares."
PLEASE JOIN US ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google Blog & Flickr
HELP OUR ORGANIZATION BY SHOPPING ON LINE - iGIVE
Also check out Cafe Press to purchase CBHDC merchandise
Through a free registration with iGive, when you buy merchandise on line, your purchase will help us. There are over 700 stores that include such popular ones as Amazon.com, Staples, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. Even Cafe Press is available if you purchase some of our merchandise. Click here to get started.
On iGive - the name of our organization is "The Coalition for NYC Animals, Inc." Click here to begin. We also have three stores on Cafe Press with great t-shirts, bags, hats, mugs, mouse pads, etc. Purchasing this merchandise helps our organization. Click here.
"Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever
has." Margaret Mead.
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Thank you for caring about the horses,
Elizabeth Forel - Coalition to Ban
Horse-Drawn Carriages - a standing committee
of The Coalition for New York City Animals,
Inc.
Please DONATE
to our campaign to ban
the inhumane and unsafe carriage horse industry.
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