There's not much of a domestic market for horse meat in the US, but several other countries do put it on the table. State Senator Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) wants to keep Wisconsin slaughterhouses from catering to that market. Plale consider horses a companion animal and he finds the thought of them being slaughtered for food repulsive. He also doesn't want Wisconsin to be known as a place where this takes place.
Plale is introducing legislation that would ban the slaughter of horses in Wisconsin for human consumption. The move is inspired by a ban in Illinois, which shut down a slaughterhouse just across the border. That facility was in Dekalb, and Plale says it's not hard to imagine something similar trying to locate in Wisconsin.
Horse meat is also a common ingredient in some dog foods, but Plale says the bill would not prohibit that use. The South Milwaukee Democrat says he doesn't know of any facilities in the state that currently slaughter horses for human consumption.
AUDIO: Andrew Beckett reports (MP3 1:12)
