Horse Carriage Industry

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To Whom It Concerns,

I am writing today to encourage you to oppose the horse carriage industry. Built around perennial abuse and exploitation, the horse carriage industry is duplicitously disguised as an essential tourist icon of romanticism and history, a grossly inaccurate representation.

Allow me this moment to illustrate. Since the industry is profit driven, current safety or “humane” protocols, being cost-prohibitive, are not observed; indeed, any animal used as a goal to human profit is regarded in a fundamentally cruel and exploitative manner. Specifically, horses are subjected to numerous cruelties and inhumane conditions including respiratory impairment as the result of perpetual inhalation of vehicle exhaust; horses are required to operate under grueling conditions and varied temperatures including high heat, humidity, and frigid cold, impairing their well-being while exhaustively working long hours; neglected appropriate medical care, horses often suffer lameness and other physical conditions; horses are typically serving this industry secondary to previous laboring of racing or farming, enduring lifelong injuries while forced to pull incredibly massive weights upward of 8,000 pounds; traffic conditions being erratic at best creates extremely precarious conditions and potentially fatal accidents; the natural lifespan of horses is dramatically diminished resulting from such dangerous and unpredictable conditions, and they are often retired to slaughterhouses, the final indecency forced upon them by greedy humans.

Pragmatically, horse drawn carriages are a transportation relic, historically essential but currently hazardous to both horses and humans. Although potentially attractive to unaware passengers, the horse drawn carriage industry, as a novelty, is not critical to city tourism; indeed, tourists visit for the culture, theatre, nightlife, and landmarks, and the potential loss of tourism benefits absent horse drawn carriages will most certainly be negligible. Nevertheless, establishing potential economic benefits to validate unethical actions is unacceptable and we must not allow finances to compromise our moral parameters. Indeed, your communities certainly wish to be viewed as respectful of and concerned with animal rights.

It is important to acknowledge that all animals, like humans, are sentient, capable of fear, love, pain, and suffering; humans have the obligation and the capacity for empathy, and we must utilize our gifts to protect them, not apathetically condemn them to pain and death by exploiting them for such trivial matters. By supporting the horse-drawn carriage industry, we are desensitizing society to animal exploitation, relaying the inaccurate and dangerous message that animal abuse is not only tolerated, but it is also sanctioned. When we become immune to animal suffering, acceptance of human suffering is also realized. I therefore ask you respectfully to please reconsider your participation in an inherently cruel industry that capitalizes on the abuse and death of horses. Please instead practice compassion and respect demanding an immediate halt of this industry.

I know your time is limited, and I want to thank you for your attention to this important issue.

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