Horse Slaughtering Inspires Plant's Last Gasp Amid Illinois Ban
By Tony C. Dreibus

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- DeKalb, Illinois, might brag about being the hometown of Cindy Crawford, but the supermodel moved away long ago. All the more reason to embrace the town's other claim to fame: It's the U.S. horse-slaughter capital.

Illinois legislators passed a law that would shut DeKalb's Cavel International Inc. plant, the only remaining equine slaughterhouse in the U.S. They assert that killing horses for human consumption is inhumane. Cavel lawyers, supported by business leaders in the town an hour west of Chicago, are challenging the horse-slaughter ban on grounds that it violates international commerce rules.  

The local economy will be hurt if a federal appeals court upholds the law and closes the plant, which can kill as many as 1,000 animals a week, DeKalb officials say. While Americans don't have much taste for horseflesh, it is a staple in countries including Belgium and France and considered a delicacy in Japan.

“Lost in the discussion is the concept that most of the world eats horse meat,” said James Tucker, general manager of the Cavel factory, owned by Zele, Belgium-based Velda Group NV. “It's a small group of people who oppose our operation.”

The repulsion may stem in part from an emotional tie to horses, which generally end up at Cavel's packinghouse after being retired as workhorses or pets.

“There's a reason we don't have any other plants that slaughter horses for human consumption in the U.S.,'' said Don Harmon, a Democratic state senator from Oak Park who co- sponsored the ban. “It's not consistent with our view that horses are companion animals.”

Texas Closings
Other than the DeKalb facility, the last two U.S. plants for horse slaughtering were closed in January, after a Texas law banning the practice was upheld.  “The lone cowboy riding his horse on a Texas trail is a cinematic icon,” Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Fortunato Benavides wrote in his opinion. “Not once in memory did the cowboy eat his horse.”

The Illinois prohibition of horse slaughtering became law in May. Arizona, California, Ohio and Oklahoma have bans on slaughtering or the sale of horse meat.

DeKalb, a town of 40,000 people, was agricultural when it was founded in 1837. In the 1870s, local farmer Joseph Glidden patented barbed wire, giving DeKalb the nickname “Barb City,” before selling the rights to Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Co. of Worcester, Massachusetts.

Today, DeKalb is a distribution hub for companies including 3M Co., Target Corp. and Nestle SA. It's also home to the 25,000-student Northern Illinois University.

Model's Roots DeKalb native Crawford was born in 1966 and graduated from DeKalb High School as valedictorian. She headed for Manhattan in 1986, and appeared on the cover of magazines from ``Mademoiselle'' to “Playboy,” in the movie “Fair Game” and on television shows including “Frasier” and “Third Rock From the Sun.” Crawford declined to comment, said Jenny Tversky of Wolf- Kasteler & Associates, her public relations representatives.

The Cavel plant is in an industrial park surrounded by corn and soybean fields on Interstate 88, within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the downtowns of DeKalb and neighboring Sycamore, population 16,000. About 60 people work at the plant, packaging as much as $30 million in horse meat annually for shipment overseas.

Lost Wages, Taxes
“There's an economic impact on the employees at the plant, an impact on all the units of government that rely on taxes, and on the community in lost wages the workers spent,” said Bob Pritchard, a Republican state representative. His district includes DeKalb, which has about 22,500 jobs.

In downtown Sycamore, where a penny buys 15 minutes of parking, residents said the Cavel plant should stay. If a horse is sick, slaughtering it at Cavel is a more humane fate, said Jim Tennison of Sycamore. “You can either leave it out in the field to die or take it over there,” said Tennison, 69.

Horse meat rivals beef in popularity in some European neighborhoods from Brussels to Paris, said Guy Elewaut, a spokesman for Delhaize Group, the Brussels-based owner of grocery stores including Food Lion and AB Mega. Delhaize sells horse meat, mostly from Argentina, in its European stores.

Belgium imports the most U.S. horse meat, 5.51 million pounds (2.5 million kilograms) last year, according to data from the U.S. Agriculture Department. France was second with 3.62 million pounds, followed by Russia at 2.72 million pounds.

Population Control
Some slaughter advocates including the American Quarter Horse Association and the American Association of Equine Practitioners say horse populations might soar without the practice.

Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of litigation for the Humane Society in Washington, disagreed. He said horse slaughtering is inhumane and unnecessary.

For emigres to the U.S., horse meat can be a hard-to-find treat. Katherine Wearne, a New York research associate for Natexis Bleichroeder Inc., said that when she lived in Japan, she savored horse meat thinly sliced and served with soy sauce and wasabi. “The way it's presented, you don't think you're eating a horse,” said Wearne, 32. “It's not like it's whinnying at me.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony C. Dreibus in Chicago at tdreibus@bloomberg.net .