Responding to last weekend’s carriage ride accident in Old Town Eureka, the activist group PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, this morning sent an “urgent letter” to Eureka Mayor Virginia Bass and the Eureka City Council calling on them to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city.
“Forcing horses to pull heavy loads is cruel, and it’s always an accident waiting to happen,” PETA Director Debbie Leahy said in a press release. “This tragic incident should be a wake-up call to the people of Eureka,” she added.
In the letter, PETA asserts that “similar incidents have occurred in nearly every city in which horse-drawn carriages operate, often injuring or killng horses, motorists, onlookers, carriage operators, and passengers.”
A call to Bass was not immediately returned.
[UPDATE, 3:55 p.m.: Bass returned the Journal‘s phone call this afternoon, saying that she’d received PETA’s letter and sent a response, urging the group to air its concerns at the next City Council meeting on Aug. 17. (The e-mail was sent by a PETA official in Washington, D.C., though the group does have active members in the local community.) The council could then decide to put the matter on a future agenda — or not.
Bass said that, personally, she believes carriage driver Marty L’Herault and his horse Cinnamon have become an integral part of Eureka. “They bring a little magic to Old Town,” the mayor said. “I just want to give total support to what Marty’s doing and hope he and Cinnamon are back out there soon.”]
This article appears in General Lee.
But the horse is fine…what cruelty?
Oh please…
Ban cars first.
Heavy load??
Whatever PETA. You just wait for things to happen and then send your urgent letter. If it was really important to you, and you were actually doing any research into things, you would have known that Eureka has a horse drawn carriage and had sent this letter last year when Old Town Carriage Company started up again in Old Town.
Hey, PETA, get bent. Why are you so put out of shape over a horse pulling a carriage (something that has been happening for centuries) and at the same time call for the death of all pit bulls? Ethical treatment for all animals my butt.
@ mis tinkle i dont believe peta calls for the death of all pit bulls..
although peta is extreme in their tactics, their advocacy does have truths to it. as far as horse and carriages i feel that for a small town like eureka it is a good thing, but in larger cities it can have causes for concern. true horses have been carrying carriages for years, but in un natural environments like downtown chicago or new york etc, for 6-8 hours a day…..there lies the problem…….
All of sudden the animal most commonly used throughout history for farming and crossing te North American continent should not be used? Who is to say that this horse and others are not doing what they were created to do?
“Created”?
PETA supports both pit bull breeding bans and outright bans on pit bulls if there is a grandfather clause allowing existing pit bulls to live, apparently contingent on those dogs being “already in good homes and well cared for.”
http://www.peta.org/about/hottopic007.asp
I’m not a PETA member, although I do use Google.
As the previous horse and carriage owner/operator, and in answer to the uneducated complaints about the heavy load these horses pull, I once personally had 4 adults in the carriage and in my tophat and long coat, I took the horses position. At 58 years old and 160 lbs I was able to pull the carriage around old town to demonstrate how easy it is on a 2000 lb work horse. Once the horse takes a step the carriage is in motion with very little pull being exerted. Go try it some time and then your opinion will be changed. It’s not a plow!
Way to go PETA!
Protect horses by exploiting women! Use naked women to attract attention to your cause.
Marketing firms have been using this approach for years. Naked women can really help sell a hard-to-sell product.
As a City Council Member, maybe I should take a second look at that letter, huh?
PETA has become expert at discrediting itself.
To: AJ
I also Googled it and you should read more than just the first website. The majority of the websites talk about how PETA euthanize pitbulls.
PETA!!! I love what you’ve done for animal activism, but this is just simple ignorance! As Timm (my dad) says above, it’s not a plow, and it’s not heavy. My family used to own Old Town Carriage Company and I saw my dad pull the carriage out of the garage and into the garage every single day with ease, so I think a muscular draft horse is not going to strain. This is beyond ridiculous, Marty and the carriage bring smiles to everyone in Old Town, and Cinnamon gets attention and treats. Try pulling this “heavy load” and then tell us it’s cruel.
I’ve seen things happen on arts alive night that were questionable. So many people, and no room for cars. Many horses LOVE this sort of work. Cars are the problem, especially on arts alive night.
PEOPLE driving the cars are the problem, right?
To CK One–
Do some more googling. PETA does, in fact, call for the euthanization of all pit bulls.
I agree with PETA.
Please stop this cruelty to animals.
How about rickshaws instead?
How about naked women pulling rickshaws? PETA can feel good about exploiting women while supporting Old Town, and bringing in a new money-making industry! I doubt that the ladies of the evening will like the competition though. Seems like PETA just can’t find it’s niche.
PETA is only wrong in our specific case. They are right about so much more, like the total brutality done every day to dairy cows. It’s sickening to see those “all-American” boys literally stomping the heads of calves for fun over and over as they laugh.
My one point on the safety of carriages (other than they are basically a Radio Flyer red wagon with a horse on one end and much less safe): Marty wouldn’t have ended up in lying battered in the street if he’d been wearing a standard three-point safety harness, such as the type required on every passenger vehicle sold in this country.
Old Town Sac has way better carriage. Depave Old Town and make it like Old Town Sac then nobody will have any accidents. Take up the cause of people in the early 20th Century to stop the city from paving over the horse trails. Bust out with jackhammers and do it up. Driving cars through there is lazy anyway.
This despicable practice must stop. I lived in Chicago for decades and was always appalled at how poorly these horses were treated and how much danger they faced.
I live in Newcastle England. I used a 13.2 hh mare to pull a carriage with up to ten people on board. She jogged most of the time. Now at 23 years old she still starts off in the same manner as she did as a 3 year old, with a rear a plunge and trots smartly down the road. The cruel hard work over the years must have really worn her out.
Maybe PETA should focus on Amish farmers? That would make about as much sense.
im new to the computer so i may not n ow how to use it correctly but ive commented on a few PETA sites but i dont think they have posted them. IS a horse not better off working than dead. i think mine are although they dont work nearly as much as they should or would like and the 2 in question are 18 and 23 years old.they love being in the cart.normanhorseboy newcastle upon tyne uk
I do not agree with using any horse for entertainment. I have heard the arguement about how light the carriage actually is that the horses pull. I have no proff however. My complaint in using old horses, being forced to walk on asphalt roads, hour after hour, 12 hours a day-in 90 degree heat or 18 below (NYC and NJ laws) Shackled with bits and leather gear, every day all day long, steering among traffic with our autos fumes, forsced to breathe. Lots of these horses come to work again from Amish country because they cannot, work with arthritis, laminitis and are old 20-25 years old, olny to be bought up again from the kill corral and forced to do it all over again. Dosen’t that make you feel good when you hop up on a $35.00 a half hour ride? I wouldn’t, in respect for the old tired animal, do it for free. Again, this is animal abuse.
Since these practices of using horses for entertainment, (OR ANY ANIMAL, ESPECIALLY CIRCUS ANIMALS,READ PETA’S OTHER BLOGS AS WELL) is so wide spread in this country, wake up america! You say you love animals-I disagree-you are using them to make money. Do you also know how elephants get shacked. How ’bout you? Human beings can be the meanest, most selfish things going. By the way, about this specific article, I would be interested to know if this particular town has any regulations on carriage horses, meaning the hours these creatures are forced to work and under what weather circumstances.
Cinnamon seems to enjoy a pretty good life. One could focus on the exploitation of human rickshaw workers, but they might need the jobs.
Ould you allow someone to treat your pet the way these horses are treated?
Owning pets is cruel.
Come on PETA people, give your heads a good shake! I am 5’4″ 135lbs. and I pull my big Draft size carriage (it seats eight people) around with ease. It isn’t hard for the horse to do. The horses are all properly outfitted with borium shoes and have cushy pads between the hoof and the shoe or with a rubber shoe with steel inside bot of which grip the asphalt and are very comfortable. I have seen horses that have worked pulling a carriage on the streets of Old Town Sac that have been put out to pasture to frolic with other horses because they get old (21yrs) and they became depressed. As the days went on, one horse in particular, stood by the gate every day watching everything that was going on like “take me! take me!” I put on his halter and later harnessed him as he stood tall and his face lit upand his eyes were brighter. I hitched him up and he was happy. He was happy to be working again. He now works with a friend and going strong and in great condition at 24yrs! Every horse is different. But anyone who knows Draft horses, knows that being a work horse is in there blood. They ALL LOVE TO WORK. And another thing, why the heck is the spotlight on the carriage horse and driver and not the stupid idiots that run into them? They are the ones to blame. You know, the ones that aren’t paying attention to driving (probably texting), the drunks, the drug addicts, the ones that can’t see to well, the people that would have hit a car or pedestrian if the horse wasn’t there. PETA members are a bunch of drama queens. By the way, I love my fur coat too. 🙂
tHey’re tryiing 2 steal myy job!
(nott eesy to typpe withhh hooves)
PETA is basically idiotic. PETA also wants to put an end to dairy farms and milk cows, but has no suggestion with what to do with the cows or the thousands of displaced dairy workers. The cows they say, should return to the primeval forests and become wild and free! There they will be killed off in no time by savage bears and wolves and hunted to extinction. They also maintain that humans don’t need cow milk, even though humans have been milking cows for a few thousand years, So basically, they’d like to mandate to the rest of us how and what we should eat.