Drug Horses Part Two
Yesterday on OpenRange you were introduced to another victim of the illegal drug trade on the border, horses used to run drugs. Ah but I promised a happy ending didn’t I? I’m Susan Allen stay tuned. So far this year 55 horses have been found in Arizona abandoned by drug runners either cut loose in the desert or tied to a mesquite tree to die. Others are still working the routes. Rudy Acevedo a livestock officer who rescues horses and brings them into the custody of the Arizona Department of Agriculture stated “these smugglers are using the horses over and over until their backs legs and bellies have open sores. In his words drug smugglers are “damn cruel they run them into the ground and just abandoned them”. Rescued drug horses are quarantined in holding pens for seven days then offered up for sale at auctions. Those to sick to sell end up at the DesertSpringsEquestrianCenter in Tucson for rehab and rehealing that can take a year for physical wounds and more for psychological trauma. Hope, the mare featured in yesterdays program who was found starving and swollen full of cactus quills is now a pretty palomino awaiting a new home. Other survival stories are posted on the DesertSpringsEquestrianCenter web site. There is also a place to donate funds for feed and medical care. This country was built by immigrants who chose to become American citizens through legal channels. America wasn’t anti-immigrant then and it isn’t anti-immigrant now, please join me in the fight to stop this border travesty before we lose the essence of this great country all together. http://www.desertspringsec.com/adoption/horses.html