Mounted search and rescue

[una.smith@att.net]

I see no significance in the driver of the rig being from North Dakota;  he 
is a
commercial driver and commercial big rigs make most of their money on long 
hauls
and burn money every mile they travel empty, so they go wherever there is a 
load
to haul.

Double decker livestock trailers are widely used for transporting livestock, 
not
just to slaughter.  Valuable rodeo stock often is transported this way, and so
are fancy breeding stock cattle.

A double decker is not necessarily an inhumane way to ship animals.  However, 
if
as claimed in some of the newspaper stories the yearlings could not stand with
their heads raised in a natural position, then it was indeed inhumane.

PMU yearlings are being "sold" to recreational horse owners for $300 and up, 
all
over the country.  I am dismayed to learn that the auction price of yearlings 
in
Illinois is $35.  Some horse rescue / shelter groups castrate all male horses
that pass through their gates.  Only a few that I know of spay the females;  I
wish more of these groups would spay.  Horse semen can obtained by mail order,
if intact males are in short supply locally.

Una Smith
New Mexico