PALMETTO, Fla. — Manatee County deputies are looking for whoever stole a woman's horse and slaughtered it nearby.
Deputies say sometime between 5 p.m. Dec. 1 and 8 a.m. Dec. 2, unknown people broke through a locked gate on the woman's property and took the horse. The woman and deputies later found the horse in a nearby field.
The horse had been slaughtered for its meat, the sheriff's office said.
"We really don’t know in terms of where the meat ends up. There is some type of demand for it. There is a market for it," explained Randy Warren with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office
Warren said the horse was specifically targeted because it was a thoroughbred valued at $20,000. Other horses in the field were not harmed.
Manatee County investigated a similar incident in 2015. Investigators never made an arrest.
"These appear to be people and we assume it’s more than one person because of what they would have to go through to do this, are looking for horses that are thoroughbreds, that are possibly champion-style horses and they’re looking for it just to kill them to take the meat," Warren added.
Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff's office at 941-747-3011.
The Manatee County Sheriff's Office is working with other agencies in Florida to investigate if there's any connection between these horse slaughters.
Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) reintroduced the SAFE Act with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) to permanently ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption. The legislation has more than 200 co-sponsors and is awaiting action in the House Agriculture Committee.
“The gruesome theft and killing of a horse in Palmetto to be sold as horsemeat is another reminder of the need for my bill banning the slaughter of horses for human consumption,” Rep. Buchanan said in an email. “I will continue to lead the effort to end this practice and prohibit the inhumane export of horses to Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses to be sold overseas.”
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