The Yakama Nation of Washington wants the Obama administration to allow horse slaughtering.

An estimated 12,000 wild horses roam the tribe's reservation. Chairman Harry Smiskin says there could be a market for the meat if the Department of Agriculture agrees to issue permits for slaughtering plants.

“We don’t understand why it is OK to slaughter many animals in this country — certainly the White House and the USDA have meat on their cafeteria menus every day — but for some reason horses are considered sacrosanct,” Smiskin wrote in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and President Barack Obama, the Associated Press reported. “We should not manage these horses based on purely emotional arguments, story books or movies we all saw as children.”

Congress inserted a rider in an appropriations act that prohibited the USDA from inspecting horse slaughtering plants that intended to sell meat for human consumption. The provision lapsed in 2011.

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Yakamas push for feds to allow horse slaughter (AP 4/1)

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