Wild horses are a cherished and iconic symbol of the USA. Most Americans don’t take kindly to plans for slaughtering horses for food. The recent “Other Views” piece  (“Horse meat should be considered as food for the poor,” Saturday, Dec. 5) proposing to kill wild horses to feed the “poor” is horrific.

“Poor” people don’t need or want to eat beautiful wild horses. Protein sources abound, plant and otherwise. Food distribution, not scarcity, is the issue. It’s getting solved.

The range is under attack from cattle, not wild horses. Get cattle off public land. The havoc wreaked is discussed elsewhere at great length.

To compare this time to the Great Depression or Congress liking horses more than children is mired in unreality. You don’t need to kill horses to save kids.

Mobile horse slaughter units: gack — nightmares. Standing ones are bad enough. I’ve been in them. Wild horses already suffer miserably in BLM roundups. Injuries, families torn apart and death all occur. A mobile killing unit roaming Eastern Oregon gives me the screaming trembles, as Festus from “Gunsmoke” would say. My grandpa owned a livestock auction and I worked as a vet tech on a cattle feedlot. I’m no blind pantywaist about such things.

Nothing wrong with being a pantywaist anyhow.

No more killing. Other solutions abound — imagine.

Karen DeBraal

Springfield