A new horse rescue celebrated their official opening in Leonard Leota Park Sunday. BoMeric Horse Rescue hopes to be a safe, forever home for horses that otherwise would have been sent to slaughter.
"The majority of people are not into horses, so they don't even realize how bad it is," BoMeric Founder and President, Camille Skotnicki-Garbe, said.
Skotnicki-Garbe says horses have been a part of her life for 50 years.
"There's a lot of bad things that are happening to horses that the general public has not seen," Skotnicki-Garbe said. "The United States outlawed horse slaughter a few years ago, but the workaround for that is they now ship these horses to Mexico and Canada."
Skotnicki-Garbe says this is happening closer than we think.
"We actually have a kill pen in Wisconsin, in Columbus," Skotnicki-Garbe said. "That processes hundreds of horses every week to Mexico."
In an attempt to curb the harm being done to the animals that Skotnicki-Garbe has loved her whole life, she started BoMeric Horse Rescue. It is named after two of her horses, Bo and Meric.
"For centuries, people and horses have walked side by side," BoMeric Board Member, Katherine Stull, said. "But a lot of people just haven't been able to form that kind of personal connection that they've been able to with something like a dog or a cat."
The BoMeric Board says because horses aren't typical pets, cruel treatment often goes unnoticed, and they're determined to be a safe place for horses to land.
"What's really important for us now is to fundraise so that we have the adequate funds so that we can rescue these horses from kill pens and bring them in and give them a place to live," Stull said.
The board says their goal is to take in more horses one day. But first, they have to build up the money necessary to care for them.
"85% of horse rescues fail within the first four years because they can't keep their funding going," Skotnicki-Garbe said. "Because we have elderly and special needs horses. We currently right now to all three of our vets Oh $14,925. So, if you don't build a cushion, if you don't get ready, it's really easy to collapse under the pressure of trying to get the money going."
BoMeric Horse Rescue will be back in Leonard Leota Park on Tuesday after the 4th of July parade so there's still time to enter their raffle to win a $500 dollar Evansville shopping spree. If you'd like to donate but can't make it out on the 4th, you can visit their website.
While the board was happy to be able to cut the ribbon on their new venture, it was an emotional day. Sadly, one of the rescues namesakes, Bo, died June 16.
Story Source: WXOW News 19 or CLICK HERE
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