If, as Mayor de Blasio and his friends say, it’s cruelty to animals simply to have them working in the city, we have a question: Where’s their big campaign against the mounted police?
We ask this because there are 46 NYPD horses. Funny, we don’t see celebrities and socialites and activists holding galas to stop the cruelty to these animals.
It can’t be because they don’t fit the definition of animal cruelty that the mayor and his activist friends have been pushing. The president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Matthew Bershadker, has said “the ASPCA does not oppose horses working. We oppose horses pulling carriages in New York City. These horses are surrounded by buses, cabs and traffic.”
Likewise, another big player in the movement against the horse carriages, New Yorkers for Clean Livable and Safe Streets. It says “horses do not belong in a congested, urban setting.”
Or the mayor himself, who says “horses do not belong in the middle of traffic in New York City. They do not belong in an urban environment like this.”
Which invites the obvious question: Why hasn’t the mayor eliminated the mounted police? Surely police horses find themselves in city traffic. Come to think of it, what about the NYPD police dogs, who sniff out drugs and help apprehend criminals? Sounds far more dangerous than ferrying tourists through Central Park.
More to the point, in going after the horse carriages the mayor aims to dictate what happens to animals he does not own. Meanwhile, the police dogs and police horses are under his authority. So why hasn’t he ordered Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to get rid of them?
If the mayor and the activists are honest in their claim that making animals work in the city is inherently cruel, surely they ought to be demanding the city lead by example.