A federal appeals court has ruled that horse slaughter is illegal in Texas, home to two of the nation's three processing plants.

The decision, issued late Friday, January 19th, 2007 by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, overturns a lower federal district court's ruling last year on a 1949 Texas law that banned horse slaughter for the purpose of selling the meat for food.

The lower court had said the Texas law was invalid because it had already been repealed by another statute and pre-empted by federal law.

The ruling involves two of the nation's three horse slaughtering plants — the Dallas Crown Inc. slaughter mill in Kaufman, Texas, and Beltex Corp. in nearby Forth Worth. A third plant run by Cavel International Inc. in DeKalb, Ill. is not affected by the ruling. All three facilities are foreign-owned.

About 88,000 horses, mules and other equines were slaughtered in 2005, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Horse meat is not marketed as table fare in the United States, but the slaughter plants process hundreds of horses each week and ship the meat overseas, where horse flesh is considered a delicacy in Europe, Japan and other places.

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Click here to read about the U.S. House bill H.R. 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, that passed on September 7th, 2006.