It was just a month ago that public anger exploded in Colombia after reports of horses drawing tourist carriages being worked to death in the coastal city of Cartagena de Indias. Now, another bout of equine outrage is trending on social media sites after a picture surfaced of a dead horse left in a garbage truck in the same northern Colombian city.
The Bogota daily El Espectador reports on the anger over the unceremonious way in which the animal's body had been hoisted onto the compacting truck with a pulley, after which people had to see it being driven through the town to its final "resting" place.
According to local daily El Universal de Cartagena, the animal had been found dead and rotting in a pond in the Tubarco district just outside of Cartagena.
La Inconsciencia que se vive en la ciudad de cartagena, tirar el cadáver de un caballo a la basura :S pic.twitter.com/lggAj1VB0a
— wisley saumeth (@saumeth17) September 30, 2014
The city's cleaning contractors Bioger agreed to clear away the horse, which was becoming a health risk, "as a favor to the community" since it was not contractually obliged to, said spokesman Arturo Fernández.
"We did not parade the animal around," Fernández said.
Bioger explained it usually only cleared away "cats and dogs," and that owners themselves were responsible for burying farm animals. Authorities established the horse had not, in fact, been used to draw a carriage. They identified and contacted its owner, who denied any link to the animal. The horse may have died of tetanus.
