Officials Searching For Person Responsible For Cutting Manes Of Several Horses At Philadelphia High School Farm
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia School District wants to find the person responsible for chopping off the manes from several horses at a student-run farm in the city's Roxborough neighborhood. Without their manes, horses can't swat away flies that mount to their long faces.
The Walter B. Saul High School Farm is located just off the busy Henry Avenue near Wigard Avenue. It's where students learn to raise horses and people like Tammy Keorkumian like to stop and admire their beauty every now and then.
"I wanted to say hello to the horses because I love the horses. I love animals so much," Manayunk resident Tammy Keorkumian said.
But when she arrived, she found some of the horses' faces were covered with dozens of flies. There are so many flies the horses appear uncomfortable and even frustrated.
"I noticed a lot of flies on the horses' faces and thought, this isn't right," Tammy said.
The Philadelphia School District says someone used scissors to cut the hair from several horses' necks, called manes.
Photos show the horses looking like they got a bad haircut.
Manes can be used to swat away the flies.
"I think it's horrible," Roxborough resident Angela Gisondi said.
Angela stopped by to see the horses Monday.
"It's just a sin. I feel so horrible for them," Gisondi said. "They seem so uncomfortable and I just hope that they could do something to help them, to prevent it from happening again."
There is no word if the horses' hair is being sold on the black market, which could go for hundreds of dollars per pound, but the school district released a statement to CBS3: "For more than 30 years, we have had our horses in the pasture without any incidents. As a response, the district will be installing a non-climb horse fence to ensure the safety of our animals."
