CNN reports:

Someone is killing horses in Southeast Florida.

Since January, 19 horses have been reported butchered — 17 in Miami-Dade County and two in Broward County.

And that might be just a conservative estimate.

"That number is extremely low," says Richard "Kudo" Couto of the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "There are many more slaughters in South Florida."

Couto, an SPCA investigator, says many butcherings are going unreported by people who do not want to get involved with law enforcement. Police concede that underreporting of such animal cruelty crimes is a concern.

The reported deaths are being investigated by a multiagency team that includes Scott Andress from the Miami-Dade Police Department.

"In the majority of these cases, the carcasses exhibited signs of being slaughtered and dismembered, and the meat removed from the bodies..."

This is a bad situation for the horse, an animal that was once all about work and military power but now is all about pleasure: horse racing, horse jumping, and horse swimming:

These are darkening times for the horse. Not only are they being hunted by hungry serial killers, they have begun dying in the streets of American cities.

PORTLAND, Ore. — A horse pulling a newlywed couple in a carriage Saturday afternoon collapsed and died in front of the Central Library in downtown Portland.

The carriage driver told KATU that the horse, named Balatore, was 20 years old and suffered a major heart attack while pulling the couple to the Crown Ballroom. The temperature was in the 90s at the time.

The first image from here; the second image is from here.