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Photo by Tony Stromberg
It's long past time for Congress to pass the Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act (H.R. 3475 / S. 2037) which would ban horse slaughter in the United States and the transportation of American horses out of the country for slaughter. Thousands of domestic horses and wild horses that once roamed freely on our public lands are exported to Mexico or Canada for slaughter each year. In 2023, 20,283 American horses were shipped to their deaths.
Polls consistently show that about 80 percent of Americans strongly oppose horse slaughter. But until a federal ban on horse slaughter and the sale and transport of equines for the purpose of slaughter is passed once and for all, America’s wild and domestic equines are vulnerable to irresponsible breeding, abusive management, suffering, and often terrifying deaths in substandard conditions.
The SAFE Act would also protect human health by keeping unsafe meat off American grocery shelves and out of foreign exports. Because Americans do not raise horses to be eaten, they are often given any of 379 common animal medications banned for human consumption by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- including some that can be lethal if ingested by humans. No regulations require the sharing of information about substances previously ingested by a horse up for auction. There, they are often purchased by kill buyers.
Please sign below to send a message to your representative urging support for this important bipartisan legislation as well as inclusion of a slaughter ban in the pending Farm Bill.