PASS THE SAFE ACT
Thousands of American horses are exported to Mexico and Canada for slaughter every year. The majority are working, performance, racing, and companion horses—and are young, healthy, and adoptable.
They face documented, consistent abuses and suffering during all phases of the slaughter pipeline, with little institutional oversight and welfare enforcement. From their time at livestock auctions and assembly points (kill pens), and to ports and slaughter facilities, horses sustain significant injuries, disease, and death. And due to their physiology, it is impossible to slaughter horses humanely without sedatives; they are often still conscious when hoisted, cut, and slaughtered.
Whether traveling to slaughter facilities in Mexico and Canada or awaiting shipping at an assembly point in the U.S., horses suffer greatly. Freedom of Information Act documents report horses and foals experiencing dismemberment, compound fractured limbs and backs, crushed skulls, and being trampled to death while in transit. Other reports and investigations confirm significantly injured, sick, non-ambulatory, and dead horses at auctions and assembly points.
And these horse welfare concerns are not unique to horses exported for slaughter; they also plagued American horses when the USDA regulated horse slaughter in the United States.
The Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act (H.R. 3475 and S. 2037) is a bipartisan bill that permanently bans horse slaughter in the United States and prohibits the exportation of horses for slaughter.
This bill prohibits the transporting, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation by a person of an equine (e.g., horse) that the person has reason to believe will be slaughtered for human consumption. This would permanently shut down the slaughter pipeline for horses and force people finally to take responsibility for their horses and burros.
Call your US House Representative and urge them to SPONSOR and SUPPORT the SAFE Act, H.R. 3475
