During 2020, a total of 36,885 American horses were shipped to their deaths – 29,666 to Mexico and 6,919 to Canada.
While those numbers are horrific, horse exports for slaughter have continued their steady decline from a 20-year high of 166,572 in 2012.
That decline is all the more reason for Congress to end the inhumane work of kill buyers, yet the 2007 shuttering of the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States has done nothing to keep our horses from foreign killing floors or decrease the risk to human health from eating horse meat.
Run Wild Ranch Sanctuary has worked hard to ensure a “defund amendment” is included in federal funding bills. This language prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture cannot use tax dollars to hire horse-meat inspectors. That has created an effective year-to-year ban on horse slaughter — but only within U.S. borders.
Our focus has always been on the passage of a permanent federal ban that not only stops horse slaughter in the United States but bars the export of our horses for slaughter.
The Slaughter Pipeline
More than 1.5 million American horses were trucked to slaughter plants in Mexico and Canada from 2001-20.
The terror, trauma and pain that horses endure in transport to slaughterhouses and on the killing floor – where they have been documented to have their throats cut while they are fully conscious – is unacceptable.
Horses have played a critical role in U.S. history and American culture. They remain our companions and partners in competition, work and recreation, and those that roam our public lands remain a symbol of freedom throughout the world.
Should federal meat inspector funding be reinstated, protections for horses would be poor at best. Some states, like California, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas, have horse slaughter and horse-meat sale bans, but others require only that horse meat be labeled.
And while the American public has shown no taste for horse meat and in surveys expresses strong opposition to the slaughter of horses, with more than 80 percent consistently opposed, a number of companies have applied to open slaughterhouses in recent years in order to meet demand in countries that include Mexico, Japan, France, and Belgium.
Because American horses are not raised to be eaten, they frequently are given medications banned for human consumption by the USDA and European Union.
No regulations require the sharing of information about substances previously ingested by a horse up for auction. There, horses are often purchased by kill buyers with the intent on sending them to slaughter.
More than 90 percent of these exported horses are in “good” condition, according to a USDA study.
Wild Horses and Burros at Risk
The tens of thousands of horses shipped abroad for slaughter include an unknown number of mustangs.
Under a 2004 sale authority law, commonly called the “Burns Amendment,” the Bureau of Land Management is directed to sell “without limitation” wild horses age 10 and older or younger horses who have not been adopted after three tries.
BLM has sold more than 6,446 wild horses and burros since 2012. Those sold between 2005 and 2010 went for an average of just $17 a piece.
Congress has made clear that BLM is not to sell to known kill buyers; However, even if the agency abides by the law, the threat of slaughter looms.
Once title is given to the wild horse’s new owner, it loses its protected status. Likewise, after an adopter receives title after one year, a former wild horse or burro can be sold and end up auctioned off to a kill buyer.
Earlier this year, a New York Times report found that wild horses adopted through a BLM Adoption Incentive Program, through which adopters are paid $1,000 per horse, were being shipped to slaughter. RWRS is among those that have called for the program to be suspended pending a thorough investigation of the program.
Ending Slaughter
You can help spare American horses by joining Run Wild in demanding that Congress pass the bipartisan Safeguard American Foods Exports Act or SAFE Act (H.R. 3355) which would ban both slaughter and the transportation of horses for slaughter.
Doing so will reduce health risks to human beings and prevent the needless suffering of America’s equines – including wild horses and burros.
Calls to Congress are most effective when they are about a current piece of legislation and are directed to your representative. To call your senator or representative, you can dial the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and asked to be directed to the appropriate office. In most instances, you will be connected with a member of your representatives’ staff.
The Bureau of Land Management has failed to scale up the use of available safe, proven and humane fertility control for more than 20 years despite calls from the public and from Congress. Further delay will only serve to perpetuate the inhumane, costly practice of capture and removal that has gone on for nearly five decades.
Because of rising taxpayer costs and increasing numbers of wild horses and burros both on the range and in government holding, Congress in 2017 came closer than at any time since the passage of the 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horses and Burros Act to allowing BLM to sell wild horses without restriction (to slaughter) or euthanize them. As climatic changes increasingly impact the sensitive ecosystems within our public land ranges and special interests profiting from the use of our public land resources face economic uncertainty, it is critical that we remain diligent in presenting viable non-lethal solutions to manage wild horse and burro populations in the West for our federally protected herds.
Population modeling by ecologists has shown how different management paradigms affect wild horse populations. Immediately using available fertility control vaccines (while longer-lasting vaccines are being developed) on the range alongside removals is the only way to catch up with herd growth and stabilize BLM’s Wild Horse & Burro Program, enabling the phase-out of roundups and muting calls for the use of lethal management tools.
Join us in urging Congress to press BLM on the implementation of safe, proven and humane fertility control, public-private partnerships that increase fertility control darting and herd monitoring, and range restoration projects.
In March 2019, the Bureau of Land Management launched an Adoption Incentive Program, an attempt to increase adoptions of wild horses and burros by giving adopters $500 within 60 days of adoption and another $500 within 60 days of receiving title (about one year later). BLM’s goal is to reduce off-range holding costs. According to the agency, it costs an average of $1,850 per year to care for a wild horse or burro in a corral.
The Adoption Incentive Program has raised serious concerns about whether increased numbers of equines are being auctioned for slaughter or ending up in abusive homes or with owners who can’t afford their care after title is passed. However, the program is a success -- in the agency’s eyes -- for having helped BLM to a 15-year adoption high of more than 6,000 horses and burros in its first year and “saving $170 million” in lifetime costs for those animals,
Run Wild has never been a proponent of the adoption program, but we understand that it will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
One of Run Wild's founding principles is to elevate the status of America's wild horses and burros. We believe that paying people to adopt devalues wild horses and burros. If the adoption program is to continue, we believe that wild horses should not be adopted for less than $1,000 or that -- if BLM’s objective for the incentive program is genuinely to support adopters by assisting with training or “start-up” costs -- BLM could create a program in which adopters pay $1,000 upfront for the wild horse or burro, then receive a $500 voucher to pay as a reimbursement for training once they have provided proof of progress or vet costs and responsible ownership.
In our experience, if someone cannot afford $1,000 for a horse and initial care costs, they really are not in a position to financially support a horse. Sadly, even the most well-intentioned adopters find themselves unable to sustain the horse.