Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act (SAFE Act) of 2021 (H.R.3355 / S.2732)

Every year, more than 100,000 American horses are exported across US borders for slaughter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The slaughtering of horses for human consumption in the United States is currently illegal, but American equines are still funneled into the international horse flesh pipeline. Dumped in kill auctions, they are purchased by kill buyers for export to Canadian and Mexican slaughterhouses. Some are flown from there to abattoirs in Japan and South Korea to satisfy demand for horse meat in Asia and parts of Europe. Americans overwhelmingly do not want horses purchased under false pretenses, packed into overcrowded trailers, tormented on long drives and flights, and prodded into slaughterhouses, where their deaths are painful and shockingly inhumane. This happens to discarded race, dressage, and western competition horses; work horses that outlive their usefulness through age, illness, or injury; horses abandoned by breeders, or stolen from good homes; outgrown pets passed from hand to hand; federally *protected* wild mustangs and burros that once roamed free on public lands. Four equines at our sanctuary – Peanut, Peppy, Stuey, and Bentley – were saved from this fate. Any horse can be one bad sale away from the filthy, horrific conditions of kill pens. The SAFE Act of 2021 can bring this to an end.

Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act (SAFE Act) of 2021 – S.2732  – is a bipartisan bill that “prohibits the knowing sale or transport of horses for purposes of human consumption. Specifically, the bill makes it unlawful to knowingly possess, ship, transport, purchase, sell, deliver, or receive a horse for it to be slaughtered for human consumption. It also makes it unlawful to knowingly possess, ship, transport, purchase, sell, deliver, or receive horse flesh, carcass, or part of a carcass for it to be used for human consumption. Violators are subject to criminal penalties.” The same bill, with different numbers, is currently moving thru both chambers of Congress. H.R.3355 was introduced in the House by Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Vern Buchanan (R-FL). S.2732 was introduced in the Senate by Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). The wide range of support for this bill is reflected in the political affiliation of its cosponsors. This is an issue, on which Americans overwhelmingly agree.