Bipartisan group of senators reintroduce measure that could impact thousands of animals: 'Barbaric and has no place in America'

Lawmakers from both major parties collaborated in an effort to rescue America's horses from slaughter. 

Democrats Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) joined forces with Republicans Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) to sponsor the Save America's Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, expanding the Dog and Cat Meat Prohibition Act. 

The bill seeks to ban the commercial slaughter of horses and burros and their sale to foreign countries for slaughter. It has extraordinary support across Congress and from animal welfare and equine industry groups.

The SAFE Act would also help people who currently work with or own horses. 

"Kill buyers" often outbid horse lovers at auctions, with the intention of selling the horses to other countries where horse slaughter is legal. 

"Many owners are so afraid their horses will end up at slaughter that they may even keep them beyond the point that they can afford basic care, causing further suffering," stated the Animal Welfare Institute.

Wild horses are especially under threat. 

The Return to Freedom organization explained that "private livestock grazing and special interests compete for … resources on [public] land, creating constant pressure on the government land management agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to remove wild horses from the range."

The BLM often rounds up and displaces wild horses. To alleviate the large numbers of horses they had in captivity, they offered incentives to people who adopted them. This left an opening for kill buyers. 

World Animal News reported that "an in-depth investigation by American Wild Horse Conservation (AWHC) … uncovered rampant fraud and abuse, revealing that many adopted horses were being sent to slaughter for profit." 

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The SAFE Act might mitigate this particular loophole.

Saving horses from this violent death helps conserve rare wild species, said Return to Freedom, which offers sanctuary to wild horses and seeks to educate the public about conservation. 

The SAFE Act is one step towards ending this killing.

Another way people can help horses and burros is by lessening their beef consumption, which would reduce not only planet-warming gas pollution but also the need to use land for livestock, restoring the wild horses' habitat.

"The slaughter of horses for human consumption is barbaric and has no place in America," Buchanan said.

Schakowsky added, "It is beyond time to end this brutal and dangerous practice. Horses are not food."

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