Hanaeleh, along with every other major horse advocacy group, expresses its disappointment in the House Appropriations Committee’s vote opening the door to horse slaughter.
We urge all advocates to keep the pressure on Congress.
The House Appropriations committee voted 27-25 to reject the Roybal-Allard/Dent horse slaughter Defund Amendment to the Fiscal Year 2018 Agriculture Appropriations bill.
Details on the Horse Slaughter Defund Amendment
Because there is no permanent federal ban on horse slaughter, advocates push annually for an amendment barring the U.S. Department of Agriculture from hiring horsemeat plant inspectors to effectively keep a ban in place. Advocates may have another chance to turn back slaughter when the Ag Appropriations Bill goes to the full House for approval in the weeks ahead.
Attention now turns immediately to the 2018 Interior Appropriations Bill that could potentially threaten the lives of tens of thousands of America’s wild horses and burros.
Good news about proposed slaughter of wild horses and burros
A draft version of the Interior Appropriations Bill passed the House Interior Subcommittee also on Wednesday. It DOES NOT include provisions called for by the Trump administration that would have allowed the Bureau of Land Management to kill healthy wild horses or sell captive animals without restriction (ie: sell to slaughter).
While that’s good news, we advocates must not be complacent.
An amendment calling for inclusion of those deadly provisions could be offered when the full committee meets again, likely next week, so it’s critical that advocates continue making themselves heard.
“Today’s slaughter vote should be seen as a reminder of just how precarious the situation is for wild horses and burros,” said Neda DeMayo, president of Return to Freedom.
What YOU Can Do
- Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, ask to be connected to your representative.
- Tell staff that you wish to urge your congressperson to oppose any provision that would allow the Bureau of Land Management to kill wild horses or to remove sale restrictions that would open the door for BLM to sell horses and burros to someone who would sell them for slaughter.
- If your representative voted against the horse slaughter defund amendment, politely express your disappointment to staff and urge your representative to vote against slaughter when the bill goes to the floor.
- If your representative voted for the horse slaughter defund amendment, please thank her or him.
- If your representative is not on the Appropriations Committee, please urge him or her to oppose horse slaughter when the Agriculture Appropriations Bill goes to the floor, as well as any provisions that could harm wild horses in the Interior Appropriations Bill.
- Please be sure to mention that humane solutions that would enable the management of wild horses and burros on the range have long been available.
These solutions include not only using safe, proven fertility control but revisiting population targets, based on a fair interpretation of multiple-use land management; providing incentives for ranchers who reduce livestock grazing in wild horse Herd Management Areas; increasing range stewardship, including much-needed water source restoration; and relocating horses, but only if truly necessary.
This article originally published on Return to Freedom.