Images of cats and dogs with the text The Humane Society of New York Since 1904

Horse Slaughter

Horses have not been slaughtered in the United States for more than a decade due to restrictions on inspection funding BUT hundreds of thousands of American equines have endured a grueling journey to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered there during the past decade! Many horses shipped to slaughter are young, healthy animals. Others are old, sick, blind, and crippled and are particularly unfit to withstand the rigors of the long journey to the slaughterhouses. Panicked horses are then prodded off trucks and endure even more horrors at the slaughterhouse. It has been reported that many horses need repeated blows to the head before being stunned and killed.

Horses from so many different sources, including racehorses who cannot bring in enough earnings, carriage horses and other work horses, wild horses, and unwanted pets, are not spared the agony. The horsemeat is typically shipped abroad to be eaten.

Despite federal and state bills being introduced year after year to stop this cruel practice, it nonetheless continues.

How To Take Action

New York

Please ask your NYS legislators to support A. 5109 and S. 2163-A to ban horse slaughter. This legislation is sponsored by Assemblymember Deborah Glick and Senator Joseph Addabbo. The Humane Society of New York helped to draft this legislation.

Contact Your Representatives

To help take action on any of these or other animal protection bills pending before the NYS Legislature, use the methods below to reach lawmakers.

  1. Your Assembly member and New York State Senator

    If you do not know their names or contact information, go to www.nyassembly.gov  and www.nysenate.gov. If you provide your address, you can get this information. In your communication, mention that you are a constituent and include your address.

  2. Senate and Assembly Leadership

    Name: Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Majority Leader
    Phone: (518)455-2585
    Email: scousins@nysenate.gov
    Fax: (518)426-6811;
    Address: Room 907, Legislative Office Building, Albany, NY 12247

    Name: Carl E. Heastie, Assembly Speaker
    Phone: (518)455-3791
    Email: speaker@nyassembly.gov
    Fax: (518)455-4812
    Address: Room 932, Legislative Office Building, Albany, NY 12248

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