Federal law is supposed to protect wild horses and burros from the slaughterhouse pipeline, but a 2004 amendment to the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 changed the rules. This legal loophole bypasses the strict legal protections and adoption procedures, allowing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to sell federally protected wild mustangs to third-party buyers, stripping them of their protections and putting them at risk.
In 2024, just over 1,500 horses were sold off, but that number more than doubled in 2025, rising to more than 3,700. Once a horse is sold, it legally falls outside the government’s jurisdiction, and according to an investigation by The New York Times, at least one buyer was able to purchase wild horses for just $25 a head before selling them to Canadian slaughterhouses at a huge profit.
The Trump administration has a track record of policies that open the door to the slaughter of equines. An adoption incentive program in Trump’s first term had similar results, and Project 2025 argued in favor of killing wild horses as a cost-cutting measure, stating that Congress “must enact laws permitting the B.L.M. to dispose humanely of these animals.”
The SAFE Act (H.R. 1661 / S. 775) would permanently ban the slaughter of horses and other equines for human consumption in the United States, and prohibit exporting live horses across borders for slaughter. Congress must put an end to the inhumane treatment of wild horses and burros by supporting this bipartisan legislation.
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