Hundreds of wolves have been killed in the northern Rockies since the Obama administration approved the Bush administration’s wrongheaded plan to prematurely eliminate federal protections for these magnificent animals — more than 230 have been killed during wolf hunts that began in September and continue in Idaho even now.

Idaho has already extended its hunting season, putting even more wolf families in the crosshairs even pregnant wolf mothers due to give birth this spring.

President Obama can and should fix his administration’s horrible mistake. Fill out the form below to urge the president to immediately restore life-saving federal protections for our wolves and help us send 40,000 messages before Friday, March 5th.

Click here to Sign the Petition

 The Environmental Protection Agency is spearheading a new approach to evaluating chemicals that could end the use of animals and we applaud them. Yet EPA still requires vast amounts of animal testing for pesticides, water pollutants, and other substances.

Common types of EPA-required tests include widely condemned “lethal dose” methods, and other force-feeding or inhalation tests developed 60 years ago. So while science has progressed in every other discipline, animals are still being poisoned to assess the risks of chemicals.

TAKE ACTION
Please send an email by filling out the form in the link below to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to urge her to make reduction of animal testing a top priority.

Federal agencies receive a lot of email, so it is important to personalize the form so that your message will stand out and have a greater impact.

» Click Here to Take Action

Thank you.

In October 2009, the Department of the Interior (DOI) released a comprehensive five-year plan to potentially transform the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) wild horse and burro program. Sadly, that optimism was short-lived. Just weeks after the plan was released, the BLM announced that it would remove another 12,000 wild horses from the range in FY 2010. At this rate, by 2011 there will be more wild horses in captivity than there are in the wild.

Worst yet, the BLM has made no effort to change its roundup procedures to minimize injuries and deaths. At least 46 horses have died or been killed in incidents related to the roundups taking place at the Calico Complex in Nevada, including two colts who were run for so many miles that their hooves subsequently became infected and fell off.

The BLM must cease the roundups immediately and seriously reconsider its current policies and procedures, choosing humane, fiscally responsible methods such as fertility control.

TAKE ACTION
Please fill out and submit the form below to send a message to Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, urging him to place an immediate moratorium on wild horse roundups in the U.S. Federal agencies receive a lot of email, so be sure to personalize the text below to make your message stand out.

Click to Take Action

Racing to End to Horse Slaughter

It’s time to save America’s horses and put an end to this cruel practice

The Humane Society of the United States

The bloody, panic-stricken environment of a slaughterhouse is no place for any horse to meet her end.

But as long as horse slaughter is legal in the United States, this covert, predatory industry will have its buyers at American horse auctions, outbidding legitimate horse owners and funneling these animals off to foreign slaughterhouses to be sold as meat overseas.

Cruel industry

Horse slaughter is a death fraught with terror, pain and suffering. Horses are shipped for more than 24 hours at a time in crowded cattle trucks—vehicles with ceilings too low for a horse to stand up straight—without food, water or rest.

Horses bound for slaughter often sustain severe injuries from the bites and kicks of other, more aggressive horses. They frequently fall, and unable to regain their footing, are often trampled to death. Healthy, very young, injured, pregnant, blind—all endure the grueling journey.

Once horses arrive at the slaughter plant, their suffering intensifies. Terrified, they struggle in the kill box, making it difficult for the often untrained staff to render them unconscious. In Mexico, our undercover cameras documented the use of the puntilla knife to stab horses repeatedly to paralyze them for butchering.

Horse slaughter is not humane euthanasia—in fact, there is nothing about this process that is “humane.”

Lethal loophole

Although some state legislatures have acted to stop horse slaughter, shuttering the last remaining foreign-owned horse slaughter plants in the United States in 2007, Congress has yet to enact a federal ban.

This means that not only can horses continue to be exported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter, but more foreign-owned horse slaughter plants could even try to set up shop on U.S. soil.

Fortunately, many members of Congress remain committed to horse protection. “I will continue to fight in Congress to end this brutal practice and ensure that American horses will no longer be savagely slaughtered for human consumption,” says Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who is the lead Senate sponsor of the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (S. 727) to ban horse slaughter. Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), and Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) all join her in that fight as lead authors of S. 727/H.R 503.

At the forefront of the fight

In addition to our legislative efforts, The HSUS has taken an active role in the rescue and care of horses heading to slaughter.

When all three U.S. based horse slaughter plants closed, The HSUS offered to take the horses that were already at or en route to the plants. While most of the horses were reloaded and sent to slaughter plants in Mexico and Canada, The HSUS was able to rescue a group of 30 horses who had literally been standing inside one of the plants, waiting to die, when the court order came to shut down the kill floor.

These horses were distributed between many different horse rescues, all opening up their barn doors and offering to take them in. In fact, two of these horses are enjoying the green pastures at the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch, one of The HSUS’ two horse sanctuaries.

The HSUS will continue its efforts as the nation’s largest direct care provider for at-risk equines with the opening of the Doris Day Rescue and Adoption Center at the ranch later this year.

Second chances trump slaughter

Proof that slaughter isn’t the answer is evident in the stories of horses rescued from that horrible fate only to go on to successful careers:

• Ten years ago, a 17-year-old Dutch Warmblood named Jamaica was nearly sent to slaughter, saved at the last minute from a killer buyer’s pen. Jamaica has now racked up numerous awards, and was recently named “Horse of the Year” by the United States Equestrian Federation. (Unfortunately, Thoroughbred racing’s 1987 Horse of the Year and 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand, was not so lucky and was slaughtered in Japan.)
• Miss Judge also escaped slaughter. After years of making money for her owners on the racetrack, the 11-year-old Thoroughbred mare was sent to an auction—one that killer buyers frequent—but Angel Acres Horse Haven Rescue stepped in, paying $350 to save her life. Miss Judge went on to strut her stuff as a featured horse at an event with world-renowned natural horsemanship horse trainers Pat and Linda Parelli. She was adopted by someone who fell in love with the gentle mare.

You can give horses a second chance

While The HSUS and horse rescue organizations across the country work tirelessly to give every horse a second chance, thousands of American horses are still shipped across our borders each week for slaughter because the horse slaughter industry can outbid them.

Ask your U.S. Representative and Senators and to support The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S. 727). It will ban the barbaric killing of American horses for human consumption, including the export of horses across our borders for slaughter.

I know you will be as saddened as I was by an obituary written about Wolf 527, one of Yellowstone National Park’s beloved wolves.But I hope this tragic story will motivate you to speak out to save the hundreds of wolves in Greater Yellowstone and beyond that remain in mortal danger.

Wolf 527 originated from the Druid pack — one of the best known wolf packs in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, the scene of numerous National Geographic and PBS documentaries.

For years, the movements of some of the members of this Yellowstone pack have been monitored by biologists and wolf-watchers equipped with radio tracking devices and powerful spotting scopes. One of those wolf-watchers wrote the obituary for 527 — and I am honored to share excerpts of it with you today.

“527 was a wolf that marched to the beat of a very different drummer.” As a yearling, 527 left the Druids to join the Slough pack — where she quickly became the beta (second-in-command) female. Then in 2007, she and a male wolf set off to found their own pack — the Cottonwood Creek pack — where she became the alpha (first-in-command) female.

Obituary for a Wolf She was known as 527, but she was much more than a number. She was one of Yellowstone’s beloved wolves. Wolf 527 was beloved by wolf-watchers and wildlife biologists who chronicled her courageous life. Sadly, she was also one of the first wolves killed in October — during Montana’s first wolf hunt in modern times. Read the moving tribute to this brave mother wolf and then speak out to call off the guns!

As a leader of the Cottonwood pack, 527 was known to be a master of survival strategies. While four other packs that inhabited the same area suffered dismal fates, her pack thrived. As her biographer recounts, “She was a genius wolf in her tactics. Strategy was her game and she was a master at it. She would return to feed her pups in the dark of night because she would not take the risk of crossing the road.”

But in the end, despite 527’s “unbelievable survival strategies,” this resilient wolf “was not able to outthink a rifle” and was killed on October 3 when Montana unleashed its first public wolf hunt in modern times.

Since the public hunts began, 156 wolves in the Northern Rockies have met 527’s fate. And over the next year, more than 500 wolves could be shot to death by hunters and government agents … reducing the region’s wolf population by a staggering 40 percent!

But the story doesn’t have to end as sadly as 527’s life – if everyone who cares about wolves speaks out against this carnage now.

So please take a moment to join the national outcry to save wolves. Just click this link to tell the Interior Secretary to put wolves back on the Endangered Species list.

Thank you in advance for taking action on the wolves’ behalf. Together, we can make sure that the death of 527 will not be in vain — by winning back federal protections for the rest of Greater Yellowstone’s storied wolves.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

P.S. Once you send your wolf-saving citizen comment, I will tell you about an easy way you can save packs of wolves — by spreading the word to your friends.