A bill introduced in the Arizona Senate would make it illegal to kill or slaughter alpine wild horses for human consumption while promoting humane contraception to stabilize the population.
Known as the Alpine Wild Horse Act, SB1057 provides greater legal protection for alpine herds currently facing systematic roundups and removal from federal lands throughout Arizona.
The bill, introduced in late January by Senator John Kavanaugh (R-Arizona), would make it illegal to “harass, shoot, injure, drive, or drive horses that are part of an Alpine horse herd.” Do not kill, rob or slaughter.”
The bill’s language includes sabotaging Alpine populations and euthanizing horses without written permission from a state or county sheriff’s office.
“This bill makes it illegal to kill and slaughter them. [for human consumption]It doesn’t make it illegal to remove them,” said Simone Holland, president of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group in Prescott, Arizona, who supports the bill.
“Anyone who opposes this bill must say they want to see wild horses killed and slaughtered. It’s hard to say,” Holland told the Epoch Times.
The bill states that Alpine horses are not feral animals, a definition that contradicts the U.S. Forest Service’s branding of them as “licensed livestock,” and is subject to legal removal. It is
As unauthorized livestock, the Forest Service collects dozens of horses from Apache Sitgreaves Forest and sells them at online auctions.
The Netherlands said 178 horses have found good homes and reserves through a wild horse advocate fundraiser.
About 200 of the original 400 Alpine herd are left to roam half a million acres of Apache forest.
In October, an unidentified assailant shot and killed more than 40 horses in a forest near Alpine, Arizona.
Alpine Wild Horse Advocates volunteers counted 43 horses dead and 11 still missing as of October 5th.
The Netherlands said SB1057 is similar to the Salt River Horse Act of 2017. Its goal is to preserve historic wild horses in the Salt River of Tonto National Forest.
Due to humane birth control, the Salt River group reported that only one foal was born in 2022.
In Wyoming, the state legislature has proposed a resolution asking the legislature to allow the slaughter of wild horses for domestic and international markets. However, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) opposes the measure as inhumane.
As “a beloved icon of the American West,” the ASPCA told the Epoch Times that wild horses are protected by federal law.
“We still have a long way to go to achieve sustainability, [of the herd], horse slaughter is never the solution, and the American public does not support such inhumane treatment of cultural icons. ”
