Canadian horse slaughterhouse may have closed in anticipation of U.S. competition
FORT MacLEOD, Alberta; WASHINGTON D.C.––Animal advocates celebrating the recent closure of the Bouvry Exports horse slaughterhouse in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, once the biggest in Canada, may be celebrating prematurely.
The real reason for the Bouvry Exports slaughterhouse closing may be anticipation that horse slaughter for human consumption is soon to resume somewhere in the western U.S., cutting off much of the supply of horses to kill and butcher, and cutting into the Bouvry markets abroad, especially in Japan.
The soaring cost of feeding approximately 63,000 formerly wild horses and burros, now in holding pens after removal from Bureau of Land Management [BLM] grazing leases in 10 western states, has long irked federal budget cutters––especially among Republicans, who have repeatedly floated schemes to open horse slaughterhouses in Montana and Wyoming.
Wild horse program budget cuts
Concern that the Donald Trump administration is hellbent on restarting the U.S. horse slaughter industry to dispose of the surplus horses rose after the president’s fiscal year 2026 Interior Department budget proposal left out language, included for many years in previous Interior Department budgets, to prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from either killing healthy wild horses or selling them without protection against slaughter.
About $101 million of the current $144 million allocation for the BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program, up $2 million from 2025, goes toward looking after the captive formerly wild horse inventory.
The Trump administration proposed slashing the allocation for the BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program to $106.7 billion.
While that proposal was defeated with the January 2026 passage of the current Interior Department budget, it is likely to be back, this time with further measures in place to expedite a resumption of horse slaughter.
“Save Our Bacon Act” language puts horse meat on the table
As Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle blogged on April 26, 2026, just before the House of Representatives passed the 2026 Farm Bill, the Farm Bill “omitted humane, bipartisan proposals circulating in Congress to stop horse slaughter.”
But that was not all the 2026 Farm Bill did.
“GOP-backed bill accidentally forces states to legalize horse meat: analyst,” bannered Matthew Chapman for RawStory.com on May 4, 2026.
Pointed out Chapman, the “Save Our Bacon Act” language included in the House version of the Farm Bill overtly seeks to override state-level bans on the sale of pork from pigs raised in gestation stalls, specifically Question 3 adopted by Massachusetts voters in 2016 and Proposition 12, passed by California voters in 2018.
No federal law actually prevents horse slaughter
But, Chapman explained, the same language could also invalidate state laws prohibiting the sale of horse meat for human consumption. There is no federal legislation prohibiting either the sale of horse meat or horse slaughter, just language annually inserted into the USDA budget that prohibits use of federal funding to inspect horse meat.
USDA inspection is required for any meat sold for human consumption that crosses state lines, but not for meat slaughtered and sold to consumers within the same state.
Warned Coefficient Giving managing director Lewis Bollard on X , “The Save Our Bacon Act text bars states from regulating the sale of all meat from ‘covered livestock’ based on how it was produced elsewhere. Horses raised for slaughter fit the bill’s definition of ‘covered livestock’. So its plain text would force states to allow horse meat sales, invalidating bans like that in effect in Texas— on the books since 1949.”
A similar ban exists in Illinois.
Why did Bouvry Exports close in Alberta?
World Animal News reported on May 5, 2026 that “Animal advocates are celebrating a major victory,” after the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition announced, “We have received confirmation that the Bouvry Exports slaughter plant in Fort Macleod, Alberta, is permanently closed. The facility is no longer accepting horses for slaughter!”
The Toronto advocacy group Animal Justice suggested that factors in the closure might have included the distribution of hidden camera video from 2010, “appearing to show conscious horses having their throats cut while hung upside down,” World Animal News summarized, plus “A 2023 legal complaint after an investigation documented dead horses on the property and others suffering from illness and injuries,” and “A 2025 case in which the company was convicted and fined approximately $17,000 after multiple charges were laid by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, largely tied to animal suffering.”
A further and larger factor may have been the March 2022 death of French-born Bouvry Exports founder Claude Bouvry, 71, followed by a license suspension “over food safety concerns,” Animal Justice mentioned.
“One of the most horrific places”
Whatever the reasons, “One of the most horrific places Animals’ Angels has ever investigated is finally shut down,” exulted Maryland-based Animals’ Angels, whose campaigns have focused on horse transport and slaughter.
“Animals’ Angels has documented abuse connected to Bouvry operations since 2007,” Animals’ Angels said in a May 6, 2026 victory announcement.
“We were the first organization to expose conditions at the Bar S Feedlot in Shelby, Montana,” Animals’ Angels recounted, “filing complaints with the Montana Livestock Board that led to the first official inspections of the property.
“Since then,” Animals’ Angels said, “we have continued investigating Bouvry’s operations in both Montana and Alberta nearly every year — documenting suffering, exposing cruelty, and keeping pressure on the industry.”
The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition and Animals’ Angels both indicated that they would now focus more attention on horse slaughter at Viandes Richelieu, also owned by Bouvry Exports, in Massueville, Quebec, alongside the Yamaska River, north of St. Hyacinthe.
(Beth Clifton photo)
“PMU industry has declined”
“Canada’s horse slaughter industry historically handled tens of thousands of horses a year,” recalled Carol Shwetz, DVM, in an October 9, 2025 exposé of industry accountability issues published by the Western Producer.
“At peak,” Shwetz wrote, “more than 100,000 horses were slaughtered annually, many imported from the United States after U.S. slaughter plants closed in 2007.
“These horses, sometimes young and healthy, often unwanted or surplus, were shipped for processing with meat exported to Europe and Asia.
“In addition,” Shwetz noted, “the pharmaceutical industry, particularly pregnant mare urine (PMU) farms, historically contributed horses to the slaughter pipeline. While the PMU industry has declined, its impact continues to shape the movement of horses.”
PMU & horse slaughter industries moved west
Pregnant mare’s urine was the original source of estrogen used in birth control drugs, and later in Premarin, a hormonal drug used to treat symptoms of menopause, once the world’s top-selling drug.
Beginning in the 1930s in upstate New York and Quebec, the PMU industry originally supplied horses to a slaughterhouse at LaColle [“The Glue”], Quebec, a much older facility built to kill working horses who had been replaced by cars, trucks, and tractors, plus “retired” race horses from tracks in Montreal, Saratoga in upstate New York, and Long Island.
As PMU demand grew, the center of the industry moved up the Richelieu River to Trois Rivieres, then west into Ontario, following PMU production on into Alberta after humane regulation increased in the U.S. and eastern Canada.
The horse slaughter industry mostly followed, but never entirely left the Richelieu and Yamaska River regions of Quebec, especially after the construction of Interstate 87 between 1957 and 1967 expedited horse transport north from the New York state race tracks.
Most U.S. horses now go south to Mexico
Synthetic estrogens have now mostly replaced the use of PMU.
The numbers of horses slaughtered in Canada “now appear closer to 15,000 to 25,000,” Shwetz estimated, attributing the decline to “advocacy campaigns and stricter U.S. regulations. “Today,” Shwetz said, “the majority of U.S. horses go to Mexico for slaughter rather than Canada, though some still enter Canadian facilities.
“The European Union introduced requirements for drug history and traceability, making it harder for Canadian plants to export meat without full documentation. Japan has also increased scrutiny, particularly for live exports.
“Roughly 2,000 to 3,000 horses are shipped annually from Canada to Japan,” Shwetz said, “mostly draft breeds, enduring long flights in containment shipping. Public concern has mounted over the lack of transparency and oversight.”
Equine use industries
Apart from the question of what to do with wild horses removed from the western range by the Bureau of Land Management, there remains considerable demand for horse slaughter from the U.S. equine use industries, which are coincidentally biggest and politically strongest in several of the most ardently pro-Trump states.
Two of the most exploitive of equine use industries were spotlighted in two days toward the end of April 2026.
First, on April 22, 2026, Humane World for Animals and the subsidiary Humane World Action Fund, formerly the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society Legislative Fund, sued the USDA for “not fulfilling its responsibility to protect Tennessee Walking Horses and similar breeds from the cruel practice of soring,” as required by the Horse Protection Act of 1970.
What becomes of a broken show horse?
Recounted a Humane World for Animals media release announcing the lawsuit, “The USDA has shelved several rules and procedures critical to the administration and enforcement of the Horse Protection Act. These include the elimination of industry self-policing at competitions, a system the agency agreed to end back in 2010, after a USDA Office of Inspector General audit found it to be a failure, a s well as the process for referring sore and injured horses for disqualification at shows.”
Slaughter is, for show horse owners, the most economical disposition of sore, injured, and disqualified horses.
The next day, April 23, 2026, Patrick Talbot of KOCO television news in Oklahoma City disclosed that “The Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission has banned 171 horses from racing, citing extreme post-race distress and alleged abuse by three trainers.
“The commission issued emergency orders against the trainers,,” Talbot recounted, “alleging repeated incidents where horses were unable to leave the track under their own power and required a van ride instead.
Same as becomes of a broken race horse
“The protected horses cannot race,” explained Talbot, “until they meet several requirements to be removed from the steward’s list, including medical testing and treatment to ensure the horse is safe.”
Far less expensive for the owners, however, depending on the racing history of each horse, may have been sale to slaughter.
Similar issues were “found in horses [those three trainers] trained and ran across the country,” Oklahoma Horse Race Commission members added in a prepared statement.
(Daniel Leventhal photo)
Horses breaking down in races or training are typically killed where they fall and sent for rendering. The owners have to pay for that service.
But if an owner can sell a horse to slaughter before an imminent breakdown occurs, the owner avoids the cost of disposal of remains and may net a few bucks to offset the loss of the horse.
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Watching the news today, I saw coverage of Golden Tempo and my immediate thought was, “Poor horse. Celebrated today. And when he is no longer profitable, his fate will most likely be similar to what is detailed in this artlcle.
Not that it’s what the gullible believe it to be now. Even intelligent and caring friends I’ve shared the facts with have refused to acknowledge the reality of how horrific life truly is for these magnificent animals.
Sharing with gratitude and sorrow.
This is a litany of hellish cruelty towards a magnificent animal who is admired in many quarters of society and in the world, and I am beyond sickened to read that this country might once again open vile, despicable slaughter houses.
The more I read – and I read much – on the topic of man’s relationship to and treatment of animals wild and domestic, the more I loathe many members of my own species who appear to or evidence a total lack of empathy or compassion to sentient animals.
I am aware that many of us care and give their all to counter the evil these people do and for that I am deeply grateful. We need education, especially of the young, as to the need to care about the natural world and the animals both wild and domestic who populate it.
We need to promote ethics and moral values in our societies. As we appear to be hurting back to the Dark Ages in so many areas these days and find the gross avarice and self interested behaviors of too many governmental officials taking precedence, we hang our heads in shame, yet remain faithful to protecting good people and animals as much as we can while we can in whatever way we can.
The complete lack of ethics toward magnificent and sensitive horses is nothing less than appalling.
First, GET RID OF THE BLM – Bureau of land Management, or more accurately, Bungled, Lousy Mismanagement. This is probably the second most corrupt government agency after the USDA, and does nothing but remove wild horses and burros from land that not only is the natural home for these animals but public lands that belong to ALL OF US. The BLM removes these animals, often brutally using helicopters to run them down, killing and maiming some inthe process, and corrals them so that ranchers can use the land instead. WELL, IT”S NOT THE RANCHERS’ LAND. When they’re not removing these animals and selling them off for adoptions that really end up with kill buyers, they’re using antiquated and terrible birth control methods on the horses. HORSES AND BURROS DESERVE FAR BETTER.
The BLM needs to be shut down and horse management turned over to the people who have been fighting for them and doing the most beneficial work for them for years – the wild horse organizations, along with indigenous people.
Government officlals seem to be listening only to businesspeople dangling money in front of their greedy faces. Some 80% of the public wants our horses left alone and not rounded up and shipped off to slaughter. Congresspeople won’t even bring supportive legislation to the floor for vote. WE THE PEOPLE are not being listened to at all. There is no God but Money and no one is teaching morals and respect for nature to their children.
Horseracing also needs to end; breeding horses trying to find the next Secretariat is one major reason why there are excess horses ending up on Japanese dinner plates.
Ferdinand, the winner of the 1986 Kentucky Derby,1987 Horse of the Year, and winner of the Breeder’s Cup Classic, was slaughtered in Japan in 2002 after his stud career ended, a tragedy that prompted major changes in American racehorse retirement programs. His death in 2002 resulted in significant outrage and inspired the creation of several retirement and advocacy groups, such as the Friends of Ferdinand organization and the development of the “Ferdinand Fee,” a voluntary donation program designed to fund the care of retired horses and prevent similar outcomes. However, the fact that this fund is voluntary does not guarantee that all of these horses will have a decent retirement life after their racing careers are over. It should be MANDATORY that anyone who owns racehorses pay in to their post-racing life so that after giving their all, these horses aren’t thanked by slaughter. Frankly, the BEST retirement plan is to END HORSERACING ATOGETHER.
And finally, as for Tennessee Walking Horses and the horrific Big Lick soring issue, this needs to end. Tennessee Walking Horses are a naturally high-stepping breed of horse which is beautiful enough. A wealthy group of people use abusive techniques to torture the horses into stepping higher – OUT OF PAIN. Ultra-heavy shoes and clains around their legs to produce an exaggerated step, caustic chemicals that burn, hooves cut to the quick with hard objects jammed into their tender soles – all to produce an exaggerated high-stepping gait known as the “Big Lick.” Their life expectancy and health is poor because of the abuse to their joints and legs. One private group has been working hard to end 50 years of this disgusting form of animal abuse.
This was the FIRST piece of legislation on Trumps’ desk to sign as new president in his first term in 2016 – after YEARS of hard work to pass this, it was all ready to be signed and published in the Federal Register. HE THREW IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!
8+ years later, the USDA passed some helpful legislation to end the worst of soring – and Trump messed it up again. Now, vulnerable horses are facing another show season of torture. Despite the broader horse industry distancing itself from this abusive practice, a small segment of the Tennessee walking horse industry continues to use these barbaric methods and fight any regulations that would finally ban this cruelty once and for all. And now that the Trump administration has delayed the rule that would finally put an end to industry self-policing—which has allowed this practice to persist for decades—these trainers will continue tormenting the horses in their care…just for a blue ribbon.
These magnificent animals deserve so much better than they get from us: worked to death as carriage horses, run to death on racetracks, tortured to death in specialty exhibitions…
HORSES DESERVE BETTER.
(and burros too!)