Dear John,

The killing and torment of animals is not just an expression of interpersonal violence and a misuse of power. The mistreatment of animals is built into the marrow of some large-scale, animal-use enterprises, whether they are organized spectator sports, production operations for fur or the meat trade, or even alternative health treatments.

Here at Animal Wellness Action, we are working to enact national policies to halt destructive, cruel, and dangerous animal trafficking practices, especially the international trade in live animals and animal parts destined for our mammoth trading partners of Mexico, Canada, and China.

These are immensely tough and consequential fights. We need your financial support and your unyielding advocacy to help put a stop to them.

Horses Sent for Slaughter to Mexico and Canada

We don’t allow the slaughter of horses for consumption in the United States, but our nation allows exporting live horses to our North American neighbors, which then turn around and sell the parts of the butchered animals to China and a handful of other nations.

This week, we released word that U.S. Department of Agriculture export data reveal that kill buyers shipped 17,997 horses from Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to slaughter plants in Mexico in 2023. This was the most significant annual percentage increase of live horse exports since 2012. (Final numbers are not yet available for live exports to Canada.)

We are sounding the alarm to lawmakers in Congress that healthy American equines are being butchered in a secretive, inhumane trade to Mexico. The animal welfare community and the Thoroughbred racing industry are united in demanding an end to this archaic, miserable, sickening trade.

An end to live exports of horses can be achieved by passing the SAFE Act.

Animals Trafficked Across the U.S. Southern Border for Combat

Perhaps the biggest form of illegal animal trafficking from the United States to Mexico comes in the form of animals bred and raised to fight. It’s happening with fighting dogs, but it’s a much larger problem with fighting birds. Hundreds of thousands of roosters are trafficked to cartels and other cockfighting enthusiasts in Mexico whose members and followers stage bloody fights for amusement and wagering.

Outbursts of human-on-human violence are not uncommon at these spectacles of cruelty, reminding us that animal cruelty often spawns disorder and other forms of violence in our society. This past weekend, six died and 13 were injured in a shoot-out at a cockfight in Guerrero. In 2022, 20 people were murdered and four injured after cartel members surprised a competing clan and burst into the venue with semiautomatic weapons blazing.

American cockfighters are consorting with this organized criminal industry, and the violent spillover is happening here in our homeland and in Mexico. The FIGHT Act will enhance tools to take on this problem.

Mink Pelts to Elites in China

The U.S. mink-producing sector is flailing, wracked by declining demand all over the world and the rampant viruses that course through factory farms that confine the animals. But the small mink industry stays alive in the United States because of trade with China, where just a small number of elite consumers in a nation of 1.4 billion can keep commerce flowing from 50 U.S.-based mink confinement facilities.

These mink farms are viral mixing bowls threatening public health with viruses from H5N1 (“bird flu”) to mutant strains of COVID-19. A massive worldwide SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in farmed mink has paralleled the human COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020, with outbreaks on at least 450 mink farms in 13 countries in Europe, Canada, and the United States.

We are working on federal legislation to put an end to an economically insignificant and virally dangerous industry—the “Stopping New PandeMINKS Act of 2024”—that causes immense cruelty to captive wildlife.

Bear Bile Trafficked to China

China is the biggest consumer of bear bile, and the United States and Canada have the world’s largest bear populations. That makes American black bears and other New World bears hot targets for poachers, who kill the animals for their gall bladders and may leave the rest of the animal to rot.

There are an estimated 50 million consumers of bear bile products for Traditional Chinese Medicine, according to one China-based market research firm. Its 2022 report noted “that the Chinese market for bear bile powder was worth nearly $62 million, making up for nearly 97% of the global market—and its value is only expected to increase in the coming years.” China sold 44.68 tons of bear bile powder in 2021, according to the report.

We should not kill sharks for their fins, elephants for their tusks, rhinos for their horns, or bears for their gall bladders. Our Bear Poaching Elimination Act is the answer to bear-bile-as-medicine quackery.

In each case, examining the details of trade in live animals and their parts reveals ruthless people without any concern at all for the well-being of animals. That’s why we cannot stand aside. We must confront these forms of transnational cruelty, and that’s exactly what we are doing through our lawmaking and enforcement work.

Please join us in fighting to halt the cruel trade in animals in Mexico, China, and Canada. Join our effort today.

For the animals,

Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action