John,

Over 4,000 pregnant mares suffer a sickening fate every single year. They’re used as living blood factories, repeatedly beaten and impregnated so their blood can be drained.

Disturbing footage shows the reality of this torture: mares trembling in fear and violently beaten with electric rods. Then, their babies are systematically aborted or slaughtered, all so pharmaceutical company Ísteka can sell a hormone extracted from their blood (PMSG) for industrial pig breeding.

Iceland is the only country in Europe that still allows the brutal practice – and it just approved a NEW two-year licence to allow Ísteka to keep this torture going.

We have a plan to end it!

An Icelandic lawyer specialising in animal welfare law is preparing a formal complaint against the license that could stop it for good — but legal action in Iceland is expensive and they’ve come to us for help.

Together, we can help fund this legal fight, support local groups on the ground, and challenge a cruel industry that should never have been approved in the first place. Can you rush a donation to end the cruelty and shut down Iceland’s horse blood farms for good?

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Our partners, the Animal Welfare Foundation and Tierschutzbund Zürich, have documented the horrors of these horse blood farms. Terrified horses struggling against restraints, injuries caused by handling, and repeated blood extraction during pregnancy.

The decision to renew Ísteka’s license came despite years of public outrage. It came despite 300,000 people demanding an end to the practice. And it came despite a simple fact: countries including Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, and even Iceland itself have already shown that farming can operate without PMSG.

Under Iceland's own animal welfare laws, suffering must be reduced whenever possible and replaced altogether when alternatives exist. So Ekō, alongside a coalition of local and international animal protection groups, is backing this legal challenge to fight back before more horses suffer.

If the authorities act on our complaint, as they should, Iceland will have no choice but to revoke Ísteka’s licence altogether. But this is not just about one licence — it’s about ending a system that treats gentle, intelligent mares as machines to be bled. If this licence is revoked, the entire Icelandic blood farming industry would collapse.

Our movement has been working for years to stop this cruelty and Ísteka is the beating heart of it. But now that the license was approved, we need to move quickly. Can you urgently chip in to help end this cruelty and defend animals from brutal exploitation?

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Your donation will help power Ekō and our campaigns worldwide fighting for people and the planet.