Our Story

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Our story began almost six years ago when the  founder and Executive Director,  Georgianna Fox, of Bodega Meadows Horse  Sanctuary, rescued two draft cross mares from a kill pen in Fallon,  Nevada. One of the mares, Olive,  turned out to be heavy in foal and  four months later gave birth to a  colt named Kolo. 

It  wasn’t until, the founder of the sanctuary purchased a 14.5-acre  property in the beautiful countryside of West Sonoma County, California,  in the little town of Bodega, that the sanctuary went from a dream to  reality. In May of 2020, the sanctuary became a legal non-profit 501c3.  To date, the sanctuary has rescued ten horses and is expecting at least  one foal to deliver anytime between now and the spring of 2021.

Our  mission began with the hopes of rescuing as many horses as the  sanctuary could afford to take care of indefinitely. Although it would  be ideal to adopt-out rescued horses,  the sanctuary’s focus is to  provide love, care, rehabilitation,  training, and a forever home. Many  of our rescues are not suitable for re-homing, due to either the abuse  they endured in their previous life,  their age, or their physical  status. 

We have had a good first  calendar year here at the sanctuary. We have some lovely volunteers who  enjoy pampering the horses and cleaning up after them. Donations have  begun to funnel in which is a great help in keeping all of the horse’s  bellies full and getting necessary veterinarian and hoof care. The  founder has created more shelter so that each horse has a clean, dry  place to eat and hang out in when not roaming the pastures. The  sanctuary has developed a relationship with a very talented horse  trainer, Leanne Wildman, who is helping to make some of our horses safer  to handle and others able to be ridden. 

We  are kick-starting the New Year with our brand new membership program.  This program will help us to provide rescued horses with rehabilitation,  veterinary care, feed, farrier services, and training.

The  sanctuary needs advertising/marketing, grant writers, website  designers, equipment,  fencing repair, tree trimming, horse training,  veterinarian care, hoof trimmings, etc., etc. We are also in need of  more board members,  specifically, members who can help the sanctuary  thrive. 

Our dream is to educate the  public about the horrific practices of horse slaughter and help put an  end to the role Americans play, by making it  illegal to slaughter  horses in the U.S. and the transport of horses abroad for this purpose.    

Americans  have never raised horses for human consumption, but that has  not  stopped U.S. horses from being sold to other countries for their  meat.  Until 2007, thousands of horses were inhumanely slaughtered here  on  U.S. soil by foreign-owned slaughter plants and then shipped to  Europe  and Asia. The state of Texas banned horse slaughter in 2007 and  the  state of Illinois followed suit. Although horse slaughter was no  longer  taking place in U.S, that did not stop foreign countries from   purchasing our horses and shipping them to Canada and Mexico to be   slaughtered and served in high-end restaurants in countries like Japan,   France, Italy, and Belgium.
 

Presently there is no federal law   prohibiting slaughter plants from opening in the U.S in states where there is no ban. In 2008, attempts were made in places like South  Dakota  and Illinois. Currently, there is a bill, written in 2019,  tilted,  Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act (H.R. 961), which  would make  it illegal to slaughter horses in the U.S. and export abroad  for this  purpose.
 

Every year over 80,000 American  horses are shipped to  Canada and Mexico to be slaughtered for  consumption. Horses are  purchased by middlemen known as “kill buyers”  at livestock auctions  across the U.S. from unsuspecting owners needing  to sell their animal.  Kill buyers often outbid other buyers looking to  buy a sound horse.  Unfortunately, some horses are purposefully sold  into slaughter by irresponsible owners who are looking to downsize  their stock due to  over breeding.
 

When American horses are purchased  from a kill  buyer, they are sent to a holding facility such as a  feedlot, where they  are then shipped off to Canada and Mexico.  Transportation for these  horses is awful. They are packed into  overcrowded trailers, where their  journey is often over 24 hours long  and they are deprived of food and  water.
 

If that is not horrific enough,  when the horses arrive  at the slaughterhouse, the suffering continues  unabated. Often, they are  left in trailers for long periods of time in  the sweltering heat or the  freezing cold. When a horse falls in a  trailer they are unable to get  back up and then are crushed by the  other frightened horses. The horses  are regularly offloaded with  excessive force.
 

Once off the  trailers, the horses  are herded through the slaughter plant where  heartless workers use rods  made from fiberglass to poke and trounce  their faces, necks, legs, and  backs as the frightened horses are pushed  through the facility and  into a kill box. There is footage that shows  horses being repeatedly  stabbed in the neck with knives before being  slaughtered. This cruel  practice paralyzes the horse all the while it  remains fully conscious  at the start of the slaughter process. The  animal is then hung by a  hind leg, its throat sliced and body butchered.