Budweiser Shareholder PETA to Confront InBev Execs Over Clydesdale Mutilations

For Immediate Release:
April 24, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

The horses are coming home to roost this Wednesday, when surprise stockholder PETA will be at the Anheuser-Busch InBev annual shareholder meeting in Brussels, Belgium, to propose that the company stop subsidiary Budweiser from cruelly severing the famous Clydesdales’ tailbones—a practice that is banned in Belgium. Outside the meeting, PETA supporters wearing huge horse masks will rally to protest the equine mutilations of the “King of Tears.”

PETA’s recent InBev stock purchase highlights the group’s determination to make sure its damning video exposé revealing that Budweiser amputates the horses’ tailbones by cutting them off or using a tight band that stops the blood supply to the tail, causing it to die and fall off—just so the Clydesdales will look a certain way when hitched to the beer wagon—will have repercussions that end the abuse. Cosmetic tailbone amputation, which is banned in 10 European Union countries and 10 U.S. states—causes horses pain, affects their balance, and removes their first line of defense against biting and disease-spreading insects.

“Severing the tailbone, part of the lower spine, is cruelty to animals and leaves horses permanently disfigured,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is demonstrating on the streets and speaking out in the boardroom to demand that Budweiser end its 90-year run of mutilating animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The full text of PETA’s question appears below.

WHEREAS:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals-US has revealed that the Budweiser Clydesdales, famous across the U.S for their many appearances at parades pulling the beer wagon, are disfigured when they are very young. Anheuser-Busch amputates their tailbones just so they’ll look a certain way. This cosmetic mutilation is extremely cruel because it  removes the horses’ first line of defense against biting and disease-spreading insects and negatively impacts their balance and communication. Tailbone amputation is illegal in Belgium and several other countries, as well as many states in America, and it is also opposed by leading veterinary and equine veterinary medical associations. I am asking, on behalf of PETA and GAIA: Will InBev Anheuser-Busch take action and prohibit this cruel and needless procedure?