Former Seahawk and family caring for rescued horses
May 20, 2015, 4:33 PM | Updated: May 21, 2015, 11:10 am
Former Seahawk Joe Tafoya is tackling something other than football players these days. (AP photo)
(AP photo)
Former Seahawk Joe Tafoya is tackling something other than football players these days.
The Pittsburg, Calif. native, now living outside of Redmond, is saving at-risk wild horses.
Tafoya’s family recently adopted 14 horses from an Indian reservation, where the over-population of horses was causing them to starve. Over-populations of horses force the owners to auction them off, which means they are rescued, sent to rodeos or slaughtered.
“The real issue is overpopulation,” Tafoya told KING 5. “It’s over-breeding, and it’s the fact that there are many, many horse owners out there that shouldn’t have a horse to begin with.”
Because the cost of rehabilitating the horses is expensive, the family set up a gofundme.com page.
“Our veterinarian has basically been living at our farm, performing procedure after procedure trying to keep [one of the horses alive],” Brandelyn Tafoya wrote on the page. The vet bills, she added, are adding up “very quickly.”
In mid-April, all the horses were treated for lice, ticks and worms. The family discovered the horses were infested with intestinal worms.
“It is a miracle that any of them have survived this long!!!” Brandelyn wrote.
Tafoya’s wife’s family has rescued horses for 20 years. That work has included rescue, rehab and care.
Tafoya played seven seasons in the NFL as a defensive end and linebacker. Drafted in 2001 as a seventh-round pick, he was eventually picked up by the Seattle Seahawks as a free agent, after spending three seasons with the Chicago Bears.
Tafoya played in the 2005 Super Bowl game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Tafoya is now working on making horse slaughtering illegal in Washington, according to the Redmond Reporter. Though slaughtering isn’t practiced in the state, it has yet to be outlawed, Tafoya said. He founded the Washington Horse Defense Coalition.
“There are so many reasons why it’s wrong to slaughter horses,” Tafoya told the Reporter.
Tafoya was also behind the first effort to break a noise record at CenturyLink Field.
