Actor Liam Neeson narrates a new short film about the history of the Central Park carriage horses in New York City.
The 10-minute film is part of the "Save Our Horses" campaign recently launched by the
New York Daily News in April in response to Mayor Bill de Blasio's promise to get rid of the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park in Manhattan on the grounds that working horses in Manhattan traffic is inhumane.
The film cost about $3,000 to make, but Neeson contributed for free. It was made by award-winning writers and producers Mary Haverstick and Michele Mercure.
It begins with a short history of the role horses have played in human history before addressing the current controversy.
"When man filmed the first moving images, he turned the camera on something deeply familiar: a companion that had been by his side for thousand of years," Neeson says, according to the Daily News. "And when he built ships and roads and cities, they did the work side by side. Now their work together is mostly forgotten, and only a rare few of us still carry forward that ancient bond."
De Blasio vowed to get rid of the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park as part of a campaign promise, and is backing a measure by the
City Council that would ban them.
Neeson joined those who oppose the ban in February and became a de facto spokesman against the proposal.
Animal rights activists who support the ban picketed Neeson's Manhattan apartment building in April.