PHOENIX, ARIZ. (September 25, 2017) – Continuing to highlight Arizona Senator Jeff Flake’s key role in stopping the mass slaughter of more than 90,000 wild horses on public lands throughout Arizona and the Western United States, the American Wild Horse Campaign has launched a new billboard in Phoenix promoting recent research showing 80% of Americans oppose this brutal practice. The billboard is currently appearing at the intersection of S. 24th St. and E. Buckeye Road near the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Senator Flake is a member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining, which has jurisdiction over public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service.
In July, the House Appropriations Committee passed legislation that would remove protections on slaughtering America’s wild horses that have been in place since 1971. This language change, which was slipped into the 2018 federal budget at the request of the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, will authorize the unrestricted “culling” of herds using brutal methods to kill wild horses and burros on the open range and in holding facilities.
“Horse hating Representatives have taken steps to end protections for America’s wild horses and open them up to mass slaughter, and their fate is now in the Senate’s hands,” said Simone Netherlands, president of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group and national spokesperson for the American Wild Horse Campaign. “We now have to call on Senator Flake to reverse this death warrant that the House of Representatives has issued for these peaceful animals, icons of the American West. We ask both of our Senators who have stood up for the Salt River wild horses before, to do everything in their power to keep them America's wild horses under federal protection.”
Earlier this month, Netherlands and a group of volunteers delivered a petition signed by 300,000 Americans to Senator Flake’s Phoenix office.
“If the Senate allows the House language to be implemented, there is no telling how many thousands of wild horses and burros will meet a horrible and cruel fate, " Netherlands continued, instead we need to protect and manage them humanely on the range, that is what the American Public wants and believes."
In a survey taken this summer, 80 percent of Americans said they opposed cruel practices and wanted the current protections to remain in place. In 2013, the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the BLM use the PZP birth control vaccine to humanely control population growth rates on the range. The availability of this proven, scientific and cost-effective management tool renders the BLM’s lethal plan unnecessary and outrageous, Netherlands concluded.
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About the American Wild Horse Campaign
The American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) (formerly known as the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign) is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. Its grassroots mission is endorsed by a coalition of more than 60 horse advocacy, humane and public interest organizations.
About the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group
The Salt River Wild Horse Management Group (SRWHMG) is an Arizona non-profit organization dedicated to protect, monitor and study the Salt River wild horses. The SRWHMG has been spearheading the effort to secure lasting protections for this iconic and beloved wild horse herd in the Tonto National Forest.
