America’s wild horses could be slaughtered in their thousands if the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) gets approval for its proposal to sell the horses without limitations.
The agency, tasked with caring for the horses on the range as well as those held in captivity, says the current program for maintaining the horses is unsustainable.
The BLM, in seeking $US1.1 billion to run all its operations for the 2018 fiscal year, is seeking Congressional support to address what it calls the explosive cost growth in its Wild Horse and Burro Management program.
Horse advocacy groups have condemned the proposals, with one saying the plan smacked of lazy government. Another warning that the proposal set the stage for the “virtual extinction of these national icons from the West.” They believe the lives of 100,000 horses are put at risk by the budget proposals.
The BLM, arguing for a relaxation of current requirements around how it managed the wild horses, said consistent growth in annual costs for the program was unsustainable and constrained its ability to effectively address competing uses of public lands.
“The Administration seeks greater flexibility in managing the Wild Horse and Burro Management program to drive down the long-term costs in the program [and] achieve key goals.”
Over the past eight years, the program’s budget had more than doubled, rising from $US36.2 million in 2008 to $US80.4 million in 2017.
Despite these increases, it acknowledged that the program remained far from achieving a key statutory obligation under the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971: maintaining animal populations on the range at appropriate management levels.
The program’s budget has been principally consumed by the cost to care for excess animals in off-range facilities, it said.
“A new approach is needed, particularly when overall Federal funding is so constrained,” it said in supporting documentation for the 2018 budget.
“As such, the budget proposes to give BLM the tools it needs to manage this program in a more cost-effective manner, including the ability to conduct sales without limitation.
“The budget proposes to eliminate appropriations language restricting BLM from using all of the management options authorized under legislation.”
However, advocates believe that sales without limitations would open the door to kill buyers, providing a potentially cheap source of horses to feed the slaughter pipeline.
The BLM said it could actually decrease funding for the wild horse program through reducing gathers, reducing birth control treatments, and other activities deemed inconsistent with prudent management of the program.
“The long-term goal is to realign program costs and animal populations to more manageable levels.”
It said it was seeking the removal of language that currently restricted the BLM’s ability “to use all of the management tools authorized in the 1971 Act”.
It also wants more freedom to transfer horses and burros to other public entities such as local, state, and federal agencies which have a need for domestic work animals.
The proposal was immediately condemned by the American Wild Horse Campaign, which suggested the budget request effectively amounted to the BLM seeking approval from Congress to kill nearly 100,000 wild horses and burros.
It called on US President Donald Trump to intervene to save the animals.
The group asserted that the “management tools” sought by the agency would result in the mass killing of horses.
“The Bureau of Land Management is asking Congress to give the green light for the brutal slaughter of nearly 100,000 mustangs and burros – both in holding and on the range – and to set the stage for the virtual extinction of these national icons from the West,” its executive director, Suzanne Roy, said.
“This lethal budget is wildly out of step with the wishes of the American people, and the American public will not stand for this travesty.”
The nonprofit group pointed to polls showing that 3 in 4 Americans wanted wild horses protected on public lands, and 80% of Americans opposed horse slaughter.
“President Trump promised to return government to the people, and we trust that he meant it,” Roy said.
“Now we call on him to respect the will of the people by intervening to save America’s mustangs. America can’t be great if these national symbols of freedom are destroyed.”
It said the BLM used helicopters to round up and remove thousands of federally protected wild horses and burros from public lands each year to make room for taxpayer-subsidized livestock grazing.
The agency had removed so many mustangs from public lands that it currently maintained 46,000 captured wild horses and burros in government holding facilities.
Both horses in holding and those considered to be above federally set management levels on the range would be killed en masse if Congress were to grant the BLM’s budget request, it asserted.
“These innocent and publicly cherished animals should not pay the ultimate price for the federal government’s gross mismanagement and trampling of science and the will of the American people to protect these national legacy animals.”
She said science contradicted the BLM’s assertions that no humane management tools were available, referencing the 2013 National Academy of Sciences review of the federal wild horse and burro program.
The agency had chosen to use the PZP birth control vaccine in no more than a token manner, opting instead for helicopter roundups, it said.
The group said it would vigorously oppose the budget request and would continue to press the Administration and Congress to protect and humanely manage America’s wild horse and burros.
Another advocacy group, Wild Horse Education, called on the American public to call legislators in Congress to make it clear they would not tolerate the killing or sale to slaughter of America’s wild horses.
“This budget proposal is an example of lazy government,” its founder, Laura Leigh, said.
“This is simply one more gift to the livestock industry.
“Instead of the budget allocating funding for personnel to get the federal grazing program under control to protect the land we keep putting that burden on the back of the horse.
“The livestock industry has resented federal control of any public resource for decades. This is simply a way to placate a very well funded and vocal livestock lobby.”
She continued: “This is not something the American public will take lightly.
“However, perhaps it had to reach this point before people pay attention to the structure of federal management?
“Federal management of public land is not over restrictive to industry, it caters to industry. In the very few cases where the BLM has tried to do the right thing for the resource, the push back both internally and externally is overwhelming.”
