A Tuesday, July 18, meeting in Washington, D.C., could determine whether thousands of wild horses and burros on public lands will face euthanasia or sale to slaughterhouses.
At the meeting, the House Appropriations Committee will review the fiscal 2018 spending bill for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and related areas. The review is commonly referred to as a markup.
Included in the $31.4 billion bill is language that forbids the killing or sale for slaughter of wild horses and burros roaming millions of acres in the West.
That language has been a part of prior House spending bills. But the Trump administration wants to take out the language to deal with what officials say is a horse overpopulation problem that threatens to damage public lands and overwhelm the budget for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program.
Wild horse advocacy groups have mobilized to keep the language, saying wild horses are an enduring symbol of the West. Advocates question the BLM’s horse population data and fault the bureau for not aggressively pursuing birth control vaccines to curb the herd’s numbers.
They’ve also pressured Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that deals with interior spending. The American Wild Horse Campaign on Monday, July 17, released a poll showing 78 percent of voters in Calvert’s district favor the ban on wild horse slaughter.
“Sanctioning the slaughter of tens of thousands of horses is a disgraceful, shameful idea. It is an unacceptable idea that will produce protests in the streets, from Reno to Washington, D.C.,” Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, said in a news release. “Mass slaughter will happen only over the cries, protests and interventions of the American people.”
Calvert sounds willing to at least consider an amendment to allow for wild horses to be put down or sold for slaughter.
“In a perfect world, these animals would be adopted and we wouldn’t have this problem,” Calvert said July 13. “The horses that are on the range, it’s not just a matter of health of the herd, it’s a matter of the health of the environment.”
Noting the $80 million cost of the BLM’s wild horse program, Calvert said there are other pressing needs – Indian Health Service funding, for example – in the interior budget.
“There’s only so many dollars, and so we’ve got to get control of this horse issue because this number is only going to increase,” Calvert said. “I want a humane and practical solution. Some of these horses are in bad shape and that’s not right either.”
“We’ll look at (an amendment) if it comes up,” the congressman said. “I don’t want to see any animals destroyed. But it happens because there’s only so many resources.”
Last week, Calvert voted against an amendment to ban federal funding for inspections of horses ticketed for slaughter. The amendment offered by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Downey, failed by a 27-25 vote in the appropriations committee.
“This is an incredibly difficult issue because everyone wants horses to be treated humanely,” Calvert said in a written statement after the vote. “The question ultimately becomes what is the most humane way to deal with horses at the end of their life? Subjecting horses to travel long distances in poor conditions to be killed in a Mexican slaughterhouse under poor conditions – or – having highly regulated, humane facilities closer to the horses.”
COMMITTEE HEARING
The House Appropriations Committee will do a full markup of the fiscal 2018 spending bill for the Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency and related agencies.
Included in the bill is language that would prevent wild horses and burros on public lands from being euthanized or sold to slaughterhouses.
When: 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 18.
Watch the meeting: Go to appropriations.house.gov.
