Washington, DC (June 21, 2022)—Today, the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) commended the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies for advancing bipartisan language in its Fiscal Year 2023 funding bill that continues to maintain long-standing, critical prohibitions on selling wild horses and burros to slaughter and against the destruction of healthy animals as management tactics.
The bill appropriates $156 million for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program, $6 million less than what was proposed in the previous fiscal year. Additionally, according to the Committee’s press release, $11 million is to be set aside for reversible immunocontraceptive fertility control. This is the second year in a row that Congress has taken this important step in reforming the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. The effort to include fertility control immunocontraception language in the House bill has been championed by U.S. Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV), Steve Cohen (D-TN), and more than 65 other representatives as a move towards humane management of the nation’s iconic wild horses and burros. The bill will next move to the full committee for consideration.
“We are deeply grateful to Chair Chellie Pingree of the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior for upholding the wishes of the American public by continuing the prohibition on the slaughter and killing of our beloved wild horses and burros,” said Holly Gann Bice, director of government relations for AWHC. “We continue to urge the Bureau of Land Management to pursue a more sustainable and fiscally responsible strategy for the management of our nation’s cherished wild horses through the implementation of a robust reversible fertility control vaccine program.”
In recent weeks, the preventable deaths of 145 captive wild horses at a Colorado BLM holding facility sparked renewed attention to the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. The tragedy highlighted the need for urgent reform and prompted U.S. Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and Salud Carbajal (D-CA) to request an oversight hearing of the Program.
About the American Wild Horse Campaign
The American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) is the nation's leading wild horse protection organization, with more than 700,000 supporters and followers nationwide. AWHC is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse and burros in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. In addition to advocating for the protection and preservation of America's wild herds, AWHC implements the largest wild horse fertility control program in the world through a partnership with the State of Nevada for wild horses that live in the Virginia Range near Reno
