Washington, D.C. (Jan 13, 2021) — Today, the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC), the nation’s leading wild horse protection organization, delivered a First 100 Day Wild Horse Agenda to the Biden Administration, with an urgent plea for reform of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) wild horse and burro management program, which is careening toward a fiscal and animal welfare disaster. 

Urgent action is necessary in light of the BLM’s plan to round up 90,000 wild horses and burros from public lands over the next five years, a move that would triple the number of horses maintained in off-range holding facilities while decimating wild herds at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $1 billion. The high price tag associated with the plan makes wild horse and burro slaughter virtually inevitable, despite the overwhelming opposition of the American public to this option. 

AWHC’s first 100 day agenda focuses on five areas, as follows:

• Issuing a Presidential Proclamation affirming and recognizing the importance of wild horses and burros to our nation by designating them as historic and cultural resources in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. 
• Maintaining protections from slaughter and prioritizing humane management with fertility control in the Administration's FY 2022 Budget Request to Congress. 
• Suspending the BLM’s mass roundup plan for wild horses and burros and limiting roundups to emergency-only operations.
• Rescinding the Decision Record authorizing the BLM to proceed with invasive ovariectomy sterilization surgeries on wild mares, which the NAS concluded were “inadvisable for field application” due to risk of internal bleeding and infection.
• Suspending the BLM’s Adoption Incentive Program pending investigation of the increased number of mustangs being sold in slaughter auctions.

“By implementing the American Wild Horse Campaign 100-day agenda promptly and definitively, the Biden Administration can set the stage for reform of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Program, which has been mismanaged for decades at great cost to American taxpayers and the wild horses and burros they want to protect on our public lands,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of the AWHC.

There is a mass roundup taking place this month in the Eagle Complex in Nevada, which will remove 1,000 wild horses and leave a remnant herd of just 139 horses on1,200 square miles of public land designated as their habitat. 

“The cruel and costly wild horse roundup underway right now in Nevada is emblematic of the BLM’s fiscally reckless and inhumane management policies that threaten the very future of the nation’s iconic and federally-protected wild horse and burro populations. This is a crisis that warrants immediate attention from the incoming administration,” Roy concluded.

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.