Speak Out Against Plan to Kill Thousands of Wild Horses

Bureau of Land Management Proposal to Euthanize Wild Horses
ASPCA Position: Oppose
Action Needed: Please email the letter below  to request opposition to the BLM's plan.

In 1971, Congress unanimously passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act to stop the mass slaughter and commercial exploitation of these magnificent animals. Unfortunately, in the last few years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior that administrates the National Wild Horse and Burro Program, has changed leadership and direction, and tragically, wild horses have paid the price.

Despite protests from wild horse advocates, the agency began rounding up wild horses at an unprecedented rate. Adoption demand could not keep pace with such drastic removals, requiring the BLM to pay for more and more private, long-term holding facilities. Today, this policy has resulted in almost one-half of the wild horse population languishing in holding pens.

Now, BLM officials are seriously considering euthanizing thousands of these healthy horses due to budget constraints. However, there are many unanswered questions that the agency needs to address before such drastic measures should be considered.

As Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, wrote in a July 9 letter to the BLM:The potential for wholesale killing of thousands of healthy wild horses marks a complete turnaround in management policy.  [I]t has never been used in the history of this 37-year-old Act.

As a constituent, I am writing to ask you to prevent the Bureau of Land Management from rounding up and euthanizing thousands of wild horses.


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