AWHC’s Litigation to End the Adoption Incentive Program

Background

On January 30, 2019, the BLM published Instruction Memorandum IM 2019-025, Adoption Incentive Program for Wild Horses and Burros. The policy summary stated that the AIP was developed in order to increase the number of adoptions of untrained wild horses and burros by offering financial incentives: two payments of $500. The first incentive payment is made within 60-90 days of the adoption date and the second $500 payment is made within 60-90 days of the title date. It was presumed, but not required, that adopters would use AIP money for training and initial care of these ungentled wild horses and burros. Each individual was able to adopt a maximum of four wild equines.

In November 2020, AWHC began receiving reports from rescue groups about an influx of BLM-branded wild horses and burros to known kill pens. The timing of the influx (beginning in March 2020) coincided with the one-year mark for the AIP and the corresponding payment of the final cash incentive installment. Prior to the AIP, BLM horses and burros were being sold at kill pens, but in far fewer numbers, and often were trained animals who had been in the domestic market for some time. Now, rescues were looking at large groups (often in multiples of four) of completely wild equines. Some still had BLM holding facility tags around their necks over a year after their adoption date.

AWHC’s investigation led to a front-page New York Times Exposé that revealed that the AIP was sending “truckloads” of wild horses and burros to slaughter. Following the NYT report, AWHC submitted a report to the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the BLM on May 19, 2021. Then, on June 3, 2021, AWHC submitted a formal rulemaking petition pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 553(e), which requested the BLM either withdraw the AIP in its entirety or, if the agency insisted on retaining the AIP in some form, impose a moratorium on any further payments under the AIP while the agency engaged in formal notice-and-comment rulemaking to design a program that complies with federal law.

The Lawsuit

When the agency failed to respond to our petition, AWHC and its coalition partners filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the DOI and BLM, claiming that the agencies violated multiple federal laws in the creation and implementation of the BLM’s controversial AIP for wild horses and burros. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the groups by Eubanks and Associates, a top national public interest environmental law firm. Since the case was filed in July 2021, it was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

2023 Update: Oral arguments have been requested.

Additional Actions

Since our lawsuit was filed, the BLM released a set of reforms to the program on July 26, 2021. However, these changes are inadequate and actually make the situation worse by weakening the contract that adopters sign agreeing not to send their adopted animals to slaughter. An in-depth analysis of these reforms can be accessed here.

AWHC maintains that in order to guarantee that our federally protected wild horses and burros are treated in a humane way that ensures their health and well-being, the agency must abandon cash incentives. As we are seeing daily, when animals and money collide, the animals lose.