By Holly Gann Bice, Special to Reno Gazette Journal
December 7, 2021
This opinion column was submitted by Holly Gann Bice, government relations director for the American Wild Horse Campaign.
Is the treatment of our nation’s wild horses tilting from cruelty and ignorance of science to compassion and common sense?
It’s too early to tell, but an encouraging sign is a recent move by the U.S. Senate and House Appropriations Committees to protect wild horses in its fiscal year 2022 Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies bills.
The bills allocate $11 million in dedicated funding to “implement a robust and humane fertility control strategy of reversible immunocontraceptive vaccines.” This is a significant change of tune, considering the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is charged with managing our wild horses, has long undervalued this proven, cost-effective way to manage mustang herds in the West, instead resorting to cruel helicopter roundups
Currently, the BLM spends less than 1% of its Wild Horse and Burro Program budget on fertility control, but spends the vast majority of its budget — more than two-thirds — in taxpayer dollars annually rounding up horses from the range and keeping them in off-range holding facilities indefinitely. This brutal roundup process often results in injury or death. In May 2020, under the previous administration, the BLM released a management plan that called for the removal of more than 90,000 wild horses and burros from public lands within the first five years. The plan would balloon the number of horses and burros warehoused in holding pens and cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in those first five years alone.
Worse yet, the roundups don’t work to control horse populations. While roundups may appear to provide a quick immediate fix, the National Academy of Sciences in a 2013 report noted that rounding up and removing horses from the range actually actually increases population growth rates, meaning that the BLM is caught in a vicious circle of having to round up yet more horses each year at a higher and higher cost to Americans’ pocketbooks.
In the same report, the NAS recommended fertility control vaccines as a better way to manage wild horses, calling the approach “a more affordable option than continuing to remove horses to long-term holding facilities.”
It appears that this message is finally being heard in Washington. A serious investment in fertility control can help yield a humane on-range management strategy that will ultimately help keep mustangs in the wild where they belong, while reducing the money wasted on roundups. Sen. Cory Booker, Subcommittee Chair Jeff Merkley, Reps. Dina Titus, Steve Cohen, Mark Pocan, Subcommittee Chair Chellie Pingree and others are providing the necessary leadership to place the BLM on a more sustainable and fiscally responsible track for the humane management of our Western herds.
Importantly, the Interior bills also maintain long-standing, critical provisions intended to prevent wild horses and burros from being sent to slaughter. Additionally, the House report called for a review of the BLM’s “Adoption Incentive Program,” which pays individuals $1,000 to adopt an untamed wild horse. A New York Times investigation exposed this program for funneling wild horses into the slaughter pipeline; it provides an economic incentive for those looking to flip horses to slaughter — and the BLM takes no responsibility for what happens.
It’s time to make a change in how BLM manages wild horses and burros, and we support inclusion of these important reforms in the final FY22 spending package passed by Congress. We are hopeful that our government will one day soon finally honor the promise members of Congress made 50 years ago when they unanimously passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and declared wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West (that) contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.”
Originally posted by Reno Gazette Journal
