Investigation Confirms BLM Illegally Sold Federally Protected Wild Horses for Slaughter

October 23, 2015

AWHC Contributor

BLM Employee Who Sold Horses Given “Monetary Awards”

Washington, DC (October 23, 2015)... The Interior Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) today released a report confirming that between 2009-2012 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sold 1,794 federally-protected wild horses to a Colorado rancher and noted horse slaughter proponent, Tom Davis, who sold them to slaughter. The sale of the horses for slaughter violated BLM policy and a Congressional ban.

The report reveals that the agency continued to sell horses to Davis even after receiving information that he was sending horses to slaughter. The employee who sold the horses to Davis received performance-based “monetary awards” based on the number of horses she sold or adopted out.

Despite these findings, the OIG does not hold any BLM officials accountable for wrongdoing.

“It took more than three years for the OIG to confirm what we’ve always known – that the BLM sold 1,795 federally-protected wild horses to a known kill buyer who sold them to slaughter,” said Suzanne Roy, Director of the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation). “Unfortunately, there will be no justice for these mustangs, who suffered brutal deaths in Mexican slaughter plants. No one at the BLM is being held accountable for this betrayal, and Tom Davis is not being prosecuted for violating his contractual obligation to not sell the horses for slaughter.”

Key Findings of the Report

“BLM did not follow current law while managing WH&B. BLM also failed to follow its own policy of limiting horse sales and ensuring that the horses sold went to good homes and were not slaughtered.”
Davis said that “in selling him so many loads of horses, BLM had to know that the horses would end up at a slaughterhouse.”
Taxpayers paid $140,000 to deliver truckloads of horses to Davis. Davis paid $10 a piece for the horses, or less than $18,000 total, and made as much as $154,000 by selling them for slaughter.
BLM employees never attempted to verify the information that Davis provided regarding his intentions for the horses, despite the unusually large number of horses being sold to him, and never stopped selling horses to Davis despite receiving information that Davis was sending horses to slaughter.
The “marketing specialist” who sold the horses to Davis received monetary awards and superior performance appraisals based in part on the number of horses she sold during the period she was selling horses to Davis.
This marketing specialist “said she never had any reason to doubt the information on Davis’ applications, even after he refused to tell her who he sold the horses to...”
The OIG declined to investigate alleged ties between Davis and former Secretary of Agriculture and fellow Coloradan, Ken Salazar.

"The solution to wild horse management is not selling horses and burros for slaughter," Roy concluded. "It's time for BLM to stop rounding up wild horses and burros, stop stockpiling them in holding facilities and start managing them humanely on-the-range using the safe and effective PZP fertility control vaccine, as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences."

According to AWHC, the vast majority of Americans oppose horse slaughter and support protecting wild horses and burros on public lands in the West.

The BLM's sale of wild horses to Davis was first exposed by ProPublica on September 28, 2014.

The American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation) is dedicated to defending America’s wild horses and burros to protect their freedom, preserve their habitat, and promote humane standards of treatment. AWHC’s mission to preserve and protect wild horses and burros in viable free-roaming herds on public lands for generations to come is endorsed by a coalition of more than 60 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations.