Lander Journal: Wild horse program: A ‘pipeline to slaughter’?

Wild horse program: A ‘pipeline to slaughter’?

By Austin Beck-Doss with the Lander Journal, via the Wyoming News Exchange

LANDER — Recent estimates suggest that 7,000- plus wild horses roam Wyoming’s vast rangeland. Galloping freely across a fenceless horizon, these horses are beloved as a symbol of the West.

Still, considered by some to be an invasive detriment to healthy ecosystems and rangeland resources, these untamed horses remain a hot-button controversy.

In February, a bipartisan cohort of U.S. senators and representatives reintroduced the Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act, which would “permanently protect American horses from commercial slaughter.”

According to American Wild Horse Conservation, commercial slaughter is the eventual fate of a significant number of horses that are gathered and moved from Bureau of Land Management lands in Wyoming.

AWHC is a leading wild horse conservation organization, and an outspoken proponent of the SAFE Act. The act’s reintroduction and language is aligned with AWHC’s assertion that the BLM’s active wild horse Adoption Incentive Program has become a “pipeline to equine slaughter.”

Per the Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service are responsible for managing wild horse herds on federal land. When these agencies deem wild horse populations too large for sustainable ecosystem health, population reduction and removal are standard aspects of management.

The BLM first launched the AIP in 2019 in order to move a surplus of wild horses out of holding corrals and into “good homes.” Using records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, AWHC has tracked and investigated the efficacy of the AIP.

According to research led by AWHC Senior Communications Manager Amerlia Perrin, 840 BLM-branded horses that passed through the AIP were identified in “kill pens” over 19 months from 2020-2022.

“Wild horses are vulnerable to entering the slaughter pipeline due to the BLM’s mass roundup and removal program,” Perrin claimed. “Once horses are gathered, they enter the AIP, where adopters are offered $1,000 to take ownership of a wild horse or burro. Unfortunately, our research shows that people are pocketing that money and moving the horses on to kill pens.”

For the BLM in Wyoming, wild horse roundups have been a common management strategy in recent years.

Last July, 2,577 horses were gathered and hauled off the North Lander Complex – a 375,000-acre swath of east central Fremont County north of Jeffrey City. For gathers of this magnitude, helicopters are used to corral the horses into holding pens, where they are transferred onto trailers and moved to holding sites and prepared for adoption.

A 2021 New York Times expose suggested that the BLM’s $1,000 adoption incentive encourages adopters to take as many horses as possible and resell them at auctions frequented by “kill buyers” in order to make a quick total profit of around $1,500 per horse.

While adopters are technically limited to four animals per year, Perrin noted that “there’s still a lot of money to be made for doing almost nothing.”

To protect horses from mistreatment or slaughter after adoption, the BLM requires adopters to sign an application that reads “I will provide humane care for any animals that I adopt and I will not knowingly sell or transfer … for slaughter or processing into commercial products.”

Additionally, the AIP states that, prior to the title transfer of any horse adopted through the program, “compliance inspections should be completed.”

Still, Perrin says these efforts have not been successful in keeping wild horses out of the slaughter pipeline.

Perrin claims that passage of the SAFE Act would make it more difficult for adopters to sell their horses to commercial slaughterhouses, and yet, she does not consider the legislation to be a comprehensive solution.

At the heart of its platform, AWHC advocates for two key changes to the BLM’s wild horse management efforts.

“First, adoptions should be de-incentivized,” Perrin said. “That way there is no money to be made, and horses are more likely to end up with people who actually want to take care of them.”

On March 3, a federal court in Denver ruled that the AIP violated “multiple federal laws” and called for “vigorous public comment and agency review [of the BLM],” effectively pausing the AIP indefinitely.

Second, AWHC wants to end large-scale helicopter horse gathers.

“Wild horses should be managed on the range using fertility control,” said Perrin. “There are currently over  66,000 horses being held in BLM facilities. Switching to on-range management would save taxpayers a lot of money.”

In theory, fertility control-based on-range management would keep wild horses out of the adoption-to-slaughter pipeline.

Though helicopter gathers remain common across the West, the BLM already uses on-range management tools, including “catch-treat-hold-release” fertility control vaccines.

“We stand ready to collaborate with the BLM, especially in Wyoming, to completely replace helicopter gathers with fertility control,” Perrin said.

Though the BLM’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and its Lander office declined to comment on the SAFE Act and AWHC’s allegations regarding the AIP, its “Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program” states that the agency is “committed to protecting animal welfare and providing humane care and treatment to all wild horses.”

This story was published on March 8, 2025.