Victory! Wild Horses and Burros Get a Reprieve From Slaughter
Animal advocates are celebrating a major victory as Congress has protected wild horses and burros from roundups and slaughter with the 2018 spending bill. This marks a significant win in the ongoing battle to safeguard these iconic animals on public lands.
Despite the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, which protects wild horses from capture, branding, harassment, or death, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has continued to remove and warehouse thousands of wild horses at taxpayers' expense. The majority of Americans strongly oppose the agency's cruel and wasteful mismanagement of these American icons.
Advocates have persistently pushed for measures to protect them on public lands, but the agency has increasingly catered to special interests that want them gone.
Last year, the House Appropriations Committee passed the spending bill with the Stewart Amendment, which would have allowed the BLM to kill 92,000 healthy wild horses currently in holding, as well as those deemed excess on the range.
The backlash was swift. Hundreds of thousands of people called their representatives, wrote letters, and signed petitions in opposition. More than 163,000 people signed a Care2 petition alone, urging Congress to protect wild horses and burros from roundups and slaughter.
Now, everyone who spoke out can celebrate a win with news that Congress has maintained prohibitions on destroying or slaughtering healthy wild horses and burros.
“The power of the people has prevailed,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign). “We’re pleased that Congress has chosen to stand with the 80 percent of Americans who want America’s horses to be protected, not brutally slaughtered. We especially want to thank Senator Lisa Murkowski and Senator Tom Udall for including wild horse protections in the Senate bill and insisting that they be contained in the final bill.”
The latest budget passed by the House also prohibits government funding for horse slaughter inspections, effectively preventing horse slaughter operations from resuming on U.S. soil.
“For the love of America’s heritage, for the respect of wild horses and burros, we are thrilled that Congress has rejected this sick horse slaughter plan,” said Marilyn Kroplick M.D., President of In Defense of Animals. “Congress has sent an important message that it will not have the blood of sentient beings on its hands. This is a victory for animal advocates and the majority of Americans who want solutions, not slaughter.”
While this is a major victory, the bill expires in September, and the 2019 budget request is again calling for the bans on the killing and slaughter of mustangs and burros to be lifted. As the battle continues, wild horse advocates will work to oppose any measures allowing slaughter and support humane management on the range.
“America’s mustangs are icons of the West, and the American people want to keep our wild horses wild on the Western range,” Roy added. “We call on the Trump Administration to work with the non-profit sector to implement humane, scientific, and publicly acceptable management solutions to protect these cherished animals on our Western public lands for future generations to enjoy.”
You can help right now by signing and sharing the petition urging Congress to pass the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, which will permanently ban horse slaughter in the U.S. and ensure that horses are not shipped across the border for that purpose.