Tomorrow the Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining will meet to consider long-term management options for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. With the ASPCA and HSUS capitulating to BLM and joining forces with them on supporting targeted roundups and forced fertility methods, it’s more important now than ever to alert subcommittee members not to support BLM’s measures.

To ensure the protection of America’s wild horses call, please write members of the Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining and tell them that these are rational solutions, rather than BLM’s extinction plan:

● Limit or restrict entirely cattle and sheep from grazing in wild horse Herd Management Areas (HMAs)

● Limit oil, gas and mining operations in HMAs

● Amend the Wild Horse and Burro Act to allow wild horses to be returned or relocated to Herd Areas in states where wild horses have been wiped out Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

● Protect natural predators such as mountain lions

● Adjust outdated appropriate management levels to accommodate more horses

● Sterilization and PZP are not viable solutions. Recent research has demonstrated repeated applications of PZP can cause physical damage to treated mares; it is not completely reversible; and it can increase mortality in foals post-PZP effectiveness. Both methods interfere with herd cohesion, which is critical to the overall health of wild horses. In addition, preventing wild horses from reproducing can create a genetic bottleneck that may ultimately extinguish the species as a whole.

You can find phone numbers and addresses here. 

Also, on a related issue, even though domestic horses are currently protected from slaughter in America, their safety is not guaranteed in perpetuity. Every year Congress must pass an amendment that prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using taxpayer dollars to inspect horse slaughter facilities. While Congress honored the will of the American public and included the amendment in the FY2019 Agriculture Appropriations bill, this spending bill will expire on Sept. 30.

So please tell members of the committee to support a provision in the FY 2020 Agriculture Appropriations bill that renews the ban on the use of federal tax dollars for horse slaughter.