BLM Horses

BLM manages more wild horses than all other jurisdictions combined. That is simply because they manage more of our western landscape than any other land management agency. 

Wild horses are the only animal in our country legally defined by where they stand, not what they are biologically. This distinction is critical. Wild horses are tied to the land they stand, not simply because they eat grass or drink water, but through their very identity. We do not label a deer standing on federal land differently than one standing on state land, but we do with the horse.

The 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act created these distinctions. Until 2004 a horse that was born and lived on BLM land retained distinct protections from slaughter throughout it's lifetime. The horse retained the legal definition through a foster program; essentially people fostered a wild born horse.

In 2004 the Burns Amendment went into effect. In an omnibus spending bill of over 1000 pages (Appropriations) Conrad Burns snuck in a rider that changed everything. Wild horses began a "title transfer," like a car, through an adoption or sale process. Once a title was transferred wild horses could legally be sold to slaughter, just like any domestic horse.

In addition there were provisions in this rider that allowed the federal government to sell wild horses outright to kill buyers.

Many Congressman did not know that this rider was snuck in at the last minute and moved to immediately repeal it. However, in the game of politics, bills go into committees before they go for a floor vote. Conrad Burns sat as the chair of the committee guaranteeing the bill never went to the floor.

Every single year since, Congress had defunded sections of funding bills that would allow those slaughter sales. The "call your Senator now" mailers you see every year are because the bill still has not been repealed that allows those sales.

Yes, BLM horses do land in kill pens today. Private owners adopt or buy wild horses and sell them into the slaughter pipeline. We have even seen massive numbers of wild horses slip into the hands of kill buyers directly from the BLM like the no infamous Tom Davis/Ken Salazar scandal.

Advocacy for wild horses has many layers of work; land use planning, creating humane handling protocols when land use planning fails, creating safe adoptions and sanctuary.

The last step in the life of a wild horse needs your help to close the gateway to slaughter. That gateway, for both wild and domestic, can be closed through the SAFE Act.