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The Senate moved to protect some wild horses, but many more are at risk from dangerous BLM roundups. CLICK HERE to donate to put up a billboard telling the Department of Interior to protect America's wild horses.

Friend,

Rather than preserve our nation's wild horses and burros, the agency charged with managing them, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), has hatched a plan to sneak them out the backdoor and send them to slaughter in Canada and Mexico.1

The BLM’s budget outlines the agency’s plans to pursue dangerous and inhumane spaying and gelding of American wild horses, in a direct contradiction to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which recommended a complete overhaul its failing approach to managing these cherished animals.2 Wild horses are present on just 12 percent of federal rangeland and are outnumbered by livestock by nearly 50-1. And yet the agency rounds up these animals with helicopters, driving thousands of them into feedlot pens at taxpayer expense.3

According to the NAS, the BLM’s endless cycle of roundups and removals “are facilitating high rates of population growth.” The esteemed scientific body continued “removals are likely to keep the population at a size that maximizes population growth rates, which in turn maximizes the number of animals that must be removed through holding facilities.”2 This just isn't ok. Donate here to support our billboard telling Department of Interior to protect our wild horses -- not send the off to slaughter.



BLM's Rock Springs Field Office has proposed to remove all wild horses from a stretch of Wyoming lands called the Checkerboard.4 The proposed action comes less than two years after a disastrous roundup in which 1,263 federally protected wild horses were captured and permanently removed from over 2.4 million acres of the Checkerboard (71 percent of which is public). At least 100 horses were killed during the roundup itself or in the BLM's holding pens.5

The BLM Checkerboard roundups have set a very dangerous precedent. If allowed to stand, the agency's actions put the fate of wild horses living on public lands in the hands of ranchers, miners, oil drillers and anyone who can make a buck by removing wildlife from our public lands. Today, the BLM warehouses as many wild horses in captivity as remain free in the wild, and the number in captivity grows every year -- along with the cost to taxpayers, which is already $80 million per year.3

We have a chance to speak out before the roundups begin and more horses are killed, but we're running out of time to convince Congress. The votes happening to approve the BLM budget, including the money to round up and imprison wild horses, will happen soon: Please click here to make sure we can put up our billboard this summer -- BEFORE the critical votes happen to fund and approve the BLM's program of wild horse roundups.

Thanks for taking action,

Sally and the Wild Horse Saving Crew at Environmental Action

1. John M. Glionna, 1,800 protected wild horses sent to their deaths in Mexican slaughterhouses, LA Times, October 29, 2015
2. Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward. National Academy of Sciences. 2013.
3. American Wild Horse Preservation, Salt River Wild Horses FAQ,
4. BLM Launches Scoping on Checkerboard Wild Horse Removal. BLM News Release, March 24, 2016.
5. BLM wants to remove 500 wild horses from Wyoming’s Checkerboard lands. Horse Talk. March 26, 2016.

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