Wild and Domestic: Both are in Danger

I can’t tell you how many times someone complaining about our efforts to ban horse slaughter online makes posts about how horrified they are to see the poor horses crammed into feedlots after being rounded up from public lands. They feel it would be more humane to slaughter those horses then continue to live in such deplorable conditions. Almost immediately my reply to posts like this is a huge eye roll and deep sigh because the lack of knowledge on the threats facing wild and domestic horses is staggering. It seems that the more we read online, the less we really know what goes on around us. Even before I started the campaign to end horse slaughter back in 2001, I was already working on wild horse issues and fighting to keep them safe and free on our public lands.

Too often people are conflating the plight of our wild horses with the slaughter of domestic horses for human consumption. It is important to realize they are two separate issues with two separate solutions. Last year over 60,000 American horses were slaughtered for human consumption in Mexico and Canada. While some might have been former wild horses, that number would be very small and consist of animals that came to this terrible fate in a couple of different ways. It is important to start off by saying that it is illegal to slaughter federally protected wild horses. Period. If a wild horse ends up in slaughter it could have been a horse that had been legally adopted by a member of the public and then after a year, when the legal title is transferred to the adopter from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the horse is sold and ends up in the slaughter pipeline. This number would be small and based on individuals selling individual horses. The other possible way, and it has happened, would be horses purchased in a larger volume, but still not mass numbers directly from the BLM through their “sales authority” language granted by former US senator Conrad Burns. In the past, the BLM was caught selling hoses to known killer buyers. While it was still illegal to send those horses to slaughter, the BLM sold the animals to someone with the wrong intentions. Thankfully wild horse advocates discovered and exposed this sale and continue to watch for similar cases.

To be very clear, wild horses are in danger. In fact, just a few years ago the House of Representatives did give the BLM the authority to kill wild horses as a management tool. Thankfully we were able to stop that with support from members of the Senate and a furious public. However, Congress was crystal clear that a humane, long term solution MUST be developed, or mass killing could again be on the table. Wild horses have been grossly mismanaged by BLM from the very beginning of the enactment of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971. Wild horses are wrongly blamed for habitat destruction and just about everything else that seems to go wrong in the West. The BLM claims there are too many but has never done a valid survey of their numbers or how many the range can support. They are removed from lands guaranteed by the 1971 law never to be returned. They are warehoused in short- and long-term holding facilities throughout the West, while the BLM does nothing to resolve this growing emergency. What most people are talking about when concerned with conditions horses are kept in relates to short term holding facilities which are like feedlots. They are horrible and increasing in numbers because the BLM rounds up horses and does not return them to the range or find more suitable larger long-term pastures.

There are humane, long term, on the range solutions to ensure our wild horses remain free and on public lands, but it will take a fight to make sure the BLM does their job. Remember, the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was created to protect wild horses from the abuses they had been facing from the BLM itself. We must all demand action for their future.

While In Our Hands Action Fund is dedicated to the welfare of all horses, our focus at this time is passage of the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act currently pending before Congress. The SAFE Act will end the slaughter of any horse for human consumption. Sending any horse to slaughter just because someone thinks it is better than starvation or abuse is a disgrace. Animal abuse of any kind is a crime in every state. We should not reward anyone that is willing to harm a horse with a few dollars. We must work to end that abuse be it starvation, neglect, abandonment or slaughter. Please help us end horse slaughter AND work with legitimate wild horse organizations to ensure they remain free on their range for future generations.

Visit our Action Center right now to send an email to your legislator urging support for the SAFE Act. As always, be sure to share this posting online and encourage friends and family to take action and share our information far and wide!