Wild horse advocates are apoplectic over a change in rules for selling off wild horses recently announced by the Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management, saying it could lead to the animals being sold for slaughter.
In 2013, after learning that Colorado rancher Tom Davis, a friend and neighbor of then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, had over a three-year period sold 1,800 wild horses he had purchased from the BLM for slaughter in Mexico, the BLM instituted a rule that no one could purchase more than four wild horses in a six-month period without approval of the agency’s deputy assistant director of resource and planning.
In May, the BLM issued new guidelines saying up to 25 wild horses could be sold without prior approval up the chain of command.
“The federal government is about to resume selling America’s cherished wild horses and burros by the truckload, sending potentially thousands of mustangs into the slaughter pipeline against the wishes of 80 percent of Americans,” fulminated Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) in a press release this past week. “This Administration appears hellbent on destroying America’s iconic wild horse and burro herds, and this is the latest step on that path to destruction.”
Pay no heed to the fact the BLM spends 60 percent of its annual budget for handling wild horses and burros on warehousing 46,000 of them in corrals and private pastures, while there are 83,000 wild horses and burros on a range that can adequately sustain no more than 27,000. Nor to the fact that earlier this year BLM officials desperate to rid themselves of the expense of feeding all those “wild” animals were contemplating offering $1,000 incentives to anyone willing to take some off their hands.
An Interior Department inspector general report in 2015 found that Davis over three years bought truckloads of 35 horses at a time for $10 each and sold them to others who took them to Mexico for slaughter. Davis made up to $3,000 profit per truckload. The case was referred to federal and local prosecutors who declined to prosecute, criminally or civilly.
Davis told inspectors that BLM officials had to know so many horses were going to slaughter.
Congress for years has effectively banned the slaughter of horses for meat in the U.S. by denying funding for health inspectors.
The new BLM guidelines for selling wild horses say untrained animals may be sold for as little as $25 apiece, while horses trained to halter or saddle must fetch $125. Purchasers also must provide adequate feed, care and a facility, such as a corral, barn or stall.
Applicants also must swear that the animals are not intended for “slaughter or bucking stock, or for processing into commercial products …”
Though the limiting of sales to only four horses at a time appears to have not been financially conducive to either buyers or taxpayers, and despite the lessons learned from the Davis probe, AWHC’s Roy forecasts doom and gloom will result from the change in rules.
“When you’re selling horses by the truckload for $25 apiece, it provides a big incentive for slaughter,” Roy was quoted in her press release. “Since riding a horse to his first day of work, Interior Secretary Zinke has galloped down a deadly path for America’s wild horse and burro herds – from asking Congress for permission to slaughter tens of thousands of these cherished animals to promoting the mass surgical sterilization of mustangs and burros on the range. Zinke is pushing the livestock industry agenda to rid our public lands of wild horses and trampling on the wishes of American citizens in the process.”
In a recent interview, Nevada’s senior U.S. Senator Dean Heller said he has spoken with Zinke and a middle ground on this matter is being sought.
“Zinke assured me he’s looking at this issue. They’re looking at a number of different avenues how they can cull these herds without, frankly, having to remove some of these horses from the range, but they do believe they can put together a sterilization program and something that in five to 10 years can reduce the size of these herds,” Heller said. “There is a discussion out there. These discussions are being had — looking for a reasonable, reasonable answers to this, and trying to come up with a program or a process that both sides can agree on.”
When it comes to the taxpayers being on the hook to try to preserve non-native species in perpetuity, all means should be stoically explored.
Thomas Mitchell is a longtime Nevada newspaper columnist. You may email him at thomasmnv@yahoo.com. He also blogs at http://4thst8.wordpress.com/.
Cynthia Porter says
Mr. Mitchell the horses are solely being called non native because people like yourself say they are not. Unfortunately for you the facts are you were Not alive at the time the horses were first noted in history so your claims even if peer reviewed anywhere hold no bearing whatsoever. Peer review just simply means several people agree on a subject it actually doesn’t mean they habe evidence of the subject but that several believe the subject matter. The horses have been railroaded by the BLM again and again. The new 83000 figure Again make believe numbers and Zinke wanting to resolve it is to make it appear they won’t slaughter while Congressman Chris Stewart made up the 83,000 number recently and more overplayed legislation to be voted on to kill via slaughter or violently torn apart by other countries including Russia. When you think so little of our WILD Horses to ship them to countries to be torn apart it shows that you have no real concern for them at all. Zinke has no zero expirience with horses let alone WILD Horses and since he has never managed any previously is the last person capable of making decision. After all he already embellished his military accomplishments and is being investigated as I understand for some misconduct. As for overpopulation still exagerrated, and the author is Prohorse slaughter he wants to downplay death until they pass it then go back to his horse hate rhetoric.
T. Wilson says
Maybe advocates are “apoplectic” because they’ve seen it happen before.
Wild horses are a re-introduced native species – check your current science before hitting publish.
BLM and other agencies routinely shut down every PZP fertility control program just as they are about to show successful data, with one excuse or another. Could it be that successful management on the range is not really something BLM or DOI wants to see? Could it be that the current DOI wants to turn federal lands over to the states and they can’t do that while federally protected animals are on the land? Or could it be that BLM made huge mistakes, created a nightmare of wild horses in holding, and now they don’t know how to dig themselves out?
BLM is set to remove horses from the Pine Nut Mountain range at a cost of $1.5 million dollars to the taxpayers. There is a community/volunteer fertility control and range management plan in place at ZERO cost to the taxpayers. But the BLM is choosing to spend the taxpayers money. These horses are not starving, they are healthy, the range is healthy. Another management plan that would be successful for the horses and the taxpayer and the government shuts it down. Again.
Superficial journalism that simply repeats government issued propaganda sound bites is killing this country. Stop repeating numbers from the BLM that change every time they issue a statement or report. Do some actual research besides quoting press releases. I miss the days when the word journalism meant something with some kind of value.
Kayah Swanson says
Sir, your article is extremely misguided. I have five specific points I would like to make:
1. No sensible wild horse advocate argues that the BLM should continue their costly and inhumane roundup, removal, and hold routine. The Cloud Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation of these wild horses which I represent, very much understands your point that “the BLM spends 60 percent of its annual budget for handling wild horses and burros on warehousing 46,000 of them in corrals and private pastures.” (However, I would like to point out that your figure is not entirely correct – 58% of the BLM FY17 budget went to short and long term holding, and I’m not sure what you meant by “handling.” If you meant “rounding up,” that’s another 5% of the budget totaling over $4 million, bringing this total to 63% of the budget. https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/wildhorse_2017AdvisoryBoard_Bolstad.pdf)
We do not think these horses should be held in these off range corrals and pastures at such an egregious expense to the American taxpayer. There are cost-effective, humane options available to the BLM for managing these animals on the range so that roundups can cease, in the reversible fertility control vaccine called PZP (and it’s new, longer-acting form, PZP-22). We, too, are frustrated that this expensive program continues when there’s a program available to this agency that costs $30 per dose with no incurred holding costs.
2. I’d like to address your statement: “… while there are 83,000 wild horses and burros on a range that can adequately sustain no more than 27,000.” First, please feel free to visit this website https://reports.blm.gov/reports/RAS/ to examine BLM’s data for animal unit month allotment across the United States. According to this data, there are an astonishing 12,334,035 AUMs allotted across the country, allowing for either 24,668,070 cattle or 61,670,175 sheep. The fact that the BLM will only allow 27,000 wild horses and burros on these rangelands (26,715 to be exact https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/wildhorse_2017AdvisoryBoard_Bolstad.pdf) when literally millions of livestock are allowed to graze the same land is unbelievable. Even though we do not agree that horses are “starving” on the range like many people claim, perhaps it would be easier for these horses to survive were their home ranges not saturated with grazing livestock?
3. I’m glad you brought up Tom Davis. His abuse of this sale authority program is evidence that allowing horses to be sold by the truckload is lethal for these animals. Absolutely no sensible person would ever purchase a truckload of horses because they wanted to bring them home to their farm, or teach their child to ride. There is no reason for buying this many horses at a time other than subjecting them to the same type of treatment that Tom Davis did: selling them off to kill buyers for a profit. There is little oversight of where these animals go after they leave these facilities. There is absolutely no benefit to the BLM or these animals in walking back the policy enacted in 2013.
4. The sterilization procedure you refer to through Heller’s quote is barbaric. We have a video of the procedure. I encourage you to watch it and see if it’s something you would ever want performed on one of your own animals, if you have any. Most veterinarians will not even perform this procedure in a sterile environment unless it is absolutely the only option, as a last resort. Here’s the footage:
5. Wild horses are not non-native. They are a returned native species to North America. In fact, if they hadn’t evolved here, they would exist nowhere in the world. I would guide you to our website at this link: https://www.thecloudfoundation.org/get-informed/#native-species to read multiple articles proving that wild horses are, in fact, a returned native species to this continent.
I hope you will take these points into consideration before continuing to spread misinformation about this critically important issue.
Tami says
There aren’t 87,000 wild horses on the range! I wish the lies would stop! They are basically in unviable herds. Stop pushing birth control and start pushing no more welfare ranching! Costing us 1 billion over a ten year period…