WILD HORSES IN THE 21st CENTURY

 

THE BURNS AMENDMENT2004/2005

The most recent change to the law was the December 2004 sale-authority law (the so-called "Burns Amendment"), which was inserted rather surreptitiously into a budget item, when most of Congress was celebrating the holidays. The much-hated Burns Amendment directs the BLM to sell "without limitation" to any willing buyers animals that are either more than 10 years old or have been passed over for adoption at least three times. Read The BLM Page about Sales Authority

Public acceptance of this law has been rabidly poor. BLM states on their own website that "It has been and remains the policy of the BLM, despite the unrestricted sales authority of the Burns Amendment, notto sell any wild horses or burros to slaughterhouses or to "kill buyers. After several well-publicized sales scandals, the most recent (as of this writing) being the ProPublica expose' of Tom Davis in Colorado, (Click here to read) BLM issued this January, 2013 News Memo:

January 4, 2013 WASHINGTON, D.C. (BLM) - The Bureau of Land Management today announced a policy - in the form of what's known as an interim Instruction Memorandum - regarding new conditions and restrictions on wild horse and burro sales. The new policy was prompted by the BLM's overall effort to improve its management and care of wild horses and burros that roam Western public rangelands. "Today's announcement marks another step forward in our agency's steady improvement in ensuring the health and humane treatment of wild horses and burros, both on and off the range," said BLM Acting Director Mike Pool. The new policy, which is effective immediately, will remain so until the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program publishes additional guidance on wild horse and burro sales. The policy stipulates that: * No more than four wild horses and/or wild burros may be bought by an individual or group within a six-month period from the BLM without prior approval of the Bureau's Assistant Director for Renewable Resources and Planning. * When buying wild horses and/or wild burros, purchasers must describe where they intend to keep the animals for the first six months following the sale. Without prior approval from the Assistant Director, the BLM will not sell more than four animals destined for a single location in this six-month period. * Buyers must provide transportation for the purchased animal from the BLM's short- term holding corrals or other locations to its new home. Specifics regarding acceptable trailers can be obtained from the new interim policy, which is posted at: (Link to Instruction Memorandum No. 2013-032) *The BLM will inspect trailers and reserves the right to refuse loading if the trailer does not ensure the safety and humane transport of the animal. The BLM encourages anyone who has observed inhumane treatment or the sale to a slaughterhouse of a federally protected wild horse or burro, or who has factual information about such an incident, to contact the Bureau at wildhorse@blm.gov or 866-4MUSTANGS (866-468-7826) with your name, contact information, and specific information about what you saw or know about.

MODERN DAY WILD HORSES
 

Today's wild horse management issues are extremely complex. If you are looking for simplistic answers, you will not find them here. The best thing you can do is to continually educate yourself and make your own decisions. Talk to people. Talk to BLM personnel, ranchers, wild horse advocates, recreationists, hunters & fishermen, campers, bikers, field biologists, and wild horse adopters. Go visit the range yourself if you can and see for yourself what it's like. If you are lucky, you may get to watch a band of wild horses or burros as they go about their daily lives. Read from multiple sources, not just the passionately worded campaign that arrives in the email.

The high reproductive rate of wild horses presents a major challenge to wild horse management, in part because a large segment of the politically-active population doesn't believe it. Since effective on-the-range fertility control remains elusive for a variety of reasons, gathering remains BLM's main management tool. But this has resulted in a large buildup of horses in holding facilities, the care of which uses up most of BLM's meager budget. As the public has become more aware of gathers, considerable public protest has developed, as modern-day animal lovers find the process hard to handle. Congress and anti-wild horse lobbies are starting to object to the costs of maintaining captured horses in holding facilities. We are starting to see lawsuits filed by anti-wild horse groups to force BLM to remove more horses and burros, even as the budget is tighter than ever.

Many advocates do not agree that population growth is a problem, believing that if allowed the chance, wild horse populations would "self-regulate." The National Academy of Science in a sense agrees, saying that if there are more horses in an area than the land can support, the horses will weaken and die off. This die-off would be accompanied by a similar decline in other wildlife and  degradation to the environment. The NAS questions whether this would be a price that we would be willing to pay. Others simply don't believe the figures and insist that the land could support more horses than it currently does. Others focus on pointing out the damages done by competing uses, such as livestock and energy extraction.

So we find ourselves today, watching two primary forces among wild horse advocates: Those who want active on-the-range management and those who don't. Many believe that the best policy forward would be implementing widespread fertility control on the range, using drugs such as PZP or GonaCon, and spaying older mares who have already contributed to the herd's gene pool. Other call this "managing for extinction." They believe that removals are the primary problem, that wild horses are disappearing, and that the best policy is to allow them to run free with no human interference. There are also advocates for "letting nature take its course" - folks who believe it is better for a horse to die of thirst and starvation than to lose its freedom.

Among non-advocates, we see campaigns to to re-open horse slaughter plants in the US and to send excess wild horses to them, or to sell excess wild horses to zoos and similar facilities, for feeding to zoo animals (this would circumvent the need for slaughterhouses for human consumption).

Protracted drought in the Great Basin areas, very limited funding for adoption programs, renewed "Sagebrush Rebellion" forces wanting to get rid of wild horses and the BLM program, increasing urbanization with changing demographics (less interest in horses and less ability to own one) are other critical challenges to the viability of the wild horse program today.

WHAT ARE WILD HORSES AND WHAT IS THEIR VALUE?

Today's wild horses are descendants - in some cases after 100 generations or more, of domestic horses brought to North America by Europeans beginning in 1493. These long-ago domestics were descendants of native North American-evolved horses who crossed over into Asia during the prehistoric days of Beringea. Some say this qualifies horses as being a native species. Others find this too big a stretch.

 

Wild horses deserve our respect if for no other reason than that they've survived everything we have thrown at them over the years."
- Jay Fitzpatrick

 

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

What makes Mustangs special is their history and their wildness. Nothing matches the thrill of chancing upon a band of mustangs or burros in the wild. They are a Heritage Animal, deserving of protection, and management both within their environment as well as in captivity.

It is interesting that BLM receives the most bad publicity and the most criticism in its management of wild horses. Often this is due simply to ignorance. Many other agencies have jurisdiction over groups of wild horses, and some of these sometimes make news by handling their wild horses in a way that is disturbing to the public. But since BLM is the largest and most visible manager of wild horses, the public assumes the bad deed was done by BLM. Some people argue that Reservation horses (on Native American reservations) whould be considered "mustangs" since they are allowed to range freely on the land. Their numbers dwarf the entire BLM system, and traditionally these horses are a cash crop, periodically rounded up and run through the nearest livestock auction, usually going for meat. Indian reservations, the National Park Service, the Sheldon USFWS preserve, and The Nevada Department of Agriculture all just catch and sell, with only sporadic and variably-supervised attempts to prevent the horses from being slaughtered. Some agencies openly and directly sell to slaughter buyers.

BLM is currently the only agency that both manages wild populations and supports and protects the horses who are removed from the wild. It is not the intent of this website to be political, only to present information as accurately as possible. This is accurate.

Imagine for yourself what a "thriving ecological balance" might look like... 

MODERN CHALLENGES

Wild Horse & Burro Protection and Management & Preservation efforts in recent times have collided headlong with a difficult mix of circumstances:

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Climate change has contributed to longer and worse droughts, and more frequent, hotter wildfires in the Great basin area; This reduces the land's ability to support animals, and reduces its likelihood of recovering if it has already been overgrazed. When fragile areas are disturbed, they may never recover.
 

Increased pressures on public lands for human enterprises such as energy development, mineral extraction, recreation, hunting and fishing, RV-ing, ATV-ing, biking, and housing and industrial development.
 

BLM Budget Restrictions: BLM today gets only enough money to perform emergency gathers and to feed the horses it already has in holding. Adoption events are being cut back, resulting in even fewer adoptions and lowered public awareness. Because the money is going to care for horses already in holding, gathers have been cut back, which is resulting in serious overpopulation problems on the range. The Wild Horse & Burro Program of the BLM has always been, and remains, one of the most poorly-funded programs in government.

BLM has never once, since 1971, reached "AML" (Appropriate Management Level" - a number set through a process that includes range science, politics, and public pressures).
  The faltering national economy starting in about 2007 -2009 has made horse ownership out of reach for many would-be adopters.
 

Loss of land available for any kind of equine use (boarding stables, trails, affordable competition facilities, etc) which restricts people's ability to have or enjoy horses, which reduces interest in horses, etc - a downward spiral. Development of former "horse property" into housing developments, vineyards, etc, making it hard to find a place to keep a horse.
 

  Changing national demographics: Wild horses are on fewer and fewer people's radar. Today huge blocks of the population have no experience, awareness or interest in horses of any kind. Fewer and fewer people dream of owning a horse. Even fewer have the skill-sets needed to be successful with even a dead-broke domestic horse, let alone a wild one. The adoption market for wild horses is shrinking.
 

 Publicity exposing the fact that most domestic horses sold for slaughter are contaminated with drugs, has turned the eyes of the foreign and American gourmet market to our wild horses - the last uncontaminated source. Attempts to get them into the horse slaughter pipelines (still legal and operative in Canada, Mexico, and Europe and Asia) through pressuring BLM to exercise Sale Authority and to reduce the numbers of horses in Long Term Holding facilities are continuous.
 

 The political climate concerning wild horse issues is as polarized as the rest of the nation is on other issues:

On the one hand, we see a resurgence of the Sagebrush Rebellion among ranchers who are feeling the pinch of the economy, drought, and environmental pressures.Click Here for a story of a 2014 "Show Down"(If you read this article all the way through, you will start to get an idea of the complexity of some of these issues. It isn't just a matter of whether or not you care about horses)
Another Modern Sagebrush Rebellion Story: Sagebrush Sheriffs

At the other end, organized "Advocacy" groups continue to press lawsuits and other pressures to stop gathers and prevent fertility control programs.

Today BLM-managed wild horse herds are found in California, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and one small area of Montana.

Wild horses and burros exist elsewhere, too, throughout the country, but are not managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The area around Reno and Carson City, Nevada, are mostly not managed by BLM and have no legal protections, but are in prime wild horse country. (These are called "Comstock" or "Virginia Range" horses)

Wild horses and burros can be found on private, County, US Fish & Wildlife, Indian Reservation, State Park and even one or two National Park lands. Reservation horses are not necessarily true "Mustangs" but they are often as unhandled as any, and their sheer numbers are gaining national notice.

The buildup of gathered wild horses in holding facilities and the restrictions of the BLM budget to perform on-the-range management or to promote adoptions, combined with all the forces listed above, would seem to be creating a Perfect Storm for disaster unless something changes. It is up to each of us, as individuals and as groups, to work to understand the issues and to help develop humane and effective solutions.

It is easy to feel very alarmist at the current situation. And yet, going back and reading through the history of the wild horse movement, nothing much has really changed. The same forces are still duking out in much the same way they always have.

 

 

Today’s wild horses are a true American Melting Pot of horses and with the help of Natural Selection, they are intelligent, sound-minded, sure-footed, and strong. Mustangs normally have excellent feet that often do not require shoes, and strong, hardy constitutions. Having had the benefit of life within a functional natural social unit, they are well-socialized and savvy. Time will tell how it plays out into the future. Will there be wild herds for our grandchildren to enjoy?