The fight over the future of America’s wild horses and burros will take place in Washington, DC this year as the Administration charts a new course for the Department of the Interior and Congress funds the government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2017 and for Fiscal Year 2018. As an American citizen and taxpayer, YOU have both the right and ability to weigh in to influence these decisions. When it comes to your elected officials in DC, YOU – as a constituent – are the best lobbyist for protecting wild horses and burros from mass roundups and slaughter.
Click below to learn how to best wield your power and get started today!
This week only…Get your limited edition ‘Keep Wild Horses Wild‘ T-shirt…and support our work! We are thrilled to announce that FLOAT is featuring these T-shirts, and for the next six days, will donate $8 for every shirt sold to the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.
SHOP today – there are lots of fun colors and styles to choose from! This is a great way to support our work to Keep Wild Horses Wild and free on the range and look fabulous! Don’t miss this opportunity!
The Bureau of Land Management’s Humboldt River Field Office is accepting public comments on a Preliminary Environmental Assessment (PEA) to manage the federally protected horses and burros in the Blue Wing Complex in Nevada. The Complex, which includes the Kamma Mountains, Seven Troughs Range, the Lava Beds, Blue Wing Mountains, and Shawave HMAs, spans 2,283,300 acres (over 3,500 square miles!). Yet the BLM has set “Appropriate” Management Levels (AMLs) of just 333 to 553 wild horses and 55 to 90 wild burros for this entire area! At the upper population limit, that’s only one horse or burro per 3,551 acres!
Photo of captured Nevada wild horses by BLM
The BLM wants to drive the wild horse and burro population down to low AML in 20 years by implementing an unprecedented plan to sterilize 30 percent of these herds using highly controversial procedures that are untested in wild free-roaming horse herds. The BLM’s plan does not disclose when and how many roundups will occur, how many wild horses and burros will be permanently removed, when and how many mares and jennies will be treated with fertility control or spayed, or when and how many stallions and jacks will be gelded.
Now is the time take a stand against this BLM proposal that will expose wild horses and burros to this dangerous experiment that is thinly disguised as a management plan. Please personalize and submit the sample letter below to demand fair treatment of wild horses and burros in Nevada!
Please visit the link below for the opportunity to submit your own letter and stand against this injustice. The comment deadline is February 10, 2017.
For all donations $25 and over, we’ll send your special someone a postcard with the beautiful image above by esteemed wild horse photographer Kimerlee Curyl.
Your support will help fund our legal, legislative and grassroots programs to protect wild horses and burros during this most dangerous time. The threat of mass roundups and slaughter is real. The new Congress and Administration will determine their fate.
Will love save our mustangs? It will, if we harness love into action, because we have the power of the people on our side!
Thank you sincerely and Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at AWHPC. We are so grateful that you are part of our herd… …together we will prevail for our cherished mustangs and burros.
America’s horses need your help. Over 100,000 horses each year are shipped across the border and are brutally slaughtered. The threat of slaughter for America’s wild horses is real. The SAFE Act would protect America’s horses by banning horse slaughter in the U.S. and prohibiting the transport of American horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. It was reintroduced with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives last week. Your support is needed for this important legislation. The lives of hundreds of thousands of horses — both domestic and wild — are at stake, so please take action today!
For decades, community groups have enjoyed and worked to protect the cherished wild horses that live in and around the Pine Nut Mountains Herd Management Area (HMA) in northern Nevada. But now the beloved Pine Nut horses are threatened by a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan to round up 500 of 579 of the mustangs living there!
These neighbors and the horses they love need our help today! Please weigh in against a devastating massive roundup and ask BLM to work with the local community to implement a birth control program for humane, in-the-wild management of the Pine Nut wild horses.
This proud stallion we call Zeus was photographed living wild and free five years ago in the Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin Herd Management Area. He was leading his family to water… standing guard over his mares and youngsters as they drank.
Is Zeus still free? We don’t know. But he has a right to be. One of our toughest fights yet has been for the rights of wild horses to live wild and free in this area of land known as the Wyoming Checkerboard. This year, we delivered two important legal blows to the BLM’s plans to wipe out wild horses from this area to appease powerful ranching interests.
But the fight goes on. In 2017, the BLM will attempt to change land use plans to “zero out” (eliminate all wild horses from) the Wyoming Checkerboard.
Is Zeus still free? We don’t know. But he has a right to be.
One of our toughest fights yet has been for the rights of wild horses to live wild and free in this area of land known as the Wyoming Checkerboard. This year, we delivered two important legal blows to the BLM’s plans to wipe out wild horses from this area to appease powerful ranching interests. But the fight goes on. In 2017, the BLM will attempt to change land use plans to “zero out” (eliminate all wild horses from) the Wyoming Checkerboard.
Please help stop this from happening.
Our legal team is ready to defend Wyoming’s wild horses from the BLM’s latest maneuvers to wipe them out. We’re also expanding our lobbying presence on Capitol Hill and continuing to build our grassroots army… With you help, the power of the people and the law of the land will prevail.
Zeus is a reason to give. The future of wild horses like Zeus depends on you.
Wild horses and burros are under attack every day. We are fighting for them every day, and we want to show you every day this week exactly what we are fighting for.
This valiant wild Wyoming stallion fought off five younger stallions to defend his beautiful snow-white mare, so heavily in foal she could barely move. Moments after the battle, he returned to his mare’s side and allowed her to rest her head on his back in the warm sun.
Chivalry is not dead, but these wild horses and their way of life could be if we are not successful in stopping the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from wiping out wild horses in the Wyoming Checkerboard to appease powerful ranching interests.
This year, we stopped a huge BLM helicopter roundup in this area. We scored two important legal victories that put the brakes… at least for now… on the BLM’s plan to eradicate wild horses from the Checkerboard. But the fight for the future of Wyoming’s wild herds goes on.
We call this beautiful stallion Galahad and his mare, Snow White. They are a reason to give. Their future depends on you.
In Freedom,
Suzanne Roy, Executive Director
P.S. Today, you can double your impact for wild horses like Galahad and Snow White! Your year-end donation will be matched…so please give as generously as you can. Thank you!
I wanted to share our end-of-year video so you can see what we’ve achieved in 2017. I hope you’ll take just a moment to watch it during this busy holiday week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPOKlqN152Q
We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in this year, thanks to all of our dedicated supporters who have stood with us in this fight. Thank you for all your calls, emails and petition signatures. They truly made a difference for wild horses and burros!
In 2017, our wild horses and burros face grave threats to their future.
The political support, important legal precedents and strong grassroots base we’ve established this year provide a strong foundation for the fight ahead.
It’s a fight we can’t afford to lose. It’s a fight I know we can win, if we continue to work together.
Will you join us now in this battle for the future of these national icons?
Your year-end donation, no matter how large or small, is vital to our work in 2017.
All donations made during these final days of December will be matched up to $50,000!
I wish you all the best for a joyous holiday and peaceful New Year. May we continue to be inspired by the beauty and grace of the animals we are fighting so hard to save!
November and December have proven to be rough months for the wild horses living in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Owyhee Complex in central Nevada. The BLM office in Washington D.C. even authorized the round up of 220 more horses than originally planned in this largest BLM roundup in two years. In total, 1,832 wild horses (704 studs, 773 mares, 355 foals) were captured within the Complex, and 1,430 of these beautiful mustangs were permanently removed from their homes on the range. At least 17 horses died in the roundup, and 402 were returned to the range.
The unreleased horses — more than 1,400 of them — were loaded onto semi trailers and trucked away from their high desert homeland to BLM’s holding pens near Reno, NV. These horses will never be free again. They — along with the nearly 46,000 other wild horses and burros warehoused in BLM holding facilites — face an uncertain fate.
AWHPC staff and prominent wild horse photographer Kimerlee Curyl were onsite at the round up last week. Check out our pictures, video and report on the roundup by clicking below.
The Virginia Range horse herd, managed by the Nevada Department of Agriculture, is believed to be the largest publicly owned horse herd currently remaining in the US. The horses are managed through the cooperative efforts of the department and various qualified non-profit horse groups. While the emphasis of this management is passive population control (fertility control,) horses do occasionally spread out into the outskirts of urban areas and onto busy highways. Those that present a clear and continuing danger to motorists, and that return to busy areas after relocation attempts, do have to be removed.
State law requires the Department to dispose of any horses that are not placed with in a proscribed time at the livestock sale. Therefore every effort is being made by all parties to get these horses placed.
WE DID IT! Thanks to you, we doubled our Giving Tuesday goal, raising $30,000 to Keep Wild Horses Wild and Free! This means that we secured the matching grant, so you doubled your money to support our work!
On behalf of the AWHPC Team, thank you for sharing the holiday spirit and making our Giving Tuesday campaign a huge success… We are honored that you are part of our herd!
Help keep the wild horses & burros wild by supporting the good work of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign. Their brand new 2017 calendar is available and all proceeds go to fund advocacy, litigation, field and rescue programs. Click here to get yours!
L ike many people, you may be wondering what the results of this week’s election will mean for America’s wild horses and burros. There is no minimizing the dangers facing the 45,000 mustangs and burros stockpiled in government holding facilities and the estimated 67,000 who remain on the range.
Pressure is mounting for mass roundups and the killing or sale for slaughter of captured mustangs and burros. While we don’t yet know the Trump Administration’s position on this issue, clearly the stakes are very high. We’re prepared to work with the new Administration, bringing it up to speed on how the federal government has failed our wild horses and burros and the need for reform.
But, regardless of the election’s outcome at all levels of government, our strength will continue because it comes from our supporters and the American people.
Protecting wild horses and burros is a bipartisan issue. AWHPC has worked, and will continue to work, effectively with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. AWHPC supporters themselves span the political spectrum, but we are united in our love for America’s mustangs and burros and our commitment to saving them.
There will be a great deal of uncertainty in the next few months, as Trump is sworn in, cabinet nominations/political appointments are considered and a new Congress gets organized. We will monitor this process closely and develop a strategy that takes into account new threats and opportunities, and will be ready to meet them in the coming year.
In the interim, we’ll be working to ensure that any spending bills passed by this Congress maintain the prohibition on destroying healthy wild horses and burros or selling them for slaughter.
We the People remain the last line of defense between America’s mustangs and the forces that want to destroy them. In the coming year, it’s going to take all of us – united – to wage and win the fight for the future of these cherished national icons.
Even if you can’t make it Wednesday, you can still join in the fun! We’ve created the opportunity for everyone to take part in our Silent Auction. Get a jumpstart on bidding on some fabulous items — including art by leading wild horse painters and photographers!
Bidding is super easy and can be done anywhere via text from your smartphone. You’ll even know via text if you’ve been outbid, so you can be sure to “win” whatever treasures you have your eyes on. We’ll be happy to ship your items to you for just the charge of shipping.
Every item purchased helps us continue the fight to ensure that our national treasures – wild horses and burros — remain free and secure on our public lands.
We have been fighting for five long years to stop the BLM’s wipeout of Wyoming’s wild horses. Today, for the second time this week, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed wild horses a major legal victory! The court ruled that the BLM broke two federal laws when it rounded up 1,262 wild horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard in 2014.
This is huge! It means that the BLM’s proposed 2016 Checkerboard roundup is also illegal! The BLM just notified the court that it was pulling the plug on this latest roundup of 500 wild horses, which was scheduled to start on October 18! Not only that, the decision permanently prevents BLM from treating the public lands as private and allowing ranchers to dictate whether or not wild horses will be allowed to live on our public lands.
This is our third major victory for wild horses in just over a month! On Monday, the Tenth Circuit ruled that BLM is not required to remove horses from public lands just because the population exceeds arbitrarily-established population limits. And on September 9, the BLM dropped plans to conduct dangerous surgical sterilization experiments on wild horses in Oregon, citing the lawsuit filed by AWHPC and The Cloud Foundation as the reason for its decision.
Read more about the Tenth Circuit’s precedent-setting decision and savor this latest victory for wild horses and burros.
We are proud to tell you that we succeeded in stopping anti-mustang ranchers and their political allies once again!
Yesterday, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a lawsuit filed by the State of Wyoming against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) demanding the removal of hundreds of wild horses from public lands in that state.
This is our second major victory for wild horses in just over a month! On September 9, the BLM announced that it was dropping its plan to conduct cruel and risky surgical sterilization experiments on wild mares, citing the lawsuit we filed with our coalition partner The Cloud Foundation as the reason for its decision.
Unfortunately, there is no time to pause for celebration. We’re actively defending wild horses in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and California and we need your help to score more legal victories for wild horses and burros!
It’s hard to overstate the importance of yesterday’s decision. This precedent-setting ruling should put a stop to several frivolous lawsuits that have been filed by pro-ranching interests across the West. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has now soundly rejected the ranchers’ spurious claim that the BLM is required to remove wild horses from the range once their populations exceed the arbitrarily-established “appropriate” management levels (AMLs).
AWHPC is pleased to have funded and led this legal fight, in which we were joined by The Cloud Foundation, Return to Freedom and photographers Carol Walker and Kimerlee Curyl.
This is a cross post from the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.
At their meeting in Elko, Nevada Thursday and Friday, the Bureau of Land Management’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board discussed what to do with nearly 45,000 wild horses they consider unadoptable.
The board’s recommendation: Euthanasia.
The Elko Daily reported that the board recommended the Bureau of Land Management follow the stipulations of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act “by offering all suitable animals in long and short term holding deemed unadoptable for sale without limitation or humane euthanasia. Those animals deemed unsuitable for sale should then be destroyed in the most humane manner possible.”
The only member voting “NO” on the Advisory Board was Ginger Kathrens of the Cloud Foundation.
They also discussed putting more pressure on the government for additional funds to do more “gathers” in order to control the population.
Ben Masters, 27, recommended an ultimate goal of using birth control methods to control the population. According to the Elko Daily, “a representative of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign said the BLM is not using the contraceptive porcine zona pellucida in a way that is managing the population. Sterilization was also called invasive and barbaric and the board was asked to abandon it in favor of funding acceptable forms of contraception.”
The advisory board also recommended a focus “on the prioritization of the sage grouse habitat when removing excess animals.” Board member Ginger Kathrens abstained on that one.
The Humane Society condemned the board’s recommendation to kill the 45,000 wild horses, saying they would not be in this position if they had been more responsible in using fertility control in the first place:
“The decision of the BLM advisory board to recommend the destruction of the 45,000 wild horses currently in holding facilities is a complete abdication of responsibility for their care. The agency would not be in this situation but for their long-term mis-management. Alternatives to this proposal have been ignored for over 20 years. The HSUS stands ready to implement these alternatives at any time.”
Over the past 20 years, the BLM has maintained round-up and removal as a primary management strategy for wild horse and burro populations on America’s western rangelands – an effort which has led to a financially unsustainable Wild Horse and Burro Program. By focusing massive efforts on removing horses and burros from the range, without treating those horses remaining on the range with any form of fertility control to limit population growth, holding facilities throughout the United States have become overburdened.
In fiscal year 2015, BLM spent $49 million maintaining these horses in off-range facilities, which constituted 46 percent of the entire budget of the agency’s wild horse and burro program. Such a large expenditure has limited the agency’s ability to properly manage wild horses on the range. The HSUS has long recommended the humane and sustainable option of implementing fertility control programs throughout the West.
The following is an ACTION ALERT from the American Wild Horse Preservation.
Wild horses near Elko, Nevada that the BLM wants to round up. Photo | Kimerlee Curyl
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board will meet on September 8-9, 2016 in Elko, NV. If you can attend this meeting, click here or see below for details. The public also can attend a public tour of the Antelope HMA on Wednesday September 7.
If you can’t attend, you still can participate by submitting comments to the Board. The BLM’s cruel and destructive plans for mass roundup and sterilization for our wild horses an burros are imminent and it’s vital that we all take a stand at this time!
You can submit your comments directly by emailing them to whbadvisoryboard@blm.gov (subject must be “Advisory Board Comments”) or find the link below.
This is an Action Alert for the American Wild Horse Preservation.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is just a month away from endangering the lives of innocent wild mares in Oregon by subjecting them to egregiously invasive and inhumane sterilization experiments.
We’ve already appealed to the BLM and Oregon State University, the agency’s research partner, to drop plans to rip the ovaries out of wild mares in a procedure that veterinarians call “archaic” and “barbaric.”
Now it’s time to go to the top… to the person who can stop this.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewel is the person ultimately responsible for the BLM and its mismanagement of our wild horses and burros.
The buck stops with her and it’s time to send her a strong message….Americans from all walks of life are counting on her to stop these egregious experiments on our cherished and federally protected wild horses.
You can cut-and-paste this message, or paste in your own:
Secretary Jewell, please cancel BLM’s plans to conduct cruel and unnecessary sterilization experiments on federally protected wild horses. Please watch the video that documents this cruelty and stop these archaic experiments now! http://wildhor.se/StopThemSally # StopThemSally.
These things take just moments of your time, but together can create a lasting impression on Secretary Jewell to let her know that Americans will not tolerate such cruel treatment of our wild horses.
Tomorrow, June 22, 2016 – the House Natural Resources Federal Lands Subcommittee will hold an “oversight” hearing on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wild horse and burro program. This hearing is being driven by pro-livestock members like Wyoming’s Cynthia Loomis and will be completely stacked in favor of legalizing the slaughter of America’s wild horses and burros. Just one witness – Ginger Kathrens of The Cloud Foundation — will testify for our side, while four witnesses, including the BLM, two ranchers and the anti-wild horse Wildlife Society — will make the case for slaughtering our wild horses and burros!
Since your Representative is on this subcommittee, YOU are in a unique position to influence this dangerous development. Please ask your Representative to attend the hearing and speak up for the American public, which wants our wild horses and burros protected from cruel roundups and brutal slaughter.
This hearing will happen TOMORROW, so please act immediately!
These neighbors and the horses they love need our help today! Please weigh in against a devastating massive roundup and ask BLM to work with the local community to implement a birth control program for humane, in-the-wild management of the Pine Nut wild horses.
The Virginia Range horse herd, managed by the Nevada Department of Agriculture, is believed to be the largest publicly owned horse herd currently remaining in the US. The horses are managed through the cooperative efforts of the department and various qualified non-profit horse groups. While the emphasis of this management is passive population control (fertility control,) horses do occasionally spread out into the outskirts of urban areas and onto busy highways. Those that present a clear and continuing danger to motorists, and that return to busy areas after relocation attempts, do have to be removed.
