We reached out to you about a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in Congress who are taking a stand to champion language during budgetary negotiations that would help protect wild horses and burros next year.
Led by the Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raúl Grijalva, these lawmakers are working to prevent federal funds from going toward inhumane sterilization surgeries and accelerated mass roundups (which is being supported in a plan called the ‘Path Forward’).
Thousands of you reached out to your members of Congress (thank you!) and news of this bipartisan mustang protection effort has been carried across the nation, including in The New York Times.
Last week, Colorado State University announced that it is withdrawing from participation in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) mare sterilization research in Oregon. But the BLM is not letting the lack of academic affiliation stop it from proceeding with these barbaric experiments. Instead, the agency is just dropping CSU’s part in the study, which was to assess the harm to the horses from the study! Now the BLM will proceed without regard for or documentation of the pain and complications — including bleeding, infection and abortion — caused by performing the barbaric and risky surgery on wild mares. This is unacceptable, and we need to weigh in AGAIN to oppose the use of our tax dollars to fund these cruel experiments.
We criticize the BLM frequently for its mismanagement and mistreatment of our wild horses and burros, but when the agency is doing something right, we must acknowledge and support it. Such is the case in Colorado where the BLM is partnering with advocate TJ Holmes and a coalition of local groups to humanely manage the spectacular wild horses in the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area. Thanks to a robust fertility control program, no removals have taken place in this HMA for a number of years and no removals are planned. Now we need to weigh in to support the BLM’s proposal to prioritize bait trapping over traumatic helicopter roundups should removals be necessary in the future. Please add your name to our comments by clicking below!
The current Administration is promoting rollbacks of legal requirements for environmental review, public participation, and information disclosure that could have severe detrimental impacts on efforts to protect wild horses and burros. As always, we the people are the line that stands between these cherished animals and destruction, and we must continue to let Congress know that Americans oppose this Administration’s dangerous efforts to weaken legal protections for our wild horses and burros and the public lands they inhabit. Learn more by clicking below.
The BLM’s cruel roundup in Wyoming’s Red Desert ended last week, with the permanent removal 1,4444 horses from our public lands. Ten horses died in the roundup, including six foals, four of whom were literally run to death. Currently, the BLM is removing wild horses and burros from several public lands areas via bait trapping in Utah, Nevada and California, but the helicopters will take to the air again soon. See the latest info on the roundups and find out which herds are targeted next by clicking below.