In Nevada’s Virginia Range, AWHC operates the world’s largest humane management program for wild horses. We recently celebrated our two-year anniversary of the establishment of this historic initiative to prove to the world that THERE IS a humane way to manage wild horse populations that doesn’t require mass roundups, crowded holding corrals, dangerous sterilization surgeries, or slaughter.
We’re fighting back against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) massive herd removals in court and on Capitol Hill — and the success of our PZP program in Nevada has been critical in our fight to protect wild horses.
In roughly a month, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is scheduled to resume helicopter roundups. And over the next 5 years, the BLM is planning to round up an estimated 90,000 wild horses and burros!
What’s worse, is that the BLM is accelerating roundups over the next five years, which is projected to cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion dollars. Now we don’t have to tell you that a $30 fertility control treatment is a MUCH MORE cost-effective option compared to these costly roundups!
Tens of thousands of wild horses and burros will lose their families and freedom because of these roundups, and because the BLM doesn’t have the capacity to store all of the horses they capture, it’s already leading to slaughter for too many of these cherished animals.
It’s been a wild first two weeks of 2021, but we’re standing strong at AWHC for our wild horses and burros. We’re a few days away from a new Administration and our team has been pushing forward with our plan of action to protect America’s wild free-roaming horses and burros from mass roundups and slaughter.
Just this week, AWHC submitted its First 100 Days Wild Horse Agenda to the Biden Administration with an urgent plea to reform the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) wild horse and burro management program, which is careening toward fiscal and animal welfare disaster.
Urgent action is necessary in light of the BLM’s plan to round up 90,000 wild horses and burros from public lands over the next five years, a move that would triple the number of horses maintained in off-range holding facilities while decimating wild herds at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $1 billion.
This agenda can set the stage for progress and reform of BLM’s inhumane practices.
We’re hopeful that the new administration will take significant steps to rein in the BLM and its mistreatment of our nation’s wild horses and burros. By following our First 100 Days Agenda, the Biden Administration can take necessary first steps to finally granting these iconic animals the protection and humane management they deserve.
The last four years have been marked by an all-out assault on our public lands by the Interior Department under Secretary David Bernhardt and the illegally-serving BLM Director William Perry Pendley. America’s wild horses and burros have not escaped the destruction. Scapegoated for massive environmental damage to public lands caused by the livestock industry, these iconic animals face virtual extinction under the Bernhardt/Pendley Plan to cull wild herds by 70 percent.
Last month, the Sacramento Bee published a one-sided story on the Devil’s Garden wild horse herd, which gave a megaphone to ranchers who want the land where the horses roam for their cattle. The article dismissed wild horse advocates as having a romanticized view of wild horses, who the author believes are better off captured and fed in pens than living free in the wild. On Saturday, the newspaper published AWHC’s response in an OpEd entitled, “How to fix federal mismanagement of California’s wild horse population.” Read the article here.
AWHC continues to fight the mismanagement of the Devil’s Garden wild horses by the U.S. Forest Service, which recently announced that it was selling all wild horses captured in a fall 2020 roundup for $25 a piece. Previous sales of captured Devil’s Garden wild horses have resulted in many disasters, including the escape of two untamed mustangs who are still at large in Pennsylvania, the deaths of 9 horses from salmonella poisoning after being shipped to Florida, and 18 horses delivered to a remote Colorado property that can be inaccessible during the winter months.
Meanwhile, the Forest Service continues to charge ahead with roundups as its main management tool and declined AWHC’s previous offer to fund a pilot fertility control program for this herd, which is California’s largest and most significant wild horse population.
Another massive wild horse roundup is underway, this one in the BLM’s Eagle Complex in eastern Nevada. AWHC’s observer is on site to document this capture operation that aims to remove over 1,000 wild horses and reduce the population to just 139-265 in this 743,000-acre habitat area — that equates to as little as one horse per every 5,345 acres! The BLM is clearing the land of wild horses so that thousands of cattle and sheep can continue to graze this public lands area.
As with any roundup, the scenes we’re witnessing are truly heartbreaking. As of Jan. 15, 412 wild horses have lost their freedom in the Eagle Complex roundup and five have lost their lives.
Below Are Photos Our Observer Took During Eagle Complex Roundup:
Watch a clip from BLM’s first roundup of 2021:
We are working hard to change this — in Congress, in the courts and in the field by showing that humane management works. We need YOU more than ever to keep showing up, speaking up, and supporting our work. Together, we will do everything in our power to protect America’s wild horses.
Congress has extended the time before it votes on a final government spending bill by two weeks.
Some lawmakers are using this extension to try to ram in all sorts of clauses into the final bill, including language that would strip critical protections for wild horses and open the door to slaughter.
Members of both the Agriculture and Interior committees are considering dangerous changes that could end the prohibition on horse slaughter for human consumption. Other changes to the bill could include allowing cruel and untested sterilization experiments on mares.
This is not the first time we’ve faced this threat from Washington, and we know that if we raise our voices, we’ll win the protections wild horses need. We’ve won before. And we can win again. Please act now.
On Tuesday, the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee will vote on the Fiscal Year 2019 Interior spending bill. The full Senate Appropriations Committee vote will take place on Thursday.
These votes could not be more important!
Last week, the House Appropriations Committee passed the devastating Stewart Amendment to authorize the permanent sterilization of entire wild horse and burro herds.
The Stewart Amendment put a target on every wild horse and burro herd in the West by authorizing the BLM to “manage any group of wild horses or burros as a non-reproducing or single sex herd, in whole or in part, through chemical or surgical sterilization.”
This will be the beginning of the end of America’s wild free-roaming herds!
The House Appropriations Committee just scheduled its markup hearing on the 2019 Interior Department spending bill for TOMORROW!
Late yesterday, we learned that Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), who has long been pushing for the mass killing of our wild horses and burros, will likely introduce an amendment to promote the sterilization of our wild herds.
The BLM already wants to do this. With Congressional support, it will be hard to stop. And there’s always a chance that Rep. Stewart will slip in language to allow the BLM to kill tens of thousands of healthy horses and burros… despite the objections of 80 percent of Americans.
Proud magnificent stallions would be castrated, resulting in “reduction in or complete loss of male-type behaviors necessary for maintenance of social organization, band integrity and expression of natural behavioral repertoire,” according to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
Innocent mares will be subject to a barbaric procedure that literally rips their ovaries out with a rod-and-chain-like tool, a method so invasive that the NAS called it “inadvisable for field application” due to risk of hemorrhage and infection.
Sterilization will take the wild out of wild horses by destroying their natural behaviors…. and will endanger their lives.
This is wrong. We have to fight any amendments that permit mass killing or require the surgical sterilization of wild horses — or any legislative language that will lay the groundwork for doing so.
We wouldn’t be messaging you if it weren’t crucial to the survival of wild free-roaming horses and burros in America. Attacks on wild horses are mounting daily, but with supporters like you using your voices to defend them, we are fighting back.
The BLM is planning dangerous surgical sterilization experiments on wild mares in Oregon.
Warning: this may be hard to read.
In the proposed “ovariectomy via colpotomy,” procedure, a veterinarian makes an incision in the mare’s vagina, inserts his arm into the vaginal cavity, manually locates the ovaries and rips them out using an “ecraseur,” a rod-like device with a chain on the end. The painful procedure will subject mares to the risk of infection, hemorrhage and evisceration, and could cause mares in the early to mid-stages of pregnancy to abort their fetuses.
It is crucial that we act now. The BLM has only provided ONE WEEK to send comments opposing the proposal. And if we don’t take action today, these experiments could mean living hell for helpless horses in Oregon. Can you take a stand for wild horses now?
The plan the BLM is proposing is being done without any academic affiliation whatsoever. The procedures they’re proposing is so cruel that in 2013, the National Academy of Sciences advised that the risk of infection “makes it inadvisable for field application.” There is no reason for believing that these tactics are less risky, expensive, or painful than other birth control methods.
It makes no sense, and yet unless we act TODAY, horses in Oregon will be put through these barbaric experiments. Submit your comment today.
Belmont, CA – August 25, 2016 – A massive public uprising is underway on social media over cruel wild horse sterilization experiments proposed by the federal government. Using the hashtag #StopThemSally, thousands of citizens have joined the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) in calling on U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, to stop the experiments and implement sweeping reform of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Program, which is administered by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Meanwhile, the BLM this week notified AWHPC and the Cloud Foundation that it was delaying the start date for the experiments from October 1 to November 16. The delay comes amidst public outcry and a barrage of legal actions, including a lawsuit/Motion for a Preliminary Injunction filed by AWHPC and the Cloud Foundation.
Launched on Tuesday, August 23, the #StopThemSally campaign to date has resulted in:
· 5,600 faxes sent to Department of the Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell.
· 33,000 views of an eyewitness video documenting the invasive nature of the controversial experiments to be conducted by the BLM in conjunction with Oregon State University (OSU) on 200 wild mares at the Wild Horse Corral Facility in Hines, Oregon this fall.
· Thousands of messages left on the Facebook Page of the Department of the Interior in response to the BLM’s management of the Wild Horse and Burro Program.
In an open letter to Secretary Jewell, the AWHPC challenged Jewell to watch the eyewitness video of the surgical sterilization procedure, called an “ovariectomy-by-colpotomy”, which will be duplicated on the mares this fall in eastern Oregon. The procedures have been called ‘archaic’ and ‘barbaric’ by equine groups and are specifically recommended against by the National Academy of Sciences who advise that it is “inadvisable for field application.” The surgical sterilizations involve a veterinarian blindly cutting into a mare’s vaginal wall, placing his hand and arm through the vagina into the abdominal cavity, manually locating the ovaries, then severing them with a rod-like chain tool called an ecraseur.
Messages continue to flood the Department of the Interior’s Facebook Page as public displeasure mounts in response to the BLM’s planned experimentation on wild mares in Oregon.
· “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.”
· “Secretary Jewell, veterinarians call BLM’s wild horse surgical sterilization experiments “barbaric” and “inhumane.” The National Academy of Sciences recommended against surgically removing the ovaries of mares. Even the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association calls it inhumane! These are wild animals… this is not the same as spaying domestic dogs and cats. Watch the video and stop these archaic experiments now!”
· “No sterilization of/or experiments on wild mares (even pregnant ones). We are not in Nazi Germany.”
Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of the AWHPC, relays:
“The #StopThemSally campaign is blowing up social media channels and the Department of the Interior fax line. We’re pleased that the BLM has delayed the controversial experiments amidst this public furor and barrage of lawsuits. Now is the time to cancel these inhumane and unnecessary experiments permanently and focus on humane management strategies that keep wild horses wild and free.”
AWHPC supports the use of PZP fertility control to reduce wild horse population growth rates when necessary because it does not endanger the health or impact the natural behaviors of wild horses.
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is a national wild horse advocacy organization whose grassroots mission is endorsed by a coalition of more than 60 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations. AWHPC is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage.
This Action Alert comes from the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.
These are America’s wild horses. They belong to us. We must be able to see what our government is doing to them and expose this cruelty to the public and Congress in order to STOP IT.
Just today, attorneys for the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign and The Cloud Foundation sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Oregon demanding our First Amendment right to observe and document the gruesome sterilization experiments the agency intends to conduct on beautiful and innocent wild mares at the BLM’s holding corrals near Burns. The letter, states:
“This is a highly controversial project and the BLM has received thousands of public comments in opposition to it. Not only is this a matter of significant public concern, but also it is precedent setting. Never before has the BLM performed invasive surgical sterilization procedures on federally-protected wild horses in experiments that could lead to a program-wide policy of releasing sterilized wild horses on the range….Given that these experiments will form the basis of this program-wide policy, public documentation of this project is essential to the public interest.”
If the BLM denies our request, we are prepared to file suit in federal court to uphold our First Amendment right to observe these experiments.
Once again, we have asked the BLM to drop its plans to surgically remove the ovaries of 100 mares through a blind and archaic procedure called “ovariectomy via colpotomy.” The majority of mares used in the experiments will be pregnant, and removing their ovaries will cause many to lose their unborn foals.
The National Academy itself warned against the procedure due to the severe health risks it poses to wild horses. Aborted foals and deaths from bleeding, infection and evisceration (protrusion of bowels through surgical incisions) are in store for these poor mares, but the BLM does not care.
This is critically important….especially since the BLM says it is doing the experiments in part to determine whether they are “socially acceptable.” Only by documenting and exposing this cruelty, can we stop the BLM from implementing these atrocities on more wild horses, including those still roaming free on the range!
The following post comes from the American Wild Horse Preservation.
We anticipate that the U.S. House of Representatives will vote next week on the 2017 Interior Appropriations Bill, which currently includes dangerous language that opens the door to large-scale killing of wild horses and burros via transfer to other federal, state and local government agencies. The bill also contains report language that encourages sterilization of wild horses and burros, including by inhumane, invasive and dangerous surgical means.
This is the most serious threat to wild horses and burros since the 2004 Burns Amendment authorized the unrestricted sale of older and unadopted animals! Even if you have previously done so, it’s important to continue to contact your Congresspersons to let them know that you want them to uphold the will of the people and protect our wild horses and burros from slaughter for commercial or non-commercial purposes, and from barbaric sterilization practices. Please remember that calling as well as emailing will help to ensure that your message on behalf of wild horses and burros is heard!
They want to kill over 80,000 wild horses & help sterilize the rest. Help us stop them.
At a rigged oversight hearing on Capitol Hill last week, Rep. Cynthia Loomis (R-WY) called for the “lovely and peaceful” killing of all the wild horses and burros in Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holding pens because their “wild lives are over.” Nevada rancher JJ Goicoechea called for mass roundups and sterilization.
The livestock industry agenda for our national symbols of freedom is nothing short of un-American and we can stop it…with your help.
Please donate as generously as you can to support our legislative, legal and grassroots efforts to save America’s majestic mustangs and burros. We can do this, because we have the power of the people on our side!
The following post comes from the American Wild Horse Preservation.
“BLM’s latest policy initiatives may lead to mass slaughter of wild horses.”
– The Daily Caller, June 1, 2016
The Daily Caller called it right. Danger is lurking on Capitol Hill, as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues to lay the groundwork for the mass slaughter of America’s mustangs.
It’s the most serious threat to wild horses since 2004, when the Burns Amendment legalized the sale for slaughter of “unadoptable” wild horses.
The BLM is pushing budget language to strip wild horses of their federal protection and deliver them into the hands of local and state governments who want them removed from our public lands and slaughtered.
Western members of Congress allied with the livestock industry are pressing for a “solution” to the wild horse “problem,” and we know what that means.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, the BLM is pressing forward with gruesome sterilization experiments on wild mares.
We are with fighting with everything we’ve got to uphold the will of the people to protect our mustangs….
…. Our federal lobbyists – including a respected former Congressman – are working to defeat any attempt in Congress to weaken federal protections for wild horses or authorize their mass slaughter.
…. Our legal team is suing the BLM to stop the agency from destroying a wild horse population in Idaho by surgically sterilizing every one of its stallions and mares.
…. Our staff has delayed approval of the sterilization experiments by months by documenting and exposing as fraud the documentation on which the BLM was basing its approval of this “research.”
…. Our grassroots and public awareness efforts continue to harness the power of the people – the only way to defeat the special interest lobbies that want our wild horses and burros gone forever from our public lands.
Every donation to this cause is critically important. Together we can and will fight the BLM’s disastrous plans for our iconic and cherished wild horses and burros.
Please take action on our petition to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, which is asking its members to oppose the BLM’s dangerous plan to conduct painful and risky surgical sterilization experiments on wild mares.
The experiments will subject mares to the risk of death from hemorrhage, evisceration and infection, and will cause pregnant mares to abort their foals. If implemented in the field, this sterilization method (“ovariectomy” – surgical removal of the ovaries) would take the wild out of wild horses by destroying their natural free-roaming behaviors and causing social chaos on the range.
We will be delivering these signatures in just three days and need to make sure our voices are heard. Will you please help by sending a message to oppose this horrific plan?
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board will meet on April 13, 2016 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and April 14, 2016 from 8:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Redmond, Oregon.
Please take a moment to sign the petition asking this citizen advisory board to oppose the BLM’s barbaric, risky and invasive sterilization experiments, proposed to be conducted on captured wild mares at the BLM’s corrals in Hines, Oregon. These painful experiments will expose mares to risk of death by bleeding, infection and evisceration (a deadly condition in which the intestines protrude through surgical incisions). The majority of the mares used in the experiment will be pregnant and the procedure will cause many to abort their unborn foals. We have one week to gather as many petition signatures as possible, which AWHPC will hand deliver to the Advisory Board. Help us take a strong stand against this cruelty by signing and sharing today!
Earlier this month, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) director Neil Kornze told Congress that his agency was heading toward “spaying and neutering” wild horses on the range.
It sounds benign, but it’s not.
Using never-before-seen footage, AWHPC has just released a video that shows the type of risky, invasive and archaic sterilization procedures the BLM is proposing to conduct on wild mares.
It isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary to show the American public exactly what the BLM has in store for our iconic and federally-protected wild horses and burros.
We can’t let this happen. Here’s how you can fight back for wild horses and burros:
► Watch the video and become educated about the BLM’s barbaric plans.
► Share the video far and wide to spread the word.
► Sign the petition and share it with your friends, family, co-workers and neighbors. These are ourwild horses, they live on ourpublic lands, and the American public overwhelmingly does not want our national icons treated in this horrific manner!
Our wild horses and burros need your help, and they need it now.
The federal government is trying to hand off captured wild horses and burros to states and local governments, which will be able to do whatever they want with these national icons. That means one thing — slaughter!
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) director Neil Kornze admitted in Congressional testimony this month that his agency’s 2017 budget proposal contains no protections from slaughter for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of horses the BLM wants to turn over to other agencies, ostensibly for use as “work animals.”
Kornze also told Congress that “it looks like” BLM is heading toward wide-scale sterilization of wild horses on the range. The BLM wants to subject these animals to risky and invasive surgical procedures that will endanger their lives and destroy the very essence of what makes them wild — their natural behaviors!
As step one of its sterilization plan, the BLM is poised to conduct barbaric, invasive and dangerous sterilization experiments on over 200 captured wild mares — most of whom will be pregnant — at its Burns Corrals in Oregon. The experiments will cause many of the mares to suffer abortions and others to bleed to death or die from infection.
We’ve hired a lobbying team that includes a former Congressman. We’re mobilizing the grassroots through a powerful public education and social media campaign. And our top-notch legal team continues to wage the battle against sterilization and slaughter in federal court .
This is happening RIGHT NOW on Capitol Hill. Please click below to help us stop the sterilization and slaughter of America’s wild horses and burros. Thank you!
Photo of a veterinarian with a chain ecraseur being used during an ovariectomy.
The Bureau of Land Management is planning barbaric, archaic and dangerous sterilization experiments on captured wild mares at its Wild Horse Corral Facility in Hines, Oregon. These experiments have never before been performed on wild horses or, in the case of two of the three proposed procedures, in horses anywhere at all! The agency is accepting public comments on an Environmental Assessment (EA) and now is the time to voice our united and strong opposition to this outrageous proposal!
At least 100 mares — 75 of whom will be pregnant — will be subjected to “ovariectomy via colpotomy,” a dangerous procedure in which a veterinarian makes an incision in the mare’s vagina, inserts his arm into the vaginal cavity, manually locates the ovaries and rips them out using an “ecraseur,” a rod-like device with a chain on the end. The painful procedure will subject mares to the risk of infection, hemorrhage and evisceration (intestines coming through the incision) and cause mares in the early to mid-stages of pregnancy to abort their fetuses.
In domestic mares, this procedure is not common, but when performed, requires a post-surgical 4-7 days stall confinement, during which the first 48 hours are spent in crossties to prevent the mare from lying down. No such restraint is possible in wild mares, and the BLM intends to turn them out to corrals after the surgery with open incisions and no restrictions on movement. This fact lead the National Research Council (NRC) to conclude that the fatality rate for the BLM’s proposed experiment would be “higher than the one percent reported in the published literature,” which is based on surgery performed in domestic mares.The NRC a stated that less invasive techniques would be preferable to this procedure in wild mares.
Two less invasive experimental procedures are also proposed that would use endoscopes to achieve sterilization without removal of the ovaries. However, these procedures have never before been done in horses, domestic or wild, and appear to be infeasible for use in wild mares.
Please take a stand against these dangerous and costly BLM wild horse experiments today. The BLM deliberately avoided public opposition by skipping the scoping stage of this process, so let’s use the EA stage to show the agency just how many citizens and taxpayers oppose these dangerous and costly experiments on our wild mares. Take action below!
An new action alert was issued by the American Wild Horse Campaign. Act now – comments are due by January 14, 2016.
We have only until Thursday (1/14) to get comments in to oppose the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) disastrous plan to spay wild mares on the range in the White Mountain Herd Management Area (HMA) in Wyoming. Surgically removing the mares’ ovaries is both physically dangerous and psychologically devastating as it stops the production of hormones that drive natural behaviors. AWHPC is committed to fighting this ill-conceived and destructive proposal, which also includes the removal of at least 169 wild horses, leaving fewer than 400 mustangs on 1,600 square miles of land! We need to bombard the BLM with comments opposing the spaying of mares, so please take action today and share this alert with your friends and family!
Ely, Nevada (October 14, 2015). . . The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) today blasted the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for ignoring scientific advice and environmental complaints in its decision to proceed with the use of an experimental fertility control vaccine on wild horses in the Antelope Herd Management Area (HMA) in eastern Nevada.
Last month, AWHPC filed a complaint with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) against the BLM to stop a precedent-setting plan to use the experimental drug, known as GonaCon, for the first time ever on federally protected wild horses. The long- term effects of the vaccine on wild horses are unknown, and the National Academy of Sciences recommended that more research was needed on GonaCon’s impacts on wild horse behavior before being used in wild horse populations.
For the first time ever, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing to convert a wild, free-roaming mustang population into a non-reproducing herd of sterilized horses. The BLM Idaho plan for the Saylor Creek Herd Management Area (HMA) would destroy the wild horses’ wild, free-roaming behaviors and is a recipe for managing this beautiful wild horse herd to extinction. If implemented, it would set a dangerous precedent for destroying healthy, sustainable wild horse populations into sterilized groups of horses that will die off. AWHPC’s formal protest of this destructive and devastating plan is pending, but we need the public to weigh in to help Keep the Saylor Creek Wild Horses Wild! Take action and sign the petition.
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For the first time ever, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing to convert a wild, free-roaming mustang population into a non-reproducing herd of sterilized horses. The BLM Idaho plan for the Saylor Creek Herd Management Area (HMA) would destroy the wild horses’ wild, free-roaming behaviors and is a recipe for managing this beautiful wild horse herd to extinction. If implemented, it would set a dangerous precedent for destroying healthy, sustainable wild horse populations into sterilized groups of horses that will die off. AWHPC’s formal protest of this destructive and devastating plan is pending, but we need the public to weigh in to help Keep the Saylor Creek Wild Horses Wild! Take action and sign the petition.