Why the Wild Horse Issue is Non-Partisan

Sending wild horses and burros to slaughter has been going on for a LONG time, no matter who has been president. The BLM is run by ranching apologists and the cattle industry has a very powerful lobby. The BLM was originally created to enforce the Taylor Grazing Act which was passed to regulate cattle and sheep grazing on public lands due to overgrazing!  They view horses as competition. They vew apex predators as a threat to cattle and sheep, not something that keeps nature in balance. Like asking the fox to guard the hen house, then wondering why the chickens are disappearing.

 

Mustangs being back-doored to slaughter is nothing new, it's just becoming more widely known.  In 2004  Senator Conrad Burns slipped a rider into an appropriations bill that allows BLM to sell horses over 10 years old or that have been offered three times for adoption for only $25.  In the early 2000's Tom Davis, an advocate of horse slaughter, a rancher, and neighbor of Ken Saazar, then head of the Department of the Interior (which oversees BLM), sent over 1,700 horses that he acquired from BLM directly to slaughter.  Fast forward 20 years and the numbers of horses being flipped to slaughter PUBLICALLY by increasing the number of horses deemed as sale authority.  And more people have figured out a way to make a quick buck since there are no repercussions from BLM.  This year we've seen an exponential number of horses and burros purchased at adoption events and ending up in kill pens, some have been driven directly to kill buyers from a BLM adoption event.  Rescues can hardly keep up with the number of horses and burros sitting in pens waiting to ship to slaughter.  And those are the ones that kill buyers are giving a second chance.   Who really knows how many have direct shippped.  The only thing slowing things down is the Mexican border being shut down because of cases of screw worm in the US.   But horses are still shipping to Canada.

 

Meanwhile, how many mustangs have gotten a duplicate brand so there is no tracing the ones that shipped direct to slaughter? How many horses disappear from longterm holding without a trace? There has been NO ONE in the history of BLM that has ever advocated for wild horses or burros (with the exception of a few working in the corrals).  They are considered a nuisance at best, and something to be completely eradicated by most.  How many predators have been killed on public lands year after year to "protect" cattle and sheep?  It's the BLM culture.  It has been that way since before Nixon signed the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971.

 

Before 1971, ANYONE could chase down mustangs and burros by vehicle, rope them, and turn them into chicken feed and dog food, right here in the US.  To the point where only 17,000 horses remained in the wild.  By contrast, there were  between 1-2 million wild horses at the turn of the 20th century.  Is there a correlation between the reduction of wild horses and the increase in catastrophic wildfires across the US?   

 

Ranching is one of the most environmentally destructive industries there is, and profits from death.  Cattle are non-native, they originate from Asia and Europe.  They were not created for the western landscape, and like to hang out in streams and around ponds, fouling the water and destroying the banks.  Ranchers using public lands are not your average family rancher.  Most are corporations and they produce only 3-6% of beef, most of it going overseas.  

 

Congress can't even pass the SAFE Act, as flawed as it is, to keep horses from shipping to slaughter over the border, even though 80% of Americans oppose horse slaughter.  Not because of who's in the white house, but because ranchers have WAY too much influence in congress. 

 

Meanwhile, mustangs get rounded up, horses get sent to slaughter, and wild horse advocates fight amongst each other, with some believing false promises from the government or worse - sell out - so there is not a united front on behalf of our wild ones.  Then we wring our hands because we can't stop an endless stream of mustang from going to slaughter.  Advocates need to do better and come together, before it's too late!