Stop the Roundup of Wild Horses On Public Land

Coming this September, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and other public agencies will be conducting helicopter roundups, baiting and other means of decimating wild horse populations in the western states. This has been going on for years and it must stop!
Wild horses are iconic reminders of our Western Heritage. They have been with us since they escaped or were released by Spanish explorers who came to North America in the 1500’s. Before that time, there are documented finds of horse bones and remains from over 10,000 years ago – meaning that horses were hunted to extinction on this continent before.
The Bureau of Land Management does not directly kill wild horses, but during the roundups, many horses are hurt and subsequently die on their way to their new “pens”. These pens are often managed by cronies of the BLM who make money off the holding facilities. Many of these pens are in completely different states and offer no shade or protection for the animals. The animals are then put up for “adoption”. Some of the horses are actually adopted, but many are bought by “kill buyers” who outbid legitimate buyers who would take good care of the horses. The “kill buyers” typically purchase strong, young and healthy animals. These animals are then transported to Canada or Mexico where they are slaughtered for the horse meat trade for export to European and Asian markets.
Both the cattle industry and the oil and gas industries lease property from the BLM for approximately $3 per acre per year. In return, taxpayers foot the bill for an agency known as “Wildlife Services”. This agency costs the American taxpayers between $63 million and $80 Million each year to poison, bait, gas, trap or shoot wild animals such as antelope, jackrabbits, wild mules, coyotes, wolves, wild horses or any other animal that is seen as competition to the cattle ranchers or the oil and gas industries for space and resources.

Cattle ranchers do not like competition of grazing resources such as grass or water, when in fact, livestock grazing is the number one cause of plant species becoming threatened or going extinct in the U.S. More than 260 million acres of U.S. Forests have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, predominantly cattle. Cattle, by the way, are an introduced species. Before cattle were introduced, buffalo were the native species and they roamed the continent in the millions. Because they were constantly on the move, and had natural predators, buffalo did not cause the environmental damage that cattle do today, even though there are far fewer cattle, and many fewer wild horses than roamed even a hundred years ago.
Our public land is for all of us, especially our most precious natural resources such as our wild animals and our wild spaces. Stop the roundup of wild horses and stop the destruction of our public lands!