Wild horses are a beautiful part of the U.S. Majestic herds roam on public lands in the west, like California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Their strength and independence has inspired people in the U.S. for generations. And - like any other living being - they just want to live out their lives freely, to have community, to experience pleasure, and to avoid pain.
But now it turns out the Trump administration is cracking down on mustang populations,
rounding them up - and apparently selling them off for slaughter.Sign the petition to demand that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) immediately stop the sale of wild horses and replace it with humane population control methods instead!Treating wild horses like products to be sold used to be rare in the U.S., but not anymore. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is the U.S. agency that's tasked with conserving public lands, including protecting wildlife like wild horses. But under Trump's two presidencies - first in 2017 and now in 2025 - that mission seems to have been redirected. Both times,
the government began selling off wild horses in large quantities. Officials are extremely secretive about where the horses go, with middlemen refusing to share details. But investigations revealed a grim slaughterhouse pathway.
It's actually illegal for the government to sell off wild horses for slaughter in the U.S. The public is fiercely fond and protective of these incredible animals, so Congress prohibited the BLM from using funds to kill off healthy horses. Additionally, the U.S. no longer has any horsemeat slaughter factories; the last one closed in 2007.
But, slaughtering horses is still legal in nearby Canada. And the Trump administration has
discovered a loophole in Congress's regulations: if it sells the horses to middlemen who then sell the horses off to become chopped-up meat, that's still technically permitted. One trader in particular who seems to have become the Trump administration's favored buyer, Brandon Jones in Ohio,
continually refuses to say where the horses he bought ended up, or to whom he later sold them.
If the government wants to control or regulate wild horses' populations, there are safe and humane alternatives. For decades, BLM could have been using effective, cheap medications that control fertility and are safely administered using dart guns from afar.
Instead, it's choosing the most destructive and cruel option possible.These animals didn't do anything wrong! They're just living on their homelands, running free, over the same ground where their predecessors made a home as well.
But now that the Trump administration has looked at them and seen dollar-signs, their lives are in grave danger.The Bureau of Land Management must immediately end its disgusting practice of turning horses into commodities and, eventually, meat. Sign the petition to demand the end of this program, and to tell Congress to further strengthen protections for wild horses by closing this loophole! 