Feds Gear Up for More Wild Horse Roundups

Davis, CA (June 25, 2019)— The nation’s largest wild horse and burro advocacy group, theAmerican Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign)(AWHC), today criticized the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for itsjust-released planto spend millions of taxpayer dollars to round up 3,565 federally-protected wild horses and burros from public lands this summer and fall. AWHC called the plan a continuation of the same “business as usual practices” that theNational Academy of Sciencescalled “expensive and unproductive for theBLMand the public it serves.”

“In most cases, theBLMis removing wild horses frompublic landsto make room for commercial livestock grazing, then sending taxpayers the bill for the roundups and the federal subsidies given topublic landsranchers,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of AWHC. “Far more cost-effective options exist for managing wild horses on the small amount ofpublic landsdesignated as their habitat. These include reductions in subsidized livestock grazing; maintaining larger, more sustainable wild horse populations; and managing those populations, where necessary, with scientifically recommended birth control.”

According to the schedule, theBLMhas no plans to utilize fertility control and instead will focus entirely on roundups this summer and fall. AWHC said that theBLMspends 68% of its budget to round up wild horses frompublic landsand warehouse them in holding facilities, while less than one percent is spent on humane fertility control. (See “Wild Horse and Burro Program Budget at thislink.)

AWHC noted that all of the horses removed in the summer/fall 2019roundupswill be sent to feed-lot like holding facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $5 per horse per day. In 2016, theOffice of Inspector Generalfound that theBLMwas wasting taxpayer dollars by stockpiling horses in expensive short term holding pens. AWHC also noted that theBLMunder-reports roundup-related deaths by failing to reveal the number of deaths that occur in the holding pens in weeks and months after horses are captured and removed from the wild. (More infohereandhere.)

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TheAmerican Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign)(AWHC) is the nation’s leading wild horse protection organization, with more than 700,000 supporters and followers nationwide. AWHC is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage.