Is Congress Finally Ready to Protect Our Nation's Wild Horses?

IsCongressfinally poised to do right by our nation's wild horses?This question is at the heart of recent discussions in Washington, D.C., as lawmakers consider new approaches to managing wild horse populations. Holly Gann Bice, government relations director for the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign), explores these developments in her opinion piece for the Reno Gazette Journal.

Is the treatment of our nation’s wild horses tilting from cruelty and ignorance ofscienceto compassion and common sense?

It’s too early to tell, but an encouraging sign is a recent move by the U.S.Senateand House Appropriations Committees to protect wild horses in its fiscal year 2022 Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies bills.

The bills allocate $11 million in dedicated funding to“implement a robust and humane fertility control strategy of reversible immunocontraceptive vaccines.”This is a significant change of tune, considering the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is charged with managing our wild horses, has long undervalued this proven, cost-effective way to manage mustang herds in the West, instead resorting to cruel helicopterroundups.

Currently,the BLM spendsless than 1% of its Wild Horse and Burro Program budget onfertility control, but spends the vast majority of its budget — more than two-thirds — in taxpayer dollars annually rounding up horses from the range and keeping them in off-range holding facilities indefinitely. This brutal roundup process often results in injury or death. In May 2020, under the previous administration, theBLMreleased a management plan thatcalled for the removal of more than 90,000 wild horses and burrosfrom public lands within the first five years. The plan would balloon the number of horses and burros warehoused in holding pens and cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in those first five years alone.

Worse yet, theroundupsdon’t work to control horse populations. Whileroundupsmay appear to provide a quick immediate fix, the National Academy of Sciences in a 2013 report noted that rounding up and removing horses from the range actually increases population growth rates, meaning that theBLMis caught in a vicious circle of having to round up yet more horses each year at a higher and higher cost to Americans’ pocketbooks.

In the same report, the NAS recommendedfertility controlvaccines as a better way to manage wild horses, calling the approach “a more affordable option than continuing to remove horses to long-term holding facilities.”

It appears that this message is finally being heard in Washington. A serious investment infertility controlcan help yield a humane on-range management strategy that will ultimately help keep mustangs in the wild where they belong, while reducing the money wasted on roundups. Sen. Cory Booker, Subcommittee Chair Jeff Merkley, Reps. Dina Titus, Steve Cohen, Mark Pocan, Subcommittee Chair Chellie Pingree and others are providing the necessary leadership to place theBLMon a more sustainable and fiscally responsible track for the humane management of our Western herds.

Importantly, the Interior bills also maintain long-standing, critical provisions intended to prevent wild horses and burros from being sent to slaughter. Additionally, the House report called for a review of theBLM’s “Adoption Incentive Program,” which pays individuals $1,000 to adopt an untamed wild horse.A New York Times investigationexposed this program for funneling wild horses into the slaughter pipeline; it provides an economic incentive for those looking to flip horses to slaughter — and theBLMtakes no responsibility for what happens.

It’s time to make a change in howBLMmanages wild horses and burros, and we support inclusion of these important reforms in the final FY22 spending package passed byCongress. We are hopeful that our government will one day soon finally honor the promise members ofCongressmade 50 years ago when they unanimously passed theWild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Actand declared wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West (that) contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.”

Originally posted by Reno Gazette Journal