Senate Bill Aims to Protect Wild Horses and Burros from Euthanasia

Advocates for wild horses and burros are lauding a U.S.Senatespending bill they say would spare thousands of mustangs onpublic landsfrom being killed.

An explanatory statement on theSenateAppropriations Committee’s$32.6 billion Interior spending bill for fiscal 2018, released Nov. 20, calls for “humane and politically viable options” to deal with wild horse overpopulation on federal land. A similar billpassed by the House Appropriations Committee in Julyallows horses to be euthanized as a means of population control.

The House andSenatebills will have to be reconciled in talks between lawmakers from both chambers, and it’s unclear whether long-standing federal prohibitions against the killing or sale for slaughter of wild horses will make the final budget.

Still, wild horse advocates say theSenatebill offers a fighting chance for the animals’ survival.

“TheSenatehas heard the voice of the Americans loud and clear and rejected the killing of our nation’s iconic wild horses and burros,” Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Campaign, said in a news release.

“America’smustangsare part of the history and culture of the West. Clearly, theSenaterealizes that killing America’s mustangs or selling them for slaughter is not acceptable to the American public. The only humane and politically viable path forward is to use birth control to manage wild populations on the range, as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences.”

TheSenatebill is the latest development inan emotional debate over wild horses and burrosroaming millions of acres in the West.

Officials with the federal Bureau of Land Management have said that the current wild horse population, estimated at 73,000, is more than the land can sustain and the population doubles every four years and that not enough horses are being adopted to keep pace with population growth.

TheBLMhas been rounding up wild horses and burros and holding them indefinitely in off-range facilities. According to theBLM, close to $50 million of the wild horse program’s $80 million budget is spent caring for the 46,000 horses in those facilities and the program’s budget has quadrupled since 2000.

Cattle ranchers whose herds graze on federal land argue the horses compete withlivestockfor grazing and threaten the ecological balance ofpublic lands. The Trump administration also supported lifting the ban on euthanasia.

Reacting to theSenatebill, Ethan Lane, executive director of thePublic LandsCouncil, which represents ranchers with grazing permits onpublic lands, said: “The need to responsibly manage these animals grows daily as this population and the ensuing animal welfare crisis continues to explode.”

During a House appropriations hearing this summer, Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, held up a photo of an emaciated horse while arguing it was cruel to let horses onpublic landsstarve to death because there are too many horses and not enough food.

Stewartoffered an amendmentto the House spending bill for the Department of the Interior that opened the door to euthanasia. The amendment, which passed by voice vote, had the support of Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, who chairs the appropriations panel in charge of interior funding.

“The reality on our federal lands is that the status quo is not working for our wild horses and it’s not working for taxpayers,” Calvert said at the time.

Wild horse advocates condemned the House bill, with Roy calling it “a death warrant for America’smustangs” that “will lead to the wholesale destruction of these irreplaceable national treasures.”

Rather than kill the horses or sell them to slaughterhouses, advocates called for more funding of research for horse birth control. They also take issue with the idea that horses are starving due to overpopulation.

Originally posted by The Orange County Register