Tell Congress: Protect 50,000 Wild Horses from BLM Slaughter

Rather than preserve our nation's wild horses and burros, the agency charged with managing them—the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)—has hatched a plan to sneak them out the backdoor and send them to slaughter.

Buried inPresident's proposed 2017 budgetis a provision that allows the agency to strip these iconic animals of their protected status and turn them over to state and local authorities, which could then easily send them to "kill plants" in Mexico with no oversight whatsoever.

It's the latest in a long series ofBLMshirking its responsibility to do asCongressand the American people have long demanded—humane preservation of wild horses and burros on their native range.

TheBLM's "budget in brief" also outlines the agency's plans to pursue dangerous and inhumane spaying and gelding of wild horses—a direct contradiction to the National Academy of Sciences, whichrecommendeda complete overhaul of its failing approach to managing these cherished animals.

The proposals are in line withBLM's distorted view that there is an "unsustainable proliferation of wild horses" on federal lands. It's an exaggeration at its core—wild horses are present on just 12 percent of federal rangelands and are outnumbered by livestock by nearly 50-1—and also a "problem" the agency has created for itself by refusing to manage wild horses and burros with available,science-based, and humane fertility control vaccines.

Rather than let wild horses and burros roam in more substantial numbers,BLMkeeps population numbers unnaturally low. The agency rounds up these animals with helicopters, driving thousands ofmustangsoff our public lands each year and putting them into feedlot pens—all at taxpayer expense.

According to the NAS, theBLM's management practices—an endless cycle of roundups and removals—"are facilitating high rates of population growth." The esteemed scientific body warned that continued "removals are likely to keep the population at a size that maximizes population growth rates, which in turn maximizes the number of animals that must be removed through holding facilities."

Nearly three years ago, The NAS recommended that theBLMutilize scientifically provenfertility controlas an alternative to removals. Yet the agency's use of the available birth control vaccine—PZP—has actually declined, while the roundups continue.

Today theBLMwarehouses as many wild horsesin captivityas remainfree in the wild, and their numbers grow every year as does the wild horse programs' budget—currently $80 million per year.

Which is why theBLMwould just as soon take the easy way out and get rid of the horses. The agency's budget proposal would allow this by allowingBLMto transfer "excess" horses out of holding and into the hands of state and local managers, many of whom have even less love of the animals than the feds.

In itsproposal,BLMasks permission to transfer these animals to other agencies so they might be used as "work animals" and remove their status as "wild free-roaming" horses and burros. With 47,000 horses and burros currently in captivity, it's unlikely many would find placement as work animals.

No, the key idea floated here is to classify wild animals as no longer wild, so they can be exported for slaughter. In essence,BLM's proposed provision is an end run around the current Congressional ban on the agency's sale of captured mustangs and burros for slaughter.

The impetus behindBLM's unsustainable approach to wild horse management and its resistance to reform is the powerful cattlemen's lobby, which viewsmustangsas competition for cheap taxpayer-subsidized grazing on public lands. But this is not the American public's view. Polls document that3 out of 4 Americans supportprotecting wild horses and burros on public land, while80 percent opposehorse slaughter.

It's time for the power of the people to prevail. Don't letBLMget away with stripping our iconic wild horses and burros of their protected legal status and laundering them through state and local agencies into the slaughter pipeline.

TellCongressto protect America's wild horses and burros fromBLMbrutality.Sign and share the petition now!

Originally posted by Huffpost Green