U.S. Government Plans to Kill 45,000 Wild Horses

In a controversial move, a government board has recommended the euthanasia of 45,000 wild horses and burros to make room for beef mega farms. This decision has sparked outrage among animal advocates and the public.

Taxpayers will fund what could become the largest horse slaughter in history, following the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board of theBureau of Land Management(BLM) vote to euthanize all wild horses and burros in government-run holding facilities across the U.S.

Animal advocates are heartbroken by the decision and are volunteering to help with any alternatives to the killing.

Alternatives to killing the horses, such as humanefertility control, have been ignored for over 20 years, according to Hazard, as thehorses and burros have been rounded up by the governmentand taken away from their wild homes to make room for cattle ranchers. At the government-run facilities, horses have been leftout in pens in 100-degree heat with no shelterto protect them.

And the facilities are becoming overcrowded. Although theBLMsays thatthey do not send horses to slaughter, many of the horses they auction offend up in the slaughter pipeline. A recent investigativereportdiscovered that theBLMsold horses to a Colorado rancher who in turn sent those horses to Mexico for slaughter.

Fewer than 50,000 wild horses now remain in the wild, following the removal of around 270,000 mustangs from private land since 1971, according toIn Defense of Animals(IDA).

"TheBLMcontinues to persecute wild horses through continued roundups to remove horses from the range so thatpublic landscan be used by meat ranchers," IDA wrote, pointing out that the number of cows and sheep onpublic landsleaves wild horses outnumbered by over 30 to one. The massive ranches that supply factory farms with animals destined for slaughter are alsodevastating the environment.

TheBLMspent millions each year maintaining the holding facilities, but didn't implement a humane plan to sterilize the horses. Rather,BLMexperimented with invasive sterilization procedures on the wild horses,causing public outcry.

One of the ways was restraining female horses while a veterinarian reaches into her vagina, makes an incision in the vaginal wall and manuallytwists and severs the ovaries with a tool with a chain on the end of it.

The procedure "may be followed by prolonged bleeding or … infection," according to the National Academy of Sciences, which urged theBLMnot to use this technique for its horses.

Another way is reaching into the female horsethrough an incision in her side.

Last week,BLMdropped these experiments — and instead recommended a mass killing of the horses.

Now Kathrens is urging collaboration between the government and animal advocates to develop wide-scale, humanePorcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) fertility control programs— vaccinations rather than painful procedures — which theNational Academy of Sciencesrecommended years ago. TheBLMhas used thePZPmethod at times, buthas said that it's generally "not practical."

According to Hazard, the HSUS "stands ready to implement these alternatives at any time."

Exactly when (or how) the horses are going to be killedhas not been decided yet— so there's still time to speak up for them.

Call Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior, at 202-208-3100, to say the killing of America's wild horses and burros is unacceptable. Then emailBLMat director@blm.gov.Add your name to a petition here.

Originally posted by The Dodo