Wild Horse Preservation Coalition Celebrates Resignation of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar

Washington, DC (January 16, 2013)- TheAmerican Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign)(AWHC), a national coalition of over 50 organizations, today hailed the news that Ken Salazar will step down from his post as Secretary of the Interior in March.

"We'll look back at Ken Salazar's tenure as Interior Secretary as the beginning of the end of the federal government's wild horse and burro roundup program," AWHC Director Suzanne Roy said this morning. "By doubling down on the cruel and wastefulpolicyof rounding up and stockpiling wild horses and burros, and refusing to listen to public concerns, he rallied tens of thousands of Americans behind safe and cost-effective alternatives. This renewed support for America’s wild horses and burros is a powerful force for change, which the new Secretary of the Interior will have to recognize."

She continued, "President Obama now has the opportunity to appoint a Secretary of the Interior who will truly guard America’s uniquepublic landslegacy – including our wild horses and burros. We urge the President to choose an Interior Secretary who will place the public interest over commercial interests that seek to use and abuse ourpublic landsand erase America’s iconicmustangsfrom the Western landscape forever."

During Secretary Salazar's tenure, the Interior Department has rounded up and removed over 35,000 wild horses from Westernpublic lands. Only a third of these horses have been adopted. Most captured horses are warehoused in holding facilities. Currently, there are 50,000 wild horses in government holding facilities while fewer than 32,000 remain in the wild. Wild horses are removed by the thousands frompublic landsto make room for taxpayer-subsidizedlivestockgrazing. Privatelivestockexceed wild horses on BLM lands by at least 50-1. (More informationhere.)

In October 2009, Salazar announced hisplan to reformthe wild horse and burro program. However, the promised changes were not implemented, and cost-effective, humane solutions – such as birth control – were given only token attention.

Salazar, a Colorado rancher, ran an Interior Department closely allied with thelivestockindustry, which views mustangs as competition for cheap, taxpayer-subsidizedlivestockgrazing and seeks their removal frompublic lands.

In August 2011,The Atlanticexposedthe fact that Salazar’s deputy Sylvia Bacca had encouraged a powerful Wyoming grazing association to sue her own department as a mechanism to secure funds to remove wild horses frompublic landswhere thelivestockgrowers want to graze sheep.

In September 2012,ProPublicarevealedthat the Interior Department had sold “truckload after truckload” of federally protected wild horses to a known kill buyer, Tom Davis. Davis, alivestockhauler who purchases horses and ships them to slaughter in Mexico, just happens to be Salazar’s neighbor in Colorado. The Interior Department’s sales of capturedmustangsto Davis increased dramatically after he became Secretary in 2009. On Election Day 2012, Salazarthreatened to punch out the journalistwho wrote theProPublicastory.

In October 2012, the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation)delivered a petitionsigned by 25,130 American citizens calling on Secretary Salazar to halt federal wild horseroundupsand implement policies that will ensure that no federally-protected wild horse is sent to slaughter. To date, the Secretary has failed to respond to the petition. As well, the Secretary has ignored hundreds of thousands of public comments calling for a halt toroundupsand for implementation of alternatives, including birth control, to manage wild horses and burros on the range.