In 1971, after decades of wild horses being rounded up and slaughtered for commercial interests—including use in pet food—Congress passed the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which declared wild horses and burros “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West” and instituted protection, management, and control of the wild horse and burro populations on public lands.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is the government agency tasked with managing the wild horse population. The act gave the BLM the authority to determine the appropriate management level (AML) for each herd management area (meaning the number of horses the land can support). The AML is controversial, with activists arguing that it serves the interests of other industries, particularly the livestock industry, rather than the wild horses. The AML is also based on the number of horses that were on the range in 1971, a number that was found to be grossly underestimated.
In 2004, after years of policy failures and budget increases, the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was amended without public review to allow the BLM to sell unadoptable wild horses at livestock auctions where they would most likely be picked up by kill buyers and exported to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. Between 2001 and 2022, more than 1.7 million horses—both wild and domesticated—were sent to slaughter.
Every year, the BLM rounds up thousands of mustangs and burros that exceed the AML via low-flying helicopters. This brutal method results in stampedes, exhausting chases over rough terrain, injuries, and deaths. Once the horses are captured, family bands are separated and thrown into crowded government-holding pens. Some end up getting adopted, some are auctioned off, and others are sentenced to a lifetime in the holding pens.
Currently, there are about 60,000 wild horses and burros in government-holding pens, costing millions in taxpayer dollars each year. Because a large portion of the BLM’s budget goes toward this upkeep, there is less funding available to research and implement more effective herd management practices, like humane birth control methods.
Contraceptives such as the Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) vaccine, a reversible birth control method administered through remote darting, are currently used to successfully manage other wild horse populations without round-ups, including the wild herds of Assateague Island in Virginia/Maryland.
In the 1800s, an estimated two million wild horses and burros lived free in the West. Today, the population is down to about 80,000, with many in government-holding facilities. We must take action to protect these iconic symbols of freedom.