In 2018 alone, nearly 80,000 American horses, both wild and domestic, were taken to Canada or Mexico and slaughtered for human consumption.
That’s why AWHC sponsored Assembly Bill 128 (AB 128) in California — legislation to strengthen protections for horses from slaughter to help put a stop to this. AB 128 was authored by California State Assemblymember Todd Gloria (CA AD-78) in order to “make sure California’s horse population is not illegally sent to slaughter [by closing] a loophole that could lead horses to harm.”
We’re proud to tell you that all of our collective phone calls, petitions, and organizing worked: AB 128 was officially signed into law last weekend by California Governor Gavin Newsom!
The Acting Bureau of Land Management Director, William Perry Pendley, just went on record to single out wild horses as the biggest “existential threat” to public lands.
No, we’re not joking:
The irony of his comments is not lost on us. Almost 90 percent of BLM land has NO wild horses on it, and mustangs have nowhere near as large an environmental footprint as commercial livestock grazing. Pendley himself championed the cause of selling off our public lands into private ownership, for profit. That position is the real, existential threat to public lands.
But there’s a reason Pendley is peddling this fiction as fact: He’s trying to make the public case for a plan that would put wild horses on the pathway to extinction.
P.S. — It’s difficult to overstate how significant it is for the Acting Director of the BLM to label wild horses and burros “an existential threat” in an official capacity. We have to set the record straight and expose his lies — Every donation helps us do that and defend our wild horses and burros.
We wanted to make sure you had the chance to read this before getting too wrapped up in your weekend Meredith.
The roundup in the Devil’s Garden Wild Horse Territory in California ended this week, resulting in the permanent removal of 499 wild horses from their federally protected habitat. Already three of them have died at the U.S. Forest Service’s Double Devil Wild Horse Corrals.
This latest roundup followed the removal of 932 wild horses last fall from Devil’s Garden. The USFS announced last year that the captured wild horses could be sold without limitations on slaughter (we’re suing to stop them).
If you’ve already donated or cannot at this time, please consider sharing this with a couple of your close friends. Our wild horses and burros don’t have a voice – So we have to use ours.
A common question we get asked when we shine a spotlight on cruel practices and unjust policies that threaten our wild horses is:
“Why don’t you sue?”
The answer is – we are! The American Wild Horse Campaign currently has 6 active lawsuits. We consider litigation as one of our central pillars of defense against the increasing number of threats facing wild horses and burros throughout the West.
We’ve had some incredible successes – putting in place legal protections that will stand the test of time. In the case of Devil’s Garden, we’re currently suing to protect nearly 500 wild horses from potentially being sold to slaughter.
Take a moment to read below about how we’re defending wild horses and burros in the courts of law.
Thank you for looking this over and for your continued support,
American Wild Horse Campaign
P.S. – Getting the word out about our work helps us out immensely! So if you could forward this email to three friends, then we can close out this #WildHorseWednesday knowing we made a difference in the fight to defend America’s wild horses and burros!
It’s difficult to overstate the threat to wild horses and burros posed by the Cattlemen’s Association/HSUS/ASPCA, et. al., and their mass mustang roundup plan. If it goes into effect, up to 20,000 horses and burros each year for the next three years will be rounded up and removed from public lands.
Over the next ten years, the total number removed from the range could be as high as 130,000 wild horses and burros.
But thanks to dedicated supporters like you who have spoken out, signed petitions, and donated, this dangerous plan is drawing national attention and backlash:
Momentum is building, but we’re facing a major deadline to stop one cruel method that the plan allows — a brutal and outdated surgical procedure that BLM intends to use to remove the ovaries of wild mares. Many veterinarians have spoken out, but more are needed to convince Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to pull the plug on this inhumane surgery.
Mass Roundups & Surgical Sterilization Are Not The Answer
These wild herds are at risk of being destroyed forever. And this isn’t hyperbole — mass roundups would reduce wild horse populations to near-extinction levels. Surgical sterilization would destroy the mustangs’ natural behaviors, which make them truly wild and help them survive in the rugged West.
There are much better and far safer management options to maintain viable and healthy herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros on our public lands.
The National Academies of Sciences, in its 2013 Report to the BLM, made it crystal clear that roundups don’t work:
We’re Showing There Is A Better Way
Every single day, our darters are proving that humane management of wild horses in the wild is possible. And our PZP birth control programs are getting results.
In the span of five and a half months, our team of 14 volunteer darters in the Virginia Range in Nevada delivered more fertility control treatments to wild mares than the entire BLM, with its $80-million-a-year-budget, did in all of 2018.
Just last week in the Onaqui Mountains in Utah, AWHC’s darter worked with the BLM and the Wild Horses of American Foundation to dart 81 horses.
The fact is, PZP programs are getting results. We stand ready to work with the BLM to expand these programs so that wild horses and burros can live as nature intended — Wild and Free.
Here are TMR Rescue we care for several wild mustangs from the american west. Also we care for 66 wild burros. We are in the process of working with the animals and eventually finding them good permanent homes where they are appreciated and loved. We would love your financial support and if possible come visit us and our wonderful animals just north of Houston, TX.
Some of our beautiful mustangs at the ranch
Just a small sample of our precious wild burros at the ranch.
I have devastating news. The Humane Society of the United States, ASPCA, and Return to Freedom, who made promises to protect horses, just betrayed America’s mustangs and burros.
Today, at the behest of those organizations and the livestock industry lobbyists they allied with, the Senate Appropriations Committee funded a $35 million increase for the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. The appropriation is part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Interior Department spending bill unveiled today.
The funds are targeted for implementation of the unprecedented mass roundup, removal, and radical population suppression plan that the groups, along with the cattlemen, support.
There are no restrictions on how the BLM can spend the new money. With this nearly 50% increase in the program budget, it’s clear what the BLM will do. Thousands more wild horses will be rounded up with helicopters, ripping them from their families and homes on our public lands. Those who remain free will be subjected to brutal sterilization surgeries that will destroy their wild behaviors and threaten their very lives. The future of America’s wild free-roaming herds will be in jeopardy when populations are reduced to genetically non-viable levels.
Don’t be fooled by the deceptive promotion of the plan as “non-lethal.” The bill language prohibits slaughter for a year, but the plan makes that horrific outcome more likely as holding pens swell with tens of thousands more horses and no guarantee of funding for their safety or long-term care.
There’s a long process ahead before this becomes law – if it ever does. Congress may choose to fund the government in FY 20 by passing a Continuing Resolution instead of a spending bill. And the BLM will have many hurdles to cross before accelerating the roundups and implementing inhumane management tools.
With your continued support, we will fight those who betray our wild horses and burros. We’ll fight them in court. We’ll fight them in Congress. We’ll expose the backroom deal that sold out our mustangs. We won’t rest. With your continued support, we won’t stop until our mustangs are safe.
Quick update: Yesterday, the Senate Interior Appropriations subcommitee unanimously approved the spending bill and sent it to the full committee for a vote on Thursday.
Unfortunately, the subcommitee still has not released the text of the actual bill.
We may not know until Thursday what’s in it, but we can’t rest until the votes have been cast. We need your help right now to contact key Senators in the remaining 24 hours before the hearing! Scroll down for a list of Senators and our suggested brief message.
Thursday’s decision will dictate our next steps, and we have to remain vigilant.
For real-time updates, make sure you’re following us on Facebook and Twitter.
There’s a lot at stake for wild horses and burros this week on Capitol Hill. The Senate will unveil its Fiscal Year 2020 Interior Appropriations bill at a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday and a full committee hearing on Thursday.
That means we only have a few days left to oppose funding for the dangerous cattlemen’s plan that will destroy America’s wild free-roaming herds.
If you do nothing else today, please pick up the phone now to contact your Senator at 202-224-3121 as well as the key Senators below. Tell them:
“Hello. I’m calling to ask the Senator to oppose funding in FY20 Appropriations for the cattlemen’s plan for America’s wild horses and burros. I don’t want my tax dollars spent on mass roundups that will lead to eventual slaughter or on cruel sterilization surgeries. Please don’t throw more money at a failed program that has shown no ability to reform. Thank you.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, (202) 224-6665 or (907) 271-3735
Senator Tom Udall, (202) 224-6621 or (505) 346-6791
Senator Susan Collins, (202) 224-2523 or (207) 780-3575
Senator Lindsay Graham, (202) 224-5972 or (803) 933-0112
Senator Marco Rubio, (202) 224-3041, (305) 596-4224
Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242 or (802) 863-2525
Senator Dianne Feinstein, (202) 224-3841 or (415) 393-0707
Senator Jeff Merkley, (202) 224-3753 or (503) 326-3386
Senator Chris VanHollen, (202) 224-4654 or (667) 212-4610
Senator Jack Reed, (202) 224-4642 or (401) 528-5200
There’s a lot at stake for wild horses in Washington this week as the Senate unveils its FY2020 Interior Appropriations bill at a subcommittee hearing tomorrow. The legislation could have huge ramifications for mustangs and burros.
The bill could include funding to implement the dangerous cattlemen’s plan for our wild horses, which includes accelerated roundups, cruel surgical sterilization, and tripling the number of horses in holding — making slaughter more likely in the long run. If the bill doesn’t prohibit the Forest Service from selling horses for slaughter, all wild horses under Forest Service jurisdiction, including California’s Devil’s Garden mustangs, will be at grave risk.
Here’s what American Wild Horse Campaign is doing to defend wild horses.
We lobby. On the Hill, our experienced legislative team is fighting every day to convince legislators to secure real and humane solutions that protect these national icons.
We lead grassroots campaigns to make sure your voices are heard. In 2017, we beat back the existential threat of mass slaughter. With your support, we’ll prevail again.
We defend in the courtroom. Our lawsuits have defeated rancher attempts to force mass roundups and BLM plans to eradicate wild horses from designated habitat. We’re currently in court simultaneously fighting the Forest Service’s slaughter plans and the BLM’s plans to perform barbaric sterilization surgeries on wild mares.
We can keep this vital work going – but only with your help. The lives of tens of thousands of mustangs and burros depend on your support.
Thank you for your steadfast support for AWHC and our beloved mustangs and burros
The BLM is accepting public comments on a Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) that will affect a small herd of wild horses living in the Four Mile Herd Management Area in southwestern Idaho, near the Oregon border for the next 10-20 years. Among the management options under consideration for wild horses in the Four Mile mustangs are surgical removal of ovaries in mares and castration of stallions, vasectomy, PZP, GonaCon, skewed sex ratios, and the creation of non-reproducing herds. Now is the time to weigh in for humane and proven management options like PZP fertility control, and rejection of dangerous methods, like surgical sterilization and sex-ratio skewing, that will destroy the horses’ wild free roaming behaviors and social organization. Please take one moment to take action below.
The BLM is well into its summer/fall roundup season, aiming to remove 3,565 federally-protected wild horses from public lands through the fall. This month has seen three roundups conducted simultaneously in three different states — including one targeting the nation’s most high profile wild horse herd. AWHC has been onsite at all three roundups and you can read our reports from the field by clicking below.
Thanks to all the members of our herd who galloped to action last week to let the Senate know that the so-called Path Forward for wild horses — being pushed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, ASPCA, HSUS and Return to Freedom — will be a giant step back for these cherished national icons. Together we made our position known, loud and clear. Read more about the successful mini campaign below!
#WildHorseWeek continues, and so do your opportunities to get your Senator’s attention.
As you know, a dangerous proposal is being circulated for mustangs and burros, and we must ensure that the Senate stands strong on our side and does not include funding language in the Interior Appropriations Bill.
Today, we urge you to speak up on social media.
What you can do:
1. Send these automated tweets to our Senate targets using the links below.
We are hearing that offices know where we stand, we just have to keep it up. Let’s make sure they hear us loud and clear.
Thank you and post away!
– The AWHC Team
P.S. If you haven’t already, please make a call to your Senator at 202-224-3121 and tell them to OPPOSE funding for the Cattlemen’s Association/ASPCA wild horse plan and SUPPORT legislative language to prevent USFS from selling wild horses for slaughter.
It’s here: #WildHorseWeek in Washington. Today, we unify wild horse supporters around the country to make our voices heard!
Mustangs and burros on our public lands are at risk, and we must ensure that the Senate stands strong to protect them. At issue is Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 spending legislation, which must reject a dangerous plan for mass wild horse roundups and must include a prohibition to stop the Forest Service from selling wild horses for slaughter.
What we’re asking you to do today: Make the call to your Senators by calling 202-224-3121. Ask them to please reject this misguided proposal.
Suggested message:
Hi, My name is __________ and I live in [town]. I’m requesting that Senator [name] OPPOSE funding in the FY20 Interior Appropriations bill for a Cattlemen’s/ASPCA plan to round up and warehouse over 100,000 wild horses and burros over the next ten years. I’m also asking the Senator to SUPPORT language in the bill to prevent the Forest Service from selling wild horses for slaughter. Thank you for your time.
Together, we’ll make our voices heard. Please pick up your phone today!
Right now, the Senate is considering partial funding for a plan that, if approved, could mean the beginning of the end for free-roaming horses and burros. The plan, ill-conceived and full of dangerously vague language, is hidden within the Interior budget bill and it’s on track to be negotiated in September.
What is this plan? It’s a ten year attack on wild horse populations, and nothing short of a surrender of the decades-long fight for fair treatment, humane management, and preservation of our nation’s wild horse and burro herds.
The plan is billed as a compromise between the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, other livestock lobbying groups, and the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS), the ASPCA and Return to Freedom, but there’s nothing in it for wild horses.
In fact, it calls for the roundup of 130,000 wild horses and burros over the next decade – more than exist today on the range. This will triple the number of wild horses and burros incarcerated at taxpayer expense, at a cost of close to $1 billion over the next decade, without any guarantee of long-term funding to ensure safety from slaughter for these cherished animals.
And there’s more. Herd numbers will diminish beyond minimum viable populations, gruesome sterilization experiments for wild mares will remain on the table, and herds left on public lands will be manipulated with unnatural sex ratios that will wreak havoc on social organization and dynamics.
We’ve seen the power Americans have to affect change at a national level. We must band together to demand an absolute NO to this disastrous plan.
Where does your member of Congress stand on protecting wild horses? If you don’t know, now’s the time to find out. And if they’re supporting mass roundups and sterilization, it’s the time to change their minds. Your Representative and Senators are back home for the August recess and will be holding town halls and taking meetings – so now’s your chance to speak up for our wild horses and burros! Learn how at the link below.
Our wild horses and burros are often the subjects of inaccurate, misleading, agenda-driven reporting. A recent example is Jason G. Goldman’s “Feral Horse, Fierce Controversy” that was published in the July issue of Alta, a magazine that promises “a celebration and examination of all things about California.” If you shopped at Whole Foods in California this summer, you will have likely seen this cover story on the magazine prominently displayed in the check-out lines. It’s a biased, sensationalized piece far below the journalistic standards that Alta says it aspires to. Read our response below.
The U.S. Forest Service is proposing rules that will significantly weaken its regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of proposed actions prior to making decisions. The Forest Service proposed rules would limit the opportunity for public input and make it easier for the agency to make decisions on proposed actions, like wild horse roundups, without analyzing the environmental impacts. Please read more and weigh in against the proposed rule change by clicking below.
With the dust barely settled after the Triple B roundup last week, we’re headed to the Pine Nut wild horse roundup in Nevada on Monday.
As I write this, tens of thousands of wild horses stand in government holding facilities, and we wait with bated breath for the BLM’s decision on whether or not it will proceed with gruesome sterilization experiments on wild mares.
With tactical lawsuits, advocacy on the Hill, implementation of humane fertility control, and documentation in the wild, we continue with crucial actions to make roundups a thing of the past. That’s why, last week, we extended our fundraising goal to $100,000 to fight these cruel stampedes.
Here are some of the actions we take to end roundups:
With field representation and filmmakers on the ground at each roundup, we’re gathering footage for educational videos to share with the public and lawmakers.
On Capitol Hill, our legal team is educating key members of Congress to combat a dangerous plan to round up and remove up to 130,000 wild horses over the next 10 years. (That’s more than exist on the range today.)
With litigation funding, we’re building specific cases for roundup-related lawsuits — like our case to save wild horses near Caliente, Nevada where BLM is planning to remove 100% of the herds.
Donate today to take action with us. Your support is key as we continue asserting to stand as the last line of defense between our wild horses and burros and the corporate livestock industry that seeks their destruction.
Earlier this month, we set an ambitious fundraising goal of $50,000 to document the BLM’s roundup season, which began in Nevada’s Triple B Complex. That was before this week’s Senate hearing on the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program – a one-sided affair for cattle industry lobbyists, and not a single advocate for preserving America’s wild horses in the wild.
Thanks to you, we hit our $50,000 goal this week. The response from supporters like you has been an incredible boost during the hardest time of the year for wild horses. But to fight back against the stacked proceedings in the Senate – at the same time as the BLM’s terrifying and cruel roundups continue in the West – we’re now raising our goal to make sure everyone, from the American people to their elected leaders on Capitol Hill, sees how inhumane and unnecessary the BLM roundups really are.
Thanks to your support, we’ve been out at the Triple B roundup in Nevada these past few weeks — with heartbreaking photo and video evidence that will long outlast this roundup. Just over 800 horses lost their freedom at Triple B this month; 16 of them lost their lives. These include five tiny foals, one of whom was too weak to stand after withstanding a miles-long helicopter stampede and another who died of water toxicity, likely a result of the BLM’s failure to give the vulnerable baby electrolytes after an arduous run in summer heat left him stressed and dehydrated.
We’ll use this evidence for the battles ahead. This week’s Senate hearing wasn’t just about laying the groundwork for more roundups. The cattle industry lobbyists and BLM want money to surgically sterilize wild horses who remain in the wild, by castrating stallions and ripping out the ovaries of wild mares in dangerous and painful surgeries.
The cattle industry’s path forward leads to one place — mass destruction… of wild, free-roaming horses in the wild, and of those in captivity whose days will be numbered when the government funding to care for them runs out.
If you are receiving this email, you are uniquely positioned to push back against a dangerous plan on Capitol Hill that threatens the future of wild horses.
Tomorrow, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Public Lands, Forests, and Mining Subcommittee will hold an “oversight” hearing on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program. Unfortunately, this hearing is completely stacked against wild horses and in favor of a plan that includes unprecedented mass roundups, surgical sterilization and stockpiling of mustangs in holding facilities.
When we fight back to protect wild horses, it makes a real difference. In a huge win for our grassroots movement, the Trump Administration just announced that it will not pursue lethal measures – such as euthanasia or selling wild horses for slaughter – to manage America’s wild horse populations.
We’ve battled for three years to stop Congress from authorizing the mass killing of wild horses and burros. As always, we are the last line of defense for these national icons. The Administration’s policy shift shows that when we stand firm, we win!
It’s time to savor this news, but we cannot rest, because the Administration continues to pursue inhumane sterilization methods – such as surgically removing the ovaries of mares – that not only place the health and safety of wild horses and burros at risk, but also will take the wild out of these wild animals by destroying their natural behaviors.
This victory gives us hope for the battles ahead – it proves that actions we take to stand up for wild horses and burros make a real difference in the lives of these cherished animals.
These are the last weeks of freedom for hundreds of wild horses in the West.
Just days after July 4, when America celebrates freedom, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will use helicopters in terrifying and often fatal roundups to rob hundreds of wild horses of their freedom.
Once captured, these iconic symbols of American freedom will be held in captivity for the rest of their lives. Of those who survive the roundup, many will then die in holding facilities in the weeks and months to follow. In holding facilities, the threat of slaughter looms large over their heads as the BLM captures more and more wild horses and burros from the wild and warehouses them at taxpayer expense.
In last summer’s roundups, foals were separated from their mothers and literally run to death. Helicopters ran horses into barbed wire and chased them for miles until they collapsed.We were there to make sure every abuse was documented.
Frequently, we’re the only public eyes and ears at these roundups. Documenting this cruelty and holding the BLM accountable is a fundamental step to creating change. Now we must build the resources necessary to be out on the range again, so we can document the roundups and the cruelty that will undoubtedly occur over the next few weeks.
As July 4th approaches, please remember the majestic wild horses who are living their last weeks of freedom, unaware of what’s to come.