A few short weeks ago, our investigative team emailed you with important information regarding who specifically is profiting from the brutal and inhumane practice of wild horse and burro helicopter roundups.
The sad reality is, that an astounding 89% of the Bureau of Land Management & U.S. Forest Service helicopter roundup contracts go to cattlemen — the very same people who have been lobbying for the removal of wild horses and burros from our public lands for decades.
We received an outpouring of support since our last email, and so today we’re asking you to use your online voice and help us continue to spread awareness about this incredibly important issue.
Our team put together a new graphic that you can share on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social platform you use to spread awareness around the plight of our wild horses and burros. Will you share this graphic to your social networks?
Spreading awareness about the threats our cherished wild mustangs and burros continue to face is one of the best ways we can enact change to protect these innocent animals. Growing our network of wild horse advocates like you means more calls to legislators for wild horse protections, more American taxpayers standing up for what their money is used for, and ultimately a better life for wild horses and burros.
We wanted give you a quick update about this morning’s hearing in Congress.
Unfortunately, the House Appropriations Committee voted to move the Interior spending bill on to the full House for a vote without the amendment to rein in BLM wild horse roundups. We’re disappointed that the Committee turned its back on requests made by senior appropriator Marcy Captor (D-OH) and House Natural Resource Committee Chair Raúl Grijlava to require the BLM to implement humane fertility control and to ban brutal surgical sterilization procedures on wild horses and burros.
The news is not all bad, however: The bill passed out of Committee does continue the ban on slaughtering wild horses and burros under the jurisdiction of the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service, and it rejected the Administration’s request for a budget increase of $13.5 million on top of the $102 million appropriated last year.
The report accompanying the bill indicates that the Committee believes that the BLM’s plan for wild horse management lacks sufficient detail and suggests that members will be working with the Senate on satisfactory language. This presents another opportunity for AWHC and our supporters to hold Congress’ feet to the fire regarding the need to force the BLM to reform its unsustainable and inhumane wild horse and burro roundup program.
The upshot is: Stay ready — they’ll be more opportunities soon to make our voices heard!
— The AWHC Team
*Original email below*
Tomorrow, the House Appropriations Committee will vote on the FY 2021 Interior Appropriations bill. This bill will fund the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) Wild Horse and Burro Program and determine whether limits are placed on the agency’s mass roundup plan for America’s mustangs.
You are in a unique position to influence this legislation because your Representative and/or Senator is on the Appropriations Committee that will vote on this bill. We have one day — TODAY — to push Congress to add critical language to the bill before it’s too late.
If passed in its current form, the bill would allocate $102.6 million for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program. This is a 27% increase over 2019 budget levels.
Several key members of Congress have requested that language be included in this bill to require the BLM to implement PZP fertility control to humanely manage wild horses and burros in the wild and to prohibit surgical sterilization, including the brutal ovariectomy via colpotomy procedure.
Currently, this language is not in the bill, but it could be added via an amendment to the House bill during the full committee hearing Friday. Since the Senate bill is still pending, there’s still time to convince Senators to incorporate this language in its version of the Interior spending bill.
There’s a lot at stake — if Congress doesn’t put the brakes on the BLM, the agency will round up as many as 90,000 wild horses and burros from public lands over the next five years — that’s every horse and burro living free today and more!
We reached out to you about a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in Congress who are taking a stand to champion language during budgetary negotiations that would help protect wild horses and burros next year.
Led by the Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raúl Grijalva, these lawmakers are working to prevent federal funds from going toward inhumane sterilization surgeries and accelerated mass roundups (which is being supported in a plan called the ‘Path Forward’).
Thousands of you reached out to your members of Congress (thank you!) and news of this bipartisan mustang protection effort has been carried across the nation, including in The New York Times.
