Eliminate the Bureau of Land Management - they’re using helicopters to round up horses that have been on our nations lands/national parks for centuries. Many of them are injured, killed and sent to other countries to be slaughtered. Leave the horses alone and let them stay in their natural setting. There’s a perfect eco system that’s there now. I think they want to use the land for cattle. It’s costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year and it’s just sheer madness and cruelty. Go to the Instagram accounts @Skydogsanctuary or @freewildhorses
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Agree - unnecessary cruelty to horses
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Agreed!
The current legislation on this issue that Skydog supports is the H.R. 3475 SAFE Act of 2023 introduced on May 18, 2023.
SPONSOR: Rep. Vern Buchanan [R-FL16]
BILL: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3475/
SCOPE: It is a bill to amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 to prohibit the slaughter of equines for human consumption.
WHERE IS IT? SAFE Act of 2023 (H.R. 3475) - GovTrack.us
PROGNOSIS: 2% chance of being enacted
Unfortunately, this bill does not address the Bureau of Land Management roundups which is the greater horror. But it is an important step in the right direction.
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exactly it does affect the wild horses in that the BLM leadership wants slaughter to stay legal so that they can get rid of the wild horses. It is a horrific way for any horse to die because they are fight or flight animals and slaughter houses are set up for same size cows while horses are many different sizes and tend to fight the machines and people leading to horrific abuse. The ways of killing them also don’t work and it ends up some are ground up alive. Horrifically inhumane as this is done in border countries. Thank you for putting all the information down about the safe act
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This is a noble idea but very misguided. The vast herds of wild horses have a have a tendency to overpopulate consuming all available forages and eventually starving. A more human approach is thru herd management. Also, there are more serious issues that need to be tackled before we throw tax payer dollars at this.
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For sure, the issue is complicated, and I understand the argument that there are more important issues. I’d only say add that, similar to what was done in 1973 when the bald eagle was threatened, I think action on this reflects protecting a symbol of country. American mustangs (like the eagle, and the buffalo) have historically been emblematic of the nation. You could argue that taking steps to protect them is a symbolic victory that lifts morale. You can’t really quantify that. This isn’t to negate your comment, just to add to it.
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I completely agree. They are a national treasure but unlike the bald eagle which was tapering towards extinction, the mustangs are over populating their habitat. These mustangs are being shipped to pastures all over the Midwest to live out their lives on the tax payers dollar. A lot of them can have well over $10,000 dollar per animal in feed and pasture costs while tying up highly productive tall grass prairie.
Agree, these are We The People’s wild horses that have been on public land for years & years. The old die and new ones are born - the way God created to be. The BLM are not taking care of the wild horses, they are instead abusing them in the most barbaric way. I don’t want my tax money going towards this abuse. Take the management of these wild horses away from the BLM. It is the ranchers cattle and sheep that destroy the forage NOT the wild horses & Burros. Also, why don’t the BLM give the sanctuaries to 1st come save any of the wild horses they have before any sale?? If you actually are managing these horses that should mean you have the best interest in them & should want these wild horses to go to a sanctuary to live wild & free if possible!! Just plain common sense. Shouldn’t have anything to do with money! We need to get back our humanity again and that includes how we treat our animals in our care and certainly includes our livestock!!!
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Also, to add to my reply, the public belongs to We The People and so does the wild horses! If the BLM is using our tax payers money we should have a say in this matter. The public land is huge and the over population is not true. The government/BLM should not be pushing out our wild horses & Burros on Federal land to instead have ranchers cattle & sheep on the land instead.
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Not completely true. Cattle ranchers are given preference for grazing rights and it’s been shown horses do not decimate the land. And you mention managing the herd… You should follow a couple pages on Facebook that actually describe the horrific manner in which they are “managed” by BLM. There’s plenty of Land and horses manage their lives just fine. The average lifespan is much shorter and gestational period is a year.
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100% agree end the BLM round ups. I would like to establish sanctuary ranches for these horses. The cattle industry wants them gone because they eat grass that their open range cattle could eat. They harm no one, but are a target. These organizations are calling them a nuisance animal. Catchy phrase to get people to remember them as just that.
Ending this the cruel round ups is a priority for me.
True! And There are more wild horses in holding facilities than out in the wild now. Last count was 62,000 being held captive. So horrific.
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Do you have any idea what happened to horses when they shutdown slaughter facilities in the US ? Thousands of horses were abused and starved to death because owners ran out of options. I personally know people that would find random horses in their pasture. Owners were dumping them anywhere they could. When liberals think about these policy decisions, they need to think 2 or 3 moves ahead. The wild horses roaming public lands need to be managed via harvest or sterilization. I swear some people in this country would put animals over human life. I’m not saying be inhumane but lets be clear thinking adults. Also how much of your personal finances have gone to saving these poor horses?
100% I live in AZ. They round up the wild horses and some die from the stress.
Cattle and wild horses can coexist. They did so quite well in the past. That said i 100% agree that the BLM needs to leave our wild horse and burro populations alone.
There is the thought that wild horses somehow are “taking the grazing land away from cattle ranchers.” This is entirely unscientific & not proven. It is a prejudice in favor of personal profits. A grave injustice is being done to our wild horses, which are often sold overseas for meat. It is a form of degrading a people & their Spirit. This should be at the top of our list, as an emblem of our Freedom!
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Interesting, never knew this was going on in America.
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Yes, it is a step in the right direction, however, an audit and Congressional Hearing on how the Wild Horse program is run would be the right step in shutting down the practice and reviewing what is actually happening.
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We could save a lot of taxpayer dollars by NOT rounding up horses from the wild (cost of roundups, processing horses and trying to adopt them out, short term holding, and then paying ranchers - who find it more profitable than raising cattle - to house them long-term), not killing off predators at the behest of ranchers - predators would help manage the horse populations, and not leasing land to ranchers at a subsidy, which doesn’t pay for the cost of the BLM program.
In addition, there is enough evidence to show horses are actually native to North America, and that they are pivotal in preventing wild fires and reducing the damage fires cause. At the turn of the 20th Century (1900’s), there were more than 2 MILLION wild horses roaming western America, now there are less than 74,000 wild horses and burros combined (per BLM’s estimates) on just over 31.5 million acres, or approximately 430 ACRES for EACH horse or burro. Not exactly an over population problem.