Update on the wild horses: BLM Imposes New Rules on Animal Sales

Here is an update on the wild horse situation, as covered in the Thursday, May 26, Washington Post and Baltimore Sun newspapers. The Post article is headed, "To Protect Mustangs, BLM Imposes New Rules on Animal Sales." (Pg A 25). The Baltimore Sun editorial is headed, "Horses at Risk."

As background, we read in the Washington Post piece that five months ago, "President Bush signed a measure into law ordering the agency (Bureau of Land Management -- BLM) to sell some of the wild horses and burros roaming the West." The BLM estimates there are "31,000 out there, scattered across 10 states" (plus 22,000 already in government holding facilities) while the "land supports, at most, 28,000." We read that the estimates of what the land can support are based on considerations including the number of cattle: "Ranchers pay the government to allow their cattle to graze on federal lands. Some wild horse advocates say that the BLM's estimates are skewed toward the more politically influential livestock industry, contending that the bureau could leave more horses on the range if the much larger cattle population were reduced."

Previously the BLM had been allowed to round up and offer "excess" horses for adoption but not sale. Sometimes the horses would slip through various loopholes and end up at the slaughterhouse, but the adoption fee and the requirement to keep the horses for a year offered protection. However, "a measure tucked into a massive congressional spending bill last year by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) directed the bureau to sell, without all those rules and restrictions, excess horses that are at least 10 years old or are unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times. The government estimates that 8,400 horses and burros are now eligible for sale....The law has been backed by many cattle ranchers, who say that their animals must compete with the horses for foliage....So far, the agency has sold about 2,000 horses. It has delivered about 1,000, of which, officials said, 41 have been killed."

Last week the BLM announced that in order to keep horses away from slaughterhouses, "it has beefed up legal protections for the animals and will resume selling them as early as this week." Animal advocates are skeptical about the likely efficacy of those protections. But there is good news: We read, "There are measures in Congress that would reinstate the ban on selling the animals, including one passed last week by the House that would bar such sales for one year."

The May 26 Baltimore Sun editorial, "Horses at Risk," told us that the vote was a landslide, 249-159.
(You can find out how your representatives voted at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll196.xml ) But it reminded us that the bill will now go to the Senate where it will face Senator Burns, who was responsible for the measure that removed wild horse protection.

You can find out whether your senators are co-sponsors of the Senate bill, 576, at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN00576:@@@P
And you can get contact information for your senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm, so that you can put in a couple of calls and urge them to support the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, S.576.

The Baltimore Sun editorial emphasized the impact of cattle ranching on the fate of America's wild horses: "Chiefly as a result of pressure from ranchers, so many wild horses have been removed from the range in recent years that it can be argued there aren't too many in the wild, but too few."

You'll find the full Washington Post story on line at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052501983.html OR http://tinyurl.com/amqq4

You'll find the Baltimore Sun editorial at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.horse26may26,1,6864170.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines OR http://tinyurl.com/aa4n9

They open the door for letters on a variety of issues regarding the way we treat members of other species, one obvious choice being the many costs of the government's support for the cattle ranching industry.

The Washington Post takes letters at: letters [at] washpost.com and advises "Letters must be exclusive to The Washington Post, and must include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers."


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)