Ideas for Change: Stop Cruel Wild Horse Roundups

by Stephanie Feldstein · 2010-03-03 12:00:00 UTC
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This week, I'm blogging about each of the three Animals ideas that made it to the final round of the Ideas for Change competition. You have until March 12 to vote for up to ten ideas. The top ten will be presented to members of the Obama administration and will become the focus of grassroots campaigns to help turn each idea into a reality.

Today's Featured Idea: Stop Cruel BLM Roundups of Wild Horses.

In theory, wild horses are protected under the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. But you wouldn't know it based on the way the Bureau of Land Management is "managing" wild horse populations to extinction.

Since 1971, over 270,000 of these "protected" animals have been removed from their home ranges in the American West. These days, that removal happens by frantic, cruel helicopter stampedes that break apart horse families and cause injuries and death.

The BLM isn't authorized to round up horses unless they're considered excess and adoptable. Even then, it's supposed to be a last resort after on-the-range population control efforts have failed. In the recent Calico Mountains Complex roundup, the BLM's estimate of the horse "overpopulation" in the area was inflated by almost 20 percent. There are now more wild horses in overcrowded government holding facilities than there are out on the open ranges. And the BLM has plans to round up more.

According to lawyers working with In Defense of Animals, many of these holding facilities around the country aren't even legal, because the horses aren't supposed to be relocated to private lands or lands where they didn't exist before 1971. But much of the public land that's supposed to belong to the horses has been turned over to cattle grazing. Horses are now outnumbered by cattle 200 to 1 on public lands. Nearly 20 million acres of wild horse habitat has been taken away in less than four decades.

In the latest roundup, 39 horses died and another 20-30 pregnant mares spontaneously aborted. These roundups need to stop before any more horses die on the taxpayers' dime, and the BLM needs to be investigated for violations of the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

Vote to Stop Cruel BLM Roundups of Wild Horses.

Photo credit: Desert Rider

Stephanie Feldstein is a Change.org Editor who has been part of the animal welfare and rescue community for over a decade, and most recently worked for an environmental organization.
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