Dear friend,

Our wild horses and burros are in crisis. And we need your help.

Even though there is a 50-year-old federal law to protect them on our public lands in the West, the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and some ranchers are colluding to round them up and drive down their populations.

Their motive? Allowing millions of cattle and sheep to graze on our public lands. The ranchers, already benefiting from below-cost grazing rights, want to wipe out the wild horses and burros in order to produce cheaper hamburgers for a small number of consumers.

It really is as simple as that.

In July, Animal Wellness Action and other wild horse advocates watched in anguish as the BLM chased down 3,100 wild horses in helicopter roundups from a vast area in northeastern Nevada known as the Antelope Complex. The heat was blazing, with temperatures in the triple digits. At least 39 horses died, including from broken necks, broken legs, heat exhaustion, and colic. Public observers witnessed multiple baby foals being left behind during the chase, dooming them.

In a separate action, the BLM chased a palomino stallion named Mr. Sunshine into a trap with his family. The stallion leaped over the trap panel to escape. When he landed, his back leg snapped. They then chased him another 35 minutes before putting him out of his misery.

This kind of menace is going on throughout the West.

In the past two years, tens of thousands of federally protected wild horses and burros have been separated from their families in the wild and consigned to the misery of the BLM’s notoriously inhumane holding facilities. Under the agency’s flawed Adoption Incentive Program, many of these animals have ended up in the hands of “kill buyers” who sell these wild animals into the slaughter pipeline, to eventually meet their doom in a Canadian or Mexican meat plant, with their meat sold to foreign adversaries like Russia and China.

Soon, Animal Wellness Action will work with our allies in Congress to introduce the Restore Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act. With your help, we are looking forward to a new campaign to pass the ROAM Act and restore our beloved and iconic horses and burros to their rightful place on our western public lands.

We’re going to take the fight to the politicians, ranchers, and even to the rogue federal agency that are working against wild horses. That includes an upcoming debate, dubbed “The Dust-Up in the Desert,” between our own director of campaigns, Scott Beckstead, and Nevada state senator Ira Hansen. The debate is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 7, at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT at the Elko Convention Center in Elko, Nevada.

You can watch the debate live by registering at this link. Do so today, as we expect the capacity to fill quickly.

Beckstead, who is a horseman and a native of the Interior West, brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the debate. He issued a challenge to State Senator Hansen after seeing his claims that wild horses in Nevada are harming the West, even though there 40 cattle and sheep for every wild horse or burro.

We’ve had enough of the round ups and the subversion of federal law.

It’s time to fight.

To hone your own knowledge of this controversy, join us for the debate. Then, commit to rally for the horses and help us bring about a complete reset of our nation’s wild horse and burro management programs.

These remarkable animals, symbols of the West and its free spirit, deserve so much better.

For the wild horses and burros,

Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action