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Tell Congress to Protect Wild Horses from the BLM's Reckless Management Plan

Dear John,

Last year, Congress appropriated an additional $21 million in funding to the Bureau of Land Management in the hopes that that the agency--which manages our nation's wild horses on public lands--would develop a comprehensive and humane management plan. The additional funding was contingent upon the BLM submitting a proposal to Congress, outlining a clear strategy going forward.

The BLM recently submitted its report--entitled "An Analysis of Achieving a Sustainable Wild Horse and Burro Program"--and, unfortunately, its "vision" for the future of America's wild horses is bleak. The BLM seeks to accelerate an already broken system that involves brutally rounding up thousands of wild horses each year, locking them in holding facilities at enormous taxpayer expense, and using inhumane methods such as outdated surgical sterilizations to curb population growth.

Congress is currently preparing this year's appropriations bills, which will include language directing the BLM how to spend its allocation of tax dollars. So it is imperative that lawmakers hear from their constituents on the need to ensure that the BLM manages horses humanely--this means spending a sizeable portion of the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro program budget on safe and effective fertility control options rather than on mass removals from the wild and dangerous surgical sterilization procedures.

Currently, the BLM spends virtually no funding to implement the Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) immunocontraceptive vaccine, which has a long track record of proven success for safely and humanely managing wild horses without altering their natural behaviors. In the last few years, the BLM has been ramping up its efforts to surgically sterilize wild horses using a particularly brutal procedure known as ovariectomy via colpotomy, which involves blindly inserting a metal rod to sever and remove a mare's ovaries while the animal remains conscious. A federal court previously blocked the BLM from experimenting on mares with these surgeries (in nonsterile conditions and with minimal postoperative care) to assess the risk of death and other complications associated with the procedure.

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What You Can Do
Contact your members of Congress ([link removed]) and ask that the fiscal year 2021 appropriations package contain strong language on the humane management of wild horses.

Thank you for all you do for animals!

Sincerely,

Joanna Grossman, PhD
Equine Program Manager

P.S. Follow us on Facebook ([link removed]), Twitter ([link removed]), and Instagram ([link removed]) for other important animal protection actions and news.

Photo by Ronnie Howard

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Animal Welfare Institute
900 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20003
(202) 337-2332 | www.awionline.org ([link removed])

The Animal Welfare Institute is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 1951 and dedicated to reducing animal suffering caused by people. We seek better treatment of animals everywhere: in the laboratory, on the farm, in commerce, at home, and in the wild.

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