We have been working with many organizations and Senators. The work is not over and we still have to get this through a Congressional Conference to address the differences in the House and Senate. Then we need to get this done on the ground! But we are on the way to sanity! Together WE CAN.

Breaking News! The Senate (DOI subcommittee) has created a version of an Appropriations bill that will not kill tens of thousands of wild horses.

The Presidents proposed spending bill for Fiscal year 2018 cut the Bureau of Land Management budget by ten million dollars. The version passed by the House of Representatives included language that would have seen tens of thousands of wild horses shot.

Today the United States Senate created a version of the bill, included with no need for another vote, that increases the budget for the wild horse and burro program by 5 million dollars. The condition of the increased budget is that the agency find humane management solutions that work on the range.

“We have been working diligently to demonstrate that we can manage wild horses humanely on the range,” said Laura Leigh President of Wild Horse Education, “Our work takes a site by site approach that uses modern tools to monitor and manage. We are overjoyed that this information is being understood.”

The House version has the language to kill wild horses and the Senate version does not. Both versions now make their way into conference.

“The battle is not won yet,” said Leigh “But we are finally on the track of sanity.”

Where to from here?

Next step is to turn the House. (We have also had some important legislation introduced in the “big picture” and we will have more on how you can help move that through soon!)

You can send a free fax over the holiday weekend.

You can send a free FAX today; click HERE for Senate (we still have a full floor vote), click HERE for House. Phone numbers for your representatives can be found at, please call tomorrow: govtrack.us

Templates below:

Senate: “I do not want any federal funds used to kill healthy wild horses. I want restrictions to the BLM “sale program” to be maintained. Killing any healthy wild horse, or facilitating such actions through sales, is not acceptable. The Department of Interior budget has multiple options to save a few million dollars. Not one subsidy to livestock is addressed in the budget and the federal grazing program is out of control. The wild horses should not be shot or sent to slaughter to continue the broken grazing program. As an American I find it unacceptable, completely unacceptable.”

Kids can help!

#Kids4WildHorses is taking letters to Congress (in person and by mail). We all must be mindful about the world we leave to our children.

click here for more: https://wildhorseeducation.org/2017/10/25/4-leg-brigade-kids-can-help-wild-horses/

Senate Statement

Wild Horses and Burros.—The Committee appreciates the seriousness

with which the request takes the on-range overpopulation

of wild horses and burros. With on-range wild horse population 270

percent over Appropriate Management Level; on-range wild horse

populations doubling roughly every 4 years; adoption numbers

steadily decreasing over the last decade, and unlikely to return to

historic levels; range conditions inadequate to sustain both wild

horses and burros and native wildlife habitat; and significant trespass

issues and instances where wild horses are found outside designated

Herd Management Areas, the Committee recognizes that

bold steps must be taken to put this program on a path to sustainability.

The Committee looks forward to the release of the report

required by the Statement of Managers accompanying division G of

the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2017 and is hopeful that it will

contain a range of humane and politically viable options that can

collectively be implemented to drastically reduce on-range populations

and a variety of methods to limit unsustainable on-range

reproduction and the Committee has provided an additional

$5,000,000 to begin this effort. The Committee again asserts its position

that no one solution will resolve this issue and multiple approaches

employed together are necessary to controlling the current

unsustainable trajectory of wild horse and burro population

growth.

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The work is not finished. We need to push the investigations forward for accountability. We need to prepare more documents and continue to present our site specific analysis and solution documents. Help us build the tools for a sustainable tomorrow for our wild horses and wild places. Humane and sane management is possible. We still have a lot of work to get this done on the range.

Can you help us turn up the heat?