Postcard campaign from 2012. It took BLM until 2015 to adopt internal standards.

Debate: Wild Horse and Burro Welfare Policy (Editorial, Laura Leigh)

A glimpse at my perspective

Back in 2009, I was covering a roundup for a small feed store type newspaper called Horseback Magazine (no longer in publication). My editor loved horses, was becoming increasingly interested in wild horses, but was more of a Rodeo guy living in Texas. I was working as a freelance writer back then and Steven Long gave wild horses a spotlight in his paper and threw me a bit of work. (He has since passed away and is missed by many.)

Back then, special “media days” were arranged so the public could observe this 2-month long winter roundup once a week. You had to get on a waiting list. Even if you were on the list, BLM could bump you off if they were accommodating people they felt were “more important.” Access to view the roundup was like winning a lottery ticket; many roundups of that time offered no observation at all. (I had to fight six years in courts to gain the daily, nondiscriminatory, access policy of today.)

The holding facility the captured wild horses were being shipped to from the range was brand new and not open to the public. I had to get an appointment for a private tour to complete the article. The highly controlled tour was given by the Winnemucca District Manager of that time (Gene Seidlitz) and lead public relations for the state office. There was not even a sorting chute installed yet that could be used to treat injured horses, no windbreak or shelter in sick pens. But BLM stuffed over 2000 horses into that facility that was still, literally, under construction. (Later, under pressure from an active court case and media attention, the facility opened for weekly tours that stopped due to bad press a few months later.)

What I saw and heard at both the roundup and the facility changed me forever. Before the roundup I had already filed litigation against the immediate eradication of horses living in the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge (Fish and Wildlife Service) where killbuyers were literally being paid to take the horses captured with taxpayer funding. But the abuse I saw at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) roundup, coupled with the blatant misinformation that any “cubby reporter” could see clearly, gave rise to my founding an organization to protect and preserve our wild ones.

Above: This footage is from January 2010, taken with a tiny handheld camera and a cell phone (of that time) I carried into the facility when I was told to leave my camera in my truck. Many of you know the story of the foal called “Hope Springs Eternal,” run until his feet literally began to fall off, an adoption refused and he died 14 days later with vet care defined as “butte, every 3 days.”

Since that time I have been debating the necessity for an enforceable welfare policy with media, public, BLM, lawmakers and in the courts. Relentless litigation was a necessity just to gain the internal standards we have today (BLM uses the acronym CAWP to represent the standards). (You can read more about the history of the fight HERE)

What are we debating today? 

BLM never took the internal standards over the last hurdle: formal open and transparent rulemaking. This process would require BLM disclose information, take public comment and finalize a set of enforceable rules that include consequences. 

That is the “enforceable welfare policy debate.” The federal government has always used rulemaking as the route toward policy creation, except for wild horses and burros. Every animal welfare policy goes through this process, including animals kept for slaughter or display. However, the federal government will fight tooth and nail not to go down the formal path to create enforceable rules for the roundups they run.

The necessity for a formal policy, to comply with the “humane management” provisions of law, has been clearly demonstrated year-after-year.

Below: East Pershing roundup, 2024: Hotshots used to speed loading, paddle flipped around and horses hit and jabbed with handle, unmarked barbed wire, baby dragged by the tail, etc.

What does the debate look like? 

Every single (blasted expletive) time you try to debate the necessity for a formal welfare policy the debate gets derailed.

We are fighting back against many injustices. One of these issues involves the lack of an enforceable welfare policy that leads to preventable suffering. We are more than willing to talk about our fight for equitable management planning through Herd Management Area Plans (HMAP) that would define the herd and habitat management goals (foaling season, critical habitat needs for horses, when cows or mining needs to be restricted, forage allocations, etc.). We are fighting in other areas as well, such as transparency. But when we are talking about a welfare policy, we are not debating management strategies… we are talking about preventing injury and death.

Have you ever sent a letter to your lawmaker specifically about abuse and the need for a real welfare policy and gotten a response about: horse slaughter, fertility control, asserted “overpopulation,” or other unrelated subject?

The same happens when we talk to media, lawmakers, and even, in the courts. This last July, as we tried to stop an active roundup with a pre-trial motion involving the lack of a real welfare policy, the court actually cited a county commission “wild horse emergency declaration” (not a party to the case that also has no jurisdiction in this matter) as a reason to allow that removal to continue while the case was and is being heard. The Judge went so far as to call that the “public interest served.” (The case is still active and moving through briefing where we are clearly defining the subject matter: lack of a welfare policy and lack of disclosure of current data).

Any other public lands debate is centered on a site and issue-specific conversation, but not abuse of wild horses and burros. Abuse during capture and subsequent warehousing has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with fertility control or whatever justification BLM pulled out of the air (without providing current census flight data or range data). This debate is issue-specific: We need formal rulemaking and an enforceable welfare policy.

On the off chance that somehow you can get the conversation away from other debates (like fertility control or a lack of site-specific management planning and all the issues that creates), how many of you then get hit with the “but they are feral!” exclamation in a last-ditch effort to break your focus? (Even that absurd debate has nothing to do with welfare. But it seems to be the last point of nonfactual distraction, repeated like a mantra, from the opposition.)

It is almost as if there is this cohesive intention to avoid any direct conversation about wild horse and burro welfare and a policy that would help prevent injury and death. It has been a really good strategy. Throw in some politically charged and contentious subject to derail a debate where there should be broad agreement. Can anyone openly admit they are against a real welfare policy? So they make a tortuous attempt to avoid a subject we should actually all agree on?

Click image to see survey results

Why?

Your guess is as good as mine. Simply stubborn and loathe to admit they need to change? A system that has become far too profitable the way it is, for far too many people, for far too long?

The actual reason the debate to gain an enforceable welfare policy gets derailed is also not relevant to the necessity of creating one.

Please

If gaining an enforceable welfare policy for wild horses and burros is important to you, stay focused.

When you call your lawmakers (or simply post on social media) and someone tries to change the subject away from the fact that BLM has failed to take their internal standards through a formal rulemaking process to gain a real welfare policy, and why they are doing that, just state it plain. You can simply point out that after you talk about abuse, you are more than willing to address other subjects… but this one first. If they try to keep derailing, ask them flat out why they won’t talk to you about welfare. If they do it again? Ask if they endorse abuse?

In 1971, when the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act passed, BLM was tasked with humane management and care of wild horses and burros. One of the main drivers for that piece of legislation was abuse (mustanging for slaughter the other main driver).

BLM has had jurisdiction for 53 years. In all of that time BLM has never created an enforceable welfare policy. This is an obscenity.

Take Action

We made it easy: Just Click HERE

When you get a letter back, call the phone number on the letter and ask to speak to the aide that handles animals and/or public lands.

Repeat the one request: “Did you know that BLM has never created an enforceable welfare policy for wild horses and burros? They have a set of internal standards that they reference as “policy,” but it never went through rulemaking and is not enforceable and is often ignored. Can you help create incentive by amending the spending bill to include funding for rulemaking to make BLM accountable to Congress? Thank you so much!”

If they try to get you derailed into another debate, just say, “I’ll call you back and we can debate that subject. This call is simply because as an American, I am disgusted that BLM, a federal agency, refuses to create a real welfare policy and I am dismayed at why Congress will not hold them accountable.” 

Can you please help me get a welfare policy front and center?

The 2024 roundup schedule will capture over 20,000 wild horses and burros. While we debate all of the rest of the issues, that will all require time, record-breaking numbers of horses and burros face capture with no enforceable welfare policy.

Can we all please unite in this one simple objective, even if you do not want wild horses or burros on public land, don’t you agree that they should not be abused? Shouldn’t every avenue possible be taken to prevent injury and death?

Today is my birthday. I wrote this article because this issue sits very close to my heart. Nearly 15 years ago I watched a foal run so hard, until his feet literally began to fall off (hoof slough), and then die in agony with no more than horsey ibuprofen (butte) once every 3 days.

As we battle this out in court, once again, I beg you to please take action.

We need your help to continue to document, expose, work toward reform with lawmakers and litigate. Our wild ones deserve to live free on the range and free from abuse.

Thank you for keeping WHE on the frontline in the fight to protect and preserve our treasured wild ones.