Speak Out!

Don’t be afraid to speak out to your lawmakers. Yes, they are dealing with a lot of things right now. But your lawmakers need to know wild horses and burros are important to you.

Several of you have emailed asking if you should even bring up the subject of wild horses and burros in holding being targeted for death and sales to slaughter with your lawmakers.

Many of your notes have a hint of fear that if you bring it up, you will cause it to happen. No, you will not cause it to happen. This is part of the existing agenda, just as it was in the 2017 Presidential Budget request (the 2017 request was defeated in the budget debate that year). 

Yes, right now, wild horses and burros in holding are in the sights of budget gutting that will change policy, funding, staffing and push killing and open sales.

You should not be afraid to call your elected officials (the ones from your district where you vote) and express your desires. It is literally part of their jobs to take your calls. You can talk about anything you like from on range issues, gaining an enforceable welfare policy and everything else. Making sure that the budget is not gutted to feed and house wild horses and burros in holding (and creating sales without limits or killing of healthy horses and burros) is not something you should be afraid to say.

Wild horses and burros in holding are sitting in a dangerous place and targeted as a burden.

There is also another agenda item that is  dire: Keeping public lands in public hands.

If there are no public lands, there will be no wild horses and burros. This might seem like a simple statement to many of you. But to a growing number of new advocates, this may not be as clear. 

Jurisdiction is a word that umbrellas laws that apply within a government: The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 established federal jurisdiction of our wild ones on public lands and was instrumental in ending mustanging (unregulated capture of horses and burros and sending them to be ground up for chicken feed, fertilizer and dog food).

Free-roaming horses or burros that are not on BLM or Forest Service land are under different jurisdictions (sets of laws and entities carrying out those laws). As an example, horses under state jurisdiction like the Virginia Range in Nevada reside on state land, under the control of the State Department of Agriculture and are “feral” under law. The word “wild” is actually a legal term that is used (in law) to apply to free-roaming horses and burros only on BLM and Forest Service lands. BLM manages more horses and burros than all other jurisdictions combined.

Many states in the West have filed lawsuits (that were defeated) to force BLM to remove all horses or resume sales to slaughter claiming the horses are the property of the state. Most western states are anti-wild horse and burro and pro-slaughter. Most want to give wild horses and burros to the livestock permittees to “manage” or get rid of as they see fit (resumption of mustanging).

We have seen lawsuits, like the one filed by the state of Utah, to take control of BLM lands. Even though these cases have lost in the courts, it remains a high priority for many western states.

A new rule pushed forward in Congress last month holds dangerous language aimed at giving vast swaths of federal public lands to states and/or selling them off cheap to private profiteers. 

Right now, BLM can sell or (give away) public lands, but the process is limited and regulated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and must go through a public comment and appeals process. “The law states that the BLM can select lands for sale if, through land-use planning, they are found to meet one of three criteria: 1) they are scattered, isolated tracts that are difficult or uneconomic to manage; 2) they were acquired for a specific purpose and are no longer needed for that purpose; or 3) disposal of the land will serve important public objectives, such as community expansion and economic development.”

The new rule change basically says that the House (Congress) does not need to account for lost revenue from “management” of public lands if it gives federal public lands over to states or other interests, by saying they have no monetary value in budgetary considerations. This new rule change would be a necessary first step if the goal is to sell off or give away vast areas of public lands. (Note added due to comments on Facebook that imply this means State Land. Any public state land, like a park or government building, is controlled by state. When we are talking about federal bills we are talking about federal lands. About 640 million acres, or about 30%, of land in the U.S. is federal lands or “public land.”)

The areas our wild horses and burros are allowed to live were set behind artificial boundaries in the political debate to pass the 1971 Act. There was a time when those lands were the least desirable and big industry was not really interested in that land. Today, the land our wild ones need to survive is in the direct target zone of rapidly expanding mining and energy projects and several “oil and gas lease sales” have listed HMA land in recent years.

Will these lands just simply be sold off, turned into private or state land, and your ability to even go into these areas could be impeded and our wild ones just removed without any recourse?

YOU can take action.

Don’t be afraid to bring it up. Speak now. 

Call the Congressional Switchboard at: (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representatives. Tell them: Public lands must be left in the public domain and not given away or sold. Wild horses and burros on the range and in holding must not be killed or sold to slaughter. 

Our team is very busy working on active litigation and preparing to file additional litigation. Our cases address issues ranging from abuse in holding, suing the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Federal District court for denying wild horse advocates the ability to litigate damages from mining, gaining transparency and protecting your First Amendment Rights.

All of our work is only possible with your support. We thank you for keeping the critical work we do at WHE running for our wild ones.