Removed, processed at BLM facility and shipped out fast. Off to “events” where BLM will sell them for as little as $5. a piece. in the record-breaking push of the Sale Program.

Team members at WHE have had an intense few days, meeting with key lawmakers to secure concrete commitments for targeted language changes that will tighten the baseline we need to fight back from the ground up. (Yes, we are also working on our active court cases.) The doorway for the initial funding requests have now closed. But there is hope we may have moved the needle a bit and will report back to you once we know more. 

If our language does not make it into the first draft of the funding bill, the work is not over. We then ask supportive members of Congress to offer our language as changes (amendments) when the bill is debated in committee and, if possible, when it reaches the full House or Senate.

At the same time, we keep building visible support so those members have something solid behind them. That means sharing clear examples of the problem, showing public backing, and as we try to get a mix of organizations to join the push so it becomes harder for Congress to ignore these protections in this bill or the next one. A big part of the next stage will be the actions you take.

Scroll down to the red text for action items

For Background:

For the third time under this President and the second year in a row, a dangerous omission has appeared in the President’s budget proposal: it does not include the long‑standing protections that prevent BLM from killing healthy wild horses and burros or disposing of them in ways that send them into the slaughter pipeline. If Congress does not restore and strengthen these prohibitions in the FY2027 Interior Appropriations bills, it could open the door to wild horses and burros being transferred out of the country—including to nations with active slaughter industries—and strip away the safeguard that has, year after year, stopped BLM from killing healthy animals outright.

Congress is writing the FY2027 Interior Appropriations bills now, and we need them to restore and strengthen protections that stop BLM from killing healthy wild horses and burros or selling them without limits to slaughter. Will Congress go further by closing the loopholes BLM is now exploiting: stopping BLM from funneling them through the “sale authority” pipeline to slaughter by defunding Sales?

This is one action all advocates unite on.

Some priorities still get pushed aside because they do not fit neatly within powerful corporate agendas, even though they are exactly the fair and humane management issues so many of us care about.

Too often the threat of slaughter has been used as leverage, much like a hostage ransom negotiation: advocates are told to compromise on everything else or risk losing the long‑standing anti‑slaughter language that has been in the bill for more than twenty years, and even when that language is included, loopholes are then exploited to undercut its intent.

The prohibition language is not perfect and wild horses and burros enter the pipeline. But “this is not a fight worth fighting,” said no advocate, ever.

We Won Back FY2026 Language—BLM Just Shifted Gears

All advocates mobilized for the FY2026 cycle and succeeded in getting the prohibition language against killing healthy wild horses and burros and against “sales without limits” back into the spending bill after the White House omitted it. That fight mattered; without those riders, the roughly 60,000+ wild horses and burros in holding would be one bad memo away from being trucked directly to slaughter.

But as soon as it was clear the FY2026 bill would again bar “sales without limitation,” BLM pivoted and began aggressively promoting its “Sale Program” as a success story. In January 2026, the agency issued a national press release touting individual and group sales and emphasizing that buyers can purchase up to four animals every six months—with pathways for larger groups. That shift in messaging quietly expands the perceived scope of sales under the same legal authority that previously enabled truckload sales to slaughter‑linked buyers.

The result is a perverse dynamic: Congress puts the protective language back in, while BLM ramps up a sales pipeline that remains a legal way to move branded wild horses and burros into the hands of brokers and kill buyers once title passes and federal protection ends. As we detailed in “Run Around the Law? (BLM Touts Sale Program)”  – the so‑called “4 horse limit” is riddled with discretionary exceptions, has historically been waived for bulk buyers, and is now being rebranded in a way that normalizes group sales instead of shutting down the loophole that the Burns Amendment created.

Even though we all know that regaining those prohibitions will be imperfect we must regain that language to have a baseline to keep the fight alive to hold the BLM accountable for every life that slides through to a kill-buyer. Every advocate agrees.

How We Got Here: Burns, “Sales Without Limits,” and Annual Riders

In 2004, the Conrad Burns Amendment quietly gutted core protections in the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act by forcing BLM to sell certain “excess” horses and burros “without limitation,” enabling truckload sales to kill buyers for as little as ten dollars per head, with taxpayers even covering shipping. Congress never repealed Burns; instead, it layered on annual funding riders that bar BLM from using money to kill healthy horses or sell them for slaughter, creating a fragile, temporary shield that must be defended every year and can disappear with a single budget cycle.

At the same time, BLM left the program’s structural flaws in place—weak population data, opaque planning, and dependence on mass removals and holding—largely uncorrected after Congress poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the program beginning in 2018 under a corporate-backed plan dubbed the “Path Forward.” The result of that boondoggle: rather than investing in science-based, transparent, on-range management planning and formalizing welfare standards, BLM has used that funding to accelerate roundups to record breaking numbers and off-range warehousing under the corporate path backwards while the Burns loophole remains embedded in statute.

America, aren’t we better than a system that congratulates itself for “placing horses in good homes” while record numbers slip into the slaughter pipeline through a sale program Congress never honestly debated? Why can’t prohibition on open sales to slaughter contain additional language to defund the “Sale Authority” until an audit is complete and oversight provided? Shouldn’t we push for more and maybe, just maybe, change the status quo of the last decade… even just a little bit?

What We Need in the FY2027 Bill (or a bill passed really soon)

Each year big corporate lobby groups continue to ask for the same things. Each “ask” has footing in the Path Forward and none of them fall outside that sphere. It has been really hard to even get any other request taken seriously since “Ten Years to AML” began in 2016 solidifying this idea that there was only one problem and one solution: population growth suppression (gathers/fertility control). Anyone that has even a small bit of knowledge about anything on public lands

Restoring the basic slaughter and “unlimited sale” prohibitions is non‑negotiable—but it is simply not enough.

The FY2027 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations bills must:

• Reaffirm and strengthen the prohibitions

  • Explicitly bar the use of funds to kill healthy wild horses and burros outright or to sell them for slaughter or for any purpose that results in their destruction for commercial products.

  • Maintain and tighten the prohibition on “sales without limitation,” closing language gaps that BLM has used to justify bulk and group sales and to normalize transfers that can result in slaughter, including foreign transfers.

• Defund the current Sale Program architecture

  • Prohibit the use of any appropriated funds to conduct bulk or group sales of wild horses and burros, to process applications for more than four animals per buyer per year, or to enter into truckload or broker‑mediated arrangements.

  • Direct BLM to halt any expansion or promotion of the sale program until Congress can gain an audit and consider permanent statutory reforms, including repeal of the Burns Amendment and reintroduction of strong, permanent anti‑slaughter language.

• Require enforceable welfare rules with real funding

  • Designate a specific line item within the Wild Horse and Burro Program budget for completing and formalizing science‑based, enforceable welfare standards as part of the Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP), with a one‑year deadline to publish proposed rules, take public comment, and finalize binding regulations.

  • Make continued roundup and holding operations contingent on compliance with CAWP standards, including independent audits and public reporting of injuries, deaths, and enforcement actions. CAWP is a program. The unformalized standards sit inside the program. Just saying “comply with CAWP” creates a sentence that essential reads “just keep doing whatever you want because the CAWP program allows you to override the standards.” The standards need to be formalized and, after amendments, be enforceable.

• Mandate an open, independent audit of the program

  • Direct the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a new, public review that traces every major appropriation increase since 2018, evaluates how funds were actually spent, and measures outcomes on population numbers, herd genetics, range health, injuries, and deaths.

  • Require BLM to submit a corrective action plan to Congress within one year of the NAS report, detailing how it will address long‑identified flaws in data, planning, and on‑range management—rather than continuing to call a failing system a “success.”

• Protect on‑range herds and public lands

  • Tie funding to genuine Herd Management Area Plans (HMAPs) that disclose how AMLs are set, how forage is allocated across uses, and how herd genetics and fire risks are being addressed, instead of allowing BLM to rename short‑term “gather plans” as management plans.

  • Prohibit the use of funds to privatize or devolve federal wild horse and burro management to permittees or private entities—a growing risk as BLM closes prison programs and talks up “cost‑saving” privatization while pushing disposals through sales.

Congress controls the purse strings; that means Congress can stop financing a sales pipeline to slaughter and insist on a transparent, science‑based program that honors the original promise of the 1971 Act.

Real reform means what the 1971 law originally promised: transparent oversight, science‑based management plans, real protection from slaughter, and truly humane handling for wild horses and burros. Why won’t Congress finally put clear directives in place, after 55 years, to make that a reality?

Will you stand with us and help drive the change these wild ones deserve? It is not going to be easy. We should not be asking for items that have forwarded the status quo of the last ten years. Join is in pusjing against boundaries. 

Calling still stands out amid floods of emails and petitions, and it is exactly how advocates have helped keep public lands in public hands and strip dangerous language from earlier bills. If you cannot make the call you can use this easy action item. 

Call the Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224‑3121

Ask to be connected to each of your:

• U.S. Senators

• U.S. Representative

“Hi, my name is and I live in [city], [state], ZIP code _. I’m calling to ask the Senator/Representative to fix the Wild Horse and Burro language in the FY2027 Interior Appropriations bill.

Please:

1. 1. Restore and strengthen prohibitions on:

      • Killing healthy wild horses and burros; and

      • Any sales or transfers, domestic or foreign, that result in these animals being slaughtered or used for commercial products.

   2. Defund the BLM Sale Program as it operates now, including group and bulk sales and any process that allows truckloads of horses and burros to be moved once title passes. Congress needs to ask for an audit of this program before restoring any funding.

   3. Include a line item of at least $1,000,000 within the existing Wild Horse and Burro Program budget to complete and formalize science‑based, enforceable welfare rules under the Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) within one year. Or, at minimum, change the sentence “must comply with CAWP” to “Must formalize and comply with welfare standards contained within the BLM CAWP program.” CAWP is a program and not a policy. The current language creates a problem, it doesn’t fix one. 

   4. Direct an open, independent review of the Wild Horse and Burro Program by the National Academy of Sciences to show how increased funding since 2018 has actually been used and what the results have been for range health, herd health, and animal welfare. It is absurd to continue to fund program directives enacted in 2018 without first seeing how that additional funding was used.

Wild Horse Education will stay on the front lines—in courtrooms, on the range, and deep in the outreach and paperwork—pushing for genuine management plans, exposing abuse in holding, and resisting privatization and “disposal” schemes sold as modernization.

Will you stand with us?

Thank you for being an active advocate.

You can use the easy action item HERE if you do not have time to make a call.

We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team ready to run the roundup schedule. Every mile we travel to cover roundups or assess a herd, every court case we bring, every win, every action we take is only possible because of your support.