No longer free. Now in the off-limits to the public facility Broken Arrow on Indian Lakes Rd. in Fallon, NV. At the beginning of the summer the largest roundup of the year was on everyones mind. Now that the helicopter has left, few people even remember the Callaghan Complex. WHE is tracking captives, what is left on the range and in litigation to protect the approximately 2,500 wild horses left in the complex. Wild horses from herds like South Shoshone in the Callaghan Complex are the type most often found being rapidly pushed through the system of facilities and out the “sale door.”

It has been a summer of sheer chaos. As advocates we all must remember that “wild horses and burros” are part of the law books that address public lands. That means this is a multi-layered system. Each layer must be addressed to gain desperately needed reform and accountability. 

Our inbox is exploding with questions. We will try to answer as many questions as we can, as briefly as we can.

If you are following our roundup coverage, Bible Springs in Utah has ended and the Confusion roundup begins in two days in Utah. We will do an article on the next leg of the roundup schedule soon.

ALL of the following issues can be addressed by the public through outreach to Congress in the spending bill (Appropriations) debate. ALL should be part of your call. 

Click to send a short request to your Representatives. 

Burros all went “sale” and most landed at auctions with killbuyers bidding within weeks. When we are talking about the “Sale Program,” remember both wild horses and burros are being funneled out fast and landing in “kill auctions” days or weeks later.

“Wild horse slaughter” is the big news headline this week dominating both the news cycle and questions in the inbox. 

Preface: The Sale Program has been around since 2005, after the Burns Amendment was quietly slipped into the Omnibus Spending Bill in 2004. The numbers being pushed through that program  hit historic highs along with the number of wild horses and burros hitting the kill auctions. Learn more here.

The New York Times piece you have seen this week appears to have become an unfortunate repeat piece in one form or another over the years written by Dave Phillips since his groundbreaking expose in 2012 on the sale program for ProPublica. 

One of the most egregious symptoms of the broken wild horse and burro program has always been the fact that both the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) have done precious little to protect wild horses and burros from entering the slaughter pipeline.

Historically speaking, federal agencies have done all they can to quell the resentment the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act created when it halted the practice of mustanging (the unregulated capture and sale of free-roaming horses and burros from public lands for the purpose of dog food, chicken feed, fertilizer and human consumption). That includes looking the other way when wild horses land in kill pens and even disappear off public lands (like at Callaghan).

In the late 90s even BLM employees found themselves in the hot seat in front of Judge Howard J.  McKibben in NV for personally taking wild horses and selling them for slaughter. That case was dropped in settlement where we do not know the terms. But a few years later Senator Conrad Burns made those types of actions legal through the Burns Amendment. The Sale Program and transfer of title was born. (Learn more about the root of the problem: when title transfers a wild horse is no longer a wild horse under law and looses all protection.)

Right after the Burns Amendment was slid into the Omnibus Spending bill (without any transparent or traditional process) moves were made to repeal it.

There are over a dozen requests in our inbox this morning for the text of the Rahall Amendment, the first and only language to repeal the Burns Amendment provisions. Using the search bar on our website you will find the page that has that text HERE. 

Repealing that amendment transformed into “defunding it” in every spending bill since it was adopted. Every year advocacy organizations need to focus on maintaining that spending prohibition on direct sales to slaughter (instead of expanding into other areas of reform).

Leaving this prohibition out of the White House proposed budget has happened only twice since the Burns Amendment slipped through, both by the current administration.

We also know the current administration is in the process of rewriting regulations with “open sales” back on the table as top Interior official Karen Budd-Falen has already expressed. She has said these new regulations will be out early 2027 and include unrestricted sale.

What can you do? Make sure that maintaining the prohibition against openly selling wild horses and burros is part of your call to Congress. Action item here. 

You can also add your name to the push to stop the program and gain a “hard look” audit. Click here. 

Adobe Town Wyoming wild horses rounded up in 2025. How many have already hit the sale market?

Please Pay Attention: There are other HORRORS awaiting wild horses after the broken on range program causes them to be captured…. surgical sterilization, spaying, burning and gluing oviducts is back. 

In numerous draft plans BLM is trying to soft pedal sterilization of 30%-50% of on range populations calling it “fertility control” and acting as if sterilizing large components of a non genetically viable population is somehow “science” and “kind.”

BLM has already approved sterilizing 30% of the two distinct herds at Jackson Mountain where they will leave only 130 wild horses on the range combined. 

BLM put the roundup on the schedule back in May using the old plan. Less than 8 weeks to the start of the roundup BLM added a new plan…. a roundup plan to the extreme. BLM already has an approved roundup plan at Jackson. What they have done is release something they claim is a Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) that contains zero HMAP language and promises they put in print and committed to back in 2012 (during other litigation as part of their defense) to address actual management baselines (like the distinct north/south population, water improvements and disclosing how things like AML and boundaries were actually set and reevaluating them) were left off. 

This is not an HMAP. All it does is set the 2 distinct populations in Jackson Mountains on the slow slide to dying out. If BLM split the AML equally there would be 65 horses in north and in the south with one-third sterilized. 

WHE is in the process of beginning legal action to halt the HMAP from committing this extreme, dangerous and completely unnecessary “spaying, burning and gluing of oviducts” plan and more.

Last time spaying was approved advocacy roared. This time?

In the past large lobby groups have included a prohibition against funds being used for sterilization in their Appropriation packets as they push vague “fertility control” language to increase funding. This year it looks like the increase in funds is going to happen again… but without the prohibition.

The only way to stop this will be another time consuming and expensive court battle.

ALL of the issues in this article can be addressed by the public through outreach to Congress in the spending bill (Appropriations) debate. ALL should be part of your call. 

Action item at the bottom of the article.

Formalizing Welfare Standards? 

Right before summer roundups BLM weakened the welfare standards in their Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program. This includes the reason we are seeing no veterinarians onsite anymore; they are no longer required.

When Congress says “Comply with CAWP” in the Appropriations bill all they are telling BLM is comply with your program. A program that endorses, not enforces, inappropriate conduct.

As soon as uneducated lobbyists got Congress to put that language into the bill they closed the door to successfully litigating abuse (which we have done several times). Is BLM in compliance with their own program? Yes, case closed (no matter how abusive the action is).

Congress needs to add to the Appropriations bill: “Comply with welfare standards in the CAWP program after BLM formalizes welfare standards through open public process.” The need to omit simply “Comply with CAWP” as CAWP has no formalized and enforceable welfare standards. 

Just changing that one sentence would force BLM to have to complete the process of creating enforceable welfare standards they abandoned under the push for the “Path Forward” (get to AML, increase fertility control).

We were so close to getting that language into the bill this year. You can help make sure it does not get lost.

ALL of the issues in this article can be addressed by the public through outreach to Congress in the spending bill (Appropriations) debate. ALL should be part of your call.

Action item at the bottom of the article.

There are many areas that desperately need reform in the BLM wild horse and burro program.

In the chaos of DC and the kowtowing to big corporate interests keeping what we ask Congress to do simple is important. 

Yet it cannot become so simplistic that we continue to lose ground. At the very least we must maintain prohibitions. If Congress is willing to do one simple thing different, they can help gain enforceable welfare rules for wild horses and burros (where animals on display at zoos or going to slaughter have enforceable rules). 

Of note in this weekly briefing…

In this acceleration to get wild horses off the landscape even areas where BLM made an exception and allowed “fertility control” to be a slower tool to reduce population size they have switched the narrative rapidly. 

Sand Wash (CO) and Challis (ID) are just two examples on the summer schedule where BLM is executing helicopter roundups to get to AML where once they made “side agreements” to allow a slower reduction. 

Management through agreement without analysis, transparency and following the law needs to stop. Violating the law is not “ok.” Management through side agreements is not lawful process, transparent or legally required analysis. either. There is supposed to be lawful and transparent data collection and analysis. That is the law. 

We will write more on this subject soon. 

Sand Wash

Bottom line

If after reading the New York Times piece on BLM continuing to push wild horses out the back door (and failing to provide oversight to ensure they do not go to slaughter) you feel compelled to take action, please take action. 

You can click here to send a fast letter to your representatives. 

Or you can make a call: 

We have been working for the better part of the year to gain a halt and audit of the Sale Program with Rewilding America Now.

That work is moving through the Wild Horse Caucus in the House. 

You can add your name by going to their website HERE.

We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team running 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. Sincere Gratitude.