On this date in 1971, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act passed unanimously in both houses of Congress and was enacted into law. 

A law that established federal jurisdiction over wild horses and burros residing on public lands was clearly needed. The “Wild Horse Annie Act,” PL 86-234 passed on September 8, 1959. This was the very simple law that forbade poisoning of water holes and hunting wild horses with aircraft. The law was not being enforced and, when people tried to enforce it, the lack of clarity led to states and counties actually assisting perpetrators in the vast majority of instances and most violations were not being reported.

Learn more about “Mustanging” in our online exhibit celebrating the 1971 law (click image)

The intention of the Act was clear: stop the capture of wild horses and burros for slaughter, stop brutality, establish a form of humane management and protect the American herds “on the land they now stand.” The original Act also implies that the “range” needed for survival of herd would also be protected.

Passage of this law was a monumental achievement. It had been decades since a species specific protection law had been passed by Congress and the first in a series of laws passed in the 1970’s to protect wildlife and wild places in the U.S. that began the legal framework of today.

The opposition was fierce. However, pioneers in the movement like Velma Johnston (Wild Horse Annie) navigated the treacherous terrain on the ground and in DC and garnered enough support to gain a foundation for protection. 

Today people like to criticize; it seems to have become a popular national sport. However, if you look at efforts today to pass any bill like the Safeguard America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE Act) that has gone through numerous sessions of Congress for the last 15 years, with enough cosponsors to pass the House but never going for even a vote as it is stonewalled by politics, the efforts of early advocates should be seen for what they were: if this law had not passed we would not have any herds of wild horses and burros in the country beyond a token her and there (the objective of the same opposing forces in 1971 as today).

Political wrangling involved gutted the bill before it even passed. Many people today believe that somehow the boundary lines behind which wild horses and burros exist in today was somehow “science-based.” Our wild ones roamed freely just like all other grazing species moving to better ground and away from human disturbance (if they could). Congress would not pass a truly “free-roaming” bill, but kept the title. The Act passed with this language that distinguished horses and burros as the only species that could not actually “free-roam”: “range” means the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for the public lands… (learn more HERE)

Many people are unaware that the original Act had no attached appropriated funding; a mandate with no money to pay costs.

Velma Johnston (click image to go to exhibit for more)

In 1972, already suffering health issues that would lead to her death in just five years time, Velma Johnston penned a memoir. She ended the piece with these words:

“Legislation to protect and manage wild horses and burros by placing them under federal jurisdiction has followed a tenuous path, with public interest and action finally prevailing. Those of us in the forefront of the battle only showed the way. We did not achieve all that we set out to achieve, and we are not yet sure that what has been gained will provide an adequate program; we must wait and watch. The people of America have fought hard to save this colorful remnant of two animal species that so uniquely represent the American spirit – freedom, pride, independence, endurance, and the ability to survive against unbelievable odds. Should the future of these animals remain in doubt, the fight will go on.”

Velma died in 1977. The loss of Velma Bronn Johnston dealt a critical blow to advocacy for wild horses and burros in the United States. Velma’s crusade was steeped in her personal experience and far from a theoretical one.

Within a decade of Velma’s death, BLM began back peddling established regulations for herd and range management and advocacy of that time was focused on rescue and the adoption program and did not fight back. By the 1990s, there were no longer any attempts to create a management plan to tier any proposed removal to. The “Gather Plan” was being passed off as management. (WHE won two lawsuits this year to begin to rectify this long standing egregious error in 2024.)

History matters. By studying the history of the movement, learning what in-the-trenches advocates faced, where and how the original intentions were pushed aside, we can learn how to pinpoint efforts to rectify historic loss of protection and build to create new avenues to face the challenges of today.

Our investigative team has been busy searching historical documents. It might not sound glamorous, but it is extremely useful. We are working on a series of articles that describe how cowboy myth and assertions is still treated as “science” and placed as a type of analyzed fact driving removals today. This work dovetails into some of the litigation WHE has active today as we continue to our work to repair the damages politics, convenience and cowardice have caused to our precious herds.

“Should the future of these animals remain in doubt, the fight will go on.”

The future of our wild ones to live free from abuse, free from slaughter, free on ranges that can sustain them, free from genetic bankruptcy as BLM causes infertility, free from disappearing …. is in doubt.

The fight goes on.

End of year funding is critical to keep our team in the field reporting to you and all of the other work we do like investigations and litigation. Without your support, none of our work is possible.

We have been offered a generous match challenge leading into the end-of-the year of 10K. If we can raise the first 10K by December 21, the match will rise to 15K to give us desperately needed funding to continue the fight. 

Thank you!

The work of WHE:

We are the only organization to take BLM to task directly over abuse. Over the last 15 years our litigation drove the creation of the first welfare standards afforded to wild horses and burros since the passage of the Act in 1971. BLM stopped short of making them concise and enforceable. The fight goes on.

We fought for years in the courts to establish the First Amendment Rights of the public to assess the handling of wild horses and burros by our government winning policy changing litigation. In 2017, BLM began rolling back access and, today, we are back in the courts. (We will have updates soon.)

In 2024, every case we have taken to conclusion has garnered desperately needed precedent to regain Herd Management Area Plans (HMAP), the only planning document noted in the Code of Federal Regulations and neglected for 40 years. Today, we have cases in the courts to stop BLM from ignoring parameters established in the few HMAPs they did create and to clearly demonstrate that the HMAP must be completed before more removals based ion fictions.

We are also fighting to speak against habitat destruction from mining, fighting to stop BLM from doing further removals simply under pressure from livestock, abuse and secrecy in off-limits holding facilities and so much more.

We might not be “big and flashy.” But, in fact and not simply through assertion, WHE continues to be at the forefront of precedent setting action that has, and will continue to, impact sorely needed policy changes.

The fight goes on.