As we advocate for wild horses and burros we have to take actions toward long term goals as well as short term actions.

We update this page as often as we can. However, we get very busy and new action items come out without much lead time for fast action. The best way to stay on top of changing actions is to subscribe to the website to receive notifications when we publish new articles. Click HERE.

Scroll to RED for Action Items

Preface to all actions: Actions that address policy fall into 3 different branches of government. More HERE that can help you understand that a bit about the “who and how” of advocating for change.

WHE reports and pages that can assist you in your advocacy. Having  information you can present to bolster your claim to create the changes you seek can be vital. Our resource page can give you some background and data to use in your own advocacy. HERE.

Learn more about Herd Management Area Plans (HMAP) and how that is the first step to addressing many of the on-range issues that have been neglected for decadesCLICK HERE

Learn more about the need for formal rulemaking to gain an enforceable welfare policy CLICK HERE. (This article carries and additional action item asking that the 2024 bill be amended to include funding for rulemaking)

Each ACTION will be prefaced in RED text.

The debate for Appropriations fiscal year 2026 has begun.

This session the chatter is intense. Things like killing healthy wild horses and burros in holding are back on the table, just as they were in 2017.

First priority in the 2026 debate will be to maintain the prohibition on funding being used to kill (euthanize) healthy horses and burros and the prohibition on selling them without limits (direct to slaughter).

We still have deep reforms that can be addressed in the funding bill like withholding of funding pending a report or investigation, prohibition of funding for removals until BLM crafts a Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) and discloses a data-based AML (Appropriate Management Level or number the BLM says the range can sustain) that the courts have ruled were illegally withheld and, once and for all, the formalization of a real welfare policy through rulemaking. 

However, please make sure that you say loud and clear that selling captive wild horses and burros without limits (slaughter) and/or killing them outright is simply an outrage the American people will not tolerate. 

We created a fast “click and send” letter that will automatically go to your representatives to begin your conversation with your lawmakers regarding the 2026 budget bill. Click HERE. 

Save Americas Forgotten Equines (SAFE) to STOP Horse Slaughter.

March, 2025

Safeguard America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE Act) was reintroduced (and sponsored by) by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) in the Senate and Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) in the House.

The introduced legislation would permanently ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption and would also prohibit the export of live horses to Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses to be sold overseas. The lawmakers hope to include the SAFE Act as part of the 2025 Farm Bill when it is considered by Congress later this year.

In the House the bill is now referenced as H.R. 1661 and in the Senate as S. 775.

It is really important when you contact lawmakers to use the bill number and not simply say “SAFE.” Give the bill number and full title: Safeguard America’s Forgotten Equines Act. Every year numerous bills will use the acronym “SAFE.”

You can send a letter to your House and Senate Representatives by simply clicking HE

Fight Abuse

Abuses on an off the range continue.

The simplest (and least expensive) place to begin reform in the archaic BLM program would be to formalize a concise and enforceable welfare policy. Why is it so hard?

After years of litigation BLM (finally) began to implement a draft policy in 2015. The policy was supposed to go through a review and revision phase. Instead, in 2021, BLM just wrote the word “permanent” on the draft and called it “policy.”

Please Call Congress (202) 224-3121.  Tell the operator who your representative is (or where you live if you do not know) and you will be connected to an aide in the office. 

Request an amendment to the funding bill for the Department of Interior to create a line item for funding for Rulemaking to formalize an enforceable welfare policy for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The word “Rulemaking” is important to use. That word will get the draft CAWP standards out for public input and finalized as enforceable. 

100% of respondents to our survey concerning wild horses and burros want a chance to particpate through public comments. (More HERE)

You can learn more by reading our 2022 CAWP report and recommendation sheets.

You can help us bring this important work to the next level by adding your name HERE. 

The action items above involve dealing with your lawmakers to create legislative change.

The “comment period” involves site-specific engagement guaranteed by the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA.

We regularly send out alerts on open comment periods through our newsletter and in artcles published on this site. 

You can subscribe to our email notifications by Clicking HERE.

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If you want to learn more about the “HMAP” and the BLM plan: https://wildhorseeducation.org/2020/05/20/blm-plan-and-the-hmap/

Help us stay in the fight. All of our work is only possible because of people like you. Thank you.