Official: Slicing wild horse herds to cost $5B
money,” Pendley said. “But I know there is a sense of sincerity on the Hill about this issue. They get it.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved $35 million last month for a new package of mustang proposals supported by an alliance including the Humane Society of the United States, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and American Farm Bureau Federation.
They say it would eliminate the threat of slaughter for thousands of free-roaming horses and shrink the size of herds through expanded fertility controls on the range and increased roundups in certain areas.
The plan has been condemned by the largest and oldest mustang protection groups in the West, including the American Wild Horse Campaign and Friends of Animals.
“This proposal, which is really a betrayal by so-called wild horse advocates who are in bed with the meat industry, is management for extinction and putting money toward it is a step toward eradicating these iconic animals from our public lands,” Friends of Animals President Priscilla Feral said in a statement Wednesday.
In July, then-acting BLM Director Casey Hammond said the Trump administration won’t pursue lethal measures such as euthanasia or selling horses for slaughter.
But critics say the new plan could allow for sterilization of mares. They argue the animals must be permitted to roam the range in federally protected management areas established under the Free-roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. They say BLM’S population quotas are often outdated and lack scientific data.
The $35 million the Senate committee approved is part of the $35.8 billion Interior Department appropriation bill. It’s not clear when the full Senate will consider the bill.
Pendley said the agency is spending $50 million a year to house 50,000 captured horses in government corals and another $30 million in associated costs.
Alan Shepherd, the head of the bureau’s wild horse and burro program in Nevada, planned to join members of the new coalition at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno Wednesday night for the screening of a documentary that blames horses for severe degradation of federal rangeland.
Doug Busselman, executive director of the Nevada Farm Bureau, said his group still wants Congress to allow the government to sell excess horses without the current ban on their resale for slaughter.