Equine Voices

Equine Voices
Write to the Department of the Interior

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is overseen by the Department of the Interior to manage the populations of wild horses and burros on public lands. The law states that the BLM must measure the impact of these animals on the habitat to determine if there are too many wild horses and burros in any given area.

According to a 1990 investigation by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the decision by BLM as to how many horses must be removed is not based on any concrete study or evidence the wild horse and burro populations exceed what the range can support. Wild horse and burro removals are not accompanied by livestock reductions, on the contrary, livestock grazing in many areas has increased on the very lands where the wild horses and burros have been removed.

A congressional mandated study by the National Academy of Science found that wild horses and burros are not responsible for overgrazing as claimed by the BLM, but in fact the study revealed that in one year, livestock consumed 70% of grazing resources, while the wild horses and burros consumed less than 5%. Currently cattle outnumber wild horses and burros on public lands by 1,000 to 1.

The law authorizes the BLM to remove wild horses and burros ‘when they pose a threat to themselves, their habitat, or other rangeland values”. The law also prohibits the BLM from maintaining a predetermined number of animals, if this is true, how can they be so determined to reduce the number of wild horses and burros to 21,000 by the year 2005? This is a “predetermined” number, wouldn’t you say? For more information on wild horses and burros, click here.

Write to your Washington legislators:

Include these key points:
  1. Insist the wild horse protection law be fully implemented for the protection of wild horses and burros.

  2. An investigation must take place in order to show the BLM is in violation of the law and rulings by the federal court and the Interior Board of Land Appeals

  3. Suggest they must make changes to the wild horse and burro management program. Round ups, their adoption procedures and practices are not the answer, this program has not worked for over 35 years. Tell them that you, as a taxpayer, disagree with how your taxpayer dollar is being allocated for this program. Less money should go into the roundups and adoption and more into the management, birth control and monitoring of the wild horses and burros. Extermination is not the answer.
Send letters to:
    Secretary Gale Norton
    Department of the Interior
    1849 C Street, NW
    Washington, DC 20240
    exsec@ios.doi.gov

    President George Bush
    The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
    Washington, DC 20500
    president@whitehouse.gov

    To find your local Representative go to www.house.gov.
To support the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign send a letter.



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Equine Voices