It’s just a suggestion. Really.
Congress just finalized FY2024 appropriations for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program. While some celebrate Congress’s recommendations for the agency to utilize up to $11 million in funding for humane fertility control, little evidence points to congress steering the current roundup and hold ‘em system in a more sustainable direction.
Brieanah Schwartz | March 5, 2024
Federally protected wild horses and burros in the United States are managed primarily by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service (USFS). Each fiscal year, Congress weighs in on the issues facing wild horse and burro management programs when it determines the budget for each agency, set in the Department of the Interior’s annual appropriations bill.
Every year, the BLM and the USFS conduct mass roundup and removal operations that are costly and dangerous. The BLM, having the lion's share of our wild horses and burros under their management, has been conducting these operations for decades. Typically, the operations are conducted with a helicopter wherein the pilot will run the horses across the rocky, treacherous Western landscape for miles in varied conditions. Once the horses enter the trap, they are quickly pushed into stock trailers and transported to temporary holding for processing before being moved to short-term holding facilities.
On top of the inhumane treatment of the animals, the taxpayer is floating the bill for every step of this process, from running the helicopter to warehousing the permanently removed horses in off-range holding for the rest of their lives. A quick look into the BLM and USFS’s contracts with livestock ranchers reveals:
Over $2.5 million of taxpayer funds awarded to just one contractor in FY23 for the helicopter roundup, removal, and transportation of wild horses from USFS and BLM managed public lands.
Similarly, another livestock rancher received an over $5.2 million contract in FY23 for the off-range warehousing of wild horses for just one fiscal year.
Unfortunately, Congress typically looks to each agency for guidance on how their budgets should be allocated, and thus much of the programs’ funding continues to be designated for mass roundup, removal, and warehousing of wild horses and burros. However, in the past few years, special interest groups were successful in working with sympathetic congressional representatives and senators to secure report language recommending that the agencies use humane immunocontraceptive fertility control. Until this point, there had never been language directing the agencies to use fertility control.
Despite Congress’ continued recommendation for the increased implementation of humane fertility control to manage wild horse and burro populations on Western public lands, where the animals belong and at far less taxpayer expense, nothing substantial has truly changed in wild horse and burro management practices. In fact, the status quo appears to be alive and well.
Removal operations continued despite the funding stagnation, as they will continue now that the appropriations act is finalized, and the horses are paying the price.
For example, the BLM has been conducting a bait trap operation, a method that is supposed to be the less harmful counterpart to a helicopter roundup, in the McCullough Peaks Wild Horse Herd Management Area (HMA) of Wyoming since last November. Despite the HMA having a fertility control program in place, the BLM aims to trap 80 horses, return 39 horses (some after receiving an immunocontraceptive vaccine), and permanently remove 41 horses.
Recently, a young filly suffered and passed away during this operation and the BLM has yet to take any accountability for the death.
While the BLM is supposed to follow its own Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) guidelines in all operations, designed to ensure the actions are ethical and humane, violations are usually ignored and swept under the rug. As was the case here. After being removed with several horses, including her mother, the filly was quickly deemed adoptable and separated from her mother to later be shipped to a facility for processing. However, she was found dead in the pen the next morning, with signs that she had likely run into the panels and suffered a severe brain injury during the night. Despite CAWP stating that horses should not be left unobserved for more than 12 hours, BLM found that the operation was in compliance with CAWP and no violation occurred leading to the filly’s death. Advocates for the wild horses strongly disagreed, citing CAWP’s guidelines for care and that the distressed filly was likely attempting to rejoin her mother when the incident occurred, a situation that could have been avoided if she had been monitored as the agency’s own guidelines dictate.
Sadly, the McCullough Peaks filly is just one in a long line of wild horses and burros who have suffered because of the agency’s disregard for humane management.
Instead, the BLM and USFS prioritize quick and expensive options that leave the taxpayer with the bill and the horses suffering the consequences. The worst part is that all of this happens while Congress looks on. And, the truth is that the horses have always had the deck stacked against them. From Capitol Hill to the HMAs, powerful livestock interests continue to fight for the renewal of multi-million dollar wild horse management contracts for livestock ranchers whose enterprises also benefit from there being less grazing competition within HMAs. The entire, well-established system leaves advocates fighting for the barest of Congressional recommendations and a hope that one day humane management may actually present itself in the West.
FY2024 Appropriations have just been finalized for the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.
It’s exciting to note that the joint explanatory statement includes language pulled directly from the Senate report, directing that $11,000,000 be used to continue “the implementation of a robust and humane fertility control strategy of reversible immunocontraceptive vaccines.” However, it’s important to note that the joint explanatory statement works with both the House and Senate report language, and even directs the agency to “follow the directives included in the House and Senate Reports.” Therefore, to understand Congress’s true intent, we also have to consider the language of each report in turn.
The House Report language included a watered-down and weakened recommendation when compared to that of the original immunocontraceptive language from a few years ago which called for $11,000,000 to be allocated specifically for the implementation of humane PZP fertility control. While the FY24 language still included a recommendation that part of the $11,000,000 is directed towards the “administration of and research on known and novel population growth suppression strategies, including immunocontraceptive vaccines,” the language now includes permanent sterilization in that list.
The House also provided the Bureau of Land Management with leniency, adding that the BLM has deference regarding when implementing existing immunocontraceptive vaccines is appropriate. Each of these changes could have a significant impact on our wild horses. Not only does this language allow for the agency to determine when proven safe, humane options should be utilized, but it also opens the door to far more inhumane options like surgical sterilization.
The House language also clearly endorses a “multi-pronged approach” to wild horse and burro management, one that includes the continuation of roundups, removals, and expanding the number of wild animals sitting in off-range holding facilities at the taxpayer’s expense.
One highlight from the House Report is the continued inclusion of language from the FY23 Omnibus that directs the BLM to increase their public/private partnerships by working with veterans and wild horse organizations, both of which want to see the BLM increase the use of humane immunocontraceptive vaccines over their business-as-usual dangerous helicopter roundup and removals.
In contrast, the Senate’s FY24 Report language offered slightly more hope for our wild horses and burros by stating that the $11,000,000 should be used to “continue implementation of a robust and humane fertility control strategy of reversible immunocontraceptive vaccines.” However, the Senate also included recommendations to the BLM that echoed those of the House, such as continuing with targeted roundups and removals and expanding the capacity of long-term, off-range holding facilities.
While encouraging to see the Senate’s fertility control language make it to the joint explanatory statement, it is once again disappointing to see no restrictions on the continued use of mass helicopter roundup and removal operations. Unfortunately, under this spending package, the BLM maintains deference to carry on with their business-as-usual roundup and mass stockpiling practices; plans that only benefit one stakeholder, livestock ranchers.
Will Congressional directives matter in the quest for humane wild horse and burro management?
This fiscal year, the BLM has already scheduled the removal of over 20 thousand wild horses and burros from our public lands. In contrast, the BLM is currently proposing that just 1,280 of the 21,603 rounded up be returned to their HMAs. Of the lucky horses returned, approximately half will be treated with a humane immunocontraceptive vaccine before their release. However, at just an estimated 1,440 female horses treated between darting and roundup operations, the BLM’s current plan is still wildly disproportionate to the over 20,000 horses that will lose their freedom in the archaic helicopter removals this fiscal year.
Of note, the FY24 roundup and removal schedule includes a section to detail the agency’s fertility control darting activities including, which HMAs, how many horses will be treated, and which vaccine will be used. At the end of the fiscal year, the BLM is estimating that roughly 768 female horses will be treated remotely, without any need for roundup operations. Yet, sadly, that number is only slightly higher than the number the agency plans to treat in conjunction with a roundup operation, 672.
Further, the agency continues to show a preference for the GonaCona vaccine over the easier, and safer, to dart alternative, PZP. By showing a clear preference for a fertility control option that scientists have concluded causes inhumane issues when darted, the BLM continues to ignore and avoid Congress’ clear directives for a more robust fertility control strategy that will move us away from this seemingly endless cycle of roundup, remove, warehouse, repeat.
A few congresspeople have already taken note. Representative Dina Titus, a supporter of wild horses staying wild wrote to the BLM when the agency released its tentative roundup schedule back in January.
“Despite a massive increase in roundups throughout the West, BLM’s plan shows no increases in the number of wild horses and burros being treated with fertility control,” said Rep. Titus. “This creates an influx of horses into already overcrowded holding pens, and inevitably leads to more deaths for these icons of the West through the cruel use of helicopters during roundups. This plan is inconsistent with Congressional directives regarding the humane treatment of wild horses on our public lands, and I strongly urge BLM to reconsider the scope of their gather operation in the following months.”
- Rep. Dina Titus
Since her letter, and despite continued directives for a more humane approach, the BLM has not changed its plans from its long-standing status quo.
As of publication, approximately 7,600 wild horses and burros have already lost their freedom since the 2024 fiscal year started on October 1, 2023.
With the agencies continuing the status quo and largely ignoring Congressional directives, it seems that, in the end, a vote may not mean much for wild horse and burro protection.