The horses have been moved from their habitat to holding facilities, while the Bureau of Land Management makes its decision.
A recommendation that the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) euthanize around 45,000 wild horses and burros has sparked outrage by animal rights activists and members of the public.
The federal advisory board to the BLM cited concerns over degradation of cattle rangeland by herds of browsing wild horses. These horses have already been removed from their ranges by the BLM to make room for cattle, and are currently holed up in holding pens.
But the pens have become overcrowded and costly to maintain.
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To solve the financial burden, the advisory board held a meeting last week. All board members, save for one, voted that the BLM should “offer all suitable animals in long and short-term holding deemed unadoptable for sale without limitation or humane euthanasia. Those animals deemed unsuitable for sale should then be destroyed in the most humane manner possible.”
The BLM has neither accepted nor rejected the recommendation.
Advisory board member Sue McDonnell, who voted to recommend euthanasia, told The Huffington Post that the holding facilities where many horses are being housed for the foreseeable future are inadequate.
“This is not a reasonable quality of existence they’re in,” she said. “They’re basically in dry lot pens, there’s no natural vegetation. It’s not the way anyone would keep their horses, you know. Those are the horses right now.”
But Holly Hazard, the president of programs and innovations at the Humane Society of the United States, argues euthanasia is not the answer.
“The decision of the BLM advisory board to recommend the destruction of the 45,000 wild horses currently in holding facilities is a complete abdication of responsibility for their care,” she says in a press release.
“The agency would not be in this situation but for their long-term mis-management.”
Hazard claims that proposals for humane population control methods, such as contraceptives, have been “ignored for over 20 years.”
According to The Telegraph, the BLM has tried contraceptive injections, but found them to be impractical.
The BLM estimates the number of wild horses and burros roaming on public lands has reached 67,027, which they note is “a 15 percent increase over the 2015 estimate of 58,150.” That means the free-ranging population exceeds “appropriate management level” by more than 40,000 animals. That’s on top of the more than 45,000 animals currently residing in holding facilities.
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