If Congress does not step in to stop a new Bureau of Land Management sales policy, thousands more wild horses and burros are likely to end up in documents like these posted by Canadian horse advocates.
In May, BLM put into place a policy allowing buyers to purchase 24 wild horses at a time — *with no waiting period and no questions asked*. Previously, a buyer could purchase only four every six months without applying for special permission. This change opens the door wide for kill buyers.
BLM didn’t post the memo making the sales policy change on its website until July. We’re still demanding answers about how many wild horses and burros have been sold, already.
Every healthy horse lost, be it wild or domestic, is one too many. Here’s what you can do to help:
1) Call your members of Congress about wild horses and horse slaughter. For a suggested script updated as the situation in Washington, D.C., changes, see our pinned Facebook post. Here’s our current post:
2) Send a message to your members of Congress urging that they take action to stop the new sales policy:
3) Call Congressional leaders and demand that the SAFE Act to ban horse slaughter (H.R. 113 / S. 1706) be allowed to come up for a vote:
4) Send a message to your members of Congress urging them to support the SAFE Act or thanking them for becoming a cosponsor:
5) BLM and some members of Congress are pushing for the use of dangerous, costly and unproven field sterilization surgeries on wild mares. RTF strongly opposes such surgeries. Send a message to BLM opposing a sterilization study that the agency plans to conduct on about 100 wild mares in Oregon:
6) Share this post (social media share buttons are below).
7) Contribute to our Wild Horse Defense Fund, which fuels our lobbying, advocacy, selective litigation and on-range monitoring of wild horse roundups:
We’re in D.C. every day fighting for the protection of wild horses and burros. Every call you make, message you send and post you share helps amplify our shared message and opens lawmakers’ doors for us.
8) Don’t let up!
9) To make real, lasting change in wild horse and burro management, we need to elect and re-elect lawmakers ready to stand up for these iconic animals. Here are questions that you can ask Congressional candidates in your district and state: