Photo by Meg Frederick
Update: The Senate included protective language in its appropriations bill, released on July 24. The Senate bill recommends $141.9 million for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, $100,000 less than was ultimately allocated by Congress for Fiscal Year 2025.
Good news: The House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee on Tuesday voted to approve a 2026 funding bill language that includes critical protections for wild horses and burros that the president omitted from his budget proposal.
The full House Appropriations Committee will vote later this week.
The president’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal left out standard protections that bar the Bureau of Land Management from killing healthy wild horses or selling them without protection against slaughter, placing at risk the lives of 63,000 captive wild horses and burros.
The House bill includes $144 million for the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, a $2 million increase from 2025.
That compares to $106.7 proposed by the president — an amount that would have slashed the wild horse program’s budget by 25% and placed it near the $101 million the agency spent last year caring for wild horses and burros living in off-range holding facilities.
Thank you to the subcommittee and to everyone who has called their congressperson about this important issue.
But we must keep contacting the U.S. Senate to ensure that the protective language is included in the final 2026 funding package.
Here’s how you can help:
- Send a message to your Senators demanding no-kill language for wild horses and burros is included in spending bills. You can do so here.
- Call (202) 224-3121. Urge both of your senators to call on the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittees to language preventing the government from killing healthy wild horses and burros or selling them without protections against slaughter.
- Help keep our Washington, D.C., lobbying, grassroots advocacy and selective litigation going by donating to our Wild Horse Defense Fund here.