Photo taken by Tony Stromberg at Return to Freedom’s American Wild Horse Sanctuary.

Congress goes back to work today — and so must wild horse advocates.

Members of the Senate and House of Representatives will begin holding Conference Committee meetings on Interior and Agriculture appropriations for Fiscal Year 2019, and the lives of wild horses and burros, as well as those of domestic equines, depend on the decisions that they make.

We must flood the phones in opposition to:

* a House amendment that would hand the Secretary of the Interior the power decide whether a wild horse herd is made single-sex or non-reproducing — including through the use of dangerous, costly and unproven sterilization surgeries;

* the removal of language blocking the U.S. Department of Agriculture from hiring horsemeat inspectors. Barring USDA from using tax dollars to do so acts as a temporary ban on slaughter until Congress passes the SAFE Act to ban slaughter, for good.

We also need to continue to speak out against the Bureau of Land Management’s new sale policy for wild horses and burros, which allows a single buyer to purchase 24 wild horses or burros with no waiting period, no oversight and no questions asked — an open invitation to kill buyers who would transport them to Canada or Mexico for slaughter.

Take Action

Call your members of Congress at (202) 225-3121 (to find direct numbers, go to https://www.callmycongress.com).

Urge your senators to:

* Stand strong in Conference committee on the Senate’s language protecting wild horses and burros and on defunding horse slaughter, if the senator sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee (click for a list of members: https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/about/members).

For senators *not* on the Senate Appropriations Committee: Ask them to tell members of the Conference committee that constituents do not want them to waiver either on protecting wild horses or defunding horse slaughter.

* Oppose a new, quietly implemented BLM policy increasing the number of wild horses that can be sold to individuals and the frequency of those sales. This move will only lead to the slaughter of wild horses, something Congress has strongly rejected;

* Support the SAFE Act (S. 1706) to ban slaughter and the transportation of horses for slaughter.

Urge your congressional representative to:

* Oppose a new, quietly implemented BLM increasing the number of wild horses that can be sold to individuals and the frequency of those sales. This move will only lead to the slaughter of wild horses, something Congress has strongly rejected;

* Oppose the House version of the FY19 Interior Appropriations bill because it contains an amendment allowing for the mass sterilization of wild horses and burros; instead, ask your representative to support Senate language on wild horses being considered by the House and Senate Conference committee, instead;

* Oppose the FY19 Agriculture Appropriations bill because it does not include the horse slaughter inspection defund language; instead, ask your representative to support the Senate language being considered by the House and Senate Conference committee, instead;

* Support the SAFE Act (H.R. 113) to ban slaughter and the transportation of horses for slaughter;

* Support the Horse Transportation Safety Act (H.R. 4040) to ban hauling horses on double-deck trailers under all circumstances.

Thank you to everyone who has been calling. Don’t let up!