A BLM’s contractor’s helicopter pursues wild horses during an October 2017 roundup in Wyoming’s Checkerboard region. RTF file photo by Steve Paige.
March 16 update: The meeting has been postponed. No new date has been set.
The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is set to meet March 27-28 in Salt Lake City.
At its last meeting, the independent board voted to call on the Bureau of Land Management to shoot tens of thousands of healthy wild horses and burros while also phasing out the use of long-term holding facilities.
If Congress allowed BLM to follow through on the board’s recommendations, that would mean the government shooting at least 90,000 healthy animals at taxpayer expense.
The board also called for allowing international adoptions and sales, which have not been allowed before. During its deliberations, the board repeatedly referenced a proposal made by a private party to have American taxpayers pay to ship upwards of 20,000 wild horses to Russia — where they would serve as prey animals for big cats.
The advisory board has no power to control policy, but is tasked with providing advice to BLM.
Wild horse advocate Ginger Kathrens of the Cloud Foundation was the lone dissenting vote on recommendations that BLM achieve “Appropriate Management Level” of 26,715 in three years, close long-term holding in three years, and allow international sales and adoptions.
Kathrens joined the others on the board in voting to recommend that BLM increase its funding for reversible fertility control.
MEETING DETAILS
Scheduled to run from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on March 27 and 8 a.m.-noon on March 28th, Mountain Time, the meeting will be held at the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake Downtown, located at 215 West South Temple. It will be live-streamed at http://www.blm.gov/live.
For a meeting agenda, please click here.
TAKE ACTION
Comments may also sent to the board by email to the BLM at whbadvisoryboard@blm.gov. Include “Advisory Board Comment” in the subject line. The deadline for public comment is March 20.
For suggested talking points, please see Return to Freedom’s Wild on the Range campaign petition.
Members of the public may also mail written comments by March 20 to:
U.S. Department of the Interior
Bureau of Land Management
National Wild Horse and Burro Program (WO-260)
Attention: Advisory Board
20 M Street, SE, Room 2134LM
Washington, D.C. 20003