America’s wild horses are living symbols of freedom, resilience, and the untamed spirit of the West. Yet today, more wild horses are in government holding facilities than roaming free on public lands.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) currently holds more than 75,000 wild horses in off-range pens, with thousands more removed from the range each year. These facilities were never meant to become permanent warehouses. Taxpayers now shoulder billions of dollars in lifetime holding costs, while horses spend years confined without the space to roam or live naturally in family bands.

Meanwhile, helicopter roundups continue. Horses are chased for miles over rough terrain, separated from their young, and transported to holding. Adoption programs have not solved the problem; many horses struggle to find lifelong homes, and some ultimately enter the slaughter pipeline after losing federal protections once titled.

This is not the balanced, humane stewardship Americans were promised under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

We are calling on Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and the Director of the Bureau of Land Management to immediately halt large-scale removals of wild horses from their designated Herd Management Areas and instead prioritize humane, science-based fertility control programs that allow horses to remain free on the range. Proven birth control methods exist that can stabilize herd growth without the trauma, expense, and long-term confinement caused by roundups.

It is time to keep America’s wild horses where they belong: free.

Urge the Department of the Interior and the BLM to end mass removals and implement humane, on-range fertility control now.