*** UPDATE ***

BLM tells reporter they will not send or sell horses into slaughter. While this is welcome news, we can't trust them to hold this position or implement humane, on the range management of wild horses. The public MUST redouble our efforts to ensure the BLM never kills wild horses as well as ensure the BLM stops rounding up and warehousing them at public cost. We must also keep pressure on Congress to maintain the annual no-kill language that prevents the BLM from killing wild horses. We must use this misguided proposal to demand positive change for wild horses. 

ISWMP urges the BLM and Department of the Interior to return all of our Nation’s wild hoses & burros to their wild habitats and work to implement a solution for their ongoing and continued protection and care. 

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I Stand With My Pack is outraged with the Wild Horses & Burros Advisory Board proposal to euthanizes over 44,000 potentially ‘unadoptable’ wild horses and burros even though the BLM is trusted by US citizens and tax payers and required under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act that these horses and burros be protected as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West". We must work together to prevent not only the death of these magnificent wild horses, but also we must work to secure they'r safely in a natural wild habitat.

At the turn of the 20th Century, these iconic wild horses numbered in the millions, but most were rounded up so their land could be used to produce more beef, slaughtered, and used for pet food or fertilizer in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, until by 1970, there were only 17,000 left. In 1971, Congress stepped in to save the remaining herds by passing the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which declared wild horses “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West” and made it a crime for anyone to harass or kill wild horses on most federal land. The law promised the American people that the departments of Interior and Agriculture would protect the animals still roaming the range, but they have failed to do so and have instead allowed an advisory board, who is largely made up of pro-beef industry, anti-wildlife members to suggest the mass extermination of these beautiful animals. These board members need to hear from each of us that the removal and planned killing of these magnificent wild animals is totally unacceptable. This proposal is a total betrayal of tax payers trust and it must be stopped. The only member voting to save the horses, Ginger Kathrens, the Director of Cloud Foundation who has studied wild horses for the last decade, stated that alternatives to this proposal, such as birth control darts, have been ignored for over 20 years by the BLM and that these wild horses are far from overpopulated.

ISWMP’s position is that these horses need to be given their federally granted protection and be allowed to live in their natural habitats, not sold off at ‘adoption auctions’ or subjected to medical experiments. As citizens and tax payers, we refuse to ignore the US government sanctioned extermination and abuse of our nations wild horses and burros all in the name of corporate greed and the power of the Cattleman’s Association. Please join us to stand up for these magnificent animals by taking a moment to contact the decision makers below to let them know we will not allow innocent horses to be killed.