Wild horses sold to middle men for slaughter

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Wild mustang weanling in holding. (Photos © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

“We request a freeze on all roundups until Congress can investigate and stop the BLM from selling wild horses by the hundreds to alleged kill-buyers,” states Anne Novak, executive director for Protect Mustangs. “Internal corruption needs to be flushed out fast.”

 

Today the press revealed a man who has purchased at least 1,700 wild horses from the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program for $10 a piece. Dave Phillips reports in ProPublica, All the missing horses: What happened to the wild horses Tom Davis bought from the government?  It appears that the BLM is selling healthy indigenous wild horses to a known pro-slaughter kill-buyer to dispose of our living legends.

This needs to stop now.

Here are some articles providing some background about the BLM’s heinous wild horse traffic to slaughter . . . America’s living legends, betrayed by those entrusted to protect them under the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act.

National Geographic (May 5, 2005) Wild Horses Sold by U.S. Agency Sent to Slaughter http://bit.ly/IaLgoA

The agency’s mission changed in December, when Congress passed a bill that made it legal for the BLM to sell wild horses outright . . .

Since December the BLM has sold about a thousand wild horses under the new rules. The slaughtered horses were originally sold to the Rosebud Sioux Indians in South Dakota and to an unnamed Oklahoma man who said he wanted the horses for a church youth program.

The Sioux group bought 105 wild horses at a dollar apiece, then traded 87 of them to a horse broker, who sold some of the horses for slaughter. The Oklahoma man bought six at $50 apiece, according to the BLM. Slaughterhouses are known to pay hundreds of dollars for a horse.

 

Christian Science Monitor and cross-posted by The Seattle Times (March 2, 2005) Law allows slaughter of wild horses for meat  by Brad Knickerbocker http://bit.ly/K8DWIF

Now, a law signed by President Bush will allow the slaughter and export of horse meat form thousands of wild horses. Horse lovers are urgins reversal of the measure, which slipped into a recent federal appropriations bill by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.

 

Chicago Tribune (Dec, 12, 2001) Adopted wild horses are still being slaughtered by Robert Gehrke http://bit.ly/IcWL2g story went viral

WASHINTON–Wild horses put up for adoption by the Bureau of Land Management continue to be slaughtered, in some cases within weeks of he owner gaining title to the animal, according to the latest BLM records.

The quick turnaround has critics questioning how aggressively BLM is enforcing a rule requiring adopters to swear that they don’t plan to sell the horse to slaughter.

‘Not only is the BLM not actually prosecuting people, but they’re not even doing the investigation to try to figure it out and it seems like they don’t want to know,’ said Howard Crystal, an attorney for the Fund for Animals, whose lawsuit led to the no-slaughter clause.

The Desert News (Dec. 12, 2001) Rules are not preventing slaughter of wild horses by Robert Gehrke http://bit.ly/IMYibB

The Deseret News (August 18, 1999)  Wild horses are going to slaughter, BLM says http://bit.ly/IMiyKq

Adopted wild horses are being slaughtered for meat or pet food at a rate that could top five per week, according to an employee of the Bureau of Land Management.BLM wild horse expert Lilly Thomas said once-wild horses adopted from agency land are being slaughtered at four major packinghouses. Speaking this week at a meeting of the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board in Salt Lake City, Thomas said she based her estimate on reports from a slaughterhouse near Fort Worth, Texas,…

 

Buffalo News (January 5, 1997) US effort to save wild horses leads thousands to slaughter as workers profit by Martha Mendoza http://bit.ly/IMb3Dn

A multimillion-dollar federal program created to save the lives of wild horses instead is channeling them by the thousands to slaughterhouses where they are chopped into cuts of meat.

Among those profiting from the slaughter are employees of the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that administers the program.

AP viral story (January 4, 1997)  Program to protect wild horses often funnels them to slaughter by Martha Mendoza http://bit.ly/IhtEds

NY Times (Jan 29, 1997) Report Acknowledges Wild Horses Are Being Slaughtered http://nyti.ms/IwGF1x

The Spokesman Review (December 12, 1986) Wild horses being sent to slaughter http://bit.ly/IatqoK

HELENA — The Bureau of Land Management has been shipping hundreds of horses to Montana ranchers under the government’s “adopt-a-horse” program, and some are going to slaughter, one of the ranchers says.

Since 1985, more than 1,800 horses rounded up on government land in Nevada and other states have been shipped to ranchers in eastern Montana’s Yellowstone Valley, according to figures supplied by BLM Associate State Director Marvin Lenoue,

Hundreds of other wild horses have been shipped to South Dakota, mostly to Indian reservations . . .

Some owners sold them to rodeos, he said and “some of those people sent them to slaughter.”

Lakeland Ledger (March 11, 1973) U.S. Probe Wild Horse Slaughter ~ story went viral http://bit.ly/Io6nC5

LA Times (March 5, 1973) Apparent Roundup of Wild Horses for Slaughter Probed http://bit.ly/JUlvvG

Federal authorities are investigating a blood-soaked cliffside in the high, remote mountains of southeastern Idaho where officials say a herd of about 60 wild horses was apparently rounded up and sold for slaughter.