Failed adoptions result in America’s wild horses and burros becoming at-risk of ending up at slaughter

RENO, Nev. —The Bureau of Land Management (BoLM) will host two free public tours of the Indian Lakes Off-Range Wild Horse and Burro Corral in Fallon, Nevada, on Friday, October 28. The private corral is one of three in Nevada that fattens up wild horses and burros removed from the range so they are attractive to kill buyers in the end. Tour attendees will have the opportunity to view native wild horses recently rounded up from public lands in central and eastern Nevada when the federal agency could have brought them water on the range to save taxpayer dollars. Instead they rounded them up, will offer them for adoption 3 times for $125 in order to “strike them out”. Then to dispose of them, the federal agency sells them off for $25 to horse traders who eventually flip them to kill buyers for slaughter.

“The Bureau claims they don’t sell wild horses to slaughter but they don’t seem do any post sales checks to make sure the mustangs aren’t sent to Mexico or Canada to be butchered for human consumption abroad,” explains Anne Novak, executive director or Protect Mustangs. “What about all the wild horses that aren’t accurately accounted for that aren’t sold yet? What happened to them?”

The rare public tours are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and each will last about two hours. Each tour will accommodate up to 20 people. The public can sign up to attend and get driving directions to the facility by calling the BoLM at (775) 475-2222.

About a 90-minute drive east of Reno, the Indian Lakes Off-Range Corral is located at 5676 Indian Lakes Road, Fallon, and is privately owned and operated with a big money contract. Tour attendees will have limited access to the captives. They will be taken around the facility as a group on a wagon to learn about the facility, the wild horses and burros available for adoption, and BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. These tours should be happening every weekend at least to encourage adoptions out of the Fallon facility.

The Indian Lakes corral can provide care for up to 3,200 wild horses or burros. The facility encompasses 320 acres containing 43 large holding pens, each pen measuring 70,000 square feet that will safely hold about 100 wild horses or burros. The wild horses receive a lot of feed to fatten them up, along with a constant supply of fresh water through automatic watering troughs. Free choice mineral block supplements are also provided to the wild horses and burros in each pen. A veterinarian routinely inspects the wild horses and burros and the BoLM claims they provide necessary veterinary care as needed.

The Bureau of Land Management is failing at adoptions because of lack of marketing and poor customer service.

“If the U.S. Congress only realized how hard it is to adopt wild horses and give them homes they might make the bureau change their ways,” says Novak.

For example the wild horses at the Indian Lakes facility with limited access to the public are almost impossible to adopt despite looking like they are available for adoption or sale at off-site adoption events and through BLM’s Internet Adoption program. Too many 3-Strikers are coming out of the Fallon facility so it’s proof their system is failing.

Sign and share the petition to investigate the head count of wild horses and burros: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-investigate-the-wild-horse-burro-count-in-captivity-and-freedom

Keep in mind that the BoLM’s main focus is making money off public land the wild horses and burros are supposed to have for principle but not exclusive use. The BoLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BoLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. In Fiscal Year 2015, the BoLM generated $4.1 billion in receipts from activities occurring on public lands. They fail at environmental stewardship and are irresponsible towards all the wild horses and burros they removed to make billions in profit. In 20 years the BoLM will make more than 200 billion dollars as long as their planned #fracking boom moves forward.

Contact Protect Mustangs (Contact@ProtectMustangs.org) if you want to adopt a pair of wild horses and save their lives. We help adopters navigate the Bureau of Land Management’s red tape to get to success.

Protect Mustangs is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of native and wild horses. www.ProtectMustangs.org