The Myth of Wild Horse "Overpopulation"
Wild horses and other wildlife species coexist peacefully in the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range.
How BLM's Big Lie Drives Massive Roundups Across the West
Wildfires and drought rage across the American West. Yet the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues to allow millions of privately-owned commercial livestock to graze our public lands as part of their multiple-use management system.
This welfare ranching, a.k.a. “public lands grazing” program loses hundreds of millions of dollars every year. It’s a program through which we, the taxpayers, help ranchers graze their livestock on our public rangelands. Only a small percentage of these are the mom-and-pop family-owned operations of yore. More often now they are wealthy conglomerates who don’t need the tax breaks that government subsidies provide.
This commercial livestock is allocated the lion’s share of rangeland forage, even in dedicated wild horse areas. So the government uses our tax dollars to pay government contractors to stampede our American wild horses off our public lands and into traps where they are terrorized, traumatized and separated from their families forever.
We also can’t forget the third side of this nefarious triangle, where we foot the bill to keep these once-wild horses in government captivity for the rest of their lives - unless we pay someone $1,000 to adopt one through the BLM’s Adoption Incentive Program (AIP). (**Important Note** this program is currently under investigation due to allegations that hundreds of adopted horses are being funneled into the slaughter pipeline.)
Wild horses are allowed to live on just 11% of BLM lands. On the majority of those wild horse-designated lands BLM also allows livestock grazing. BLM allocates roughly 80% of forage on wild horse-designated lands to privately owned livestock and then calls the horses ‘overpopulated.’
All of this is an outrageous waste of taxpayer monies and a betrayal of the national trust. This agency has been entrusted with the humane management of two key heritage species - the wild mustang and wild burro. And the way they’ve chosen to manage them is cruel, fraudulent and counter to the public interest.
Their entire house of cards rests on one thing. We call it the BLM’s Big Lie. They call it “Appropriate Management Level” (AML).
The Appropriate Management Level (AML), according to the BLM, is the number of wild horses and burros the land can sustain. But, how do they know? We should be able to tell you that it’s an in-depth scientific process involving range data and complicated mathematics, but the truth is, no one knows - not even the country’s most prestigious scientific organization.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was established by an Act of Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The organization is tasked with providing objective scientific advice to government agencies. In 2013 the Bureau of Land Management commissioned the NAS to conduct a scientific review of their Wild Horse and Burro Program.
In that report titled “Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward,” the NAS had the following to say about the BLM’s “Appropriate” Management Level:
“AMLs are a focal point of controversy between BLM and the public. It is therefore necessary to develop and maintain standards of transparency, quality and equity in AML establishment, adjustment and monitoring.”
“…changes in social values, and the discovery of new information require that AMLs be adaptable…”
“How Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs) are established, monitored, and adjusted is not transparent to stakeholders, supported by scientific information, or amenable to adaptation with new information and environmental and social change…”
“The committee could not identify a science-based rationale used by BLM to allocate forage and habitat resources to various uses...” (emphasis added)
No science-based rationale for spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to capture thousands of wild horses and burros in the cruelest of ways, rip their families apart, and condemn them to dull lives in single-sex holding pens. As we write this, there are over 50,000 once-wild horses and burros in government holding. And the BLM is poised and prepped to add another 50,000+ over the next five years at a cost of $1 billion dollars.
Government contractors stampede wild horses into traps, after which they will be separated from heir families and either adopted or spend the rest of their lives in holding pens.
How can this be, when the will of the American people largely supports leaving wild horses in the wild?
Because the BLM has sold their Big Lie and Congress has bought it. In a document named “The Path Forward,” two of the nation’s largest domestic animal welfare organizations (ASPCA and HSUS) and one wild horse sanctuary (RTF) collaborated with the Cattlemen’s Association and other ranching interests on a plan that proposed increased funding for massive roundups while suggesting that BLM also implement humane fertility control.
TCF, along with nearly every other wild horse advocacy organization, mounted outspoken opposition to this proposal, knowing it was a path to destruction for our wild herds. Despite our pleas, Congress granted the BLM increased funding. The result is what we’re seeing now.
Massive roundups of thousands of wild horses and burros. An agency that is emboldened by Congressional support in the abuse of its power. Politicians who can blithely turn a blind eye because these actions were supported by the most powerful animal welfare organizations that exist in the US.
We need to re-educate our legislators.
The Big Lie of AML is the only thing that supports the myth of “overpopulation” and it’s built on a house of cards. This myth is what BLM uses to sell the “necessity” of massive wild horse roundups. And it’s tragic. So much cruelty and fiscal negligence is founded solely on a preference of government to cow-tow to the livestock industry.
BLM claims the “national AML” for wild horses is approximately 26,700. This number is suspiciously close to the 25,300 wild horses that the BLM estimated existed in 1971 when the animals were declared “fast-disappearing” from the American West. Congress then acted unanimously to save them by passing the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. They can act again to save them now.
The truth is, AML is not a fact. Overpopulation of wild horses is not a fact.
Drought is a fact. Millions of privately owned livestock grazing on public lands is a fact. ‘Too many horses’ is not a fact. It’s a preference - driven by power and greed.
We need to start talking about AML for what it is - a lie with no scientific basis. A fabricated quota, probably chosen because it’s roughly the same as the number of horses Congress voted unanimously to save from imminent extinction when the Act was passed.
We must dismantle the AML myth and tackle the problem at its foundation. We must ask Congress to mandate that the BLM adhere to the letter of the 1971 law - to devote wild horse lands “principally” to their welfare. “Principally” does not mean 80% of the forage goes to livestock. It means that our wild horses and burros get their fair share.
Roundups are truly horrifying and we should oppose them. Humane fertility control is vastly better and we should urge BLM to implement it.
But, even if BLM chose to manage every herd with PZP tomorrow - if they are still reducing them to the Arbitrary Management Level, these animals will be “managed” to extinction. And for whom? For the benefit of Big Animal Agriculture.
We need to tackle the problem at its foundation - the fabricated, unscientific (in)Appropriate Management Level. Stay tuned to learn more about the crisis facing our western rangelands and what YOU can do to help.
Together we can keep America’s wild horses and burro families on the range where they belong.
Stay informed by subscribing to our Cloud Action Newsletter. Or support our work with a donation today. Thank you!