This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

The cries of frightened horses are ringing out through California’s Modoc National Forest. Hundreds of mustangs are being rounded up by the U.S. Forest Service with the cruel outcome being sale for slaughter. The U.S. Forest Service is disdainfully ignoring federal protections for wild horses and the public’s wishes. We must act now to save the Modoc mustangs! 

The terrifying helicopter roundups, when completed, will have removed 1,000 wild horses from the Devil’s Garden Wild Horse Territory which consists of 300,000 acres of public lands. Horses aged 10 and up will be sold for $25 each for 60 days “with limitation.” After 60 days they will be sold “without limitation” (slaughter) for $1 each, with the buyers allowed to take 36 horses at a time. Quite a tidy profit for the kill buyers! 

The captured horses under 10 years old will be sent to one of the Bureau of Land Management’s notoriously grim and barren holding corrals and offered for adoption. If they are not adopted after one year, they may meet the same fate: sale for slaughter. A Bureau official says there are now “north of 50,000” wild horses and burros in BLM holding facilities, leaving the untrained wild horses with almost no chance for adoption. 

There are better, more humane options available for humane population control if it is even needed. Advocacy groups have offered to volunteer their time and resources to provide PZP fertility control to the Devil’s Garden herd to help reduce the population if it will save them from cruel slaughter. 

Though a federal lawsuit has been filed to stop the U.S. Forest Service from selling these Devil’s Garden wild horses for slaughter, the horses’ fate hangs on a knife-edge. Please act now to help these mustangs. 

What you can do:

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.