This alert is no longer active, but here for reference.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

The Bureau of Land Management is opportunistically using the current drought situation as justification for removing wild horses and burros from public lands, which were guaranteed for their "principle use" by the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. The Bureau can do "emergency" removals of wild equids without public discussion or comments whenever it chooses to falsify an emergency. We must stop this rogue agency currently capturing thousands of wild horses with imminent plans to remove thousands more.

Using false logic, the BLM is brutally rounding up wild herds and replacing them with the exploited cattle and sheep of private ranchers on our public lands! It is an outrage that it can claim drought as a rationale to remove wild horses and then allow livestock in even greater numbers on that very same land.

The BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is stacked with anti-wild horse members with conflicts of interest, like ranchers using our public lands for their ill-used sheep, cattle, and cows. In their last meeting, board members deceptively cried out alarmingly about the drought conditions that would allegedly cause thousands of wild horses to drop dead. Their feigned concern was nothing less than a green light to forcibly remove many more thousands of wild horses and burros from public lands.

It is proven by scientific studies that wild horses and burros can improve the land by depositing intact grass seeds in their manure and digging wells for water in arid areas. Photographic evidence and boots-on-the-ground observations prove wild horses are adapted to find resources to stay in good condition.

Conversely, cattle and sheep do much damage to the land. Additionally, their complex digestive systems do not allow for viable seeds to transfer to the soil. In testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee for federal lands, Erik Molvar the Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project conveyed how livestock grazing degrades the land, calling it “a slow and invisible cancer that is insidiously and inexorably killing native ecosystems over vast areas.”

As a member of Congress, Debra Haaland was a consistent supporter of wild horses and burros. Now that she holds the cabinet post of Interior Secretary, she has gone silent as the BLM systematically destroys America's wild herds at the behest of the beef and dairy industries. She has ignored the thousands of letters, emails, and phone calls made on behalf of wild horses and burros. We must ramp up our efforts to get through to her!

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