The American west has its own mythology and its own rich history in literature, film, and television—one that no other U.S. geographic region can ever hope to match. Can you imagine an entire section at a mall bookstore devoted to novels of, say, the Eastern shore?
And if any one animal symbolizes our own—or even the world’s—fascination with the American west, it is, without doubt, the horse. Many of these wild animals were tamed, and they, in turn, helped Americans tame the dusty frontier that lay west of the Mississippi. The horse, both wild and domestic, has earned its rightful place in American hearts and minds through the writings of Louis L’Amour and Larry McMurtry, the films of John Ford and Sergio Leone, and even through television dramas such as Bonanza and The Lone Ranger.
Is it any wonder then that thousands of Americans and more than a dozen celebrities—people who were likely influenced by the same Western arts and culture that shaped us all—have been willing to step up and support The HSUS’s and other groups' efforts to restore protections for America’s wild horses and burros? According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), only about 35,000 of these wild animals forage on U.S. lands today. But thanks to an amendment quietly slipped last year into an appropriations bill that gutted a 34-year-old ban on selling wild horses and burros for slaughter, that number was recently decreased by 41 mustangs. (Another 52 horses were in line for slaughter, but were pulled before the captive bolt pistol was fired.)
America's Contradictory Relationship with Wild Horses
Wild horses have a long history with North America. Fossil records show they were living in North America millions of years ago, gradually spreading to Asia likely via the Bering land bridge before losing a battle to the elements and becoming extinct on this continent. In the early 16th century, European explorers reintroduced the horse to Mexico, and the animal eventually found its way north into territories controlled by Native Americans and Europeans. Many of these horses formed wild herds; by some estimates, there were more than a million wild horses roaming North America by the turn of the 20th century, likely because humans had killed many of the horse's natural predators.
The horse's main predator in the 20th century was man. By 1971, when Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Protection Act and President Nixon signed it into law, there were approximately only 60,000 wild horses left on U.S. lands, their numbers drastically reduced by wholesale roundups and massacres. The act, championed by a Nevada resident nicknamed Wild Horse Annie, was designed to halt the killings. Americans roundly supported the act, reportedly flooding Congress with letters, a volume of mail second only to the number of letters Congress received about the Vietnam War.
But the act created to protect wild horses has slowly been eroded by the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that manages U.S. lands, under the theory that there are too many free-roaming horses and that they need to be managed. The BLM first created 303 herd management areas, but over the years, that number has been whittled down to 201. The BLM has also established "appropriate management levels," which allows the agency to round up horses by buzzing them with helicopters and corralling them into pens for eventual sale through the BLM's adoption program.
The underfunded adoption program, however, has been largely a bust, leading to crowded holding pens that don't give the BLM any wiggle room to round up more wild horses, which ranchers desperately want so that their beef cattle can graze without interference. The stealth amendment in last year's appropriations bill was the latest attempt to appease ranchers; the amendment requires the government to sell horses older than ten years or those who have not been adopted after three attempts. Guess who typically buys these older mustangs? Middlemen, or "killer buyers," who then sell the animals to one of the three foreign-owned slaughterhouses in the United States that process meat for overseas markets.
The losers in this game of backroom legislation are, of course, the horses. It has already cost the lives of 41 mustangs. It could cost thousands more.
The sad fact is that all of this is completely unnecessary—the covert legislation, the animal deaths, the hard feelings from horse lovers across the nation. The BLM could easily deal with America's wild horses without a drop of blood being spilled. The agency could reopen the 102 herd management areas that it has zeroed out; it could adopt immunocontraception programs to keep herds from becoming too large; it could funnel the money from its helicopter round-ups into a mass-marketing budget for its adoption programs; it could simply leave the horses alone, with an acknowledgment that Americans value their equine history as much, if not more, than their beef.
The Rush to Restore Protections
The Interior Department, which includes the BLM, has temporarily halted the sale of wild horses and burros while the agency determines whether the slaughter of those 41 mustangs violated federal contracts that require buyers of BLM horses to treat them humanely. The BLM is also looking at its procedures for selling wild horses and burros.
As the BLM sorts through this mess, several federal legislators are vigorously pushing for the passage of two bills to restore protections for wild horses and burros. U.S. Representatives Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY) have introduced H.R. 297 and Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has introduced S. 576—known as the Wild Horse Act—to outlaw the commercial sale of wild horses and burros. (Incidentally, there is also another bill, H.R. 503, that will ban the slaughter of domestic and wild horses for human consumption.) What's more, on Thursday, May 19, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Rahall-Whitfield Amendment to ensure that no tax dollars are used for any sale of wild horses that could lead to their slaughter.
Celebrities far and wide have been quick to support these forward-thinking bills as well as the amendment. The growing list includes actress Mary Tyler Moore, Desperate Housewives' Nicollette Sheridan, artist Peter Max, comedy legend Carl Reiner, country superstar Willie Nelson, actor Richard Gere, Mutts cartoonist Patrick McDonnell, screenwriter John Fusco, comedian Richard Pryor, and actors Wendie Malick, Eric Roberts, Tippi Hedren, Ed Asner, Linda Blair, Ed Begley Jr., Tony Curtis, Jorja Fox, Will Estes and Kelly Bishop.
Many of these stars, including Sheridan and Moore, signed an HSUS statement in support of the two bills. The statement, in part, reads:
If the American people knew that their wild horses are now being auctioned off to the highest bidder, the ubiquitous “killer buyers,” they would be appalled. The best hope for those who stand to profit by sending our horses to slaughter and for the politicians responsible for this travesty is that voters never learn the fate of these public treasures. Thankfully, U.S. Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV), U.S. Representative Ed Whitfield (R-KY), and Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) have taken action to prevent wild horse slayings&I stand with the bills’ sponsors, animal protection groups, and the American public in demanding that this legislation be passed without delay. We cannot afford to wait another day while our horses’ lives hang in the balance.
Curtis, Derek, Nelson and Pryor signed an equally strong statement to Congress, which reads in part:
As a nation that prides itself on leadership, we are long overdue in stopping the slaughter of wild and domestic horses for dishes in fancy foreign restaurants&No animal should be hauled across the country under the unhealthy and cruel conditions these horses face, whether the animal is acquired legally or illegally. Following their faithful service to humankind, horses should not be killed so diners can eat their meat abroad.
Fusco, a mustang conservator and the screenwriter for the films Hidalgo and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, didn’t mince his words over the recent turn of events. “These horses,” he wrote, “are only the first casualties of a clandestine equicide and it should alert the public immediately. The disturbing details behind the purchase of these animals illustrate the serious flaws in the [omnibus appropriations bill amendment], a provision that is disturbing and dishonest in itself. I believe that the furtive nature of the amendment only breeds more back-door dealings and sends out a kind of unspoken signal that it’s okay to say you’re buying horses for the kids&then drive away and kill them.”
“The outrage articulated by these celebrities mirrors the outrage of the general public,” says Nancy Perry, vice president of Government Affairs for The HSUS. “Clearly, no one favors a policy of allowing wild horses and burros into slaughterhouses. These animals deserve a far better and humane fate.”
If you want to jump into the saddle and join the celebrities who are against the slaughter of wild horses and burros, click here to urge your federal legislators to support H.R. 297 and S. 576. You’ll be saving a little slice of American history.
