While Americans were celebrating the freedom of our nation, contractors hired by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to roundup our wild horses were caught mistreating the very animal that represents our independent ideals:
An AWHC observer witnessed atrocities committed against wild horses during the Buffalo Hills wild horse roundup when she caught on camera BLM contractors violently slamming a young foal to the ground. The contractors then hogtied the baby and reportedly threw the young foal to the ground once more before putting him into the back of a vehicle. He's not the only one to suffer — during the hot summer months, vulnerable young foals are often chased by helicopters.
Foaling season should not be helicopter season.
Sadly, examples of this shocking neglect continue into BLM holding facilities, where the deadliest disease outbreak in history claimed the lives of 146 wild horses in Colorado and where internal assessments show that the facilities are woefully noncompliant with the agency's own Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program. It continues with the Adoption Incentive Program, where AWHC has documented hundreds of wild horses and burros entering the slaughter pipeline as a result of this program.
It's time for immediate reform to the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program, and we need your help to make it happen.
Please take a moment to urge the BLM to heed the calls from Congress and reform the Wild Horse and Burro Program. BLM should immediately pause the helicopter roundups pending investigations into the program, stop conducting helicopter roundups in the summer, and remove the contractors involved in the mistreatment of the foal.