Wild horses on federal land put at risk by omnibus provision, American Wild Horse Campaign warns

An interest group devoted to protecting the nation’s wild horses is warning that a change in federal law tucked into the omnibus spending package could lead to exploitation of the creatures and a diminishing of their number on federal lands. In a Tuesday news release, the American Wild Horse Campaign says that language in Section 116 of the spending bill up for vote in Congress this week would allow the federal Bureau of Land Management to “strip wild horses of federal protection and transfer them to states and local governments for use as ‘work animals.’” “Although the language includes prohibitions on sale for slaughter and offers some restrictions on the use of euthanasia, it expressly authorizes the killing of certain wild horses and burros and contains numerous loopholes that could result in the destruction of thousands of healthy wild horses and burros either directly or by sending them into the slaughter pipeline,” AWHC said. Among other complaints, the AWHC said language in the omnibus bill contains “[n]o provisions for accountability, transparency or accounting for the fates of transferred horses and no penalty for violating the provisions” of the law...more