The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released its 2024 wild horse and burro population estimates, which reveals a troubling reality: There may be more wild horses and burros stockpiled in holding facilities than living in the wild.
While Congress has repeatedly directed BLM to prioritize in-the-wild conservation by prioritizing fertility control, assigning up to $22M, the BLM spent fewer resources on fertility control in 2023 than 2022—a mere 1% of its total budget. In contrast, the BLM spent $109 million on stockpiling 64,000 horses and burros into federal holding facilities at taxpayers' expense.
AWHC's Executive Director, Suzanne Roy, says: “Continuing costly, large-scale helicopter roundups is a flawed, excessive, and inhumane policy that places an unmanageable burden on an inadequate holding and adoptions system and on U.S. taxpayers. The program also comes at a high cost to these wild, free-roaming animals who are captured, traumatized, robbed of their freedom, and will spend the rest of their lives in captivity, or worse, will end up at slaughter plats in Canada and Mexico.”