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, Linda Blair, Tony Curtis, Jorja
Fox, Will Estes, Bo Derek, 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.
