Comment Now to Stop the BLM’s Unwarranted Roundup of the Fifteenmile Herd in Wyoming
June 5, 2025
Call of the Wild National Call in Day to Congress for Wild Horses and Burros July 1, 2025
June 27, 2025
What will the future hold for our wild horses with the prospect of Project 2025 looming over our country? The 2026 White House budget request represents an unprecedented threat, removing protections that have safeguarded wild horses from slaughter since 2017. Meanwhile, the BLM plans to eliminate entire herds in Wyoming, despite legal appeals still pending.
The Wild Horse and Burro Program budget has been cut by nearly 30%, leaving just enough to feed the 64,000 horses already in holding. Even more concerning, the prohibition against killing healthy horses and selling them without limitation has been removed, opening the door for transfers to agencies where they lose protected status.
Project 2025 calls for the “humane disposal” of these animals, and this budget appears to follow that path. With over 10,000 additional horses scheduled for removal before 2026, holding facilities will be overwhelmed, setting the stage for mass euthanasia behind closed doors. Now is the time to call your representatives and tell them wild horses must remain protected.
Subscribe to my blog to get more information on how you can help America’s wild horses.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- How the 2026 budget removes critical protections for wild horses.
- Why the 30% budget reduction threatens horses in holding facilities.
- The connection between Project 2025 and wild horse elimination plans.
- Understanding the BLM’s transfer authority to other agencies.
- How to contact Congress to protect wild horses from slaughter.
- The impact of scheduled roundups on wild horse populations.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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- Living Images by Carol Walker
- Wild Hoofbeats Blog
- Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses by Carol Walker
- Contact your Senators
- Contact your Representatives
Have you wondered what it’s like to be in the field, on the land, spending time with wild horses? If so, this episode is for you. I’m your host Carol Walker, and let’s get started.
Have you wondered what the future may hold for our wild horses with the prospect of Project 2025 looming over our country? If so, this episode is for you. I’m your host, Carol Walker, and let’s get started.
Welcome to the Freedom For Wild Horses podcast, the place to find out about wild horses in the American West and what you can do to help them stay wild and free. If you love wildlife, wild horses, and the freedom that they stand for, this show is for you. I’m your host, Carol Walker. Let’s get started.
This has been a very challenging time for our wild horses, as well as for the people who love them. The Bureau of Land Management announced that they will proceed with the roundups to zero out Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, and one-third of Adobe Town herds in Wyoming, even though the 10th Circuit Court has not yet ruled on our appeal to stop it.
Now, the 2026 presidential budget request has no language in it to stop the slaughter of wild horses for the first time since 2017. Our wild horses, not only in holding facilities but also still free on our public lands, are at risk of being killed. As the pressure to sell off our public lands increases, the likelihood that our wild horses will be pushed off them increases.
The Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026, which begins on October 1st, 2025, is not in its final format yet. However, the Senate and the House Appropriations Committees are at work drafting the final bills right now. The budget for the Wild Horse and Burro Program has been reduced by almost 30%, leaving only enough dollars to pay for the costs of holding and feeding 64,000 wild horses and burros at facilities. The prohibition against killing healthy horses and burros and selling them without limitation (slaughter) has been removed.
The BLM would be allowed to give wild horses and burros away to state, local, and federal agencies and approved individuals. Nonprofits and even foreign governments can request these horses through governmental channels. At which point, they lose their protected status. And the BLM gets to distance itself from slaughtering wild horses by handing them off to other agencies who can then make a profit selling them to slaughter.
You might think, “Oh, the budget has been reduced. That means no roundups, right?” That is not what it means. There are over 10,000 wild horses scheduled to be rounded up and removed from their homes before fiscal year 2026. And those 10,000 wild horses and burros will be added to the 64,000 already in holding facilities. Do you see where this is going? It’s just too expensive to keep these horses in holding. We don’t have the money. We need to get rid of them.
Laura Lee puts this eloquently in her most recent newsletter: “For anyone to throw killing wild horses in holding outright or through sales to slaughter as an option without any actual willingness to prove that such a loathsome undertaking is truly warranted is outrageous.” Yes, it is outrageous.
This is straight from the Project 2025 playbook, from pages 528 to 529. It outlines the following: “The BLM’s multipronged approach in its 2020 report to Congress included expanded adoptions and sales of horses gathered from overpopulated herds, increased gathers, and increased capacity for off-range holding facilities and pastures, more effective use of fertility control efforts, and improved research in concert with the academic and veterinary communities to identify more effective contraceptive techniques and strategies. All of that will not be enough to solve the problem, however. Congress must enact laws permitting the BLM to dispose humanely of these animals.”
One way to get around Congress having to enact laws that would be extremely unpopular with the American public is to do this through the budget and removing protections against killing wild horses and burros. The easiest way to dispose of the wild horses in holding facilities, of course, would be to kill them at the facilities where they are being held, most of which are private, so there’s no fear of public scrutiny.
What can we do to prevent this massacre? Call your senators and representatives. Tell them you are a constituent of theirs and you would like to see wild horses continue to be protected from slaughter and from being sold without limitation. And that should be in the 2026 Appropriations bill. Tell them to stop the helicopter roundups removing wild horses from our public lands.
You can call the switchboard in Congress at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representatives. Or use the links I have posted on my website. Your voice for our wild horses is essential right now. In no universe is killing thousands of healthy wild horses and burros an option or okay. It is straight out a monstrous abomination. And as citizens of the United States, it is our duty to protect them.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Freedom for Wild Horses.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Freedom for Wild Horses. If you want to learn more, follow me at www.wildhoofbeats.com for more information and for ways to help America’s wild horses. See you next time.
Have you wondered what the future may hold for our wild horses with the prospect of Project 2025 looming over our country? If so, this episode is for you. I’m your host, Carol Walker, and let’s get started.
Welcome to the Freedom For Wild Horses podcast, the place to find out about wild horses in the American West and what you can do to help them stay wild and free. If you love wildlife, wild horses, and the freedom that they stand for, this show is for you. I’m your host, Carol Walker. Let’s get started.
This has been a very challenging time for our wild horses, as well as for the people who love them. The Bureau of Land Management announced that they will proceed with the roundups to zero out Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, and one-third of Adobe Town herds in Wyoming, even though the 10th Circuit Court has not yet ruled on our appeal to stop it.
Now, the 2026 presidential budget request has no language in it to stop the slaughter of wild horses for the first time since 2017. Our wild horses, not only in holding facilities but also still free on our public lands, are at risk of being killed. As the pressure to sell off our public lands increases, the likelihood that our wild horses will be pushed off them increases.
The Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026, which begins on October 1st, 2025, is not in its final format yet. However, the Senate and the House Appropriations Committees are at work drafting the final bills right now. The budget for the Wild Horse and Burro Program has been reduced by almost 30%, leaving only enough dollars to pay for the costs of holding and feeding 64,000 wild horses and burros at facilities. The prohibition against killing healthy horses and burros and selling them without limitation (slaughter) has been removed.
The BLM would be allowed to give wild horses and burros away to state, local, and federal agencies and approved individuals. Nonprofits and even foreign governments can request these horses through governmental channels. At which point, they lose their protected status. And the BLM gets to distance itself from slaughtering wild horses by handing them off to other agencies who can then make a profit selling them to slaughter.
You might think, “Oh, the budget has been reduced. That means no roundups, right?” That is not what it means. There are over 10,000 wild horses scheduled to be rounded up and removed from their homes before fiscal year 2026. And those 10,000 wild horses and burros will be added to the 64,000 already in holding facilities. Do you see where this is going? It’s just too expensive to keep these horses in holding. We don’t have the money. We need to get rid of them.
Laura Lee puts this eloquently in her most recent newsletter: “For anyone to throw killing wild horses in holding outright or through sales to slaughter as an option without any actual willingness to prove that such a loathsome undertaking is truly warranted is outrageous.” Yes, it is outrageous.
This is straight from the Project 2025 playbook, from pages 528 to 529. It outlines the following: “The BLM’s multipronged approach in its 2020 report to Congress included expanded adoptions and sales of horses gathered from overpopulated herds, increased gathers, and increased capacity for off-range holding facilities and pastures, more effective use of fertility control efforts, and improved research in concert with the academic and veterinary communities to identify more effective contraceptive techniques and strategies. All of that will not be enough to solve the problem, however. Congress must enact laws permitting the BLM to dispose humanely of these animals.”
One way to get around Congress having to enact laws that would be extremely unpopular with the American public is to do this through the budget and removing protections against killing wild horses and burros. The easiest way to dispose of the wild horses in holding facilities, of course, would be to kill them at the facilities where they are being held, most of which are private, so there’s no fear of public scrutiny.
What can we do to prevent this massacre? Call your senators and representatives. Tell them you are a constituent of theirs and you would like to see wild horses continue to be protected from slaughter and from being sold without limitation. And that should be in the 2026 Appropriations bill. Tell them to stop the helicopter roundups removing wild horses from our public lands.
You can call the switchboard in Congress at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representatives. Or use the links I have posted on my website. Your voice for our wild horses is essential right now. In no universe is killing thousands of healthy wild horses and burros an option or okay. It is straight out a monstrous abomination. And as citizens of the United States, it is our duty to protect them.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Freedom for Wild Horses.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Freedom for Wild Horses. If you want to learn more, follow me at www.wildhoofbeats.com for more information and for ways to help America’s wild horses. See you next time.
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16 Comments
I’ve already commented more than once – plus doing so in regard to particular herds.
I hope and pray everyone who reads this does the same.
Its so frustrating (and I’m sure – for you) to see comment after comment HERE – for some reason so many just dont GET that the BLM is the place that must get these comments – NOT Carol!
Anyhow, we all have to keep on plugging away for the sake of our Wild Horses and Burros.
Thanks for all you do
Stop killing wild horses to breed and kill cattle!
This makes me so angry. I can’t stop crying. Why is this country hellbent on destroying our remaining wild horses.
They are magnificent creatures who just want freedom to roam.
Such dire and uncaring plans for America’s wild horses and burros! We must vociferously protest these base and depraved plans. Thank you, Carol, for blowing the whistle!
Please put the stop killing the wild mustangs and burros and put it on the 2026 budget. It’s not fair to the wild horses they have a right to be wild as any other wild animal out there. You say that they tear up the landscape for other animals will what about all the land the loggers tear up when they do their logging. Please save the wild mustangs put it back on the 2026 budget
Please call and let your Senators and Representatives hear this.
It’s saddens our Hearts that these Wild Horses are being Attacked to be eliminated from our History they were here to help with our History God put them here for a reason they belong out there in the Wild as well as the Buffalo Deer Antelope etc…it’s pretty obvious that their using these Wild Horses as an excuse to get $$from the gov thinking they have to get rid of them, them using helicopters is Crulity to Animals, n if there’s 64,K all ready in holding pens is literally Crulity to Animals no reason at all jus so they can get gov funds saying they have a problem when they created it themselves, Wild Horses need to be protected
Why?? can’t (Man & Animals Live Together Wild Or Tamed.) Just Think GOD Is Going To Bring His Judgment SOON!!! With What’s Going On In This World The Great Wild Horses & Others .Will Be Needed! !! To Help The USA. Please Stop 🛑🛑 The Round Ups For The Sake Of Needing Them, Plus They Should Be Procted From Harm Of Man 😭 There Is So Much Greed & Insanity Of Getting Rid Of The Horses. They Were Here Before Any Of US! GOD BLESS America 👍🥰👍 ENOUGH IS Enough We As Humans Should Be Saving The Wild Horses, ??? What About All The Other Animals That Live & Share The Lands GOD Made 👍 America I’m Ashamed OF It. Pass The SAFE Acts &: Restore The LAWS For PROTECTION !!!! PLEASE !!!!!
PLEASE, PLEASE, save our wild horse herds. They belong to all of us; not BLM or other government agency. They protect the ranges from wildfires. Our children need to be able to see wild horses running free. Thousands of horses are in holding areas. Many are trampled, starved, and killed. Pregnant mares are sent to slaughter. Helicopter rounds up are INHUMANE! Think of something! Use birth control, to control the population…not killing!
I am writing to urge you to support and pass legislation to stop the BLM from decimating America’s wild Mustangs. Our nation’s wild mustangs are a symbol of American freedom, resilience, and heritage. Yet, they are being decimated by mass roundups and removals conducted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
These brutal roundups often lead to injury, family separation, and long-term captivity for animals meant to roam free. The BLM’s methods are outdated and inhumane. It is time for Congress to demand more humane, science-based, and sustainable management of these iconic herds.
The legislation offers real reform and reflects the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly support protecting wild horses on our public lands. Please stand with the American public and the spirit of the West—support this legislation and stop the unnecessary destruction of our wild horse herds. We elected YOU to REPRESENT us – not the groups that lobby you.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
We pay million of dollars to protect and manage our wild horses. Leave the alone. Protect them from slaughter, put them back on their wild horse management areas. Take all other domestic (cattle, sheep ect) animal off there lands. We pay for this. Give it back
To the horse
Leave these wild horses alone on protected management lands. They have a right to be free. Leave them alone!!
This is inhumane, do the right thing!!!
I want our wild horses protected what do I need for do please help preserve the wild horse
Contact your Senators and representative and tell them to put protections in place for our wild horses against killing and slaughter on the 2026 Appropriations Bill
Dear God these people leave these horses alone
Please stop the roundups and eliminating our National Treasures !
No amount of material wealth can bring them back once we have wrongly exterminated these beautiful horses !
They are wild and free , keep them that way !
Please fight for their right to life , save and support our Wild Horses !