For Fiscal Year 2023, Congress passed legislation that included important language championed by U.S. Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Dina Titus (D-NV), U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), and more than 80 other Congressional members.
With a new Appropriations cycle for Fiscal Year 2024, members of the U.S. Senate are now submitting their priorities for the FY24 appropriation language. It’s critical that wild horses and burros are strongly represented again.
With last year’s removal of more than 20,000 wild horses and burros from taxpayer-funded lands allocated to them by law, wild horses and burros need you to speak up more than ever.
Congress should be strongly encouraged to require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to do the following:
- Implement a substantial humane and reversible immunocontraceptive fertility control vaccine program to manage wild horse and burro populations in the wild which includes $11 million for these reversible fertility control vaccines;
- Strengthen and add partnerships with qualified non-profit organizations, to include military veterans and legitimate wild horse organizations;
- Research and relocate wild horses and burros to other Herd Management Areas (HMAs) to keep them on the range and out of off-range holding facilities;
- Make full use of humane alternatives to the use of helicopters for roundups; and
- Keep the ban that protects wild horses and burros from slaughter.
Congress should also be urged to defund the cash incentive offered in the BLM’s “Adoption Incentive Program.” As an alternative, veterinary vouchers are a way the BLM could reach its goal of increasing adoption rates.
TO HELP WILD HORSES & BURROS TODAY:
Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your two Senators. If asked to leave a message, you can use this wording:
I am a constituent and am calling to ask that you support language found in the FY24 Interior Appropriations bill which allocates $11 million of the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program budget to PZP fertility control vaccines. These funds allow for humane and cost-effective management of America’s wild horses on the range lands allocated to them by law. I respectfully ask that you include this in your Member Request for FY24 Interior Appropriations and sign onto Senator Booker’s wild horse letter. Thank you.