The Senate Interior Appropriations Committee has included language in its Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) funding package which helps the management of America’s wild horses and burros.
The Senate Committee’s report emphasized that it “expects” the BLM to place “specific attention on”:
- “increasing the use of fertility control, including measurable objectives in reducing population growth with fertility controls,
- “targeting removals from the most heavily ecologically impacted and populated areas,
- “expanding long-term, off-range humane holding, and continuing adoptions while fully implementing and enforcing existing safeguards.”
The committee’s report language calls for $11 million “to be spent to continue implementation of a robust and humane fertility control strategy of reversible immunocontraceptive vaccines.”
The Senate committee approved a total of $148 million for wild horse and burro management for FY24, the same amount which Congress did for FY23.
Alternately, the U.S. House Interior Appropriations Committee approved $155 million for wild horse management in FY24.
The House Committee’s version also provides $11 million for fertility control, but it doesn’t indicate the use of the funding specifically for immediate implementation on the range.
The House version also permits the funding for use in research, including for permanent sterilization (which must be opposed).
It’s up to the Senate and House to reconcile the differences between each version.
Ideally, the House’s funding level and the Senate’s report language will prevail.
TAKE ACTION TODAY:
Call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and urge them to support the House’s funding amount for wild horses and burros with the Senate’s funding language.