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Wild horses living in a portion of the Cañon City off-range holding corrals are seen from a distance in this photo taken in June 2021. Photo by Meg Frederick.

Demand Better for Captured Wild Horses, Burros

We must continue to call for better care of the more than 60,000 captured wild horses and burros now living in government off-range holding facilities or leased pastures. Of those, more than 21,000 were living in corrals that are too often overcrowded and lack shelter, as of March 2023.

An alarming number of deaths underscored during the spring of 2022 only underscored Return to Freedom’s concerns about conditions in off-range holding:

A total of 145 wild horses died at the Bureau of Land Management's crowded Cañon City (Colo.) corrals died from a preventable equine flu outbreak. A review has found 13 violations of BLM policy -- including failing to vaccinate the affected wild horses, which arrived at the corrals months earlier.

There were 2,550 wild horses living in the off-ranging holding corrals when the outbreak began at the East Cañon City Prison Complex, according to BLM.

In the months before the deaths, Cañon City faced allegations of mistreatment, including of underweight horses standing in mud and muck. Because inmates care for and train horses for adoption there, the Cañon City corrals remain largely out of the public eye.

The BLM intends continue to add to the number of wild horses and burros in off-range holding by focussing on their capture and removal instead of properly and robustly implementing proven, safe and humane fertility control on the range that could slow population growth, reduce the frequency and size of removals, and eventually end them as the agency’s primary management tool.

The emphasis on removals is all the more irresponsible because BLM lacks the infrastructure, staff and contracts to run its program -- much less properly protect and care for captured wild horses and burros.

Please join us in urging Congress to take demand that steps are taken to reduce the chances of further tragedy in holding facilities by moving wild horses and burros to more natural, cost-effective pastures as quickly as possible and by implementing a fertility control program that can lead to on-range management and the closure of off-range holding.

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BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning

Subject: Immediate steps needed to improve wild horse off-range holding facilities

Message:

The deaths in 2022 of 145 wild horses from a preventable equine flu at the Bureau of Land Management’s Cañon City (Colo.) facility underscore concerns about inadequate care and biosecurity at large-scale corral facilities that together hold more than 21,000 federally protected wild horses and burros. A review has found multiple violations of BLM policy, including failure to vaccinate the affected wild horses.

When wild horses are stressed from being chased into traps by helicopters, separated from their family bands and their home range, then placed in trucks and corrals that inhibit their movement, illness is sadly inevitable; but negligence is inexcusable.

Steps must be taken across BLM’s off-range holding system to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.

Concerns about off-range holding are magnified by the BLM’s continued emphasis on capturing and removing wild horses and burros from the range as the agency's primary management tool.

The agency’s focus should instead be on ramping up its use of proven, safe and humane fertility control and on moving wild horses from too-often overcrowded corrals to more natural and cost-effective pastures as quickly as possible, as previously called for by Congress.

Congress requires that the BLM follow best practices throughout its program, including strict adherence to Comprehensive Animal Welfare Protocols for humane handling from capture to transportation to short- and long-term holding through to adoption and sale programs.

Lawmakers should demand that the bar for standard of care is not only met but raised ever-higher.

Congress must also hold the BLM accountable for significant use of fertility control right now, not later. Only through its use can progress be made -- away from the costly, failed practice of capture-and-removal toward humane and sustainable on-range management and the phasing out of long-term holding.

Americans who have invested so much in wild horses, burros and our public lands expect nothing less.

Demand Better for Captured Wild Horses, Burros

Thank you for supporting America's horses!