BLM’s Broken Promise: How Decades of Mismanagement Have Failed America’s Wild Mustangs
For over fifty years, America has believed that our wild horses—the living spirit of the West—were protected by law. When Congress passed the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, it declared Mustangs “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West” and “an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.” It was a promise: these animals would be safeguarded, respected, and preserved for future generations.
But half a century later, that promise lies in ruins.
A System in Crisis
Concerns about the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) handling of wild horses and burros have been present for decades, but in recent years they have escalated into full-scale crisis. Multiple government agencies, leaders, and oversight bodies have issued stark warnings:
The Department of the Interior acknowledged that the current path is “not sustainable for the animals, the environment, or the taxpayer.”
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded the Wild Horse and Burro Program was “at a critical crossroads,” overwhelmed by the cost of long-term holding with no humane, cost-effective solutions in sight.
Despite these warnings, the policies causing the crisis continued largely unchanged.
The Removal Model That Was Never Sustainable
From the start, BLM’s management leaned heavily on one tool: mass removals. Each year, thousands of horses were taken from the range and placed into government corrals and long-term pastures. The belief was that adoption would keep the system moving.
It didn’t.
Year after year, more horses were removed than adopted, and the backlog grew. Today, approximately 78,000 wild horses are warehoused in holding facilities, a number so large that the system has reached its breaking point.
The tragedy is that many experts warned this would happen decades ago. Even GAO found that removals alone did not improve rangeland conditions—especially when livestock grazing caused far greater environmental pressure than wild horses.
BLM pressed on anyway, and the consequences are now undeniable.
A Pipeline to Nowhere Except the Kill Pens
As the number of captive horses grew, pressure mounted to find a way to “dispose” of horses no one was adopting. In response, Congress granted BLM the authority to sell certain horses “without limitation,” meaning:
No minimum sale price
No cap on how many one buyer could purchase
No guaranteed humane standards
No follow-up required
Advocates warned that this would funnel horses into the slaughter pipeline. They were right. Mustangs fell into the hands of kill buyers and a large number of mustangs went to slaughter with the Help of the BLM. So the incentive program was created, financial incentives to acquire horses, not protect them, resulting in widespread dumping once the incentive checks cleared.
Promises Made, Promises Broken
Over the decades, BLM put forward programs and promises that rarely delivered:
Millions spent on fertility control experiments with little long-term planning or measurable success.
Claims of supervised adoptions and compliance checks, despite widespread reports of horses going to unsafe homes with almost no oversight.
Partnerships with nonprofits that shifted responsibility, often without improving transparency or accountability.
Public input opportunities that rarely influenced final decisions.
Meanwhile, the 1971 law has been chipped away, weakened, rewritten, and interpreted to serve management goals rather than the welfare of the horses it was created to defend.
A Legacy Dismantled
The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act began as one of the most celebrated animal-protection laws in American history. Today, many advocates feel it has been dismantled piece by piece until its spirit is almost unrecognizable.
The horses are suffering.
The public has lost trust.
The agency charged with protecting them has instead created the greatest threat to their long-term survival.
Where We Stand Now
As the system collapses under its own weight, hard realities stand in front of us:
The holding system is overcrowded and financially unsustainable.
Horses are entering slaughter pipelines despite federal protections.
Taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions on a strategy that has not solved the problem.
BLM was warned many times this would happen, and did not change course.
If nothing changes, the American Mustang once protected by law and cherished as a symbol of freedom may be pushed to the brink not by nature, but by human mismanagement.
The crisis has reached its tipping point. Over 78,000 horses are now confined in holding, and more are entering the slaughter pipeline every week. We must act now.
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