By Brian Faler
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, May 26, 2005
An Oklahoma man said he wanted the horses for a church youth program -- and to federal government officials, that sounded like a godsend.
The government, under new orders from Congress to begin selling off "excess" wild horses -- and eager to find them good homes -- sold him half a dozen for $50 each. Within days, they were in an Illinois slaughterhouse.
Later that month, on April 25, federal plant inspectors discovered more than a dozen others in that same DeKalb, Ill., facility. The government had sold the horses to a South Dakota Indian tribe. The tribe traded them to a broker, who, in turn, sold them to a slaughterhouse. Thirty-five were killed before officials, with help from Ford Motor Co., intervened.
The government could not legally buy back the remaining horses. But Ford, maker of the Mustang car, could and did, putting up almost $20,000 to repurchase and ship the 52 horses -- 16 at the plant and an additional 36 on the way -- to a horse sanctuary. The government suspended its sales that day, until it could determine what, if anything, it could do to prevent any more of the wild mustangs, which have become synonymous with the spirit of the American West, from being killed.
The Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for the horses, announced last week that it has beefed up legal protections for the animals and will resume selling them as early as this week. The BLM also said it is attempting to strike an agreement with the nation's three horse slaughterhouses to reject wild horses, identifiable by government freeze brands.
"We think that these are positive steps and further underscore what we're trying to accomplish," BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said.
The announcement, which some advocacy groups for wild horses have greeted with skepticism, comes five months after President Bush signed a measure into law ordering the agency to sell some of the wild horses and burros roaming the West. The agency estimates there are still 31,000 out there, scattered across 10 states. An additional 22,000 excess horses have been rounded up and put in government holding facilities.
Excess horses are those deemed by the bureau to be more than their environs can sustain. Wild horses are allowed to roam on 201 separate patches of federal land totaling about 29.5 million acres. The BLM estimates the land supports, at most, 28,000.
That number is based on an ecological calculation that considers the topography, climate, and who and what else is on the land, such as the amount of highway traffic, energy development and number of cattle. Ranchers pay the government to allow their cattle to graze on federal lands.
Some wild horse advocates say that the BLM's estimates are skewed toward the more politically influential livestock industry, contending that the bureau could leave more horses on the range if the much larger cattle population were reduced. The agency defended its estimates. "We feel we are carrying out our obligations under the law to manage for multiple uses," Gorey said.
The BLM conducts annual roundups to remove enough horses -- with no natural predators, their populations can double in five years -- to keep them within the prescribed range. Those horses are taken to government facilities, and many are offered for adoption. But the bureau routinely gathers many more horses than will be adopted. As with stray cats and dogs, Gorey said, there are not enough homes for the horses.
The unwanted animals are held in government and government-contracted facilities, where the BLM provides for their care and feeding. The agency, noting that adopters tend to favor younger and more easily tamed horses, estimated that more than half of the 22,000 animals in its facilities will never be adopted. It also said it expects to spend $20 million this year -- a little more than half of the entire budget for its horse and burro program -- providing for the animals.
The BLM had previously been allowed only to offer the horses for adoption. Under that program, which the agency still runs, adopters pay a minimum of $125 and are required to hold on to the animals for a year. During that time, the horses are still considered government property, cannot be sold or slaughtered, and are monitored by BLM officials to ensure they are receiving adequate care. At the end of that year, the government hands over the animal's title to the adopter. Wild horse advocates said those rules prevent many from being slaughtered by making it difficult to profit from the program -- adopters, they said, probably spend more money caring for the horses, over the course of that year, than they could earn by selling them.
But a measure tucked into a massive congressional spending bill last year by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) directed the bureau to sell, without all those rules and restrictions, excess horses that are at least 10 years old or are unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times. The government estimates that 8,400 horses and burros are now eligible for sale.
The law has outraged wild horse advocates, who say it was passed with little public input and will result in the slaughter of an animal regarded as iconic of the American West. They fear that the law, even with the BLM's new protections, will enable profiteers to make a quick buck by buying the horses cheaply -- the government's prices are negotiable, but the agency has sold some for $1 -- and selling them to slaughterhouses for $300 apiece. The slaughterhouses export horsemeat to Western Europe and Japan.
The law has been backed by many cattle ranchers, who say that their animals must compete with the horses for foliage. A spokesman for Burns said the law is intended to help cut government costs while spurring more horse lovers to adopt or buy the unwanted animals.
But the senator also appeared to back away from the law. His spokesman, Grant Toomey, said the lawmaker now thinks the legislation, which specifies that the horses "shall be made available for sale without limitation," does not necessarily require the BLM to sell them. "The senator did not intend this language to require the sale. He was trying to provide them [the BLM] with additional tools to bring these numbers [of horses in government facilities] down," Toomey said.
There are measures in Congress that would reinstate the ban on selling the animals, including one passed last week by the House that would bar such sales for one year.
So far, the agency has sold about 2,000 horses. It has delivered about 1,000, of which, officials said, 41 have been killed. The remainder have been sold but not delivered, while the BLM checks on the new owners. It also said it plans to review the status of the horses and burros that have been sold and delivered.
The BLM asks prospective buyers a number of questions designed to gauge their interest, intentions and capacity to care for the animals. The bureau has also interpreted the new law as giving it the discretion to refuse sale to those, Gorey said, "that we didn't think were on the up and up." Its original bill of sale for the animals stipulated that buyers "intend and desire" to treat them humanely.
The agency, in shoring up those protections, has since added language to the bill of sale specifying that the buyer "agrees not to knowingly sell or transfer ownership" to anyone "with an intention to resell, trade or give away the animal(s) for processing into commercial products." The document also now warns buyers they can be prosecuted for making false statements to the government.
"We think we've now closed the loopholes," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said after a recent meeting with Washington Post reporters and editors.
Some advocacy groups remain skeptical, though, that the changes will prove effective. Nancy Perry, vice president of government affairs at the Humane Society of the United States, said the agency's language would be difficult to enforce. "It sounds simple," she said. But "a judge has to determine what another person's intent is to make the buyer liable. [That's] very tenuous. Very difficult to get any prosecutor to go after a case like that. For BLM to prosecute would be difficult."
The BLM, meanwhile, is reaching out to the public to help find homes for the unwanted animals. It announced a second deal with Ford in which the car manufacturer will put up the money to transport as many as 2,000 additional horses to new owners. The automaker, the agency and a group called Take Pride in America have also created a "Save the Mustangs" fund to collect money from those who want to help -- but not necessarily own -- that will be used to help provide for the animals' long-term care.
"Our agency is committed to the well-being of wild horses and burros, both on and off the range," BLM Director Kathleen Burton Clarke said last week, announcing the initiative at a horse sanctuary in South Dakota. "With this support from Ford and Take Pride in America, the BLM will be able to carry out the will of Congress while finding good homes for wild horses and burros, which are a treasured symbol of the Western spirit and an icon of American freedom. "