Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act 2023

“To amend the Act commonly known as the Wild Free-roaming Horses and Burros Act to prohibit certain uses of aircraft with respect to the management of wild free-roaming horses and burros, and for other purposes.”

For US Representative Dina Titus (D-NV) the impetus for introducing the legislation came in 2022 during a Nevada roundup. A helicopter relentlessly pursued a terrified colt struggling to run on a broken leg. It took wranglers half an hour to catch and euthanize him by gunshot. The bill was reintroduced in May 2023 by Titus, David Schweikert (R-AZ), and Steve Cohen (D-TN) to prohibit costly and inhumane helicopter roundups of wild horses. It would also require the US Government Accountability Office to prepare within one year a report for Congress on the impact of aircraft chases on wild horses and burros, as well as humane alternatives to roundups.

Using motorized vehicles to capture wild equines has a vicious history in the American West. They were utilized by “mustangers” who ruthlessly caught and sold the animals for cash. Completely unregulated, their methods were violent with no concern for the suffering of the animals. Mustangs were chased by truck, aircraft, and horseback. Many were mutilated in the process. They were chased over ledges and into pits; tied to truck tires to exhaust themselves struggling; dragged onto trucks that delivered them to barbaric deaths in slaughterhouses.

The cruelty of “mustanging” prompted a Nevada woman named Velma Bronn Johnston to take  action. Wielding her formidable experience as a secretary (exactly the skill set required), she launched a grassroots campaign to ban the use of motorized vehicles to hunt and capture mustangs and burros. Her efforts led to passage of Public Law 86-234 on Sept. 8, 1959 (“Wild Horse Annie Act”), as well as the Wild and Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 (“Wild Horse Annie Law”). Even though the latter passed unanimously in Congress and was signed into law by President Nixon, neither was able to fully protect wild equines. Oversight was handed to the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The bureau was (and still is) dominated by commercial ranchers, who considered public lands to be their own.  

As a multi-million dollar industry sprouted up around circumventing Wild Horse Annie’s laws, ranchers lobbied for change. They got it in an amendment to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976. The use of helicopters and other motorized vehicles could once again be used in roundups with authorization from the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture. To this day, in order to make more forage available to commercial livestock, the BLM fabricates excuses to remove wild horses and burros from the range. Helicopter roundups are the preferred - and often only - tool they use for herd management.

The contractors come with a high price tag. According to the American Wild Horse Campaign, federal records show that “since fiscal year 2006, BLM helicopter contractors have collected at least $57.4 million in taxpayer funding for roundups. Since fiscal year 2017, the BLM has committed at least $22.5 million specifically for helicopter roundups, including $6.5 million in fiscal year 2022 alone.”  To round up a horse from the range and keep it in the BLM’s holding system for the rest of its life costs up to $50,000 - and there are tens of thousands of wild equines languishing in the holding system, almost as many, if not more than exist in the wild.

“Gathers” -  the BLM’s euphemism for lethal roundups - involve stampeding terrified horses with dangerously low-flying chopper maneuvers. They are chased long distances over rough terrain and into the narrow chutes of trap pens. The method is inherently brutal and almost always causes fatalities. Broken necks and legs, dehydration, colic, and collapse from being run to exhaustion are common occurrences. Frightened pregnant mares have suffered spontaneous abortions. 

Foals have been pushed so hard that their hooves have broken off. The helicopters fly in sweltering heat and during foaling season in violation of the BLM’s voluntary Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) regulations. Public observers, when and if allowed their legal right to clearly view roundups, document CAWP violations. The BLM, however, polices itself, so the rules are unenforceable and carry no consequences. The result is government-sanctioned animal cruelty. 

Cattoor Livestock Roundups, Inc. is one of the BLM’s most favored contractors. Regardless of the founder’s 1992 conviction of shooting federally protected wild horses from aircraft, they have received tens of millions in BLM contracts. Cattoor wranglers have been documented by observers chasing horses into barbed-wire fences, separating foals from their families and leaving them behind on the range, knocking horses down with the skids of the helicopter, beating captured burros. On their website, they advocate horse slaughter, even though it is illegal in the US and the BLM opposes it - in public, at any rate. The Cattoors epitomize everything that is wrong with the helicopter roundup industry, but receive sterling marks in BLM performance reviews.

All evidence to the contrary, BLM officials describe helicopter roundups as safe and humane, boasting a fatality rate around “only” 0.5 percent. Associated Press writer Martin Griffith, however, reported that the Government Accountability Office flagged the bureau in 2008 for inaccurately reporting the number of roundup fatalities to the public. Their figures conveniently exclude the deaths that happen afterwards at holding facilities. Dehydrated, exhausted, and injured horses that perish from delayed effects of being chased to death by helicopters are not recorded. Like the mustangers before them, the BLM chases, traps, and trucks out thousands of wild equines with no concern for their safety. 

Representative Titus, who is a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, said: “Nevada is home to more wild horses than any other state in our country. Tragically, these animals are subjected to taxpayer-funded helicopter roundups and removals that are all too often costly, ineffective, and inhumane. My legislation would eliminate the use of helicopters in BLM wild horse gathers, and require a report to explore the benefits of alternative aircraft for humanely gathering horses and the workforce opportunities for traditional cowboys. I am proud to introduce this bipartisan proposal that would protect these icons of the American West, which remain a source of pride for Nevada residents.