People Respond With Outrage When Government Announces Plan To Kill 45,000 Horses

Few animals are as significant a figure in the American landscape than a wild horse.

Images of horses running wild appear everywhere from beer ads to the cover of cheesy romance novels. They graze the frames of children’s movies, action films, and horrors. They have even found their way into the bed of the occasional mob drama (anyone a fan of The Godfather?).

So when a government board announced a plan to exterminate 45,000 horses at the expense of taxpayers, well…people were less than happy.

“The decision of the BLM advisory board to recommend the destruction of the 45,000 wild horses currently in holding facilities is a complete abdication of responsibility for their care,” Holly Hazard, senior vice president of programs & innovations at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), said in a press release. “The agency would not be in this situation but for their long-term mismanagement.”

And for those who don’t end up euthanized by the government, they can end up in government-run facilities where they can be left in pens, standing temperatures up to 100 degrees.

When these facilities become overcrowded, the animals are often auctioned off and sent to facilities that do end up slaughtering the poor animals, like this report that details how a Colorado rancher ended up sending horses to a slaughter facility in Mexico.

“Now we must remain vigilant to ensure that the agency does not pursue the ‘euthanasia’ of wild horses in holding or the castration of wild stallions,” Ginger Kathrens, volunteer executive director of The Cloud Foundation who also serves on BLM’s wild horse advisory board, said in a press release.

Many others have stepped up against the slaughter of so many wild horses. And while the decision to carry out the mass killing have not been finalized, alternative solutions are being discussed.

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People Respond With Outrage When Government Announces Plan To Kill 45,000 Horses is an article from: LifeDaily