According to the Bureau of Land Management, there are over sixty-seven thousand wild horses on public land in the west, and the BLM estimates that the number will double in just four more years. Wednesday, Utah Representative Chris Stewart insisted, the crisis requires a bi-partisan solution, and right away.
The congressman made the comments in a House interior appropriations sub-committee meeting, holding up a photograph of an emaciated mare, nursing a small colt.
“These animals, as I’ve said, if you care about these animals like I do, we can’t just continue with what’s happening here. By the BLM own estimate that they gave us, just in the last couple of days, it’s going to cost us a billion dollars to care for these animals in the next few years – a billion dollars.”
Adoption markets for wild horses are saturated, and under pressure from animal activists, federal law prohibits the sale or adoption of wild horses if such sale or adoption might lead to slaughter, either in the U.S. or abroad.
