Wyoming Lawmakers Ask Congress to Lift Slaughterhouse Ban as Wild Horse Numbers Get out of Control

A livestock helicopter pilot rounds up wild horses from the Fox & Lake Herd Management Area in Washoe County, Nevada, on July 13, 2008. (Brad Horn/AP Photo)

Wyoming state lawmakers are calling for the return of horse slaughterhouses, saying that inefficient federal management has allowed growing wild mustang herds to render the already resource-scarce habitat unusable for humans and other wildlife.

Scientists make a distinction between feral domesticated horses and truly wild horses, whose ancestors have never been domesticated at any point in time. Although horses that roam the American West today are descendants of escaped or abandoned horses brought to the New World by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and European settlers who came later, this article will refer to these animals as “wild horses,” as this is what people commonly call them.

“With virtually no natural predators, wild horse and burro populations can double every four to five years if left unchecked,” a bipartisan group of six lawmakers wrote in a resolution introduced Jan. 17 in Wyoming’s state House.

“Without responsible management, the resources in the arid West cannot be managed for multiple use because wild horses unduly infringe upon other uses by damaging riverbeds and overgrazing on limited forage, while using and often damaging the infrastructure of other public land users.”

Under a 1971 federal law, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS), are tasked to protect the free-roaming herds in Wyoming and other Western states. This means that if a wild horse strays onto privately owned land, the private landowner can’t do anything other than wait for a BLM or USFS agent to come and handle the animal.

The law also authorizes the two federal agencies to kill, capture, and sell horses as they see fit, with the goal of maintaining the ecological balance by preventing wild horses from out-competing other native wildlife. However, reports (pdf) in recent years suggest that their efforts aren’t doing the job.

“The BLM and USFS are increasingly unable to adequately manage wild horse and burro populations,” the lawmakers stated, citing the agencies’ own reports about the failure.

Those government management efforts, although inefficient, are very costly, according to the resolution. For the year of 2022 alone, the BLM has spent $77 million on off-range holding expenditures.

To once again keep the numbers of wild mustangs in balance, the resolution calls upon the Congress to lift legal hurdles so that ranchers can reopen wild horse slaughterhouses and export the meat to places where people eat it.

Specifically, the lawmakers want the Congress to make changes to the 1971 free-roaming animal protection law, as well as a 2007 ban on commercial horse slaughter in the United States. While sending the horses to countries like Canada or Mexico for slaughter remains an option, they said that it’s best to do it domestically.

“Effective and humane management of wild horses and burros can be best accomplished by facilitating the United States,” the lawmakers argued.

Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said the resolution is “symbolic” but remains “a good statement.”

“It’s a way for the state to express some serious concerns with the fact that the current practices are not keeping numbers within management [goals],” Magagna said, reported told online news site WyoFile. “I’ve yet to see one that Congress sees and then they do a bill in reaction to it.”