US vows to improve protections for wild horse adoptions

RENO, Nev. (AP) — U.S. officials who are trying to adopt out wild horses captured on public land say they are tightening protections to guard against the illegal resale of the animals for slaughter, but advocates say the government needs to do more, including ending incentive payments for adoptions.

The Bureau of Land Management is committed to the health and safety of adopted mustangs and burros, its deputy director for programs, Nada Wolff Culver, said in announcing the changes Monday.

“We will begin to make additional compliance visits post-adoption, bring more scrutiny to potential adopters and increase warnings to sale barns about the risks of illegally selling wild horses and burros, among other steps,” she said.

Advocates said they have documented the reselling of horses for slaughter for nearly a decade and that it won’t stop until the agency ends the $1,000 payments it has offered in recent years to try to jump-start lagging demand at overstocked holding pens.

The bureau estimates there are about 86,000 horses and burros on the range in 10 Western states, about half of those in Nevada. It says that’s three times as many as public lands can sustain, which horse advocates dispute.

About 50,000 wild horses and burros are in government holding facilities. The bureau said it has placed more than 8,000 in adoptive homes since March 2019, for a total of more than 270,000 over the life of the decades-old program.

Adopters already must certify “under penalty of prosecution” that they will not knowingly sell or transfer the animals for slaughter or for processing into commercial products, Culver said.

The land agency intends to improve screening of adoption applicants and inspect animals within six months of adoption, instead of the current 12 months, she said.

.

..