The Sale Authority Racket
A Fire Sale in the Year of the FIre Horse
“The Bureau of Land Management should stop pretending it is protecting America’s wild horses. By law, these animals are living symbols of the American spirit, yet the agency charged with stewarding them is acting as a storefront for the horse meat trade.”
— Clare Staples
For over a year, Skydog has been on the ground documenting the abuse of Sale Authority (SA) to funnel very young mustangs - including babies - into the slaughter pipeline.
What is Sale Authority?
Sale Authority is a loophole created by the 2004 “Burns Amendment” to weaken the protections against sale to slaughter in the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act. It allows the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to sell “excess” animals 10+ years of age, and younger equines that have supposedly been passed over for adoption three times - but they aren’t bothering with that requirement now. Sale Authority transfers ownership immediately to the buyer, so the BLM can wash their hands of any responsibility for them. Once sold (for $25), they are no longer federally protected animals, so owners can - and do - haul them straight to kill pens and sell them for their meat price (around $500). Then they return to the BLM to buy more.
It must be stopped now.
This is a federal offense
According to the Bill of Sale that buyers sign:
The BLM may seek criminal penalties against the purchaser if, in the course of this sale, the purchaser knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up a material fact; makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or otherwise violates 18 U.S.C. § 1001.
Purchaser agrees to provide humane care and to not maliciously or negligently injure the listed animals.
Purchaser agrees not to process any of the listed animals into commercial products.
Purchaser agrees not to knowingly sell or transfer ownership of any listed animals to any person or organization whose intent is to process the animals or their remains into commercial products or whose intent is to resell, trade, or give away the animals or their remains for processing into commercial products.
If the purchaser makes any material misrepresentations in the applicable "Application to Purchase Wild Horses and Burros," "Bill of Sale," or during any negotiations with the BLM leading up to purchase, including, without limitations, representations about the purposes and/or use for which the animals are obtained, then the sale is voidable at the discretion of the BLM.
Countless violators of the law get away with it by claiming they did not “knowingly” sell the animals into slaughter pipelines.
For Skydog, it all began with Elliot & Felix
When Clare rescued Felix and Elliot in March & April of 2025, it made no sense that such young mustangs had ended up in a kill pen. She began collecting evidence that confirmed her worst fears: They were Sale Authority (SA) horses, whose owners hauled them there right after buying them at a BLM adoption event.
This has coincided with federal budget cuts closing BLM adoption and training facilities. The Ewing facility suddenly shut down, effectively cutting off adoptions to Eastern States. The Cañon City prison program announced it was closing, giving some 2000 wild horses 60 days to find placement elsewhere. The BLM wants to move as many animals out of holding as quickly as possible, even as they prepare to round up another 14,000 this summer. Sale Authority is the way they’re doing it.
We cannot emphasize strongly enough how dangerous this new policy is. It allows them to funnel thousands of mustangs and burros into kill pens with the help of coordinated buyers, who make a fortune on flipping them. Selling babies straight into the slaughter pipeline is light years away from the BLM’s mandate.
The numbers are flooding kill pens, overwhelming good rescues and sanctuaries who can’t possibly take them all. These are the SA youngsters we have saved so far:
We Need You to Take Action
Please contact the BLM.
Demand immediate suspension of the Sale Authority program until the following safeguards are implemented:
Raising the sale price to at least $500 per animal
Banning repeat offenders
Prosecuting buyers who violate sales agreements
Reclaiming horses sold to kill pens within six months
Striking the word “knowingly” from the Bill of Sale purchaser agreement, which is frequently used as an excuse by offenders:
Purchaser agrees not to [knowingly] sell or transfer ownership of any listed animals to any person or organization whose intent is to process the animals or their remains into
CONTACT
Bill Groffy, BLM Acting Director (until Steve Pearce takes office):
Email: wgroffy@blm.gov
Phone: National Headquarters in DC: (202) 208-3801 —ext. 0 to leave a message
Mail: Bureau of Land Management, 1849 C Street NW, Rm. 5665 Washington, DC 20240
BLM Wild Horse & Burro Information Center
Email: wildhorse@blm.gov
Phone: (866) 468-7826 Stay on after options have been listed and hold music finishes playing at the end to reach voicemail and leave a message.
Mail:
Their boss, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum:
Email: Online Contact Form
Phone: (202) 208-3100 - press 0 and leave a message
Mail: 1849 C Street, N.W., Washington DC 20240
And his boss, President Donald J. Trump, The White House:
Email: Online Contact Form
Phone - Leave a message on the Comments Line: (202) 456-1111
Phone - White House Switchboard: (202) 456-1414.
Mail: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500
Your Representative and Senators in Congress
Email all three in one email: democracy.io
Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
The Kaufman 15
Fifteen young Mustangs - 12 mares and 3 geldings - were rounded up and held at the BLM’s Palomino Valley holding facility outside Reno, NV. They were sent to an adoption event in Livingston, TX held on February 27-28. Sale records show they were purchased on February 28, 2026.
Two pairs of husbands and wives from Pollok, TX bought all fifteen. Then they drove them directly to Last Chance Direct Ship Horses kill pen in Kaufman. Each buyer signed a sales contract attesting under penalty of federal law that they would not do exactly what they did just hours later: resell them to an organization that will sell them for commercial slaughter.
We reported these four individuals and hoped they would be be banned for life from buying any more wild horses or burros. In our letter of complaint, we demanded the BLM seize the mustangs from the kill pen to prevent them being shipped to slaughter, but they did nothing. KLAS 8 News Now in Las Vegas covered the story.
We worked with other good sanctuaries to save the remaining mustangs. When the BLM failed to act and their shipping date was just a few days away, we stepped in. Thanks to an incredible donor who helped us bail and secure their safety, as well as a wonderful trainer, who agreed to help them, the remaining Mustangs loaded onto a trailer to Kentucky instead of a nightmare ride to Mexico. They have a chance at good, happy lives as domesticated horses with a safety net of sanctuary if any of them just won’t be tamed.
In the middle of all this, we were already working on saving two mares from another group of dumped Mustangs. I can’t tell you how hard it is to pick just two when so many need help. No sooner had we saved the Kaufman 15 when a load of 12 BLM Sale Authority burros were driven straight from an adoption event in Utah to a kill pen in Mississippi. Rescues, quarantines, fosters, and other places for them to go are maxed out and full of unhandled wild equines without a plan. Many are being boarded at kill pens that were bailed weeks ago, but don’t have a soft landing. It’s fair to say the rescue community is breaking under the weight of this never ending stream of wild horses.
BACKGROUND
The Burns Amendment
Citation: Public Law 108-447
2004 H.R. 4818
In December 2004, Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana), Chair of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, secretly slipped “The Burns Amendment” into an Omnibus spending bill. He never introduced it in Congress for discussion or a vote. The changes he made to Section 3 (16 USC §1331) ripped out the heart of the original Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act, which was passed by Congress unanimously in 1971 with tremendous public support and signed by President Nixon.
Burns removed language that protected wild equines from commercial sale and slaughter. He inserted language that defined “excess animals” as 10+ years of age; or younger animals that failed to be adopted 3 times. It allowed for them to be sold “without limitation“, and “any excess animals sold under this provision shall no longer be considered to be free-roaming wild horses or burros for purposes of this Act.”
The vast majority of Americans, then and now, oppose horse slaughter. Sen. Burns defended his actions with, "I'm in the livestock business, and I've bought and sold horses all my life. Basically, the marketplace works." But he knew what he was doing. When horses can be bought as cheaply as $10 - $25 each, there is money to be made in the horse market by selling them for their meat price. The Burns Amendment’s Sale Authority has sent thousands of wild horses and burros to monstrous deaths in foreign slaughter plants.
From Adoption Incentive Program to Sale Authority
It is illegal for the BLM to sell federally protected mustangs and burros for slaughter, but they have been finding ways around that for decades. It is legal for private owners to ship their animals for slaughter outside US borders. By giving ownership to a middleman to do the dirty work, thousands of wild equines have shipped via the Adoption Incentive Program and Sale Authority. Now that the former has been overturned in court, the number of BLM horses and burros being sold SA is staggering.
While the bureau has always denied that they sell animals for slaughter, they’ve been doing it for decades. This was brought to the public’s attention when journalist David Philipps revealed more than 1700 wild horses had gone to one man, a kill buyer: All the Missing Horses: What Happened to the Wild Horses Tom Davis Bought From the Gov't?
The number of donkeys being sold SA is extremely disturbing given the rise in the illegal trade in donkey hides for Ejiao. Learn more about the Ejiao Trade