Call to Action

Stop the BLM from selling wild Horses & Burros younger than 10 years old as Sale Authority

Now that the BLM has lost their tool to funnel horses into the slaughter pipeline via the Adoption Incentive Program, they have switched to Sale Authority to get rid of as many wild horses and burros as possible.

In 2004, the “Burns Amendment” stripped protections against sale and slaughter from the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act. It allows the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to use “Sale Authority” (SA) to sell “excess” animals, which are defined as 10+ years of age; or younger equines passed over for adoption three times. Sale Authority transfers ownership immediately to the buyer, so the BLM can wash their hands of any responsibility for them. Once sold, federal protections no longer apply, so many fall into the hands of kill buyers.

Several months after a judge in District Court overturned the BLM’s Adoption Incentive Program (AIP), very young mustangs, even yearlings, started surfacing in kill pens within days of being sold SA. On 15 August 2025, mustangs as young as 1 were sold SA at a BLM adoption event in Kellyville, Oklahoma. A couple days later, they turned up on a kill pen site in Texas, slated to ship the following Tuesday. We worked with others to get them all out, but more will come. Traders are buying them for $25 each and immediately flipping them to make a profit on their meat price.

We cannot emphasize strongly enough how dangerous this new policy is. The same bad actors who abused the AIP are now buying trailer loads of horses and taking them straight to kill pens. Selling babies straight into the slaughter pipeline is light years away from what the BLM is mandated to do and it must be stopped now.

Please contact your Representative, Senators, Secretary of the Department of Interior (DOI), and the BLM Deputy Director:

  • Demand that the BLM stop selling wild horses and burros younger than 10 as Sale Authority.

  • You can use the following text to craft your comments: https://bit.ly/3Vd5OrR It is always more effective to send comments in your own words. 

  • Insist that they cosponsor and pass The Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2025  (H.R.1661 in the House / S775 in the Senate) to permanently ban the slaughter of all American equines.

To contact your Representative and Senators:

1. Call the Congressional Switchboard and ask to be transferred to their offices: (202) 224-3121
2. Email them via contact forms for constituents on their individual websites
3. For your convenience, you can send one email message simultaneously to both Senators and your Representative via one website: www.democracy.io

To Contact the Secretary of Department of Interior Doug Burgum:
Tel: (202) 208-3100 Email: exsec_exsec@ios.doi.gov 
Website Contact Form: https://www.doi.gov/contact-us

To Contact the Deputy Director of the BLM Bill Groffy: 1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240 Tel: (202) 208-3801
Email: wildhorse@blm.gov Website Contact Form:
https://www.blm.gov/feedback

Social Media

Be sure to tag your Rep and Senators, Secretary Burgum, the DOI, and the BLM when posting.

Thank you for being a voice for these beautiful, innocent beings.

Please share this information to raise awareness about the BLM’s new fast track to slaughter.

 

Background

What is 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.

What is Sale Authority?

It is illegal for the BLM to sell federally protected mustangs and burros for slaughter, but they have found ways around that. 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.

BLM insists it sells no wild horses to slaughter. In a technical use of the English language, BLM does not sell to slaughter. However, selling horses by the truckload, sight unseen, for $10.00 each is not a placement into a home. A buyer can purchase any number of animals (as long as someone in the BLM says they can) and they become the buyer’s private property immediately upon purchase.

Those types of sales (with a handful of exceptions to sanctuaries) are to brokers, or kill buyers. This practice went on for a decade with BLM approving such sales and simply denying that they sell for slaughter. This led to an investigation by journalist Dave Philipps that revealed more than 1700 wild horses had gone to one man, a known kill buyer: All the Missing Horses: What Happened to the Wild Horses Tom Davis Bought From the Gov't?

Sale Authority presents the greatest danger to entering the slaughter pipeline. If a horse or burro survives capture and processing facilities (where the death rate averages 12%), they are still not safe. The number of burros going “sale” is an extremely disturbing statistic given the rise in the illegal wildlife trade in donkey hides for Ejiao.  (Laura Leigh / Wild Horse Education)

“BLM Liquidation Plan in Effect”

The BLM will continue to use Sale Authority to liquidate the mustangs in holding because they can. A few years back, Burns BLM started their version of three strikes by offering hundreds for sale in the middle of winter for a few weekends in a row. When they weren't adopted, they were designated as three strikes and considered unwanted for regular adoption. No surprise that no one was going to drive in a winter snow storm pulling a trailer.

The latest scam is the online adoption: They list way more horses than the public would ever adopt and then call strikes on the horses. So now, even young yearlings are getting three strikes and the SA designation.

This is your publicly financed BLM in action. Sales yards are referred to as kill pens because kill buyers get their horses from these pens. What do you think an unhandled mustang’s chances are of any option other than a kill buyer? No BLM management or directors are worried about being caught doing this. These events are all SA horses, so they are not even hiding it anymore. (Lee Williams / Branded Kiger Mustang Association)