Report: US Sold 3,700 Wild Mustangs, Some Tracked to Slaughter
Animal welfare groups say 3,700 horses sold in 2025 may have entered slaughter channels after buyers resold them through middlemen, records show.
- A New York Times investigation on Thursday exposed the Bureau of Land Management for selling wild horses through a loophole that enables export and slaughter abroad, circumventing federal protections.
- Under the Sale Authority program, the government designates horses as unadoptable after three one-week listings fail to attract takers, enabling cheap sales that often end up in slaughter channels.
- Livestock trader Brandon Jones purchased hundreds of mustangs for $25 each, exploiting a system where the government spends $3,000 to capture each horse, while buyers earn up to $750 per animal at slaughter plants.
- Patricia Miller, executive director of American Wild Horse Conservation, criticized the reliance on sales over fertility control, arguing many horses sold through the program are young and saleable.
- While Congress has barred the bureau from using public funds to kill healthy wild horses, President Donald Trump has advocated for lethal measures, including proposals in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.
32 Articles
32 Articles
Trump Adminstration Accused Of Sending Protected Mustangs To Slaughter
For many years, the practice of slaughtering America's wild horses has been politically toxic, but that seems to have changed with the Trump administration. Source: People The Trump administration has been accused of using a legal loophole to cull the number of protected wild horses. Citing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in a report on Thursday, Aug. 20, The New York Times reported that the number of wild horses that the government sold in …
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
Under Trump, protected wild horses are going to slaughter
They once had run free through the desert mountains of the West, a multicolored band of 68 wild mustangs that had never been saddled or corralled. The post Under Trump, protected wild horses are going to slaughter appeared first on Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
New Project 2025 L Just Dropped: The Admin’s Sending Wild Horses Off to Die
America’s federally protected wild horses are not supposed to be slaughtered. Congress specifically protected herds of unclaimed, free-roaming horses living on certain federal lands as “living symbols” of the American West in 1971. But the Trump administration has found a disturbing loophole, according to new reporting from The New York Times: Round them up, sell them into private ownership for as little as $25, and then absolve itself from keep…
A multicolored herd of 68 wild horses of the mustan race, which had never been sealed or confined and had already run free through the desert mountains of the west of the country, was captured by the United States government in an attempt to control the species' populations in public lands. The horses spent years in an animal confinement in the state of Idaho, while the government was trying to find for them what it called "loving home." Suddenl…
Report Says US Sold 3,700 Wild Mustangs, Some Sent To Slaughter
A New York Times investigation has raised questions about a federal program that allows wild horses removed from public lands to be sold to buyers who can potentially send them into slaughter channels overseas. The investigation found that about 3,700 wild mustangs were sold through the Bureau of Land Management's Sale Authority program.Under the program, horses that fail to attract adopters after three one-week listings can be classified as una…
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