Some wild horses and burros rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are now eligible to be sold at public auctions to the highest bidder, including slaughter buyers.

The appropriations bill for 2005 (H.R. 4818) was made public law on Dec. 7. On Nov. 20, 2004, Senator Conrad Burns of Montana attached a rider to it that concerned the wild horse and burro adoption program funding. Sec. 142 of the bill says that all wild horses and burros over the age of 10 years, or those animals that have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption at least three times, will be sold without any limitation. This means the animal could go to public auction and be sold to the highest bidder, including a slaughter buyer. The number of wild horses and burros an individual can adopt in a one-year period was also made unlimited.

The Section 142 rider will override Section 3, part D, of The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, which states, “Where excess animals have been transferred to a qualified individual for adoption and private maintenance pursuant to this Act and the Secretary determines that such individual has provided humane conditions, treatment, and care for such animal or animals for a period of one year, the Secretary is authorized upon application by the transferee to grant title to not more than four animals to the transferee at the end of the one-year period.”

According to Section 142 of H.R. 4818, the funds generated from the sale of the excess animals will be “(a) credited as an offsetting collection to the Management of Lands and Resources appropriation for the BLM; and (b) used for the costs relating to the adoption of wild free-roaming horses and burros, including the costs of marketing such adoption