WASHINGTON (December 1, 2020)—In an unprecedented move over the weekend, the Bureau of Land Management began gathering and removing wild horses from land in Utah with the intent to use an invasive surgical procedure to remove the ovaries of select mares. The Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society Legislative Fund objected to the Department of Interior’s plan in a letter sent to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, urging the BLM to instead focus the agency’s limited resources on employing already available forms of proven, safe and humane fertility control tools to manage wild horse populations.
The organizations do not support surgical sterilization of mares because there is no evidence that it can be performed in a safe and humane manner in the field.
“This plan puts the lives of wild horses at risk, and the cost to taxpayers would be exorbitant. Field implementation will require gathering and holding mares for significant periods of time to conduct invasive surgical procedures on these wild animals and to ensure there are no post-operative complications,” said Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “Safe, humane and less invasive fertility control tools that are cost-effective are already available, yet the BLM continually refuses to implement them correctly or at the scale needed.”
The organizations emphasize that the BLM should not proceed with any population control projects based on surgical sterilization of mares without first conducting the research necessary to determine if these procedures can be conducted in a safe and humane manner in the field. For these reasons, the HSUS and HSLF strongly oppose the establishment of a non-reproducing herd component to the Confusion Herd Management Area in Utah by surgically sterilizing a proportion of the mares by ovariectomy via colpotomy.
Media contact:
Emily Ehrhorn: 202.779.1814, eehrhorn@humanesociety.org
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The Humane Society Legislative Fund is a social welfare organization incorporated under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code and formed in 2004 as a separate lobbying affiliate of The Humane Society of the United States. The HSLF works to pass animal protection laws at the state and federal level, to educate the public about animal protection issues, and to support humane candidates for office. Visit us on all our channels: on the web at hslf.org, on our blog at hslf.org/blog, on Facebook at facebook.com/humanelegislation and on Twitter at twitter.com/HSLegFund.
Founded in 1954, the Humane Society of the United States and its affiliates around the globe fight the big fights to end suffering for all animals. Together with millions of supporters, the HSUS takes on puppy mills, factory farms, trophy hunts, animal testing and other cruel industries, and together with its affiliates, rescues and provides direct care for over 100,000 animals every year. The HSUS works on reforming corporate policy, improving and enforcing laws and elevating public awareness on animal issues. More at humanesociety.org.
Subscribe to Kitty Block’s blog, A Humane World. Follow the HSUS Media Relations department on Twitter. Read the award-winning All Animals magazine. Listen to the Humane Voices Podcast.
