Background information on HR 297:
Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Protection Legislation, January 2005
(Scroll down to contact your Nevada U.S. Congress representative)
The federal government will allow sales of wild horses to resume with some added protections aimed at keeping the animals from being slaughtered.
The BLM suspended the sales in April after discovering that more than 40 animals rounded up were sold to an Illinois slaughterhouse for meat.
Wild horse advocates have been pressing for new protection for the horses.
More than 30,000 wild horses and burros roam federal lands in the west, nearly half of them in Nevada.
Ford Motor Company reportedly has agreed to pay the cost of transporting up to 2,000 horses to Indian reservations and locations run by non-profit organizations for their protection.
The vote comes as the Bureau of Land Management announced that it would have tougher restrictions against sales for slaughter.
(May 17) -- The fate of Nevada's wild horses will once again be considered by Congress this week, but this time, the debate will be conducted in public.
Congress voted in November to allow the sale of wild horses to private parties, despite predictions that such sales would result in horses being sent to slaughterhouses. The vote was taken with no public debate, and at least 41 wild horses have since been slaughtered for human consumption.
On Thursday, the House is expected to vote on an amendment that would cut off funding for any further horse sales until the BLM comes up with some rules for such sales.
Wild horse advocates say it is a critical vote.
Jerry Reynoldson said, "What people need to understand at this critical juncture, people who care about these horses is, we need them to call our Congressional delegation -- Congressman Porter, Congressman Gibbons, andCongresswoman Berkley. They're the ones who will be voting on this on Thursday and ask them to support the Rahall-Whitfield amendment, which would essentially freeze funding for the sales until they can get a handle on how to do it and do it right and preclude the sales that end up with horses slaughtered."
The BLM has voluntarily suspended further sales of wild horses, but the horse defenders say BLM could change its mind at any moment and start the sales again, which would almost certainly mean more horses would end up on someone's dinner plate.
Contact: Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-NV-1)
Contact: Congressman James Gibbons (R-NV-2)
Contact: Congressman Jon Porter (R-NV-3)
