The US beef industry wants America to slaughter wild horses for meat
More than 90,000 wild horses and burros make their homes on public lands in the Western US, and each year, the federal government rounds up thousands of them. It typically holds them in large pens or pastures for months or years until they’re adopted or die — on the rationale that their wild population levels […]
The US beef industry is pushing for the slaughter of wild horses for meat, despite the fact that it is technically illegal to do so in the United States. According to a New York Times investigation, legal workarounds have allowed livestock buyers to import the horses to Canada for slaughter, where they can fetch up to $750 each.
The Western US is home to around 93,000 wild horses and burros, which are mostly concentrated in Nevada, Arizona, California, and Wyoming. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) determines the number of these animals that can live in specific management regions, and when the levels are exceeded, the BLM can remove some of them. The beef industry argues that horses compete with cattle for resources, such as forage and water.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Public Lands Council, which represent the beef industry, want more aggressive management of wild horse populations. They advocate for legalizing horse slaughter in the US and increasing budgets for the BLM and Forest Service to continue their "aggressive" removal schedule. However, the Bureau of Land Management denies that wild horses are sent to slaughter and says there is no loophole that would allow animals to be sold for that purpose.
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