MYTH: Where BLM manages wild horses and burros is a land-use decision to be determined at the local level.

False. The sole and exclusive authority for where wild horses are to be managed is stated in the wild horse law. It says that the BLM must manage and protect wild horses and burros where they existed in 1971, at the time the law passed. The only land-use decision authorized by the wild horse law is whether to designate an area where wild horses and burros are known to have existed in 1971 as exclusive habitat for the animals, or as multiple-use land. Lands designated as multiple-use are to be managed "principally but not exclusively" for wild horses and burros. The BLM may not expand the range for wild horses and burros or open up new areas for their use. Despite the requirements and directives of the law, BLM officials insist that where they manage wild horses and how many are to be managed are decisions to be made as a part of local land-use deliberations.

In 1984, there were 303 identified wild horse and burro use areas on 47 million acres of land. By 1997, only 186 of those areas contained wild horses or burros. Through land-use planning decisions, the BLM has emptied 117 herd use areas and reduced wild horse habitat area to less than 35 million acres. The BLM plans to empty 60 more wild horse areas despite the law prohibiting it.

MYTH: The BLM may at its discretion dispose of animals considered to be excess.

False. The law allows for three methods of lowering the number of animals in a particular area after the determination is made that an overpopulation exists and a reduction is needed. Excess horses may:

be relocated to other areas of public land,
be destroyed in a humane manner, or
be removed from the range and placed in the care of qualified individuals or organizations.
A BLM program allows "qualified individuals or organizations" to adopt, for a nominal fee, animals removed from the range. This adoption program has been used by the BLM to remove large numbers of horses and burros from public land, a practiced encouraged by the ranching industry, which views all wildlife as competing with livestock.

Between 1980 and 1990, the BLM rounded up, removed, and disposed of more than 80,000 wild horses, about 60,000 of whom were processed through the Adopt-A-Horse program. The BLM does not have the authority to sell wild horses. Providing the BLM with sale authority would allow the animals to be sold for commercial purposes, including slaughter. In the 1980s, several attempts were made to amend the law to include BLM sale authority, and each time the public protested.

When these bids to gain sale authority failed, the BLM instituted a special fee-waived, mass adoption program to serve as a disposal system for handling large numbers of horses removed from the range. A federal court ruling eventually ended the mass adoption program, leaving more than 3,000 horses in the system in need of homes. The BLM continues to allocate about half of its wild horse program budget to rounding up horses for adoption even though many animals are currently in the system awaiting adoption.