BLM Targets Over 4,000 Wild Horses for Removal in 2025: The Wild Beauty Foundation Sounds the Alarm on Inhumane and Unnecessary Roundups
NEVADA (Sept. 16, 2024) — The Wild Beauty Foundation (WBF) today expressed strong opposition to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) recently announced Fiscal Year 2025 roundup schedule, which targets the removal of more than 4,000 wild horses and burros. These planned actions, which will take place between September 30, 2024, and February 2025, will impact herds across Nevada, California, Oregon, and Colorado, primarily through helicopter-driven roundups. The majority of the captured animals will be confined in government holding facilities, where over 65,000 wild horses and burros already reside.
Ashley Avis, founder of WBF and director of the documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, condemned the proposed roundups, calling them unnecessary, inhumane, and a calculated move to benefit private livestock interests at the expense of these federally protected animals.
“These brutal roundups are both cruel and unnecessary,” said Avis. “The BLM is systematically displacing wild horses from their rightful public lands to accommodate livestock grazing. This not only wastes taxpayer dollars but also betrays the wild horses and burros that are meant to be protected under federal law.”
Among the herds slated for removal is the Triple B Complex in Nevada, where Avis witnessed a devastating helicopter roundup during the filming of her award-winning documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West. Footage from the film reveals the trauma inflicted on the wild horses as they were chased for miles by low-flying helicopters. During that operation, Avis adopted a mare and foal pair from the very herd targeted, who had been tragically separated in the chaos. In 2022, the last roundup in this area resulted in the deaths of 23 horses.
“I saw the cruelty of these roundups firsthand—horses driven to exhaustion, families torn apart, and lives lost senselessly,” Avis continued. “The roundups just continue every year—all the while they destroy the lives of these iconic animals while burdening taxpayers with millions of dollars in costs.”
In 2023, Representatives Dina Titus (D-NV), David Schweikert (R-AZ) and Steve Cohen (D-TN) introduced legislation, the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act (HR 3656) which would prohibit the use of helicopters. The legislation was introduced following horrific video footage was released of a young foal being pursued by a government-contracted helicopter after suffering a broken leg.
For decades, wild horse roundups have removed over 50,000 wild horses and burros from public lands. The BLM argues that these roundups are necessary to manage populations and prevent overgrazing. However, public lands are overwhelmingly leased to private ranchers for livestock grazing, which has been shown to cause far more damage to land health than wild horses. A 2024 report by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) revealed that wild horses were responsible for land degradation in just 1% of land health assessments conducted by the BLM, while livestock were found to be the largest contributor to land degradation in the vast majority of cases.
Concerned citizens of all ages can raise their voices, by contacting their Members of Congress and urging them to oppose the roundups, and to halt the use of antiquated helicopters by visiting www.istandwithwildhorses.org.
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