Bureau of Land Management wild horse sales under scrutiny

Reports indicate that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has significantly increased the sale of federally protected wild horses, with sales doubling to 3,700 in 2025 under the Trump administration. While BLM policy officially prohibits selling animals for slaughter, investigations suggest a legal loophole allows ‘unadoptable’ horses to be sold to middlemen who then transport them to foreign slaughterhouses.

The issue stems from the federal Burns Amendment, which authorizes the sale of horses that fail to find homes through the adoption process. Currently, the BLM manages a holding system of approximately 60,000 horses, which costs an estimated $100 million annually to maintain. To reduce costs and manage populations, the agency utilizes a process where horses are listed for adoption; if they remain unadopted after three weeks, they are deemed unadoptable and cleared for market.

Animal rights advocates, including the American Wild Horse Conservation, have criticized the practice, alleging that healthy horses are being funneled into a slaughter pipeline. While investigations have documented instances of horses ending up in slaughterhouses in the past, the specific scale of current transfers remains a subject of scrutiny.