Protect America’s Wild Horses and Burros from Slaughter

Despite broad public support for wild horse protections, the Trump Administration is misusing the 2026 budget to push a once-rejected plan that could lead to the mass-killing of the 64,000 horses in holding facilities and open the door to commercial slaughter.

Trump’s FY26 budget proposal eliminates a long-standing policy that protects wild horses and burros from being sold off to commercial killing operations or destroyed to reduce their numbers.

Killing or selling these animals for slaughter is not population management, it is a betrayal of public trust and animal welfare. National polling consistently finds that Amerians support protecting wild horses and burros from slaughter and support the humane treatment of wild horses and burros.

This budget comes under the watch of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — who just two years ago strongly urged the National Park Service to preserve wild horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in his home state of North Dakota. In his own words, Burgum called the horses “a hugely popular tourist attraction, embodying the untamed spirit of the Badlands.” 

But now, as Interior Secretary, he's overseeing Trump’s proposal that activists rightly describe as “a bullet to the head” of wild horses nationwide.

Congress has stopped this before, when Trump tried to remove these protections in 2017. They restored the protections against killing wild horses and offset his proposed 30% cut to wild horse program funding.

Please sign the petition calling on Congress to step up again and uphold the values of compassion, conservation, and responsible stewardship by rejecting Trump’s reckless budget proposal.