Want to Adopt a Wild Horse? The Government Will Pay You $1,000

Why do we not eat horse in this country?

Most horses are smarter than people. While they continue to evolve, most humans are devolving. The ancient people were smarter than we are. The Egyptians, Romans, Mayans all surpassed our engineers best work. Even the Native American "savages" who we nearly cleansed, ethnically speaking, were more advanced morally and spiritually. 99% of all of the species that ever existed on Earth are extinct. Our hubris believing it's our job to manage nature is foolhardy. na·ture /ˈnāCHər/ noun noun: nature; plural noun: natures 1. the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.

This isn’t a very well-researched article and it reeks of PR spin. The only problem with the wild horse population is that is prevents ranchers from getting to graze their cattle on government land on the cheap. Their campaign donations incentivize the government to pay out $1,000 to unload a horse because that looks better than selling them to the kill buyer. Anyone who knows the beauty and majesty as well as the darkness and cruelty of the horse world knows that these horses won’t end up in good homes that can handle them or their upkeep. Traders will take the money and then make some more from the kill buyer. Perhaps a few will go to well intentioned homes at first. But they’ll eventually end up at auction and then to the meat truck. How about we save the environment & our health as well as the horses, and let them have their land back instead.

Why not eat them or use them in pet food? I regularly ate raw horse meat in Japan "basashi" it was delicious .. Horse and Burro meat is lean and high in protein and a perfect food supplement for emotional service dogs. This isn't sarcasm.. This is basic food necessity. The planet's resources are shrinking and we can easily harvest these animals as a continual food source. Let's eliminate cattle and rely on horse, burro, elk, moose, deer, buffalo and antelope. This would make our environment stronger and more sustainable for future generations.

Wild horses, while photogenic and charismatic are an invasive species that are terrible for the range land they roam. Of coarse, so are:sheep, cows, domestic goats etc. here in the west the range has been over grazed and altered by public subsidized grazing and misty eyed notions of "the old west" which are hopelessly outdated. If we really care about this land and the environment we'd get rid of: cows, sheep, horses and stop paying welfare ranchers to destroy the range and put the bison, antelope, elk, deer, coyotes, wolves, prairie dogs etc that took care of it just fine, before it got turned into a profit center. Sustainable uses like hiking, fishing/hunting (I do neither), camping, wildlife viewing etc would replace the wasteland we have now. The left complained that the right doesn't like numbers for example in regard to global warming. The left is just as bad when it comes to issues like "wild horses".

I have been in barns where mustangs were stabled; a well trained mustang is a very impressive horse and often they were trained for endurance racing. These horses were owned by folks whose bloodline in horsemanship went so far back that horses were second nature to them. I have also been at rescues that take in adopted BLM horses who were beyond the abilities of their owners. By the time these horses wind up at a rescue, they are in no mood to cooperate with anyone. You generally have to put them in a round pen, provide forage and water, and let them run themselves in circles to exhaustion, sometimes for days, before you can safely approach them. You have to be more committed than the horse is stubborn just to get to square one in training. These are not retired track horses or PMU rescues that you can just put in a field and maybe ride, maybe not. If that is more your speed, there are plenty of somewhat civilized rescues available, they just don't come with a $1000 stipend. Read Entera's post 6 or 7 times; there is a great deal of wisdom in it. You can take the horse out of the wild, taking the wild out of the horse...? It's a lot of work, a lot of time, and you best have a clearly defined goal.

I hope there’s a stronger vetting process in place for prospective adopters. Showing you’re a “responsible” owner for a year does not seem sufficient. And how will that even be enforced? I think a lot of unscrupulous people might sign up to adopt a wild mustang, do the bare minimum in terms of care for 12 months (i.e. pocket the $1,000), and then neglect/abuse the horse or even worse sell it to a slaughterhouse. In m opinion, this new BLM program needs much more oversight to ensure it does not do more harm than good.

What the federal government is doing something positive and constructive for a change? Will wonders never end! Good show! Well done!

This sounds like a great step in the right direction. Please don't sell them for slaughter...such a sad end for some of America's wild horses.

The National Academy of Sciences report recommended birth control and stopping helicopter roundups that result in wild horse injuries and fatalities. Now the BLM claims they tried a birth control method which wasn’t the recommended one. Little wonder it didn’t have results. A different agency should take over the wild horses and burros - one that truly cares about their welfare and survival.

Sounds like a good program. I've always been fascinated with horses and have ridden a lot. If I lived in the county or an area where I could keep one, I'd participate and get a horse or two.

From the horses' point of view, the best thing would be allowing fewer people in their territory.

This is an excellent idea. If I didn't live in NYC I would adopt one of these horses.

I don't know where to begin on everything wrong with this article. It says nothing about the problem of ranchers using up all the public land for grazing cattle and sheep. It needed to report A LOT more from Suzanne Roy of American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, someone who knows A LOT more about our wild horses than anyone else quoted in this article. Keep wild horses wild. Stop the roundups, stop robbing their wildness.

Suppose we need the land for the ranchers?

Seems like a strategic combination of birth control and adoption could be applied to get the numbers down. Surely there are experts conceiving and running these programs. Then again, Trump.

A huge problems is making sure that adopted horses, donkeys or mules are given to people who will provide decent places to live and have the financial meas to pay for food, vet, farriers, supplements, etc. As a horse owner I can tell you that this is not a cheep hobby, and adopting one of these wild animals just because they're 'cute' and pen them up alone in a 20x20 ft mud flat behind their garage is just criminal.

Mountain lions control mustangs. But we allow the shooting of hundreds of mountain lions annually in western states and spend millions corralling wild horses. See the problem?

Horses are, famously, extremely expensive to keep. A $1000 incentive to adopt a horse pales in comparison to the bill for years and years of care. So I wonder how enticing this bonus actually is to prospective adopters.

I manage a high school horse riding program in Carbondale, Colorado, and some of my student-riders earned a school-sponsored grant to adopt a mustang from Canyon City, Colorado. We adopted a six-year-old gelding that we named Rune because of the tell-tale freeze-mark on his neck. He has been with us for two years and as much as he has transformed into an affectionate, willing and responsive mount, my students have been deeply affected by the visible outcome of their affectionate, willing and responsive training. I also teach English and believe in the transformative power of literature; Rune's contribution to my student's burgeoning sense of agency in the world is not less worthy than the transformative words of Hemingway, Vonnegut and Morrison in some ways.

There was one adopted mustang from the cull at the barn where I used to keep my mare. This formerly wild horse was only about 14 hands, but was apparently captured and trained either young or by experienced handlers, because she was completely gentle and a great trail horse. Extremely hardy, and very smart and cagey. I saw a wild mustang used in an exhibition in a round pen at the Monty Roberts training facility in Santa Ynez, and within 45 minutes the experienced people there had that horse under saddle. But again, professional trainers did the initial work.