Under Trump, protected wild horses being sold and sent toward slaughter

animalsAug 23, 2026495,475

The New York Times and Jezebel report the Trump administration is using a legal loophole to capture federally protected wild horses, sell them cheaply, and effectively clear them for slaughter. Congress enshrined protections for unclaimed free-roaming horses in 1971, but the Bureau of Land Management now rounds up herds with low-flying helicopters, houses tens of thousands in government facilities, and has overseen sales that more than doubled from 2024 to 2025. Maintaining horses in government custody costs about 100 million dollars a year, with short-term corrals costing roughly 6 dollars per animal per day, prompting officials to push large-scale placement and sales initiatives. Some horses have been sold for as little as 25 dollars and once transferred the agency generally stops tracking them, creating pathways to livestock auctions and foreign slaughterhouses since no U.S. commercial horse slaughterhouses operate. Project 2025 explicitly urged allowing BLM to “dispose humanely” of excess animals, and federal documents discussed using trained marksmen and projectile-based methods during roundups; BLM euthanasia policy permits gunshots under certain circumstances and agency leaders have floated gas chambers. BLM says it bans buyers caught funneling horses to slaughter, but reporting shows gaps in oversight that leave many animals’ fates unknown.

Alt National Park Service

@altnps.bsky.social

You think Trump can’t possibly become any worse of a monster, and then you find out his administration is sending America’s wild horses to slaughterhouses. What the Trump administration is doing to our wild horses is absolutely disgusting. 🤮 There has to be a line.

301545d ago

Laura R.145

It’s in Project 2025. If they get rid of the wild horses then they don’t have to protect the lands the horses live on.

sarahcconner.bsky.social71

And it's just a coincidence that he's "importing hamburger" from unknown countries. I refuse to buy ground beef for the rest of his term.

Murky Mouse40

He and Stephen Miller would be doing the same with immigrants if they thought they could get away with it. Give them time.

Tara ❌️👑33

Meanwhile, @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social met with, Jared fucking Kushner, to ask how the Dems and this current regime can work together 🙄 I hate it here!

MadGreek 🧿30

Stop this shit NOW! OMG. For $25 a horse they killed so many last year, now they want to send more to the Slaughterhouse! No more!

Pierre’s Fondled Wood27

Just wait till he starts logging the National Parks to avoid Canada’s 50% tariffs on Canadian softwood. That fucker needs to stroke out soon.

Quoting this

🪶☘️Redi 🏳️‍🌈🖕MAGA, Sanders & 3rd party/non-committeds🖕4

I lived in Wadsworth NV for a dozen yrs, reservation land, right beside BLM land where the MOST BEAUTIFUL of wild horse herds are located (btwn Reno & Fernley NV). My drive home from Intuit M-F was enjoyable bc of them. There's a wild horse holding ranch above Spanish Springs I'd go by occasionally

pawpawx8.bsky.social3

And now we know where the no tariff “beef” is coming from!

LovePet🐦‍⬛🦇🦉🦅🐋🫍🐘🐕‍🦺🐎🫏3

This has been occupying my mind since I read about it Im sick in my soul. Every one find a reputable WILD HORSE rescue. Donate! This is another terroristic attack on our wild horses and psyche #wildhorse

Virginia Hall3

I guess we know what your mystery "beef" is now.

🍁M-Espeee 🍁2

Is this where the mystery meat will be coming from?

Connor [REDACTED]2

I don't think it's just wild horses.

Bobby Angelini 🇨🇦🇺🇸2

The #TrumpRegime really has no respect or compassion for anything. This really takes the cake.

Mrs. Betty Bowers

@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social

I’m not willing to regard Trump slaughtering wild horses at the same time he’s offering Americans cheap “ground beef” as simply a coincidence . . .

181345d ago

Mrs. Betty Bowers112

I would be surprised to discover that Donald Trump is the Mrs. Lovett of politics. TODD: What is that? LOVETT: It's priest. Have a little priest. TODD: Haven't you got poet, or something like that? LOVETT: No, y'see, the trouble with poet is 'Ow do you know it's deceased? Stick to priest!

MadGreek 🧿30

This is horrible. Stop killing our Wild American Horses for cheap burger food. You fucks! Ahhhh. This pisses me off!

carmenitalane.bsky.social17

When asked which countries the beef are coming from, his response was “I rather not say”. Some criticize that responce. I think he was just horsing around.

Rockie von Summit12

How the fuck are we going to make it through another 2 1/2 years of this

p foy8

Plus his post said "ground beef product" or something like that. Ewww.

Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion8

I wouldn’t put it past Trump to serve human meat.

Quoting this

Caroleeena13

It speaks volumes that Trump is refusing to say where the 300,000 metric tons of tariff-free "cheap ground beef" is going to come from.

˚₊‧☆ Mags ☆‧₊˚5

Why in the goddamn FUCK are they killing horses for?????????

Regina Schrambling 3

Zactly. Especially if you know horsemeat commands a premium in countries where it's legal to be sold.

Mrs. Applebury2

I fear you are correct. Ghastly coincidence, if it is a coincidence.

Laura R.

@laurared.bsky.social

It’s in Project 2025. If they get rid of the wild horses then they don’t have to protect the lands the horses live on.

14545d ago

Katakateri21

I think so too. He may mix it as a blend. We'll have to pursue DNA testing through independent labs.

Ziggypopdlh 💙🐴🦋🫎🏇🇺🇦🇨🇦🐺2

Project 2025 billionaires want to steal the land.

The USA Singers

@theusasingers.bsky.social

Leave the wild horses alone and round up the racists, fascists, and traitors instead.

7845d ago

Katakateri1

Remember when Dump was asked about the mystery beef he was going to import? His reply was, "I'd rather not say?"

Quoting this

☆Jennїe S Jonzen☆ Is He Dead Yet?! 🖖LLAP🤟🍀✴️✳️🌟☘️🗽🇺🇸🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈🌈🗿🌻💙💛⭐️2

People forgot how normal these kinds of atrocities were. Billy Jack starts with the killing of wild horses by the local Republicans in power via helicopter. These are the times they think were GREAT. youtu.be/aaqLRS81XtY?...

The Vegan's Voice | Michael Corthell

@thevegansvoice.bsky.social

For more than half a century, America’s wild horses have been protected under federal law. They remain one of the enduring symbols of the American West, animals whose survival on public lands has become part of the national story. That makes what is happening now especially disturbing. #animalrights

3245d ago

DonnaDee 💙

@overallthiscrap.bsky.social

Just so we're all real clear on the matter, the cattlemen association is who has gone after our wild horses . Project 2025 wants to eliminate 60,000 wild horses ,we only have 76,000 wild horses. cattlemen with this land and now trump fucked them and they want pity to go with their subsidies .

3245d ago

altNOAA 🇺🇸

@altnoaa.bsky.social

Slaughtering wild horses isn't a "Trump Admin" thing. It's a US Gov thing, unfortunately. We started with 200 wilds that we got from The BLM and saved them from slaughter. Obama was President. Could they all be saved? Well, not by my family. But if more land owners took them, most could.

3545d ago

Jenna

@thesleepysuccubus.bsky.social

The MOST invasive, destructive, harmful species on earth is HUMANS. Especially humans who think wild horses need to be culled from our lands.

2945d ago

Grateful-1.bsky.social

@grateful-1.bsky.social

Thank you sooo much Deborah Lynn for this extremely important SP -- *Wild Horses are going to Slaughter*‼️...I am so beyond SICKENED by the Cruelty that is taking place with this REGIME of SICKOS‼️...When is it going to STOP -- WHEN⁉️...Praying change will come in November 🙏🙏🙏‼️...It CANNOT CONTINUE‼️

2245d ago

Espresso Cyborg

@6cats4adomino.bsky.social

Hold on, hold on, I just heard about the beef thing 🤣😂 Let me see if I get this right, trump said he is importing umteenth tons of beef from an unspecified country, while at the same time they are hunting wild horses 🤣😂 Fuck me running I ain't eating no beef that is not currently in my freezer 🤣😂

1744d ago

Dee1

I was just posting about this earlier today. Because it gets worse in my opinion. There is no law that requires groceries to identify country of origin on the label. So when you go to buy your beef, you will have no idea where it came from. In the meantime our ranchers are still being screwed.

Lisa Farrar

@lisafarrar.bsky.social

You're absolutely right!! Wild horses running free is as much a symbol for America as the bald eagle! 🦅 And I don't know about you but I sure don't want my tax dollars being spent on this atrocious system. Horses live in family herds in the wild. They love, they mourn. They deserve respect! 🐎

2445d ago

M. Belanger

@sethanikeem.bsky.social

Hot on the heels of learning they are harvesting wild horses for slaughter … cheap “beef” Soylent Green is people Trump’s cheap beef is Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron 🐎

1945d ago

Karen

@elsa-meowse.bsky.social

Call Congress and let them know you support passing the Save America's Equines Act to ban the slaughter of horses in the US AND ban their shipment to other countries to be slaughtered. youtube.com/shorts/DBGWB...

1144d ago

Deanne Stillman

@deanne5.bsky.social

My book Mustang, published in 2008, an LAT "best of the year," praised by Tony Hillerman, was the first to report about the US govt selling off wild horses to slaughter. Sadly, this has been going on under every President post-Nixon. #booksky #authorsky #wildhorsesky www.amazon.com/Mustang-Dean...

1346d ago

conifergirl.bsky.social

@conifergirl.bsky.social

sales, put it plainly: the government insists slaughter is off the table while facilitating it in plain sight, and only the horses pay the price. The loophole lives in the resale. Once a mustang changes hands a second or third time, the paper trail thins and the

1346d ago

3 sources

nytimes.comUnder Trump, Protected Wild Horses Are Going to Slaughter jezebel.comNew Project 2025 L Just Dropped: The Admin’s Sending Wild Horses Off to Die rawstory.comTrump secretly sends thousands of horses to their deaths: 'Slaughter in plain sight'

Under Trump, protected wild horses being sold and sent toward slaughteranimals

Under Trump, protected wild horses being sold and sent toward slaughter

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