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Selling wild horses to slaughter is like selling out our national heritage. They're a symbol of the West.
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Well, to be fair, selling wild horses to slaughter is our national heritage and a symbol of the West. It was standard practice for a long time (see, for example,
The Misfits for one example).
Personally, as pretty as they are, they're an introduced species and I wouldn't have much problem if they were removed completely, though I doubt that'll happen. A similar issue is being faced by the National Park Service at Point Reyes National Park, where introduced deer species are driving out the endangered tule elk. Per the BLM's web site (perhaps not a disinterested party), there are 37,000 wild horses when the non-impacting population would be 28,000. The size of a herd can double every five years.
BLM has always been tasked with keeping the herds on public lands at non-impact levels but were always hampered by the fact that they couldn't easily remove or dispose of the animals. In addition to the 37,000 truly wild horses, 24,000 are held in holding facilities (
medium term/
long term at a cost of more than $20 million/year. In addition to that, almost $40 million/year is spent trying to adopt the excess horses out. Under the new law the proceeds from sales will go to enlarging the adoption program.
BLM's census indicated that the new law affects about 8,400 horses and their strong preference is to adopt them to interested parties rather than putting up for sale.
If you want to adopt one of the horses before it goes to sale, there is an adoption auction going now. Information is
here and a horse can be adopted for as little as $125 (though you have to pick it up).
But is only because of their symbolic status that the horses and burros are afforded even this much protection. If it were any other introduced species there would be a large lobby advocating their complete removal.