A judge has recommended that the Environmental Protection Agency reevaluate Friends of Animals’ legal petition requiring the agency to consider new scientific evidence demonstrating the need to cancel the registration of porcine zona pellucida (PZP) for population control of America’s wild horses and burros, which was issued to the Humane Society of the United States in 2012.

Friends of Animals filed a lawsuit against the EPA in 2016 for failing to respond to our request.

With this regulatory uncertainty, this is no time for Congress to approve millions of dollars on a plan that will rely upon use of a dangerous pesticide on horses. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill (FY2020 Interior Appropriations bill, S. 2580) that includes $35 million for the atrocious wild horse population control plan put forward by a coalition that betrayed wild horses back in April.

That means the horrific plan included in the bill, which promotes a robust rangeland fertility control program, sterilization and massive, targeted roundups of horses and burros, is on its way to the Senate floor and WE NEED YOU to contact your U.S. Senators and tell them not to support this legislation when it comes up for a vote. You can use this directory to contact them: https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact.

“This proposal, which is really a betrayal by so-called wild horse advocates who are in bed with the meat industry, is management for extinction and putting money toward it is a step toward eradicating these iconic animals from our public lands,” Friends of Animals President Priscilla Feral said in a statement  to the Associated Press.

Furthermore, it is remarkable that that:

  1. That HSUS and EPA continue to defend using a dangerous pesticide on wild horses.
  2. That the Court found that EPA and BLM continue to ignore real scientific evidence that PZP may have negative impact on those horses long-term, including permanent sterility, the possible creation of populations of non-breeding wild horses and/or scientifically proven physiological, behavioral, demographic, and harmful genetic effects.

For more on how you can help protect America’s wild horses, click here.