WHE Wild Word | Page 12

In 2015 an organized effort by “big cash cows” began to craft a plan that would carve up the wild horse and burro program budget to suit the industries they represented. The plan became known as “Ten Years to AML.” Later, after public backlash, the name changed to the “Path Forward” in an effort to appeal to the wider public eye.

Clear the pens to make room for an unprecedented removal of wild horses and burros from the range, became a priority.

Fast forward to today, and the Adoption Incentive Program, or AIP. BLM has created this program, in theory, to aid adopters hoping to find a good home for the BLM's captured wild horses or burros. The AIP provides up to $1,000 in two installments to adopt an untrained wild horse or burro from the BLM.

However, most people do not know that the Adoption Incentive Program (AIP) is also part of the “clear the pens” strategy to fulfill the wish list (the “plan”). The end of the line where “slip out to slaughter” has increased under this lobby group plan.

It was begun in March of 2019 and is part of the “plan” agreed to by big cash lobby groups. From the day it began we called it a slaughter subsidy and that is exactly what it has turned out to be. This system has been abused and brutalized to the point of mockery, and all it has accomplished has been to subsidize the slaughter of our wild horses while providing a sound byte that sounds pleasant to the public.

The slaughter pipeline remains alive and well, and BLM's handling of this issue since the days of it's inception have been horrifically lackadaisical, if not downright corrupt.

Our greatest weapon in the war against abuse and slaughter has always been knowledge, and we must spread the word of what is happening here. The AIP is a public relations curtain that the BLM is attempting to draw over it's rampant greed and flagrant abuse of our wild horses and burros. The public sees the monetary compensation and thinks that it is some benevolence on the BLM's part: that the BLM is being altruistic by helping those that are adopting from it's round up pens.