Testimony And The Law

The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was brought about through diligent and difficult work by many. However, the steadfast and charismatic leader of the movement was Velma Bronn Johnston. Her hand helped craft the legislation that would become law. Her voice provided testimony to promote the votes needed to pass the law.

From Velma Bronn Johnston’s Testimony:

For the second time in a little over a decade, I come before a Congressional Committee in our Nation's Capitol to plead for enactment of legislation to protect, manage and control the wild horses and burros of America.

Victims of widespread exploitation for use in commercial products such as pet food and fertilizer, blamed for every adverse condition that prevails on our range lands, including domestic overuse and abuse, pushed further and further into areas devoid of water and forage by man's encroachment on their habitat, removed by various means from public ranges zealously coveted by the domestic livestock industry for the grazing of its own profit-producing animals and by the hunting and related interests that bring money into an area through sale of licenses, ammunition and sportsmen's accessories in pursuit of target animals, they have become one of the most relentlessly and ruthlessly hunted of the animal species

Velma Bronn Johnston testimony, provided by the Nevada Historical Society. Click the bold text to read her submitted testimony in her own words. (provided by the NV Historical Society)

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.

SEC. 2. As used in this Act—

(a) "Secretary" means the Secretary of the Interior when used in connection with public lands administered by him through the Bureau of Land Management and the Secretary of Agriculture in connection with public lands administered by him through the Forest Service;

(b) "wild free-roaming horses and burros" means all unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros on public lands of the United States;

(c) "range" means the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for the public lands;

(d) "herd" means one or more stallions and his mares; and (e) "public lands" means any lands administered by the Secretary of the Interior through the Bureau of Land Management or by the Secretary of Agriculture through the Forest Service

The original law as published December 15, 1971, can be downloaded here.

This law expressly forbid sales to slaughter. Today there are many that assert the original law allowed sale to kill. One of the main purposes of the original law was to stop the sale of mustangs to kill for pet food, fertilizer and chicken feed. Many journalists today will simply quote an anti-wild horse representative without checking to see if the statements are factual. This creates an alternative reality that our wild ones have had to deal with for decades.

NOTE: In January 2005 the law was amended after Conrad Burns (R-MT) slipped a rider into a massive spending bill right before the Thanksgiving break in the Senate in fall 2004. Many had no idea he had done it. The Omnibus spending bill passed and an effort to repeal his rider began. The effort failed because Burns, himself, headed that committee and buried it. Every single year since the rider was included in the bill Congress has prohibited funding the provisions of the rider but have yet to repeal it. “Sale authority” and stripping wild horses and burros of their legal status after adoption or sale has led to disastrous undermining of the original intention of the law.

You can read the Act, as amended, here.

Exhibit created and presented by Wild Horse Education.

We thank the Nevada Historical Society and the University of Nevada Reno for providing permissions to feature material from their collections.

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