Aren the wild horses and burros protected by law?
In 1971, Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act (PL 92-195). This law recognized the horses and burros as a “*recognized component”* of the public land environment. This meant that wild horses and burros now had a legal right to live on the public lands. The law confined the horses and burros to lands where they were living on in 1971. The BLM calls these areas HMAs. However, in 2004 over the Thanksgiving weekend Senator Conrad Burns slipped an amendment into the 2005 Omnibus Appropriation Bill which rescinded some of the protections the wild horses and burros had and allowed those over 10 or who had not been adopted in 3 attempts to be sold “without restriction”.
