The Trump administration has dramatically ramped up the sale of America’s federally protected wild horses, and a NYT investigation found that some are ending up in the slaughter pipeline.
Here’s how it works: The Bureau of Land Management rounds up wild mustangs from public lands and places them up for adoption or sale. Some sale-eligible horses have been offered for as little as $25 each. Buyers are supposed to certify that they will not send the animals to slaughter, and federal law restricts the use of government funds for sales that result in commercial processing.
But it was traced some government-sold mustangs through private buyers and livestock records onto trucks headed for slaughter facilities. In one case, a livestock trader reportedly received dozens of mustangs purchased for just $25 each, with trucks arriving to remove them the following night.
At the same time, these sales have surged. BLM sold 3,718 wild horses and burros in fiscal year 2025, up from 1,509 the year before. Horse sales alone jumped from 793 to 2,387.
And taxpayers are already paying thousands of dollars to capture and prepare some of these animals for placement. The government can then sell them for as little as $25, while a horse entering the slaughter market can be worth hundreds of dollars.
BLM says it does not sell wild horses directly to slaughterhouses or known “kill buyers.” The problem uncovered by the investigation is what can happen after that $25 sale and the government is not doing enough to stop federally protected mustangs from being flipped into the slaughter pipeline.
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