Wild horses supported by our tax dollars

Recently, I posted pictures of pastures near Bartlesville, OK where ranchers are paid by the government to keep wild horses.   I found an article about this in a recent news headlines.  Here is just a portion of the article.  Tax payers foot the bill for the $75 million dollars spent annually.   Isn't this interesting when people are without jobs and sometimes without food in America?   What about people in Third World countries?   We are more humane to animals than we are to people. 

The National Academy of Sciences report found the BLM's roundups of horses and burros were counterproductive because in the long-run they decreased competition for food and resulted in higher birth and survival rates.

The panel of scientists urged federal horse managers to curb herds through increased use of fertility control, such as vaccines shot by dart at female horses, rather than roundups and removals. The BLM currently allocates to fertility control on wild herds only a fraction of what it spends on roundups.

The BLM, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, says Western public lands - leased for everything from cattle grazing to oil and gas exploration - can support 26,500 wild horses in states from Idaho to Nevada.

Wild horses unlikely to be adopted or sold are shipped to open-air enclosures that contain 50,000 animals, or nearly 13,000 more than roam free. The roundups, removals and warehousing of mustangs last year consumed much of the bureau's $75 million budget for managing wild horses and burros.