The Bureau of Land Management plans to investigate whether the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota violated a contract by allowing some of the wild horses it bought to be sent to slaughter.

The tribe bought 141 horses from BLM in March in one of the first transactions of the agency's new wild horse program. But in trading 87 aging horses for younger ones, 35 animals ended up being slaughtered. The remaining 54 were saved when BLM contacted the Ford Motor Co. to take the horses.

The sales are authorized by the 2005 omnibus appropriations act. It allows BLM to sell wild horses and burros that are more than 10 years old or have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption at least three times. An estimated 8,400 animals are eligible for sale.

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35 More Wild Horses Killed in the West (AP 4/25)
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Relevant Links:
Wild Horse Program - http://www.blm.gov/nhp/spotlight/whb_authority

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