After conducting extensive research over the last few months, we have uncovered an unprecedented campaign of terror and slaughter carried out against Wyoming’s wild horses by a cruel and inept coalition that includes government agencies in Wyoming and Kansas, Shoshone and Arapaho tribal leaders, and the most notorious kill buyers in North America.
This inhumane effort to eradicate thousands of innocent animals must end now!
What’s Happening in Wyoming
Large numbers of wild horses from the Wild River Indian Reservation in Wyoming are being shipped to the following killbuyers:
● Jeff Smith (Kansas)
● Dennis Chavez (New Mexico)
● Jason Fabrizius (Colorado)
● The Stroud Kill Pen (Oklahoma)
● Mike McBarron (Texas)
Some of the gathered animals were even shipped straight to Bouvry Exports (in 2022 via the now closed Bar S Feedlot in Montana), which operates one of the few remaining horse slaughter plants in Canada.
Creating a Campaign of Terror
According to Animals’ Angels’ research, those special interest groups who wanted the Wind River wild horses out of the way never even tried to find a way to relocate or rehome the animals through adoption or other humane means. Instead, they persuaded government representatives to propose several radical solutions for disposing of the wild horses.
In 2022, Wyoming Representative John Winter sponsored a resolution asking Congress to allow equine slaughter in the United States. Luckily, the resolution died in a state Senate committee after it failed to receive support, although Wyoming Representative John Eklund confirmed that there had actually been some discussion of setting up a slaughter facility on the Wind River reservation.
Then in December 2022, Wyoming Legislature’s Select Natural Resource Funding Committee approved a $270,000 grant to support the removal of thousands of Wind River Reservation horses who supposedly threaten the big horse, elk, and mule deer populations.
The Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation gave 50% of the total amount of the grant. This organization claims to protect the big horn sheep population, but a key part of the vision statement on their website is to “promote Wyoming’s hunting heritage.”
The legislative committee made no effort to foresee or prevent the horrifying events that have followed…
DEAD — If Not For Profit Then By Disease
We were outraged to discover that government agencies in Wyoming weren’t the only state agencies making it as easy as possible for the tribes to offload the horses.The State of Kansas issued a special permit to kill buyer Jeff Smith allowing him to import horses without performing a mandatory Coggins test, a blood test used to detect Equine Infectious Anemia, a deadly viral disease.
The special permit allows Jeff Smith to first import the horses and then test them at his facility within a week of their arrival. While the permit states that the horses cannot leave Jeff’s facility before being tested, there is no reliable oversight of the testing process in place, and thus no way to verify that each horse has really been tested before leaving his lot.
The fact that Jeff Smith has already been found to be in violation of permit requirements on multiple occasions in the past makes it highly likely that testing will not be done and that other horses around the country may be exposed to this deadly disease.
Animals’ Angels obtained paperwork related to “Case #23 AH 18316” showing that Jeff Smith imported horses into Kansas without obtaining the required health certificates on 25 different occasions between July 2022 and February 2023.
The Kansas Department of Agriculture originally imposed a $25,000 penalty before eventually settling for a $5,000 payment and a 3-year probation period. The probation terms stipulate that if Jeff Smith violates the special permit requirements again in that time period, he’ll have to pay the remaining balance in full.
Even with the financial penalty and probationary period, we find it very questionable that the state agreed to the settlement and allowed Jeff Smith to keep his special permit, potentially putting the entire US horse population at risk.
Why Are Wild Horses Under Assault?
As many as 10,000 wild horses live within the Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho tribes, which encompasses over 2.2 million acres of wilderness in Wyoming.The Shoshone & Arapaho Tribes Fish and Game Department, which is tasked with “wildlife management and protection” on the reservation’s land, considers the wild horses to be an invasive species, as do certain special interest groups, including holders of cattle grazing permits, businesses in the mineral industry, and wildlife hunters.
In an apparent attempt to clear space for cattle, the state and tribal leadership made the decision to gather and remove thousands of these wild horses from reservation land, injuring many and killing some in the process – before selling them off to kill buyers.
Witness to the Violent “Gatherings” of the Wind River Horses
Although the tribes do not allow the public to watch the brutal actions used to round up the wild horses on the Wind River Reservation, tribal members have come forward to bear witness to the violent, frightening process of “gathering” the horses. Reservation resident Sybil Thunder Hawk, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe and a descendant of the Eastern Shoshone tribe who lives about 300-yards from where the gatherings take place, expressed concern about what she called the “process of gathering” used on the reservation.
She mentioned the use of high-powered rifles which were shot from low-flying aircraft near occupied houses to get the horses running, and said the planes were flying so low in some cases that she could see the pilots inside.
Thunder Hawk said that some of the animals ended up “breaking their legs, biting each other, fighting each other” during the operation and that some of the horses even died in the process.
Eastern Shoshone Tribal member Bobbie Shongutsie requested a “better management plan” for animals on the reservation. As she says, “A part of our culture is the horses …. They’re killing our culture.”
Join Our Mission to End Animal Cruelty, Abuse, and Slaughter
Animals’ Angels is dedicated to exposing anyone who prioritizes profit over innocent lives.
We hope you’ll join us in advocating for an end to the brutal eradication of the wild horses of Wind River by sharing this newsletter with as many people as possible.
We also encourage anyone who has purchased a Wind River foal from any of the kill buyers listed above without receiving a Coggins Test to contact us at info@animalsangels.org.