America's wild horse round-up shame: Horrific footage shows animals being roped and dragged - with hundreds dying every year from traumatic injuries or dumped in 'kill pens' and sold for slaughter

Alongside the bald eagle, the wild mustang is one of the greatest symbols of American freedom. 

But charities are raising the alarm over the 'egregious' treatment of thousands of the free-roaming horses that are rounded up and held by the Bureau of Land Management under a population management scheme. 

Nonprofit American Wild Horse Conservation (AWHC) estimates that hundreds of America's wild horses die every year during round-ups or end up sold for slaughter through the unscrupulous adoption process.

Amelia Perrin from AWHC told DailyMail.com: ‘They are rounded up with helicopters and funneled into holding facilities where they languish for the rest of their lives. Horses die in round-ups, they die in holding.'

Once caught, the Bureau puts the horses up for adoption, paying new owners $1,000 a horse, but AWHC say there are very few checks, meaning many of the horses end up in so-called 'kill pens' and are sold for slaughter.

Charities are raising the alarm over the 'egregious' treatment of thousands of America's free-roaming wild horses

Nonprofit American Wild Horse Conservation (AWHC) estimates that hundreds of America's wild horses die each year during round-ups or end up sold into slaughter through the unscrupulous adoption process

There are currently around 73,000 wild horses and burros living across the US on sprawling tracts of land from Texas to Nevada and Oregon. 

In 1971 they were given federal protection and the Bureau of Land Management was tasked with keeping their numbers at a sustainable level to 'restore a thriving natural ecological balance'. 

Each year since, the Bureau has gathered up thousands of horses and transported them to holding facilities, where they are either put up for adoption, or held indefinitely. 

There are currently 64,000 horses and burros in holding facilities across the US at a cost of over $100million a year to the taxpayer. 

Charities have slammed the scheme, citing videos of round-ups showing terrified horses and foals being chased by helicopters or ATVs. 

One video, that emerged in January, showed wild horses being roped and dragged through the dirt by contractors hired to remove the animals from public land in Nevada.

The footage, obtained by Wild Horse Education, shows an animal being towed by an ATV. Another clip shows a helicopter nearly colliding with a herd as they try to evade it.

Perrin told DailyMail.com: 'It’s chasing horses, who are prey animals, with a monster in the sky, for an undisclosed number of miles. Babies are chased by helicopters into holding facilities. 

'There’s a lot of deaths that happen in the round up, they break their legs, their necks, those deaths aren’t the only ones. The deaths don’t stop when the helicopters do.'

Shocking video of the round-ups has emerged, showing terrified horses and foals being chased by helicopters or ATVs

Perrin told DailyMail.com: 'There’s a lot of deaths that happen in the round up, they break their legs, their necks, those deaths aren’t the only ones.'

On a recent tour of a Bureau holding facility, the nonprofit said they saw 'a dead or dying' foal left lying in a pen

Using freedom of information requests, the AWHC has also uncovered a pattern of deaths in holding facilities. 

In April, the nonprofit revealed that 267 wild horses died in 2023 at the Bureau's largest facility in Nevada, Fallon Off-Range Corral.

Of those, 106 died in their pens from unknown causes, 23 died before they even made it to the facility, and 49 horses died from traumatic injuries. 

On a recent tour of the facility, AWHC saw 'a dead or dying baby' left lying in a pen. 

Perrin said: 'They spend the rest of their lives separated from their families, from their freedom and put in these dirt pens. They don’t have sprinklers, shade - it’s shocking to see.'

There are also outbreaks of diseases in the facilities with AWHC reporting that 23 wild horses died in just 24 days due to suspected botulism poisoning at another Nevada holding facility last year. 

In Colorado in 2022, they uncovered a 'shocking mass casualty event' where 145 unvaccinated wild horses died from an outbreak of Equine Influenza Virus. 

Horses that survive are put up for adoption, with prospective new owners paid $1,000 per horse if they keep them for a year. 

In April, the nonprofit revealed that 267 wild horses died in 2023 at the Bureau's largest facility in Nevada, Fallon Off-Range Corral

The issue, according to the AWHC, is that there are very few checks on who can adopt the horses and where they end up. 

Perrin said: 'Thousands of horses have been funneled into the slaughter pipeline and taken to Mexico to be slaughtered and sold. 

'Worse than that we found groups of people who are conspiring to adopt mass numbers of horses and get the cash to then sell them to slaughter.'

The charity said many of the adopted horses end up in so-called 'kill-pens' where horses are sold off en masse or loaded into trucks and shipped off to slaughter facilities in Mexico. 

AWHC has documented over 2,100 wild horses and burros in kill pens since 2019. 

The kill pens share photos of the horses, with their Bureau brands visible, on social media with captions that say if someone does not step in to buy them, they are 'shipping to Mexico on the next truck'. 

AWHC is advocating for several changes to the Bureau's program, including using fertility control to limit numbers while enabling the horses to remain wild and removing the financial incentives to adoption to prevent the system being abused. 

Perrin said the current system is 'incredibly wasteful and cruel'. 

She added: 'They don’t view the wild horses as an integral part of the Western landscape, they view them as livestock to be managed.' 

DailyMail.com contacted Bureau of Land Management for comment.