For many years, the practice of slaughtering America's wild horses has been politically toxic, but that seems to have changed with the Trump administration.
Source: People
The Trump administration has been accused of using a legal loophole to cull the number of protected wild horses.
Citing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in a report on Thursday, Aug. 20, The New York Times reported that the number of wild horses that the government sold in 2025 more than doubled to 3,700 after Trump, 80, took office that January.
The bureau told the outlet that it “remains dedicated to placing animals into good homes, protecting their welfare and upholding its statutory responsibilities on behalf of the American public.”
However, NYT‘s report suggests that some wild horses are being sold to questionable buyers for as little as $25 before being resold and exported to Canada, where they end up in slaughter plants. This comes after the industry was shut down in the U.S. in 2007. Horses are extremely profitable as they can fetch up to $750 at a slaughter plant, per NYT.
Ohio-based livestock trader Brandon Jones has been sent about 500 horses from across the West since 2025, the outlet reported. He has denied sending any to slaughter, while refusing to say where the horses he bought went.
It appears that he sold many of them for slaughter through clandestine contacts and channels into Canada, where the slaughter of wild horses is still permitted.
"The horses were packed into echoing metal trailers and trucked 1,800 miles east to the pens of a hard-luck livestock trader in Ohio named Brandon Jones, who bought them for $25 each.
A day later, two double-decker cattle trucks pulled up at midnight, loaded the mustangs and… pic.twitter.com/gg5bDNnVMa— Crystal Heath DVM (@drcrystalheath) August 20, 2026
A heartbreaking investigation revealed that Trump's Bureau of Land Management is systematically rounding up thousands of America's wild horses, then quietly selling them off to buyers who are shipping them to slaughterhouses abroad.
Before, the U.S. government rarely sold wild… pic.twitter.com/UvilCKElge— dominic dyer (@domdyer70) August 21, 2026
With this administration, anything is possible, right?
Trump selling wild horses to slaughter houses and then suspiciously talking about importing ground meat at lower than market costs…
Yeah, that’s not scary as hell? pic.twitter.com/SK2dFw6bML— Maurice W (@iamMauriceW) August 21, 2026
