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where privately owned cattle also graze.
As a result of the amendment, the bureau is now authorized
to round up and sell thousands of these horses. 
Neda DeMayo-who runs Return
to Freedom,
a 300-acre wild-horse sanctuary in Lompoc, Calif. is leading
the charge to reinstate the ban. Taking these horses off
public lands "is the same as ripping someone away from their
family and their home," says DeMayo. "They live in
social groups just like humans." There is also the risk
that despite assurances from the BLM that it would sell horses
only to owners with an interest in their welfare-some of the
horses will be slaughtered for their meat, which is shipped
overseas. Indeed, since the Burns amendment passed, at least
41 horses have been slaughtered. In the case of six horses
killed on April 18, "the man who purchased them said they
were for a church youth group; He then turned around and sold
them to a slaughterhouse," admits Senator Burns. On April
25 the BLM agreed to stop selling horses while it investigates
the slaughters. "We want to make sure we do everything
possible to promote positive outcomes for these animals," says
the bureau's director, Kathleen Clarke.
Not good enough, says DeMayo, who wants the
program scrapped altogether. The recent slaughters "were
atrocious," she says, "and expose this provision
for what it really is." Tanned and toned in her faded
jeans and well-worn cowboy boots, the 45-year-old former
fashion stylist (she once worked for Sandra Bullock and David
Duchovny) has loved horses since she was a child near New
Haven, Conn. She was 8 when she got her first: a black Morgan
mix named Sam. "I'd ride him into town and to the Dairy
Queen," she recalls. In 1998 she bought a defunct chicken
farm in Lompoc and turned it into her sanctuary. 'today she
can name each of the 220 horses-most of which she rescued
or adopted on her land. Now divorced, she and six staffers
rely on donations and grants to cover expenses and on local
veterinarians to pitch in their time for free .
 DeMayo has also rallied some Hollywood A-Listers to her cause (see box). And
she has political support as well: Bills introduced in both the House and Senate
seek to repeal the Burns amendment. "We feared [the slaughtering] would
happen; we prayed it would not," says West Virginia Democratic Rep. Nick
Rahall, who coauthored the House bill. While Senator Burns claims that so far
2,000 wild horses have found good homes-proof, he says, "that the program
is working"-DeMayo advocates thinning the herds by darting the mares with
a contraceptive vaccine. "'the goal is not to zero-out or destroy a herd," she
says. "It's to control reproduction so you don't have to do removals."
Standing by a wooden rail fence surounding a grass
pasture, DeMayo allows a majestic palomino named Slitter
to trot up and nuzzle her neck. "He
thinks I'm his mare," she says. It is clear why DeMayo will fight tooth
and nail to repeal the Burns amendment: She sees something in these horses
that many others don't. She sees families. "They are born to live in herds," she
says. "Why would we want to take that away from anyone?"
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