On Friday - the House passed a bill designed to improve federal management of wild horses and burros and increase the land on which they can roam. The bill - which passed 239 to 185 - would direct the Bureau of Land Management to take steps intended to maintain healthy herds on public lands.

The bill would outlaw the killing of healthy animals and institute sterilization and other fertility controls to manage the herds. It would enhance an existing program to encourage adoption of the animals - and it would bar adopters from slaughtering the animals for human consumption.

Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall said the bill will save taxpayer money while saving tens of thousands of wild horses and burros from slaughter. The bill comes in response to reports of mismanagement of the herds since passage of a 1971 law designed to protect them.