Livestock exemption removes federal oversight of black vulture killings

What it does

This bill allows livestock producers and their employees to kill black vultures that are attacking or threatening to attack their animals, without needing a federal permit. Producers must report any vultures they kill to the Fish and Wildlife Service using a simple form, but cannot use poison. The bill carves out an exception to the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which normally protects all migratory birds.

Why we flagged it

The bill's operative mechanism is a narrow carve-out from federal migratory bird protection, granting livestock producers a specific exemption to take a named species. It is not a broad deregulation or a general wildlife management reform—it is a targeted authorization for one species in one context (livestock predation).

What the text implies

• No population-level cap or monitoring threshold: the bill permits unlimited take of black vultures so long as individual producers report annually, with no aggregate limit or trigger for Fish and Wildlife Service intervention if populations decline.
• No requirement to attempt non-lethal deterrents first: producers may kill vultures immediately upon reasonable belief of threat, without documented evidence of prior damage or proof that fencing, guardian animals, or other methods were tried.
• Reporting is post-hoc and voluntary until form is finalized: producers are not required to report until the Director develops a form (up to 180 days), creating a gap period with no data collection on take rates.
• Interstate and cross-jurisdictional enforcement gaps: a producer in one state may kill vultures that migrate across state lines, but reporting goes only to the regional office of the state where the take occurred, potentially obscuring range-wide population trends.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

Rural livestock producers gain a concrete, time-sensitive remedy for predation losses that can threaten farm viability; however, the bill removes federal oversight of a protected migratory species with no population-level safeguards, cap on take, or requirement that non-lethal alternatives be attempted first, creating potential for unmonitored population impacts and ecological consequences that may affect broader public interests in wildlife conservation.

Who stands to gain

• livestock producers (reduced predation losses)
• agricultural operations (cost avoidance from vulture-related livestock mortality)

Named in the bill

United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance Act of 1988, black vulture (Coragyps atratus), livestock producers, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Where it stands

16 cosponsors: 16 Republicans.

• May 20, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
• May 20, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

1 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $720,409 in lobbying spend. A filing names 37 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.

Markwayne Mullin, the sponsor, reported $979,756 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• American Farm Bureau Fed — $720,409 on 3 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.