WASHINGTON -- The federal government is looking for homes for more than 400 wild horses after buyers this spring pulled out of revised contracts imposing criminal penalties for selling the animals to slaughter.

Twenty individuals and two tribes seeking 427 wild horses canceled their contracts after the Bureau of Land Management in April suspended its infant sale program amid reports of horse slaughter, according to interviews with BLM officials and agency records obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"A number of these individuals had completed the necessary paperwork, some even had sent checks paying for their animals. However, they still decided not to complete the purchases and backed out," BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said.

"The biggest reason was the frustration in the whole sale program being shut down for over a month," he added. "Some people just said 'Forget it.' "

The BLM declined to identify those who canceled their contracts and buyers of roughly 1,500 wild horses sold as of Sept. 30. BLM officials cited privacy rights afforded individuals who do business with the government.

At least one Indian tribe, the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, was among the buyers who canceled. Instead of the original 400 horses it requested, the tribe stopped the order after receiving 277 horses, according to BLM records.

A representative with the tribe could not be reached for comment Friday.

Though BLM officials attributed the canceled contracts to frustration with the program shutdown, they acknowledged that a few buyers might have walked away upon learning they would be subject to criminal penalties if they sold horses to slaughter.

"It's a serious deterrent. It's like the IRS. Everybody is scared to lie on an IRS form," said Don Glenn, acting group manager for the wild horse and burro program at the BLM. "If you're lying to the government, it's a serious thing, and I think most people look at it that way."

Through the end of September, the BLM sold 1,570 horses that once roamed free in Nevada and other Western states to private ranchers, Indian tribes and horse advocacy groups, agency officials said.

Buyers in 17 states so far have bought the horses for as little as $1 each to as much as $1,501 in one instance, BLM records show. The average price fetched for a horse was $22.

Horse advocacy groups criticized the BLM for selling the animals at bargain-basement prices behind closed doors.

"They are certainly hiding from us," said Chris Heyde, a policy analyst for the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, which joined other horse groups this spring to demand stricter rules governing the sales.

Congress last year directed the BLM to sell wild horses "without any limitations," meaning the government can sell the animals for as little as a penny each. Agency officials said the sales are not meant to raise money but to find horses a good home.

What the BLM makes in a sale is "a drop in the bucket" compared with what it costs to keep the horses in a holding facility, Glenn said.

It costs taxpayers an estimated $3,000 to put a horse out to pasture for the rest of its life at a BLM-contracted holding facility in Oklahoma or Kansas.

The government counted roughly 24,500 horses in holding as of October, costing taxpayers an average of $500 a day, or roughly $20 million a year.

Some 32,000 wild horses and burros are on public lands, about half of them in Nevada. The BLM plans to rein in at least 4,000 to lower the number of animals agency scientists say the range can sustain.

Before the BLM suspended its sales, officials reported selling 1,800 horses rounded up from the Western ranges. Promises by federal officials to vet buyers to ensure the safety of horses seemed to be panning out.

The mood quickly fell when BLM officials revealed on April 21 that six wild horses that had sold for $50 a head were resold to an Illinois meatpacking plant. Horses sold to slaughter can fetch up to $1,000 each depending on the size of the animal.

An Oklahoma man posing as a minister and promising to provide humane care for the horses resold the animals less than a week later to meatpacker Cavel International in Dekalb, Ill.

Fifty-one horses sold to the Rosebud Sioux tribe of South Dakota wound up at the same plant after the tribe sold them to a horse broker. Tribal officials said they did not realize the broker would sell the horses to slaughter. Thirty-five of the animals were killed before federal inspectors alerted the BLM, which partnered withFord Motor Co. to buy back the surviving horses.

BLM Director Kathleen Clarke halted the horse sales while Interior Department attorneys crafted a tougher sales contract written to deter buyers from turning horses over to make a profit. Sales resumed May 18 but with much skepticism from animal advocacy groups.

Many questioned whether the terms could be enforceable in court. The bill of sales states a buyer must "not knowingly sell or transfer ownership," or face a maximum $10,000 fine and/or five years in prison.

The BLM faces the daunting sale of 6,770 more horses. An additional 1,400 horses will become eligible for sale next year when they turn 11 years old -- the age at which Congress directed the government to sell the horses. Horses that fail to attract owners at three BLM-held adoptions also will be sold, according to the law.

Gorey, the BLM spokesman, said the agency's slow progress is testament to its thorough vetting of buyers to secure good homes for the animals.

"It's clear from the number we've sold so far that we've been doing this in a conscientious manner," he said. "Humane care has been our focus."

BLM officials say other factors have contributed to the low sales, including a growing sentiment that prospective buyers feel they no longer need to rescue horses from slaughter.

Congress last week approved legislation that will withhold funding from federal inspectors at meatpacking plants that slaughter horses. The provision by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., essentially will shut down the country's three horse plants, owners and horse advocates say.

"One of the reasons our sales dropped off is with the new legislation," said Sally Spencer, supervisory marking specialist for the BLM's wild horse sale and adoption programs. "People who would have helped, they think the horses are fine now."

Ensign last week said BLM officials had not conveyed those concerns to him.

"I hope that's not an unintended consequence," he said. "I hope people will understand that these horses need homes."

Ensign said the BLM should "do a better PR job" in marketing the horses nationwide.

Some lawmakers said the sale program should be stopped altogether.

"The Bureau of Land Management bills its wild horse sale program as a means of finding good homes for horses, but the grim reality of the program is that horses are ending up in the slaughterhouse," Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said in a statement.

Where the horses went