Calico Roundup. Are they slaughter bound? (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved)

We are joining our friends at The Cloud Foundation and Int’l Fund for Horses and thousands of concerned and caring Americans around the country.

Take action!

Cross posted from TCF:

Protest Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s appointment of Callie Hendrickson to the BLM National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board[1] representing the General Public.

Background: Callie Hendrickson is the Executive Director of the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts representing ranching interests, many of whom have permits to run livestock on public lands in northwestern Colorado. The organization successfully petitioned to become an intervenor on the side of BLM to completely remove the West Douglas Creek Wild Horse Herd on the Western Slope of Colorado.

• Ms. Hendrickson supports the sale without limitation of all unadopted wild horses to the highest bidder (including slaughter buyers)
• Ms. Hendrickson will speak at the second pro-slaughter conference (Summit of the Horse) in Oklahoma City this spring. (Sue Wallis’ creation.)

Does Callie Hendrickson represent you? If your answer is NO, then please call, fax, and email Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and politely, but firmly ask that Callie Hendrickson’s appointment to the Advisory Board be rescinded immediately.

Tell the Secretary that she does not represent you or the 80% of the General Public opposed to horse slaughter[2].

Number to Call: (202) 208-3100

Number to Fax: (202) 208-6956

Address to Email: feedback@ios.doi.gov

[1] The nine-member BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board recommends management strategies to the BLM. Hendrickson would join Jim Stephenson (appointed June 2011) on the Board. Stephenson openly advocates for horse slaughter. BLM has discussed killing wild horses in holding since at least 2008. With Hendrickson, they may have just the Board they want —a Board that could recommend to BLM that they dispose of the wild horses in holding.

[2] A recent nationwide poll reveals that 80% of Americans oppose the slaughter of U.S. horses for human consumption. The survey shows that Amerricans in all parts of the country, regardless of their gender, political affiliation, whether they live in an urban or rural area, or whether they own horses or not, are against the slaughtering of our nation’s equines. The survey was sponsored by the ASPCA and conducted by Lake Research Partners.

Comments are due March 1st on a mining project that will use a lot of water near Eureka, NV, and will affect America’s wild horses in Nevada.

Please send a quick e-mail to mhmm_project@blm.gov (Attn: Angelica Rose) and ask BLM to:

1) Choose the NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE

2) Do one foot and five foot water drawdown maps for this project.

3) This proposed use will use a lot of water from the aquifer and take away from wild horse use, thus not maintaining a “thriving ecological balance.”

4) The BLM’s vague analysis of wild horses in this DEIS was generic, incorrect (horses have “no natural predators”), less than a page long and did not specifically address wild horses in nearby areas.

The DEIS mentions wild horses in Volume 2, section 3.13 (on pages 3-407 and 3-408) on link:

http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/battle_mountain_field/blm_information/national_environmental/mount_hope_project.html

“While the BLM seems concerned that there’s not enough water or forage for wild horses, they are bending over backwards to approve this mining project, which will use about 7,000 gallons of water per minute (GPM) for the life of the mine (40-50 years) and will draw 11,300 acre feet annually (afa) from the aquifer,” states Debbie Coffey, wild horse advocate.

“Water is of huge concern for wild horses in Nevada,” explains Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “This project will use a lot of water from the aquifers–negatively affecting the rural water table and wild horses on public lands.”

By Cindy MacDonald, American Herds weblog.

It was New Mexico law enforcement agents that began investigating the selling of wild horses to slaughter in 1992. This investigation centered around the direct participation of BLM employees and contractors selling wild horses for slaughter with both the knowledge and approval of BLM managers. Their scheme involved the use of satellite ranches and horse sanctuaries to hide the horses for profit operation. (1)

The Grand Jury investigation into illegal wild horse slaughter began with two BLM employees: Mr. Galloway and Mr. Sharp, both working under the direction of Steve Henke, currently still employed by BLM as a District Manager in Farmington, New Mexico.

In 1995, the Grand Jury issued subpoenas intending to inventory more than 1,200 horses at a BLM sanctuary in Bartlesville, OK but a Department of the Interior lawyer in New Mexico, Grant Vaughn, wrote a letter telling the prosecutor that his agency could not comply with the subpoenas and efforts to access any information about these facilities was successfully thwarted. (2)

Over ten years later, a different investigative report has just been released by Valerie James Patton, which includes some serious questions surrounding BLM sanctuaries in Bartlesville, OK and the more than 8,000 geldings these sanctuaries now hold.

Ms. Patton’s Investigative Report centers around an anomaly of exclusive gelding exports from the Santa Teresa Livestock Port of Entry between New Mexico to Mexico, where USDA export records indicate record breaking levels of geldings have been, and are still being sent to Mexico under a “non-slaughter status”. The current total of these non-slaughter geldings shipped into Mexico has now reached over 3,000 for this year alone.

Her report on the possible illegal shipment of these horses compares the Texas export numbers of non-slaughter geldings with the Santa Teresa Port’s export numbers, notes that Santa Teresa does not send any other kind of horse through their port under a non-slaughter status and asks hard questions about what Mexico is doing with these geldings that are now numbering into the thousands, as they are obviously not for breeding purposes.

Furthermore, her report states that the only currently known source for such a continuous supply of geldings is BLM sanctuaries. The report gives significant treatment to statistics, numbers, locations, interviews, newspaper articles, government connections between U.S. and Mexican officials, and as the evidence mounts, a powerful case is presented which demands an official investigation into the both the source and the destination of these non-slaughter geldings.

Except it looks like that is going to be very difficult…..

Her report also includes the results of a recent on-site investigation by Animals’ Angels investigators who were denied access to Santa Teresa’s facilities and what little information New Mexico officials offered turned out to be false – these officials included USDA employees. Yes, this is the same USDA that flipped Congress the finger when they voted to withdraw funding for horsemeat inspections in efforts to shut down the American horse slaughter trade in 2006.

In another AP news article by Martha Mendoza published in 1997, “Trail’s End for Horses: Slaughter,” over 200 BLM employees were cited as adopting wild horses and burros with most unaccounted for and some employees acknowledging they were sent to slaughter while Pascal Derde, the proprietor of Cavel West Slaughterhouse in Redmond, OR, reportedly “displayed a sheaf of BLM certificates for horses he recently butchered”.

Gabriel Paone, a Department of the Interior ethics official was quoted as saying there was nothing wrong with BLM employees adopting wild horses and then selling them for profit. “They’re not doing this as public officials.” Paone said. “They’re doing this as private citizens.”

In an article by American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, “The Story Behind The Burns Amendment,” a plan is outlined showing which way American wild horses were headed. “A few years ago, a Montana rancher proposed to send 10,000 wild horses to Mexico, the second largest horse meat supplier in the world, for his private enterprise craftily dubbed the “Sonora Wild Horse Repatriation Project.”

Apparently, the boldness of this proposal created so much opposition it was ultimately defeated – perhaps an even craftier enterprise was needed to move our horses into Mexico.

The political consequences of openly killing wild horses and burros was foreseen during the July 1998 Field Hearing held in Reno, NV as John Balliette, Contractual Natural Resource Manager, Eureka County, NV stated, “I also urge you to be cautious with euthanasia, especially for large reductions. Personally, I would view putting thousands of horses down as a terrible waste of a resource. I also believe the first time several hundred horses are euthanized in one spot, a political firestorm will follow”.

Needless to say, Mr. Balliette was correct but it didn’t take several hundred to do it.

In November 2004, the Burns Amendment was “slipped in” and became a reality for our wild horses and burros in 2005. Forty-one wild horses were slaughtered in an Illinois slaughter plant, some of the first sold under this new ‘For Sale Authority’ and public outrage caused BLM to temporarily suspend sales between April 25 thru May 19, 2005.

BLM also rewrote and strengthened the adoption contracts before resuming sales but considering past historical violations, even by the agency itself, as well as no true legal consequences to those who violate these contracts due to Congress continuing to give BLM the authority to sell them “unconditionally”, there is little hope that violators will actually be prosecuted if our horses and burros end up hanging from a hook.

According to Ms. Patton’s investigative report, the shipment of unusually high numbers of non-slaughter geldings sent through Santa Teresa, New Mexico to Mexico began on August 16th, 2005 – just three months after BLM resumed selling our wild heritage to sealed bidders.

Advocate and watch dog groups have been requesting details about the ‘For Sale Program’ but meaningful answers have not been forthcoming and the BLM only publicly provides a running total of the wild horses and burros that they “sell”.

So here we sit…..

Unprecedented numbers of wild horses and burros have been swept off public lands authorized by completely absurd assessments, BLM cut adoption events over the last few years during a time when they needed this outlet most, the cost of capturing and holding our wild horses and burros in these mysterious sanctuaries continues to skyrocket and suddenly we find New Mexico in the news – again!

Yet Congress sits stalled – refusing to investigate the Wild Horse and Burro Program or demand accountability, refusing to repeal the Burns Amendment, and refusing to open an investigation into these non-slaughter geldings being exported from New Mexico at record levels.

Some speculate these geldings are being shipped to Mexico as unwilling participants in a popular form of Mexican entertainment called Horse Tripping, as illustrated in the photo above. Even so, most horses used for these events end up in Mexican slaughterhouses once the ropes have cut their flesh too deeply or their legs finally brutally break.

The Humane Society of the United States has recently released a video on the reality of Mexican Horse Slaughter, often performed by repeatedly stabbing a knife into the horse’s spinal cord until it is paralyzed, though not unconscious for its slaughter. There is little question the final destination of the majority of these “non-slaughter” geldings will share the same fate of those so graphically depicted in this video.

In 1998, Mr. Balliette also recommended a sale authority that would be “sunsetted” once the numbers on the range and in the adoption pipeline were brought down to manageable numbers before more “politically correct” population control methods were again employed.

Maybe Congress is waiting, as Mr. Balliette suggested, until a sufficient amount of America’s wild horses and burros have been “disposed of” before bringing the vote to the floor…. or maybe they will never repeal it – after all, it’s only the majority of the American people who so passionately love wild horses and burros and have showed their overwhelming support time and time again for mandating their protection – but does anyone in Washington care?

* W/E 11/29/07

In efforts to bring awareness to the weekly shipments of these Non-Slaughter Geldings being sent to Mexico from New Mexico for over two years now, the American Herds Hot News Section will now display their weekly exported totals until — we pray — these shipments are investigated and finally brought to a halt.

—————

In gratitude to Vivian Grant at the Int’l Horse Fund for keeping this up on the internet at Tuesday’s Horse and for Cindy MacDonald who wrote this wonderful piece for her blog American Herds.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) within the Department of Interior is the agency mandated by law “to protect and manage wild free-roaming horses…as components of the public lands.” Yet, the BLM has tolerated and in some instances facilitated the routine and illegal trafficking of wild horses to slaughter. The agency has obstructed efforts by its own law enforcement officers to expose commercial theft of wild horses, fraudulent adoption schemes and fictitious “sanctuary” herds not only to avoid embarrassment but also to maintain the flow of horses off the range.

Despite legal mandates, political pressure from the livestock industry creates a powerful institutional incentive within BLM to remove wild horses from the range whenever and however possible. The fierce competition for forage on overgrazed public rangelands combined with the lucrative market for horsemeat creates an irresistible economic opportunity for theft and fraud.

In order to remove thousands of mustangs deemed “excess,” BLM has turned a blind eye to a variety of transparent mechanisms, some involving its own employees and contractors, to place significant numbers of wild horses into the stream of commerce. In an effort to square the requirements of law with the reality of the trade in wild horses, the agency has embraced the fiction that very few horses under its legal jurisdiction are commercially exploited. In February of 1997, the agency issued a public statement that less than one percent of wild horses go to slaughter yet their own employees reported several wild horses going to slaughter during the very week the agency prepared its disclaimer.

The BLM began a crackdown on wild horse-to-slaughter operations in 1993 under former Director Jim Baca. BLM investigators began compiling evidence documenting:

• theft of wild horses during BLM sponsored “gathers” or captures;
• “black booking” or phony double branding of horses so that duplicate branded horses could disappear without a paper trail;
• manipulation of wild horse adoptions where one person holds the proxies for a group of supposedly separate adopters and the horses all end up at slaughter;
• use of satellite ranches to hold horses for days or weeks as stopping points on the way to slaughter;
• fraudulent use of wild horse sanctuaries–ranches subsidized by the federal government to care for unadoptable wild horses deemed excess and removed from the range–as fronts for commercial exploitation.

Baca’s campaign on behalf of wild horse protection worried top Interior officials and, according to Baca, played a major role in his abrupt removal from office in 1994 by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

One investigation backed by Baca had already been accepted for prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Texas by the time he had left office. This investigation, developed by law enforcement agents from BLM New Mexico, centered around the direct participation of BLM employees and contractors selling wild horses for slaughter with the knowledge and approval of BLM managers. Their scheme involved the use of satellite ranches and horse sanctuaries to hide the horses for profit operation.

One particularly troubling aspect of this investigation was the apparent obstruction and witness tampering by BLM managers. In some instances, BLM officials warned suspects of impending search warrants and the revealed the identity of undercover investigators.

In Baca’s absence, the Department of Interior began a campaign to shut down the U.S. Attorney’s investigation although a grand jury had already been convened to hear evidence in the case. Using lawyers from the Interior Solicitor’s Office and the agency’s civil legal representatives in the Department of Justice, pressure was brought upon the U.S. Attorney to limit the scope of the investigation to the actions of low level BLM employees.

Once the investigation was limited, BLM reassigned investigators working on the case and began a campaign to drive these original investigators out of the agency altogether.

When agency lawyers were able to block execution of subpoenas it struck the death blow to the grand jury probe. The grand jury was cut off from the evidence it needed to continue.

Lawyers from the Department of Justice also urged that the case be dropped because the tolerance within BLM for the horse to slaughter trade was so widespread that it would be unfair to single out any one person for prosecution. Over the objections of the Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the case, the recommendations of the Justice Department lawyers was accepted and the grand jury was dismissed.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Interior is supposed to be an independent monitor of agency actions but when it came to wild horses this watchdog ran for cover. The OIG answers to the Secretary of Interior and declined even a request for assistance from the Chief of BLM Law Enforcement who acknowledged that his program lacked the independence to investigate its own agency.

In 1996, the Department of Justice itself asked OIG to review employee allegations of improprieties in connection with the termination of the Texas grand jury. In order to prevent another probe by any branch of the Department of Justice, OIG accepted the investigation it had been avoiding for three years.

Despite this new probe, OIG’s reluctance to proceed continues. An OIG analyst counseled a former BLM Special Agent against sending documents to the watchdog agency saying, “Don’t send the evidence here. They will lose it. This is not what they want to hear.”

BLM has not had a permanent director since the departure of Jim Baca, more than three years earlier. The agency under interim leadership is simultaneously denying the existence of any problem while announcing multiple paper reforms to improve the performance of its Wild Horse & Burro program. The problems within BLM are not administrative or budgetary in nature. The problems stem from failure to faithfully execute the law regardless of political consequences.

Thanks to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) for this executive summary. You can go here to order the full report.

Martha Mendoza Associated Press Writer 

(From AP Wire: 01/04/1997 11:03 EST)

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A multimillion-dollar federal program created to save the lives of wild horses is instead channeling them by the thousands to slaughterhouses where they are chopped into cuts of meat.

Among those profiting from the slaughter are employees of the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that administers the program.

These are the conclusions of an Associated Press investigation of the U.S. Wild Horse and Burro Program, which has rounded up 165,000 animals and spent $250 million since it was created by Congress 25 years ago.

The program was intended to protect and manage wild horses on public lands, where they compete for resources with grazing cattle. The idea: Gather up excess horses and offer them to the public for adoption.

However, nothing in the law prevents the new owners from selling the horses to slaughterhouses once they take title to them. It is common for horses to go to slaughter when they grow old or fall lame, but nearly all former BLM horses sent to slaughterhouses are young and healthy, according to slaughterhouse operators.

Under the program’s rules, anyone can adopt up to four horses per year, paying $125 for each healthy, government-vaccinated animal. If the adopters properly care for the horses for one year, they get legal title to them in the form of handsome BLM certificates bearing individual identification numbers that are freeze-branded into each horse’s hide.

“We’re working toward helping people develop pride in their horses,” said Deb Harrington, a BLM spokeswoman in Oklahoma. “These titles are suitable for framing.”

Using freeze-brand numbers and computerized public records, the AP traced more than 57 BLM horses that have been sold to U.S. and Canadian slaughterhouses since September. Eighty percent of those horses were less than 10 years old and 25 percent were less than 5 years old. Ten years is not considered old for horses, which are often ridden well into their 20s.

At the Cavel West slaughterhouse in Redmond, Ore., for example, proprietor Pascal Derde pulled a sheaf of BLM certificates from a folder and explained that they were for horses he recently processed at his plant and sent to Belgium for human consumption.

Nearby, the carcass of a BLM horse dangled on a hook while butchers sliced the lean meat into packageable cuts.

“Killed on Friday, processed Monday, Thursday we load the truck and then it’s flown to Europe,” said Derde. “Monday it’s sold in Belgium, Tuesday eaten, Wednesday it’s back in the soil.”

“The sad thing,” said Pete Steele, a former BLM employee living in Montecello, Utah, “is you’ve got a bunch of wild horses rounded up and nobody wants them except for some folks who see there’s some money to be made here.”

Asked about the AP’s findings, Tom Pogacnik, director of the BLM’s $16 million-a-year Wild Horse and Burro Program, conceded that about 90 percent of the horses rounded up — thousands of horses each year — go to slaughter.

Has a program intended to save wild horses as a symbol of the American frontier evolved into a supply system for horse meat?

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” Pogacnik said. “Recognizing that we can’t leave them out there, well, at some point the critters do have to come off the range.”

Clifford Hansen, a former U.S. senator from Wyoming who introduced the bill to create the program, now wishes he could remove his name from the legislation.

“The law was intended to recognize the significance of wild horses and burros, but talk about a waste of public funds,” said Hansen, now 84. “It’s become the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of.”

The government spends an average of $1,100 to round up, vaccinate, freeze brand, and adopt out a horse. Adopters pay $125 for each healthy horse, and can get lame or old horses for as little as $25, or even for free. After holding the horses for a year, the adopters are free to sell them for slaughter, typically receiving $700 per animal.

The government spends $1,100. The adopter can make $575 or more.

The sellers find no shortage of horse meat buyers. The demand for American horse meat has long been strong in Asia and Europe, where few share the common American compunction about eating the animal.

Today, demand is up in Europe because of fears of mad cow disease, said Luc Van Damme of Zele, Belgium, whose 100-year-old Velda horse meat business owns the Cavel West slaughterhouse.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 42 million pounds of horse meat were exported in 1995 at an average price of 62 cents per pound. In 1996 prices were up to 80 cents a pound and rising. France and Belgium were the biggest buyers, with others including Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Mexico, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Austria, Russia, Bahrain, Argentina and China.

While nothing in the law prevents sending an adopted horse to slaughter, government officials offer conflicting opinions whether it is legal or ethical for BLM officials to adopt and sell horses.

The Associated Press matched computer records of horse adoptions with a computerized list of federal employees and found that more than 200 current BLM employees have adopted more than 600 wild horses and burros.

Some of these employees, when contacted by the AP, could not account for the whereabouts of their animals. Others acknowledged some of their horses were sent to slaughterhouses.

In Rock Springs, Wyo., the BLM corrals are run by Victor McDarment, whose crew rounds up horses from open ranges in Wyoming, freeze brands them and arranges adoptions. It’s a job that gives them access to thousands of horses.

According to BLM database records, McDarment adopted 16 horses. His estranged wife adopted nine. His children adopted at least six. His girlfriend adopted four. His ex-wife adopted one. His co-workers in the corrals and their families adopted an additional 54.

Most of the horses they adopted were discounted from the normal $125 fee. Some were free. Discounting is allowed if a horse is injured, old, or otherwise unlikely to get adopted. Because he’s in charge, McDarment decides if a horse should be discounted.

A discounted paint won a first prize for the McDarments at a national show last year. McDarment said the horse had been discounted because it had a leg injury.

On a sub-zero day, as steam rose from troughs where the wild horses drink, McDarment sat in a snow-covered BLM office with his managers and said he could not account for all the horses he adopted.

“I don’t keep track,” he said.

McDarment’s estranged wife Carol McDarment, a hotel maid, said she never saw most of the horses adopted in her name.

“I just signed the forms and Vic drove them out,” she said.

Some ended up with Dennis Gifford, a Lovell, Wyo., rancher and rodeo contractor who was barred from BLM horse adoptions because he was rounding up wild mustangs illegally and adding them to his private herds. According to court records, he has also been convicted of selling livestock without state brand inspections.

He said he has tried to breed McDarment’s horses for bucking stock, and said he’s sure some of McDarment’s horses were slaughtered.

“They got to end up somewheres,” Gifford said.

Some of McDarment’s co-workers know where all their animals are. Jim Williams, for example, has leased land and is breeding burros from Arizona that he and his friends adopted. He sold additional horses at an auction to be used for roping cattle. He’s hoping to make several thousand dollars a year off the foals.

“Of course, I want to make money off this,” said Williams, stomping mud off his boots in a frozen corral.

“Is there anything wrong with that? It’s legal, ain’t it?” he said.

According to federal law, U.S. government employees are not allowed to use public office for private gain. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics said this means BLM workers may not participate in bureau programs that affect their financial interests.

But Gabriel Paone, the Department of the Interior’s designated ethics official in Washington, D.C., said there is nothing wrong with BLM employees adopting wild horses, keeping them until they get the title, and then selling them for profit.

In fact, an internal BLM memo issued in November, 1995, “encourages employees to adopt and train wild horses and burros for their personal use.”

“They’re not doing this as public officials,” Paone said. “They’re doing this as private citizens.”

“There’s a real gray area in the way the law was written as to whether they’re breaking the law or not,” said Harrington, the BLM spokeswoman in Oklahoma.

So, the adoptions by BLM employees continue.

Michael Woods, a BLM range management specialist in Baker City, Ore., and his wife have adopted four horses since 1992 and sold them all.

One of his horses, a black mare with a star on her face, was rounded up as a foal from the high plains of Eastern Oregon in 1992. According to freeze brand numbers obtained by the AP from the Bouvry Exports Calgary Ltd. slaughterhouse in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, the horse was killed in 1996.

Woods said the mare hurt her leg last year and wasn’t working out as a riding horse, so he sold her.

“I assure you I didn’t intend to sell her for slaughter,” he said, “but the only one that was interested in her at the time was a buyer that takes horses to slaughter.”

Woods would not say how much he was paid for the horse, which originally cost him the $125 adoption fee.

The federal government is conducting several reviews of the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, with two audits and two reports to Congress expected to be completed in 1997.

“I welcome the scrutiny,” said Pogacnik, who runs the program out of a converted warehouse in Reno, Nev. “It can only help.”

Pognacik said he hopes the reports and audits will help him figure out what to do with the 15,600 wild horses and burros the bureau has identified as excess that are now roaming 10 Western states.

That’s on top of more than 1,100 old geldings in an Oklahoma sanctuary that was slated to close years ago, and several thousand more horses awaiting adoption in placement centers across the country.

The BLM has failed to submit legally required biennial reports about the Wild Horse and Burro Program to Congress since 1992. An advisory council on wild horses and burros, required by law, has not convened since President Clinton first took office. BLM officials said it is because they are short of staff.

“We’re here because we care about the critters,” said Pogacnik. “They’re a wonderful part of America, and we’re here to protect them. Of course, we’ve got a ways to go.”

AP EDITOR’S NOTE — AP News Data Editor Drew Sullivan and Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft contributed to this report

by Martha Mendoza

(AP:Albuquerque, N.M) — Corrupt federal workers are slaughtering wild horses and burros and pocketing profits rather than offering the animals for adoption, animal rights activists charged Tuesday.

At a news conference, the activists alleged that Bureau of Land Management staffers are selling thousands of wild horses and burros to slaughter- houses for $400 to $500 each and keeping the money.

They also charged that high-level BLM officials have tried to cover it up and sought to intimidate whistle-blowers.

“We are alleging there is a coverup going on right now in the BLM,” said Karen Sussman, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros in Sweetwater, Arizona.

The news conference was open only to reporters. BLM spokeswoman Tanna Chattin was shoved screaming from the room.

“I’m shocked they wouldn’t let me in,” Chattin said afterward.

BLM officials denied any coverup. But they declined further comment because the agency’s law enforcement division is investigating the allegations.

Grant Vaughn, a U.S. Department of Interior attorney in Santa Fe, said there was some substance to the allegations. He said U.S. Attorney Alia Ludlum in Del Rio, Texas, was also investigating possible corruption in the BLM.

Members of the American Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Alliance also alleged that BLM workers permit selected people to adopt the animals, fatten them up for a year and then to sell them to slaughterhouses.

The alliance sent a letter to President Clinton demanding that the U.S. Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor.

About 35,000 wild horses and burros roam free in the West, BLM has said. In 1971, Congress passed a law that said the animals, “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West,” deserve protection.

The BLM is responsible for caring for the animals, maintaining wild herds and allowing some adoptions — for $125 each — when the horses and burros become too prolific.

“But the BLM has not protected these animals. The BLM has thumbed their nose at the public and the law,” said Nancy Whitaker of the Animal Protection Institute, based in Sacramento, Calif.

As proof, the activists in Albuquerque offered a letter from Reed Smith, who retired as New Mexico’s BLM deputy state director for resource planning, use and protection in October 1994. Smith’s letter says he came under “full-attack” by the BLM after speaking out about problems in the agency.

We put this up at The Cloud Foundation in 2010. Thanks to TCF for keeping it up.