As seen in the Elko Daily News on October 10, 2013
ELKO — While Washington politicks over a government shutdown, wild horses on the range could be dying of thirst.
Carlin resident Jackie Wiscombe, who for the past two years has contracted with the Bureau of Land Management to haul water to horses, said she’s been told to stop.
“Due to the government shutdown, these animals are in dire consequences of no water available,” she said. “… They are basically dependent on water being hauled to them.”
Wiscombe had watered an area 15 miles north of Currie and another in Ruby Valley about every five days. She was going to continue hauling water to the horses through the end of November, she said.
On Wednesday, she informed the county commission, saying horses could very well be dying.
Commissioners — who commended Wiscombe for bringing the issue to light — were worried about the horses and frustrated by the apparent lack of contingency planning by those in charge.
“What I’m concerned about is who’s responsible for these kind of management decisions?” Commissioner Demar Dahl said, “where you’d make the decision to start watering these horses, and then we say, ‘OK, now because we’re shut down, quit drinking.’”
Dahl wanted to know how many horses are left without water and dying.
“It doesn’t matter whether you love horses or hate horses,” he said. “It’s just egregious to think that you’re going to put them in a position where they depend on you and then walk away.”
Washed out roads complicated the problem, Wiscombe said. One spot hadn’t been watered for about a month because the road was impassable.
“We could go investigate and find out if they are dying. If they are, the county has a water truck, we can go haul water out there,” Dahl said.
The county also has a bulldozer, he added, to level washed out roads.
However, a county water-hauling project would need to be approved as an agenda item, according to County Manager Rob Stokes. If residents decided to haul water with private equipment, though, it wouldn’t be a county issue.
Dahl said he planned to fly an airplane over the two spots Thursday to see if he could tell how many horses were in need of water. Dahl and Commissioner Jeff Williams both own dozers, which they said could fix the road depending on its condition.
Rainstorms provide temporary puddles for the horses to drink, Wiscombe said, but the land won’t hold water for long.
Due to the shutdown, calls to the BLM state office and U.S. Department of Interior went unanswered.
October 1st Protect Mustangs warned the feds would neglect the wild horses in captivity http://protectmustangs.org/?p=5280 . Apparently the BLM is neglecting their life or death care in the field as well.
Government shutdown puts 50,000 captive wild horses at-risk of neglect
Conservation group call for moratorium on removals for scientific studies
RENO, NV. (October 1, 2013)–The government shutdown jeopardizes 50,000 American wild horses stockpiled in federally funded holding facilities. For example, today some mustangs are caught in limbo from the controversial Sheldon Wildlife Refuge roundup in Nevada orchestrated by the Forest Service. Protect Mustangs has been warning the Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) about the fiscally irresponsibility to remove close to 80% of the native wild horses and burros off the range in order to fast-track the New Energy Frontier at great ecological expense. The BLM’s claims of overpopulation have been debunked by The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report stating there is “no evidence” of overpopulation.
“The public is up in arms wanting to know who will feed and care for the wild horses and burros during the shutdown,” states Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “This is a perfect example of why wild horses and burros should be living on the range and why 80% of America’s wild horses and burros should not be kept in federally funded facilities. That said, we don’t endorse the use of fertility control without population studies first. We want good science to govern policy. Tobacco science and guesstimates got the feds and the American taxpayer in this mess in the first place.”
Today some wild horses are stuck in limbo at temporary holding. They were rounded up from the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge and haven’t been given to government contractors who receive $1,000.00 per horse to take them off the feds hands and adopt them out.
“We are concerned the wild horses are suffering in pens without care,” states Kerry Becklund, director of outreach for Protect Mustangs. “We want to have access to monitor captive wild horses to ensure their care. We have volunteers who will help at all the holding facilities as needed during the government shutdown. We’re here to help.”
Protect Mustangs is against the removal of native wild horses from public land especially from a wildlife sanctuary where they belong. Wild horses are not an invasive species nor are they “pests” as the EPA wrongly named them in order to pass a controversial “restricted use pesticide” known as Porcine zona pellucida (PZP) under the name ZonaStat-H, for use on wild horses and burros. PZP is an immunocontraception made from pigs ovaries and did not pass the FDA.
This year the NAS released a report on the Wild Horse and Burro Program wherein they stated there was “no evidence” of overpopulation. Despite the statement by the esteemed scientific Academy, the BLM continues to endorse myths of alleged overpopulation.
The BLM has pumped up their population guesstimates to justify federal spending increases to roundup and warehouse the majority of America’s wild horses and burros who are using less than 3% of public land.
“It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes,” reveals Novak. “Everyone is being fooled there is an overpopulation issue when in fact they are underpopulated on the range today. We are calling for an immediate moratorium on roundups and removals for scientific population studies.”
“With the gluttony of roundups and removals, wild horses reproduce at a higher rate than normal–to prevent extinction,” explains Novak. “We need scientific studies to establish what the normal reproduction rate is, under normal circumstances and discover scientific truths about wild horses and burros. Today there is no scientific proof of BLM’s alleged overpopulation to merit fertility control, roundups or removals.”
The Wild Horse and Burro Program costs have been rising rapidly, from $38.8 million in Fiscal Year 2007 to $74.9 million in Fiscal Year 2012. Now 59 percent of the funding ($43 million) goes to holding costs. Despite a troubled economy, the administration wants to remove additional native wild equids and requested an additional $4 million in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.
When the wild equids live out on the range it costs virtually nothing to “keep” them on their native habitat. They help reduce the risks of wildfires and reverse desertification. That’s the beauty of native wildlife filling their niche in the ecosystem.
The New Energy Frontier push is the reason for massive roundups on public land since 2009-10, when the former Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, introduced his “Plan”.
In 1971 the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act designated 339 herd areas on 53.8 million acres. Today only 179 herd areas remain on 31.6 million acres. The herd areas have been zeroed out for oil, gas, livestock and mining interests to capitalize on the land legally allocated to wild horses and burros for primary, but not exclusive, use.
In 1900 there were 2 million wild horses roaming in America. Today less than 17,000 estimated wild horses remain in all 10 western states combined. The BLM’s estimate, over 37,000, is grossly inflated to justify additional removals and hide the true threat of extinction facing America’s wild horses and burros.
“We want to find the win-win–to return all the wild horses and burros to their native range so they can balance out the environmental devastation caused by the New Energy Frontier,” states Novak. “There is a way for this to work out but first we need scientific studies to make sure it’s done right.”
Protect Mustangs is a San Francisco-based conservation group, with an international membership base, devoted to protecting native wild horses. Their mission is to educate the public about the indigenous wild horse, protect and research American wild horses on the range and help those who have lost their freedom.
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Media Contacts:
Anne Novak, Anne@ProtectMustangs.org, 415-531-8454
Most Activities on BLM-Nevada Managed Lands to be Suspended due to Federal Government Shutdown
As a result of the Federal government shutdown, essentially all services provided by the Bureau of Land Management will be suspended, with the exception of law enforcement and emergency response functions. Approximately 4,000 recreation facilities, including visitor centers, facilities, campgrounds, boat ramps and other recreation sites will be closed.
With an estimated $4.8 billion in revenues in 2012, the BLM nationally returns more than four dollars for every budget dollar it receives. The BLM manages 245 million acres – more than any of the nation’s major natural resource agencies, with the smallest budget, the fewest employees, and the lowest cost.
While the BLM will maintain the minimum staffing levels required to ensure continued safe management of the nation’s energy resources, issuing new oil and gas leases and permits will cease. Limited work will continue to ensure safe operations of domestic energy supplies, including inspection and enforcement activities for oil and gas wells on federal land in Nevada.
Recreation activities on BLM-managed lands will be similarly impacted. Public lands receive more than 57 million visitors every year, contributing more than $7 billion to local economies. In FY2012, Nevada received more than 7 million visitors contributing more than $547 (total funds) million to local economies.
Suspended activities and services will include:
· non-emergency Abandoned Mine Land and hazardous-materials mitigation
· processing of oil and gas drilling permits
· processing of lease sales, permits and other non-emergency authorizations of onshore oil
and gas, coal and other minerals
· permits and approvals for renewable energy and other rights-of -way issuances
· Endangered Species Act and cultural clearances
· range management restoration
· wild horse and burro adoptions
· sand and gravel permits
· timber sales
· work on resource management plans, including those driven by court deadlines
Suspended activities will resume once Congressional approves a budget for Fiscal Year 2014.
Because the BLM website will not be maintained for the duration of the shutdown, the BLM will be re-directing to Interior’s site, where additional information will be available at www.DOI.gov/shutdown as well as at OPM.gov.
In Nevada, the BLM closures include all offices and facilities, which includes all recreation sites such as Red Rock Canyon, improved campgrounds such as Indian Creek, and the California National Trail Center in Elko.
The BLM Nevada will furlough 891 of its approximate 927 employees during the funding lapse. After the initial shutdown procedures are completed, the BLM Nevada will maintain a total of 36 excepted employees.
1. Wild horses and burros are no less “wild” animals than are the grizzly bears that roam our national parks and forests (Mountain States v. Hodel) neither the states of the federal government have the right to harm Our Heritage Wildlife as found by the 1995 Supreme court Ruling Babbit v.Sweet Home.
2. The Babbit v Sweet Home case found that the term “take” means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19)
3. By a 6-3 vote, the Court upheld the statutory authority of the Secretary of the Interior to include “habitat modification and degradation” as conduct which constitutes “harm” under the ESA.
In addition to the statutory provisions described above,
4. Section 5 of the ESA authorizes the Secretary to purchase the lands on which the survival of the species depends. Accordingly, Sweet Home maintained that this Section 5 authority was “the Secretary’s only means of forestalling that grave result [i.e. possible extinction)
5. As a result, based upon “the text, structure, and legislative history of the ESA the Supreme Court concluded that “the Secretary reasonably construed the intent of Congress when he defined ‘harm’ to include ‘significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife species.
6. Pursuant to BLM’s 2001 Special Status Species Policy requirement that “sensitive” species be afforded, at a minimum, the same protections as candidate species for listing under the ESA. It called on BLM managers to “obtain and use the best available information deemed necessary to evaluate the status of special status species in areas affected by land use plans . . . .
7. See Policy at § 6840.22A. Under the Policy, those land use plans “shall be sufficiently detailed to identify and resolve significant land use conflicts with special status species without deferring conflict resolution to implementation-level planning.” Id. (Case 4:08-cv-00516-BLW Document 131 Filed 09/28/11 Page 8 of 37 (Sagegrouse decision)
Official request to terminate roundup agreement, request DNA testing, separate unbranded wild horses, etc. (August 15, 2013): http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4969
SHARE because having the place to take in rescued wild horses for gentling and adoption means saving wild horses from slaughter! We need your help to find this donated or low cost place in the Bay Area!
If we had the facility we could have taken at least one truckload of 30+ wild horses from the horrible Sheldon Roundup that just happened.
HELP us find the facility and land to help the horses. We are filing for our 501c3 nonprofit status because we have attained our goals during these past 2 years and serve America’s wild horses with no agenda outside of helping them.
As BLM has prepared the EA to consider the environmental impacts of resulting from grazing livestock and wild horses at various levels. I submit to you the following as the basis for my comments. Also I emphatically question the allegation that wild horses contribute to the degradation of habitat if given access to their migratory and native ranges on this landscape.
1. livestock grazing impacts must be mitigated by retiring the allotment.
2. inventories of free roaming wild horses must be maintained at genetic violable levels as a special status species and/ or distinct population segment, and candidate for ESA listing based on loss of habitat.
3. Wild horse herds are eligible for inclusion on ACEC and Multiple Species Habitat plans.
4. BLM is required to consult with the counties and comply with local RMP policies regarding cultural historic preservation, and ESA mandates.
5. Compliance with National Preservation Act Sec 106..please include attachment into these submitted comments.
Per case law the BLMs powers to maintain and control the population of wild horses is severely restricted. As Federal Judge Rosemary M. Conyers stated in her ruling against the BLM in the Colorado Wild Horse and Burro Coalition caseBLMs authority to manage wild free-roaming horses and burros is expressly made subject to the provisions of this chapter[,] 16 U.S.C. § 1333(a), including the provision that [i]t is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture . . . . Id. § 1331. It would be anomalous to infer that by authorizing the custodian of the wild free roaming horses and burros to manage them, Congress intended to permit the animals custodian to subvert the primary policy of the statute by capturing and removing from the wild the very animals that Congress sought to protect from being captured and removed from the wild.
Wild horses are native wildlife by fossil evidence, by Congressional designation, Heritage Preservation cultural landscape laws, and case law. They meet the criteria as rare, threatened and endangered for protection from extinction.
Mountain States v. Hodel Wild findings determined that horses and burros are no less wild animals than are the grizzly bears that roam our national parks and forests
and BLM states ” The issue of a wild horse as an invasive species is moot since the 1971 WHBA gave wild free-roaming horses “special” status based on their heritage of assisting man settle the “west”
.”
A sensitive species pursuant to BLM’s 2001 Special Status Species Policy requires that sensitivespecies be afforded, at a minimum, the same protections as a candidate species for listing under the ESA. This was a confirmed finding in the sagegrouse decision.
Finding of fact from Mountain States v. Hodel In structure and purpose, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act is nothing more than a land-use regulation enacted by Congress to ensure the survival of a particular species of wildlife.
The overabundance of livestock on these checkerboard lands diminish the natural ecological balance. For-profit livestock outnumber wild horses and burros approximately 150 to 1 on land that by law must comply with ESA mandates to ensure the continuity of wildlife species, also protected under the Doctrine of public trust.,
The BLM manual, section 6840 (Special Status Species Management), provides overall policy direction to BLM managers to conserve listed threatened or endangered species on BLM administered lands, and to ensure that actions authorized on BLM administered lands do not contribute to the need to list federal candidate, state‑listed or BLM sensitive species. USFWS also shares the responsibility for consultation under the for- mentioned mandates on RMP properties.
(§ 1610.7-2 ) Areas having potential for Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC)
Areas having potential for Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) designation and protection shall be identified and considered throughout the resource management planning process (see §§1610.41 through 1610.49).
(a) The inventory data shall be analyzed to determine whether there are areas containing resources, values, eligible for further consideration for designation as an ACEC. In order to be a potential ACEC, both of the following criteria shall be met:
(1) Relevance. There shall be present a significant historic, cultural, scenic value or wildlife resource
(2) Importance. The above described value, resource, system, process, shall have substantial significance and values. This generally requires qualities of more than local significance and special worth, consequence, meaning, distinctiveness, or cause for concern.
(b) The approval of a resource management plan, plan revision, or plan amendment constitutes formal designation of any ACEC involved. The approved plan shall include the general management practices and uses, including mitigating measures, identified to protect designated ACEC.
Proper enforcement of the law would support an RMP amendment while drastically reducing the budgets of both federal agencies charged with implementing the protection of wild horses and /or burros. Compliance with well established case laws requiring conservation/preservation/inventory, and maintenance would provide sufficient habitat critical to sustain the continuity of our heritage wild horse and burro herds as Congress intended.
Last but not least I would like to bring to your attention to the similarities of purpose between and ACEC and Herd Area to provide sufficient migratory ranges for a rare, threatened and endangered wildlife species.
