Bureau of Land Management
Nevada State Office (NSO)
Carson City District Office
5665 Morgan Mill Road
Carson City, NV 89701

Attn: WHB Motorized Hearing

Here are the comments and recommendations that I would have submitted for reading aloud at the annual Wild Horse and Burro “Motorized Hearing.”  I call on NSO to hold a proper hearing on the matter and to share my concerns for discussion by the attendees.

But First — The Issue of the Hearing Itself

The NSO recently scheduled their required annual hearing on the subject of using motorized vehicles and aircraft in the management of wild horses and burros.  The  topic is controversial, and because Nevada is the flagship state in terms of numbers of herd management areas, the matter is of both state-wide and nation-wide concern to many constituents.  However, NSO announced the event only five business days in advance, with the meeting held May 29, the Tuesday right after the Memorial Day holiday.  Further, this public hearing, hosted by the Carson City District Office, was not advertised in one of the major newspapers — such as the Reno Gazette-Journal (daily circulation: 75,174) or the Las Vegas Review-Journal (daily cir: 202,850).  Instead, NSO chose the Mesquite Citizen Journal, an on-line-only, recent start-up (2011) that serves a small town (“Our news is … all about Mesquite”) that is remote (487 miles) from the hearing’s venue.  In essence, NSO used a community blog to announce a major public meeting.

The substandard aspects of NSO’s handling of this event —

• Short notice for an annual, required hearing of state and national significance;
• Scheduled immediately following a holiday weekend, when many folks would be out of town;
• Announcement buried in an obscure on-line-only forum, where it would be least likely to be seen

— appear designed to suppress public involvement.  Indeed, by the time the notice was discovered, purely by chance, there was not enough time to make plans to attend.  Only four persons participated.  The effect of NSO’s deceitful tactics was to restrict the public’s involvement in setting policy regarding a controversial matter of importance.

The NSO’s misconduct in this regard reflects poorly on the Bureau’s administration.  The bad behavior suggests a state office that …

• Disdains the public-participation component,
• Dismisses such hearings as merely perfunctory, and
• Operates by devious methods.

Surely, such impressions are not the ones you wish conveyed.

The Solution

In reaction to the backlash that ensued, NSO merely substituted a comment period to last two weeks.  That response does not constitute adequate redress.  Conspicuously absent is the scheduling of a replacement hearing, with 30-days’ advance notice, properly advertised.  Because the requirement at issue is for a hearing, and because NSO hindered the public’s ability to take part in the original event, it must correct this situation and deal with the misbehavior.

Accordingly, NSO should …

• Hold a full and open new hearing, with robust discussion of ideas promoted.
• Provide 30-days’ advance notice, posted in major newspapers.
• Invite the Division Chief to attend.
• Discipline those staff involved in the efforts to conceal the hearing.
• Exercise greater administrative control, upholding BLM’s standards of integrity.

End Helicopter Roundups

I urge BLM-Nevada to implement bait trapping as the method for rounding up wild horses and burros.  Please do so immediately.  Helicopter roundups should have been abolished long ago.  The spectacle of this brutal roundup method being used against the wild horses and burros has horrified the nation.  It is in the Agency’s own self-interest to stop incurring bad publicity and to reform your methods.

Helicopter Stampede — An Inhumane Roundup Method

BLM’s use of helicopters to round up wild horses and burros is inhumane.  This point cannot be emphasized enough.  The horses are terrified by the thunderous, high-intensity noise and chaos as they are pursued by the low-flying helicopters.  They are blasted with sand, dirt, and gravel from the rotor wash.  Panicked, they stampede, injure themselves, and become separated from their babies and band-mates.  Mares miscarry and foals are orphaned.  Many die from stress, even more have to be euthanized.  Conducting the roundup during the middle of summer is abusive, especially to young foals, older horses, and pregnant mares.  Winter roundups are cruel in the opposite extreme.

Per BLM’s own statistics one percent of the horses are expected to die as a result of a helicopter roundup and at least another five percent perish once the horses are placed in short-term holding.  This does not include the dead foals.  Running the horses over rough terrain for up to 10 miles wrecks the delicate hooves of the newborns, resulting in lameness and even death.  BLM seems incapable of understanding that a gather method that produces so much suffering and death is unacceptable.  Helicopters must no longer be used for roundups.

Kind Roundup Method Only

The NSO should effect an immediate switch to the kind approach to gathering wild horses and burros:  Bait trapping.  Such trapping is accomplished slowly, quietly, and gently.  It enables the gathering of one band at a time, thus preserving family bonds.

Nevada is the lead state when it comes to wild horses and burros.  Its BLM staff should exemplify best management practices (BMPs) with regard to the mustangs.  The BMPs should feature only kind, gentle treatment of these beloved animals.

I note that Joan Guilfoyle, Division Chief, announced the Agency’s intent to enter into contracts for bait-trapping services as early as July 1, 2012.  Evidently, BLM’s national office is fast-tracking this reform.  I urge BLM-Nevada to be first-in-line to transition to the superior bait-trapping approach and to use it exclusively.  Repair your image at the earliest opportunity.

When to Gather

Autumn is the ideal time to gather wild horses and burros.  Foals are older, and temperatures are cooler.  Small-scale, annual fall events will mean fewer horses coming up for adoption, and they will be available just in time for the holidays.

Kind Method — Benefits to BLM’s Public Image

The Bureau will enhance its image in the public’s perception if it embraces whole-heartedly the new way of gathering the mustangs.  The stature of the Wild Horse and Burro Specialists will be enhanced by the new duty of coordinating and supervising the gentle gathers.  Goodwill will be achieved.  Mustang advocates, no longer antagonized and alienated, will become BLM allies.  Aren’t these worthy goals?

Kind Methods — Benefits to BLM’s Budget

By scaling down the gathers and scheduling them annually, the horse adoption market won’t be overwhelmed — as it is now — and fewer mustangs will need to be placed in expensive long-term holding.  Such an approach will prove cost-effective, enabling BLM to redirect its budget to rangeland improvements, such as the installation of water-catchment guzzlers throughout the HMAs.  Further, if BLM expedites its approval of sanctuaries and preserves currently under review, costs could probably be reduced even more.

Aerial Inventories — Lead to Over-Counts

It is difficult to accurately count mustangs by means of a flyover.  This is especially true in the Silver State, where so many “Nevada Browns” make it difficult to tell horses apart and to know for sure that they haven’t been counted already.  Due to wild horses’ roving nature (they are known to roam up to 50 miles a day), if the inventory is taken over a number of days, as is usually the case, many instances of counting the same animals is probable.  BLM acknowledges that the wild horses move freely back and forth across the invisible boundaries of the HMAs.  Therefore, it is likely that horses are being double-counted.  Further, the wild horses noted outside the borders of the HMAs may have wandered there only temporarily, and may have already been counted while inside, thus adding to the over-count.

Aerial inventories tend to include “rock horses” that fool the eye of the census-takers who are high above the landscape in an aircraft traveling at relatively high speeds.  Cows may be mistaken for horses.  Deer may get counted too.

Then there is the problem of observer fatigue, which sets in after hours in a cramped, stuffy aircraft cabin, craning one’s neck to peer out the grimy windows, counting what look like they might be horses, and then quickly turning back to one’s notepad to jot down the numbers.  The process repeats.  And repeats.  It gets tiresome.  The aircraft contractor and the census-takers know what they are supposed to find: Excess horses.  Funds have been budgeted for a roundup, and with government allocations, it’s either “use ’em or lose ’em.”  Why, even the modeling projections say there are excess horses.  Just like the estimates predicted.  So, excess horses are found.  Confirmation bias at work.

Recommendations:  NSO should contract the census-taking function to independent experts, ideally ones associated with a university that has a strong animal sciences program.  NSO should research new technologies for remotely tracking wild horses and burros and then procure the system that best serves the purpose.  There might even be a way to link the tracking devices to a data-base that would store comprehensive information on each animal.  By employing technological approaches to tracking, BLM will secure accurate, reliable data for management purposes.

Aircraft Census and Gather Contractor — Conflict of Interest if One and the Same

In addition to the likelihood of an over-count resulting in an unnecessary roundup, if the same contractor handled both census and gather, a concern would be raised regarding an apparent conflict of interest.  Such a contractor could be motivated to find a population excess as well as horses outside the HMA so that there would then be a need for a roundup.  The potential conflict pertains to the incentive to increase revenues by providing two different billable services.

Recommendation:  By making census-taking a separate and independent function, the apparent conflict will be avoided.

Helicopters — Crash-Prone

Helicopters are notorious for crashes.  Indeed, in the past year alone — March 7, 2011 to March 6, 2012 — the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated 122 major helicopter crashes that occurred in the United States.  At the link below, you can perform the search to verify this information.

• http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/index.aspx

If a crash occurred during a helicopter-roundup, the pilot, BLM staff, observers, and the wild horses and burros could be hurt.  Even the environment is at risk.  A crash could set off a fire, especially in times of drought, when there is an abundance of dry brush.  Of particular note, over one hundred crashes have occurred of helicopters and planes conducting aerial hunting, whose procedures closely resemble those involved in rounding up wild equids.  Just as with BLM gathers, aerial-hunting pilots fly only a few feet off the ground and perform risky maneuvers from which they may not be able to recover.

• http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0422-15.htm

Moreover, the long hours involved, and the frustrations of working with uncooperative, unpredictable animals, can lead to pilot error.  Video documentation is plentiful of helicopter pilots ramming horses and burros with their landing skids, seemingly intentionally.

Below is the link to a slide presentation “Human Factors in Helicopter Accidents” that accompanied the keynote address given by NTSB Board Member Robert Sumwalt at the Fifth International Helicopter Safety Symposium.

• http://www.ihst.org/portals/54/ihss/Execs_and_Sumwalt/NTSB%20Sumwalt.pdf

Mr. Sumwalt’s talk focused on a crash that occurred in New Mexico during a search-and-rescue flight.  I noted similarities between the factors that led to the crash in question and the conditions, standard operating procedures, and observed pilot behavior in BLM helicopter roundups.  The factors that were deemed to have played a significant role in the New Mexico incident could very well have applied to any of a number of BLM helicopter roundups recently reported on by independent observers.  Those factors included:

Flight conditions

• Remote, mountainous terrain
• Windy conditions
• Twilight, less than 2 hours of daylight

Organizational

• Culture that prioritized mission execution at all costs
• Weak requirements for risk assessment during the mission
• Actions and attitudes detrimental to safety
• Lack of a “safety-focused culture”

Pilot

• Fatigue
• Self-induced pressure to conduct the flight
• Situational stress that “… distracted him from identifying and evaluating alternative courses of action”
• Inadequate pilot staffing
• Personal temperament — “very aggressive, high-speed type”
• Long work hours and sleep disruptions due to work-related phone calls at night

To the above I would add, other apparent BLM organizational deficiencies:

Organizational

• Need to stick to the scheduled time-frame for completing the roundup
• Pressure to appear to reduce exaggerated estimated herd levels to low-AML
• Culture of secrecy and deception regarding helicopter roundup flights
• Public allowed only on certain days and hours, otherwise barred
• Observers kept far away from the action, view blocked
• Road closures to prevent access
• Staff acting as chaperones to restrict observers’ documentation
• COR/PI failure to stop the pilot’s pitiless harassment of exhausted horses

Pilot

• Financial incentive to round up as many horses/burros as fast as possible
• Evident haste to bring the bands in, forcing them to gallop over rough ground
• Aggressive, sadistic prodding and ramming of horses and burros with the landing skids to make them move faster, causing at least one burro to somersault
• Impatience, anger, frustration, recklessness, and vindictiveness reflected in the roundup pilot’s patterns of behavior — egregious emotions that can lead to unwise decisions and result in an accident

According to experts, human error remains the causal factor in more than 80 percent of helicopter mishaps.  BLM has been gambling that the risky behavior involved in its helicopter roundups can continue without a disaster.  But the odds are against it.  Such roundups are tragedies waiting to happen.  It is the height of negligence to continue them.  There really is no safe way to conduct a helicopter roundup.  BLM’s desire for “efficiency” comes at the expense of safety.  Helicopters are, therefore, unsuitable for gathering wild horses and burros.

Recommendation:  End helicopter roundups.

Motorized Transport — Long Travel is Cruel, and Results in Illness, Deaths

While NSO may view its responsibilities as ending after gathered horses are taken to short-term holding, most of the thousands of captured wild horses are being sent to long-term holding.  Which brings up transport time.  Prolonged confinement in trailer-travel is bad for horses’ health.  BLM’s procedures call for mustangs that are in transit to be offloaded, rested, watered, and fed during journeys lasting more than 24 hours.  However, the rest-stop provision may be waived (and probably usually is) if the “stress” of receiving a rest stop is deemed likely greater than the stress of uninterrupted travel.  The procedures I’ve reviewed do not reveal who makes this determination or who monitors compliance.  It is difficult to envision any scenario that would provide for an easy offloading of wild horses.  Are there pre-identified facilities along the way for this purpose?  BLM does not say, but probably not.  Thus, the supposed provision for humane transport is merely theoretical.  The mustangs suffer terribly, since these trips to long-term holding surely take more than 24 hours.

On the “Tips for Traveling with Horses” episode of the “Best of America by Horseback” show that aired on RFD-TV on February 16, 2011, the guest veterinarian advised that horses should not be transported longer than 12 hours.  Studies have disclosed a higher incidence of fevers and respiratory infections when travel-time exceeds 12 hours.  Thus, there is no doubt that the wild horses, already stressed and crowded together in a cattle-car for more than twice that amount of time, will suffer illnesses as a direct result of the prolonged transport.  The extended period in transit may be one reason why mustang mortalities in long-term holding (eight percent) exceed both those that occur in roundups (one percent) and those that take place in short-term holding (five percent).

Recommendations:  NSO should create a task force to come up with ways of routing horses so that time in transit is always less than 12 hours.  The team needs to develop not just procedures but definitive ways of verifying driver compliance.  Possibly, electronic tracking mechanisms could be placed on the trailers to monitor location, speed, and other data.  Intermediate check-points could be established.  The task force should include wild horse and burro advocates.  If NSO has still not yet done so, this is a perfect opportunity to implement coordinated resource management (CRM) with regard to the wild horse stakeholders.  Doing so will admittedly be challenging because mustang advocates come from across the country.  The good news is that, with modern communications, previous barriers to such partnerships have fallen.  BLM needs to cooperate, consult, and coordinate with mustang advocates, just as the Agency does with its grazing permittees.  The CRM approach will result in consensus-based decisions and the development of best management practices — again, those BMPs — concerning wild horses and burros.

Too Long Standing Still

There is also a concern about the length of time horses may be kept in trailers that are not moving.  BLM’s policy says that wild horses may not be left standing “… for a combined period of greater than three (3) hours.”  Crammed into a trailer in the hot sun, three hours is a long time.  This provision needs to be reconsidered and reformed.  Also, BLM needs to devise a way to monitor to ensure contract drivers are operating their truck safely, and in a way that minimizes stress on the horses.  Merely having rules and securing assurances are not enough.  Trust, but verify.

Recommendations:  Total time for the horses to be confined in a trailer without the vehicle being in motion should be limited to 1½ hours.  During rest and refueling stops, the trailer should be parked so that it is protected from the elements.  This is another aspect to the transit-time issue that must be resolved by the task force in conjunction with wild horse advocates.

Summary

The Nevada State Office should move swiftly to end its use of helicopters and airplanes in the management of wild horses and burros.  NSO should welcome the new bait-trapping method, implement it exclusively in every field office, and proudly let the world see the humane approach that is being taken.  With the funds saved by eliminating the expensive helicopter bills, NSO can proceed with range improvements.  The cost savings can also be invested in purchasing advanced technological devices for tracking the wild horses and burros and keeping a data-base.  The census-taking function should be handled by independent experts affiliated with a research center.  Regarding ground vehicles, NSO should create a task force to come up with ways of transporting horses to reduce transit time.  The team needs to develop not just procedures but definitive ways of verifying compliance.  Wild horse advocates must be fully involved in setting policy.

Finally, I urge NSO to reschedule the 2012 “WHB Motorized Hearing,” this time with proper and ample notice.  NSO needs to demonstrate that management adheres to high standards and expects the same of staff members.

Sincerely,

Marybeth Devlin