Calico Roundup (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved)
Dear Mustang Friends,
We have witnessed cruelty as a result of the Calico roundup and join with other wild horse and burro advocates to demand the roundup stop now!
Please sign and share this petition to stop the roundup. We want to see the wild horses and burros returned to their wild land not warehoused in long-term holding.
Rounding up wild horses and burros to warehouse them in captivity is a cruel waste of more than 75 million taxpayer dollars annually. The 2010 Calico helicopter roundup was one of the deadliest in history.
Now, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is doing another helicopter roundup in Calico northeast of Gerlach, Nevada. The roundup will waste taxpayer dollars for 40-50 days.
The BLM is chasing up to 1,300 wild horses and burros over 1,041,000 acres of American range in order to round them up. There have been several documented instances of cruelty. We want this to stop now.
Wild horses and burros are healthy on the range and cost the American taxpayer virtually nothing to be left roaming in freedom. They foster biodiversity and graze on grass that helps to reduce wildfires. Wild horses have natural predators such as mountain lions that are often killed off to protect livestock.
If overpopulation would become a problem then humane solutions exist but another deadly helicopter roundup in winter is not the answer.
Wild horses have been scapegoated for range damage whereas the majority of damage is caused by huge amounts of livestock and “multiple-use” protects such as natural gas complexes and mining—not the few wild horses who are constantly moving across the landscape.
The horse originated in America. Despite being an indigenous species, today less than 19 thousand wild horses roam in the Western United States whereas in 1900, 2 million wild horses existed here.
No sound science justifies the Calico roundup and no accurate head count exists. The National Academy of Science study on wild horses and burros is only beginning but they will have nothing to study if all America’s horses are taken off the range.
Thriving Natural Ecological Balance (TNEB) exists in the Calico Complex today except for some “multiple use” damage from the extractive and livestock industries.
There is no “excess” of wild horses and burros because of the TNEB in the Tri-State Calico Complex. On public land, livestock dominates wild horses at 50 to 1.
If allowed to continue, the Calico roundup will destroy wildlife. Removing the majority of wild horses and burros, giving experimental contraceptives to those released and meddling with the natural balance of equine society by twisting the sex ratios creates a man-made stressful dynamic—aggravated by releasing more stallions than mares.
In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Free Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act, we ask you to take action according to the will of American taxpayers and animal loving people around the world. Mr. President and the United States Congress we ask you to stop the cruel and costly Tri-State Calico Complex roundup and return the wild horses and burros to their wild homelands where they can live in freedom and at minimal cost to the taxpayer.
In gratitude,
Anne Novak
Executive Director of Protect Mustangs