They continue the cruelty

“It was hot with the desert sun beating down on PVC,” explains Anne Novak. “We were in the car with the AC on and the poor captive mustang was suffering and clinging to the fence for a strip of shade.”

Dear Friends of Wild Horses & Burros,

Last week we visited the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Palomino Valley Center near Reno, Nevada. It’s the largest short-term holding and adoption facility in the U.S. for captive wild horses and burros coming from the roundups. We have been deeply concerned the BLM continues to commit acts of animal cruelty towards captive wild horses and burros despite international public outcry so we investigated the situation again.

During 85 degree sunny high desert weather, many wild horses in the pens were showing signs of heat stress with rapid breathing. Their coats were coming in for the winter and some mustangs were clinging to the fence and the feeders for what little shade they could find. It was a heartbreaking sight.

The majority of the pens had no shade or shelter. Some shade “studies” appear to be ongoing in the sick pens and another internal pen.

Many wild horses were overweight and their feet looked horrible. Many young wild horses have developed clubbed feet due to lack of proper foot care after being taken off the range by the feds. In the wild, their feet wear down naturally but when captured it is the BLM’s responsibility to care for them.

The majority of captive wild horses looked depressed. The burros looked unhappy too.

The BLM has repeatedly refused offers to help bring shade and shelter to the wild captives and is telling elected officials they are “doing something” by conducting studies with U.C. Davis to determine if shade and shelter is needed. Their PR tactics are outrageous. Everyone knows penned animals need access to shelter in extreme weather!

Right now the BLM is committing heinous acts of cruelty and must be held 100% accountable. The three basics of animal husband are 1.) Food, 2.) Water 3.) Shelter. Does each pen of wild horses or burros provide access to shelter? No.

With the recent good news that the feds will make animal cruelty a top-tier felony, it’s time right NOW to contact your elected officials and request for immediate action to bring shade and shelter to all captive wild horses and burros in ALL the pens not just select sick pens.

PM Shade Cruelty

Take action to inform your voices in government that the BLM’s ongoing shade studies are delaying action and causing captive wild equids ongoing suffering.

Make an appointment to meet in person with your representative and senators. Politely request they stop the animal cruelty–paid for with tax dollars. If you cannot go in person then send them this video: http://bit.ly/1nr5d2M from our 2013 investigation and let them know that since this video was taken, only a few sick pens appear to have flimsy shade structures. Kindly remind them that animal cruelty is becoming a top-tier felony so they need to take it seriously. More than a thousand wild horses and burros are being abused in the pens because the BLM and the Department of Interior are denying them access to shelter.

You may contact Congress here: http://bit.ly/1ihTCwj . Send your elected officials a handwritten letter and encourage your children to mail in drawings asking for shelter too.

For everyone who has signed this petition, we must pull together to double the number of signatures and then we have a plan to make a big impact . . .

Email the petition http://chn.ge/ZGEgx3 to everyone you know with a personal plea asking them to sign and share it so together we can pressure the BLM to bring them shade and shelter. Share the petition daily on your Facebook page and in groups asking others to share out because more extreme weather is coming soon.

Public opinion is very important with elections only weeks away. Let’s put it to work to stop the abuse of America’s wild horses and burros. Hold your elected officials accountable to STOP the CRUELTY now!

In deep gratitude,
Anne

Anne Novak
Executive Director
www.ProtectMustangs.org
https://twitter.com/TheAnneNovak
https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs

Sign and Share the DEFUND and STOP the ROUNDUPS Petition: http://www.change.org/p/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

8 thoughts on “They continue the cruelty

  1. All the good folks I know who have saved mustangs from BLM and other auction sources, are struggling hard to keep their new families fed and trimmed and wormed. Minimal training is needed for captive wild horses to be handled with little to no stress or fear for trims and vet checks. Anne has been working with mustangs for years. Anne is a great negotiator and her background with 501 work and now her own has put her out front as a transparent and successful strategist who has done amazing work to save wild horses torn off their land. Please donate! As a horse professional I ask you to choose Protect Mustangs to help them fight for the lands and the future of our public held and possessed wild horses and burros! Help save captives along with Protect Mustangs. Be a part of a progressive and humane .org that wants to save wild horses on their lands and keep their 1971 law respected, enforced and strengthened. Help keep this worthy and excellent .org operating for the wild ones both captive and free. Help Protect Mustangs GROW and develop the programs and the goals that will keep wild horses on their designated lands and not in private sanctuaries where they will never belong to the public again. Please don’t allow our wild horses to be lost from the very lands they evolved upon and became our Indigenous wild horses. Their history is still being written and their past is still being revealed. Don’t let them disappear for the greed and the wrongly sanctioned green energy that feeds the grid and not on rooftops of homes and businesses and schools! Move the cattle allotments off the WFH&B Act lands NOW! Stop the roundups!!! Stand with Protect Mustangs against the use and abuse of PZP on wild horses and burros. Help us create a new management based upon science and independent studies. 10 Year Moratorium! Stop BLM mistreatment of our wild ones. We want them to thrive in freedom. Help us do this!

  2. The BLM needs to follow the rules that they set for people that want to adopt. It is a crime to mistreat animals in this country. So, a stop should be to the BLM mistreating the wild horses. I live in Alaska. I would take some of the 3 strikes horses and I know other people that would take some. But, the BLM don’t come to Alaska. which would be nice if they did…

  3. Now that the FBI is treating animal abuse as a felony, it is time to get BLM indicted.

  4. These wild horses deserve to be treated with respect and compassion, they are wild and free born and should remain that way.. Stop BLM with your inhumane treatment of America’s Wild Treasures.

  5. It is a travesty that we yank these beautiful creatures out of the wild, where during hot summer temperatures they would normally seek shade in outcrops of rocks and trees and bushes. Living in pens, under the premise of care and control of the BLM, they should be afforded the same, just as any domestic pet after all. It isn’t a huge expense to put up simple shade areas so they at least have the option. They are confined by us humans after all! Many horses, given extreme exposure to sun, get sunburn just like humans do. As an avid hiker, and hiking during hot, sunny days, I have rarely seen a wild animal sitting in the sun except lizards. The few remaining burros I have run across have always been hanging out under outcrops of rocks during the hottest parts of the day.

  6. I have signed the petition and I will share it with everyone I know. It sickens me that the BLM is not even providing the most basic needs for these animals. It’s bad enough that the roundups ever took place to begin with, and now, to know that they are penned up in captivity without any basic shelter is disgusting. The lack of empathy from government officials toward the animals under their system of control is alarming. No agency such as the BLM should have anything to do with the care of animals. They should be prosecuted for neglect as no agency is above the law either. I will contact my representatives individually and try to get my point across to them, maybe if enough of us put pressure on them, they will finally put pressure on the BLM and stop this madness.

  7. There is no reason for this short of greed. Oil and gas companies need this land for more fracking and pipelines. This is not land that can be taken illegally. We have families that are disappointed when they go west to see herds of wild horses running wild and free. The Govt needs to step in and keep this promise. Raining them up with helicopters and penning them up not trimming their hooves, dying in the hot sun or cold of winter as they have no shelter is animal abuse in its worse for. Running loose they cost nothing.. Our taxes pay for this. The money saved would help to cure Ebola. This is an atrocity.
    We must change this or these icons of freedom will be gone. Once they are gone the very memory by few will have had the pleasure of knowing this great horse who was a part of the PONY EXPRESS, GREAT COW HORSES. MOUNTS FOR THE CALLED.
    I WENT AMERICAN BACK. LET’S GET GOING. ALL OF US. LET’S SPREAD THE WORD. READ THIS GREAT ARTICLE. CONTACT FRIENDS. OUR TIME IS LIMITED. I WRITE AND CALL GOVT. OFFICIALS. I AND OTHER’S THAT DO THIS NEED YOUR HELP.
    WE CAN NOT STAND ALONE. WE MUST UNIFY.

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