#BREAKING: Unions, wild equine advocates, scientists and Native Americans take a stand against experiments on wild horses and burros, PZP and sterilization

PM Photo Wild Horses ©AdventureJournalist

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Coalition boycotts meeting

Redmond, OR (April 13, 2016)—Americans are outraged. A government agency is experimenting and exploiting federally protected wild horses and burros. Advocates, unions and Native Americans are boycotting the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting in Redmond, Oregon today and Thursday. The primary stakeholder—the American public—is being ignored.

“Members of the livestock industry as well as members of the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board have suggested slaughter as a management tool for wild horses. Americans won’t stand for it. There would be an outbreak of protests nationwide. We will fight that abuse in the courts if the advisory board dare threaten the welfare of America’s wild horses.” —Stephanie Elias, community outreach organizer for Stop American Wild Horse Slaughter

“The Bureau of Land Management is usurping the caretaking role they have been mandated to uphold and are subjecting the mares in our nation’s wild horse and burro herds to pernicious and needless reproduction experimentation. The universities they are funding to do this research must acknowledge that this would never be of use or value in the domestic horse industry. I believe their agenda needs to be investigated before they are paid to do irrevocable harm to these horses. They have already changed the genetics and natural herd behavior. Ahimsa, do no harm, applies to animals as well as people. This is an abomination and must be stopped.” —Christine DeCarlo, Ph.D. in Zoology from Cornell, Advisory Board member for Protect Mustangs.

“The Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is useless, yet quite costly to the taxpayers. Circumventing the laws to protect America’s wild horses on public lands, this board represents ranchers who hold grazing permits on public lands only. The intent purpose of the WH&B Board was to protect and make sure wild horses remain safe and wild, and to regulate those ranchers who threaten, abuse, and even kill America’s wild horses. Not only does this board not protect the wild horses, their actual mission, but continues experimentation and using pesticides like PZP and GonaCon™ as birth control—darting the chemicals into wild horse mares. I speak for many Americans, in that humane principle’s and an ethic balance to manage our wild horses has been lost some time back. It’s time to restore them.” —John Cox, Oregonian and Vietnam Veteran

“The truth is, America’s wild horses are underpopulated on public land today. Even the National Academy of Sciences states there is ‘no evidence’ of overpopulation. The BLM’s arbitrary management levels (AML) are way too low for genetic diversity and survival. Fertility control and sterilization at this point endangers the survival of this cherished native species. Wild horses are indigenous to North America yet now the feds and special interest groups want to sterilize them and push them off public land. We offered to help adopt out all the pregnant mares from the last big Oregon roundup (http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8739) but our offer was ignored. The BLM doesn’t want to adopt out these wild horses they want to exploit them as lab animals. The advisory board is a joke. It’s biased towards slaughter, sterilization, pesticides for birth control and cattle as well as experiments.” —Anne Novak executive director of Protect Mustangs

“We want the burros to have the space they require under the law protecting them. In over a decade visiting the burro herds in the West, I don’t see any evidence of BLM’s claims of overpopulation. Everywhere I go it’s getting harder and harder to see burros and many have vanished all together. Why would people want to sterilize or inject the last surviving wild burro herds with pesticides like PZP for birth control? PZP is a slow road to extinction. What we need is creditable population counts for all the remaining burro herds. Advocates and BLM should work jointly for the census. Then we can find out what the real situation is.” —Carl Mrozek, filmmaker and contributor to CBS Sunday Morning

“The wild horse and burro program states that the number of adoptions have significantly gone downhill over a number of years because the market for them has decreased. But the truth is the BLM staff in charge of the BLM Internet adoption auctions do not make themselves available during the internet auction to process the applications required to bid. Since the BLM isn’t allowing employees to adopt loads of wild horses to sell them quickly for slaughter like they used to—adoptions have dropped. BLM’s forte is mismanagement whether it’s the horses and burros or their own staff.” —Afroditi Katsikis, founder of Tweet Equine

“We need to restore wild horse and burro areas as well as protections promised in the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Protection Bill. I would like to see Craig Downer’s Reserve Design succeed. Let’s keep in mind that wild horses are a ‘climax’ species and predators must be allowed as nature intended. Given a balanced ecology, which can be restored, wild horse population will self-regulate.” —Susan Leffingwell, director of Wind Dancer Wild Horse and Burro Preserve

“We the people of the Alaskan Tlingit Nation stand against the use of PZP and the sterilization of wild mustangs. Like the buffalo, the wolf, the bear and other animals the horse is just as sacred to our people as the bible is to Christians, the Koran to Muslims, Buddha to Buddhists. The use of PZP, ovarian ligation, or any form of sterilization would be considered sacrilege and an insult to our people and the majority of native people everywhere.” —Rudy Al James, federal tribal judge (Tlingkit Nation)

“PZP sterilizes our wild horses and destroys the wild mares’ reproductive organs. The pesticide disrupts the stability of the herds, causes fighting, still borns, birth defects, etc. and therefore we are against it.” —Tina Wooten, Salt River Wild Horse photographer and artist

“We have a lot to study and learn about America’s wild horses. If they are used as lab animals for experiments and sterilized then we can’t study their natural behaviors in the wild. —Anne Novak, founder of the American Wild Horse Institute

“Public land belongs to all of the American people not the livestock industry. There are 5 million cattle and very few Wild Horses. More than 80% of the American public wants our iconic wild horses to be wild and free—unencumbered by any government experimental birth control like the pesticides PZP, GpnaCon™, ovarian ligation or other heinous sterilizations. The livestock industry is the number one cause of global warming and is destroying America’s ecosystems and wildlife. Wild horses manage their own numbers and we want them left alone!” —Peter Souza, founder of the Wolf, Wildlife, Wild Horse Action Group (WWWHAG)

“As a person of Yaqui ancestry I am angered and saddened by the outrageous actions of our Government in their callous disregard and lack of respect for the wild mustangs in the western United States. These beautiful creatures need to exist unmolested and unfettered so they may live in harmony with nature, as it was meant to be. I implore you to cease your heinous acts of sterilization and blatant slaughter of these beautiful creatures in your grossly misguided efforts to control their population at the behest of disgruntled farmers or corporate interests.” —Debra Pavone (Yaqui Nation)

“As a collective of concerned union representatives, Native Americans and citizens, we strongly urge that the board and universities refrain from taking part in any practice of experimentation, sterilization or the use of PZP on any and all wild horses and burros.

We ask that you don’t play God, judge, jury and executioner.

Must we remind you that crimes against humanity also includes animals. It is not only wrong ethically and morally but once again it is wasteful spending of our tax dollars. The legal implications this can lead to will only cause millions of tax dollars to be wasted in the courts. PZP. sterilization and experimentation is bad for the economy, bad for the wild horses, bad for America and a bad idea!” —Randall Massaro, President of Unions for the Preservation of Wildlife

Alliance for Wild Horses and Burros

# # #
Media Contacts:

Randal Massaro randalmassaro@gmail.com  760-245-3635

Carl Mrozek eagleye11@gmail.com

Anne Novak: anne@ProtectMustangs.org  415-531-8454

John Cox: news@veteran-journalist.com  541-880-8992

Tina Wooten: ladyriver1963@yahoo.com

Stephanie Elias: sallenicrofwi@gmail.com  414-544-2015

Links of interest:

Fact Sheet: The Truth About PZP: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8749

Feds want to use 11 million to experiment on wild horses and burros: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8657

Protect Mustangs calls for an end to animal cruelty http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8739

BLM support group advocates to experiment of Americas free and wild horses (Ovarian Ligation) http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8384

BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Meeting http://www.blm.gov/live/

Protect Mustangs is a nonprofit organization who protects and preserves native and wild horses.




18 thoughts on “#BREAKING: Unions, wild equine advocates, scientists and Native Americans take a stand against experiments on wild horses and burros, PZP and sterilization

  1. America it is time for us all to rise up and hold our own Government accountable for allowing the BLM to exploit our American Icons, they are being exploited for intrusive and dangerously, torturous research studies. The evil greed of this country is shameful and why is our Tax Dollars being used to, PZP, abominate, mark, destroy, abuse, torture, imprison amd slaughter what we all love, our beautiful Wild Horses & Wild Burro Families’. Please take a stand or they are going to be gone forever…please don’tet them suffer anymore, let them be free, it is their rightful place to be
    .. Tina Wooten

  2. The Wild Horses of America MUST BE PRESERVED! The experiments of PZP, the threat of Sterilizations on Wild Mares will be the end of Wild horses in America. Extinction is what will be next! Wild Horses are not to be used as science experiments to appease cattle ranchers and the oil and mining industries.

  3. Thank God , an thank each an everyone who has worked so hard to make this stop.
    ( Thank You. )

  4. This cruel barbaric procedure is proven to be just that ! There is no need of this , as the population numbers are continually disproven .I can not believe this might happen in the USA !! Public outcry is mounting ! Something needs to be done to stop this Heinous proposal & get this part of the DOI , under control, or removed ! Please everyone, don’t just be up set , call all of your Representatives immediately ! If you do not know whom they are , go to gov.org/representatives

  5. Let’s cut to the chase right now. The American public knows the BLM is in cahoots with the livestock boards of the states where wild horses live. These ruthless,immoral, unethical individuals have a pact…eliminate all wild horses from public lands so livestock owners can graze their animals wherever they want. But wait, immediate roundup and slaughter of the horses would create too much public furor for the BLM to deal with. In their deviate minds, they have come up with a plan. Make the public believe the horses are safe, but in reality the BLM is performing sick Nazi-like experiments, using PZP on the horses. It will still eliminate the horses, just in a slower sneakier way. They sicken me with their greed and rampant lying. Time for Americans to make some noise!!!!

  6. This is an outrage. Thank you, Protect Mustangs and Anne Novak for researching this and bringing this to our attention.

  7. The BLM and USDA are making a grave and disastrous mistake. Wild horses, no animal for that fact, should be subjected to the physical and emotional torture that goes along with these dangerous sterilization procedures and toxic chemical birth control. Our public land these wild horses live on are plentiful and the range adequate for the number of horses that live on them now and in the future. The American People extend past the cattle ranchers and industry. We do not want our wildlife, wild horses, killed and tortured with roundups, put in inhumane holding pens, and destroyed with medical procedures that in no way are in their best interest. It is beyond a nightmare what the government of the United States of America is doing to the last of an American Wild Horses.

  8. Appreciate everyone’s efforts to help our wild horses. The next step is to limit your consumption of beef products.
    We all know why this is happening.
    If there is less demand for beef, there will be less demand from the cattle industries to want the land these horses call home.
    Thank you Ms Novak for your continued efforts to save our horses. ☆♡

  9. The BLM and USDA are out of control. Why is the DOI letting this happen? These groups are willing to torture, abuse, and exterminate the American Wild Horses for the cattle industry and oil and mineral industry. Make your stand and STOP EATING BEEF and LAMB!

  10. I am hoping I will get to see the wild horses, burros and buffaloes. I would also like my kids and grandkids to be able to see them. Please stop the BLM. They are out of control!

  11. The Sterilization?? That’s a nice word for a barbaric operation on wild mares, done with no pre or post op care, which will call cause immeasurable pain, many many slow deaths from infection, and a wiping out of many 500 year old gene strains on a spectacular breed of horse.
    PZP?? More sterilization but this time from chemicals causing foals born mid winter, and another non thought out solution to a trumped up ‘over population’ claim without hard scientific numbers used.
    It’s all about money. Greed. Trading these beautiful horses’ lives for politics.
    I’m ashamed to be one of the human race when I see these choices being made.

  12. So good to see these intelligent and caring statements from an impressive group of clear seeing people whose will has not been intimidated but still have the resolve and the vision to speak up and to act for what is right! Thanks so much Susan for supporting my Reserve Design proposal. It is certainly the right thing to do. The link is http://www.gofundme.com/mstngreservedesign for those interested in helping in any way through any type of support including in the field.

  13. are we talking of AMERICA ? this cannot be ; how may a President, whoever he may be, allow such a cruelty and why ?

  14. As a horse owner, I am outraged by the abuse and round ups of these beautiful burros and horses, let alone the disgusting and painful methods of sterilization. The BLM is supposed to protect these animals. What is wrong with our Government?

  15. How can the government not care about the destruction of these beautiful animals? Only a MAN would consider this thing. Only a MAN would start a war. Only a MAN would ignore global warming and deny that it exits. God, please help us all and your beautiful creatures. A very sad rodeo grandmother.

  16. call daily 2022253121 yr reps swithchboard open 24/7 use your VOICES!!!!

  17. I want to THANK the many individuals who have fought so faithfully to save Americas Horses, Burros, wild cats. They have taken time from their busy schedule to fight for the lives of Americas Horses, Burros, wild cats.

    And I want to say to those chosen, dedicated individuals who are fighting for the freedom, life of Americas Horses, Burros, wild cats…………May God give you strength to keep on advocating, protecting and fighting for the freedom of Americas Horses, Burros, wild cats.

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