BREAKING NEWS: Call for Wyoming boycott and protests against roundups to frack the land for oil and gas

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Protect Mustangs.org (Photo © Cat Kindsfather)

for immediate release

BREAKING NEWS: Call for Wyoming boycott and protests against roundups to frack the land for oil and gas

Native wild horses are facing destruction in the face of climate change with no evidence of overpopulation to justify BLM roundups

Rock Springs, WY. (September 21, 2014)–-The public is outraged more indigenous wild horses are being rounded up and permanently removed from public land for the water and fracking land grab. Protect Mustangs is calling for protests to stand up for American wild horses and for a tourism boycott targeted at Wyoming who promotes “Roam Free” in their marketing yet ignores wild horses in their state. More than 800 Divide Basin, Adobe Town and Salt Wells wild horses are being rounded up from the public-private land known as the “Checkerboard” in southwest Wyoming. The Rock Springs Grazing Association (RSGA) took the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to court to push the roundup through. Wild horses are terrified by choppers, their families ripped apart, forced into inhumane captivity, be at-risk for going to slaughter and forever lose their freedom to roam and contribute to the ecosystem. Several wild horses have already died brutal deaths in the roundup–some victims were only a few months old.

“Fracking for oil and gas is polluting the environment and wiping out America’s wild horses,” states Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “The BLM must leave at least 150 wild horses in each herd to maintain genetic variability so they can adapt to the effects of climate change. It’s time for clean energy that can coexist with wildlife.”

BLM describes one large fracking project, Continental Divide-Creston, in saying, “The project is located on 1.1 million acres in the checkerboard pattern of mixed land ownership comprised of 59 percent federal, 37 percent private and 4 percent state-owned land. The eastern boundary of the project is approximately 25 miles west of Rawlins, Wyo. with the western boundary approximately 50 miles east of the city of Rock Springs.”

Field reports allege the BLM has inflated the population guesstimates to justify removals requested by the RSGA.

There is no evidence of overpopulation according to the National Academy of Sciences’ 2013 report.

On the other hand, internationally acclaimed wildlife biologist Craig Downer points out “much evidence exists for horse presence in the Americas, especially North America, during the post- Pleistocene and pre-Columbian period at dates scattered through the period beginning ca. 10,000 YBP and reaching very near to 1492 A.D. [Craig C. Downer, The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America, American Journal of Life Sciences. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2014, pp. 5-23. doi: 10.11648/j.ajls.20140201.12]

“Native wild horses are a vanishing natural resource,” states Novak. “People need to stand up for what’s right. Innocent foals are dying in this roundup and that’s wrong.”

Protect Mustangs is calling for an immediate moratorium on roundups and removals for scientific population studies and holistic management. Advocates want to see genetically viable herds on public land but the BLM prefers to cater to the extractive industry who wants number so low wild horses will die off.

“Tourists come to Wyoming to observe wild horse families in their native habitat, so why are they going to decimate these herds?” asks Novak. “The tag line at the Wyoming tourism office is ‘Roam Free‘ but they are taking away native wild horses’ freedom forever. The public is angry and wants to boycott Wyoming tourism.”

The Great Divide Basin, Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek herd management areas (HMAs) total approximately 2,427,220 acres with approximately 1,2427,220 acres in the Checkerboard. The roundup held up in court recently due to the Rock Springs Grazing Association (RSGA) Consent Decree ordered by the U.S. District Court on April 3, 2013, to remove all wild horses from private lands within the checkerboard portion of the complex in 2013. The RSGA appears to be heavily involved with energy development.

Members of the public are encouraged to watch GASLAND 2, contact their elected officials, peacefully protest the roundup and join America’s growing anti-fracking movement to stop the devastation of native wild horse habitat.

Protect Mustangs is a grassroots conservation nonprofit 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, 415-531-8454, Anne@ProtectMustangs.org

Tami Hottes, 618-790-4339, Tami@ProtectMustangs.org

Photos, interviews and video available upon request

Links of interest™:

American Journal of Life Sciences: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America http://bit.ly/1rV9tpr

Wild Free Roaming Horse & Burro Act http://1.usa.gov/1utVtmL

More foals die in Wyoming’s Checkerboard roundup: http://bit.ly/1wEU6Ua

NEPA: http://bit.ly/1B0e9Nd

GASLAND 2: http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

BLM Oil & Gas leases: http://on.doi.gov/1sS8l3Z

National Academy of Sciences report on Wild Horses and Burros: http://bit.ly/1sT6agA

Protect Mustangs Calls for Fund for Wyoming Wild Horses (Horseback Magazine) http://bit.ly/1ylmS0s

Continental Divide-Creston: http://on.doi.gov/1uc04gX

Continental Divide-Creston expansion http://bit.ly/1pnSNmt

Defund the Roundups Petition: http://chn.ge/1sAAQHa

Petition for a 10 year moratorium on roundups for recovery and studies: http://chn.ge/1rdhXZ2

Don’t Frack Wild Horse Land Petition: http://chn.ge/1rdDzEV

Petition for shade and shelter for captive wild horses & burros: http://chn.ge/1DriOvN

PZP (birth control) sterilizes temp to perm and is a pesticide: http://bit.ly/1mzsP4Z

Link to BLM Wyoming Wild Horse and Burro Program: http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/programs/Wild_Horses.html

Wyoming Tourism Office: http://www.wyomingtourism.org

Roundup footage & abuse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF49csCB9qM

www.ProtectMustangs.org
Protect Mustangs is a national nonprofit organization who protects and preserves native and wild horses.

Thank you for your comments they will be posted soon.

Get the frack out of wild horse country! #PeoplesClimate March NYC & Oakland

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Livestream People’s Climate March in NYC! http://new.livestream.com/accounts/467901/events/3400186

Sign and share the DON’T FRACK WILD HORSE LAND petition: https://www.change.org/p/sen-dianne-feinstein-don-t-frack-wild-horse-land

Northern California March at 2pm TODAY in #Oakland: @NorCalClimate #PeoplesClimate rally at Lake Merritt Amphitheater http://bit.ly/1vYeORj #PCM @350BayArea

Help fund NATIVE WILD HORSES™ the documentary

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Please help support the documentary NATIVE WILD HORSES™, a film by Anne Novak, to educate and inspire people to stand up for America’s vanishing icons of freedom. Right now we need your help to film in Wyoming before the Bureau of Land Management roundup wipes out the Divide Basin, Adobe Town and Salt Wells herds.

Buying someone else’s Wyoming footage would be too expensive, not have our point of view and often filmmakers want to keep their footage for their exclusive use–so it’s not even an option.

You can go to our homepage at www.ProtectMustangs.org to make a donation to the documentary NATIVE WILD HORSES™ and make a difference for these magnificent wild creatures who deserve to remain forever wild and free.

We also have a tax-deductible fundraiser here http://www.gofundme.com/ejjcwo for the Wyoming leg of the shoot. Everyone who donates $200 and up will be thanked in the credits because we are so grateful for your support of the documentary.

America’s wild horses deserve to be seen and protected forever.

BLM weighs wild horse impact much more heavily than cattle

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Agency Sage Grouse Review Puts Thumb on Scale to Magnify Wild Horse and Burro Effects

Washington, DC — The method used by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to assess range conditions is seriously skewed toward minimizing impacts from domestic livestock and magnifying those from wild horses and burros, according to an appraisal by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, the BLM’s approach to range management targets scattered wild horses and burros while ignoring far more numerous cattle.

The agency’s assessment is part of a 2013 report on factors influencing conservation of the Greater Sage-Grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose numbers have declined as much as 90% across the West and which is under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act. That report concludes that twice the area of sage grouse habitat is negatively impacted by wild horses and burros than the area negatively impacted by livestock. A PEER appraisal of the methodology found –

BLM calculates the “area of influence” of wild horses and burros on sage grouse habitat based merely on their presence within Herd Management Areas in sage grouse habitat, while it considers livestock impact to have occurred only when livestock grazing allotments fail the agency’s Land Health Status (LHS) standard for wildlife;
If the agency used the same approach for calculating the area of influence of livestock within BLM grazing allotments on sage grouse habitat as it did for wild horses and burros, the area of influence for livestock would be roughly 14 times that given in the report and more than six times that of wild horses and burros; and
Within BLM’s own grazing allotment LHS database records, livestock grazing is cited as a cause of failure to achieve a land health standard 30 times more often than are wild horses and burros.
“At BLM apparently not all hooves are created equal,” said PEER’s Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade, noting that the LHS evaluations cover more than 20,000 grazing allotments and examine whether a grazing allotment meets the agency’s standards for rangeland health with respect to several vegetation and habitat conditions. “This helps explain why wild horses are regularly removed from the range but livestock numbers are rarely reduced.”

The BLM assessment influences not only the agency’s range management decisions but also will figure into the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision on whether to list the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

Last year in response to a complaint by PEER filed under agency Scientific Integrity policy, BLM claimed that it does not have enough “reliable data” about commercial livestock impacts to include them in current assessments of environmental conditions on Western range lands. Yet, BLM has more data on the grazing that it authorizes through permits than virtually every other topic.

“When it comes to cattle, BLM plays with a marked deck,” Stade added, pointing out the PEER analysis that will become part of PEER’s new grazing reform web center set to launch in several weeks. “We are posting BLM’s own data in a way that allows apples-to-apples comparisons while displaying satellite imagery that depicts the true livestock landscape impacts.”

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See the PEER Analysis

Compare BLM claims to what their data reveal

livestock vs. wild horse and burro areas of influence on sage grouse

The relative negative influence area of feral ungulates with respect to domestic livestock based on BLM’s spatial analysis approach (USGS OFR 2013-1098) are completely at odds with BLM’s own land health standards (LHS) evaluation causal data, used to inform BLM’s analysis. BLM concludes in OFR 2013-1098 that the negative area of influence of feral ungulates is twice that of domestic livestock, when the records show that only 3% of grazing-related failures of standards are attributed to wild horses and burros.

See the 2013 BLM/USGS report

Revisit BLM claim of unreliable livestock grazing data

Animal Advocates Sue Bureau of Land Management Over Wild Horses and Withheld Public Records

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

James Anaquad Kleinert

Roundups of Wild Horses on Public Lands Stir Controversy, Feature in Documentary Exposé

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed this month against the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for withholding public records from filmmaker James Kleinert. The BLM has been investigating Kleinert and his film company, presumably in retaliation for making documentary films Wild Horses & Renegades, Saving the American Wild Horse, and Wild Horse Spirit, which expose the BLM’s cruel roundups of wild horses on public land and allege corruption within the Department of the Interior. “Roundups” involve herding horses into corrals using helicopters and separating them from their families. The national non-profit Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) has reason to believe that wild horses corralled by the BLM end up for sale for slaughter in Mexico and Canada. The federal lawsuit was filed September 3, 2014 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. ALDF is providing consulting assistance to Kleinert’s attorney, Daniel J. Stotter.

The lawsuit, Kleinert v. Bureau of Land Management, alleges that the BLM violated its duty under FOIA to provide records documenting the BLM’s investigation of Kleinert and his film company as he filmed roundups over the last decade. The BLM was required to provide all records and respond to this FOIA request within 20 working days of receiving it. The BLM now has 30 days to file a response to Kleinert’s lawsuit.

“Rounding up wild horses from public lands for the sake of private ranchers who want to graze cattle and sheep is outrageous,” said Stephen Wells, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. “The Bureau of Land Management should be protecting wild horses, not virtually guaranteeing their slaughter or targeting filmmakers who expose what’s going on.”

#StopWyRoundup Now!

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Protect Mustangs and their members are calling for Congress to intervene and stop the CRUEL helicopter roundup happening in Wyoming right now!

STOP the Cruelty! #StopWyRoundup Tweet it. Contact your elected officials until this roundup stops! Meet with them. Email them and write handwritten letters requesting they stop using federal tax dollars to pay for this Wyoming roundup and others! You can find their contact information here: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

TAKE ACTION! Peacefully protest. Write letters to the editor of your hometown paper. Remember the WY roundup is happening because PRIVATE landowners are requesting wild horses be removed from PRIVATE land but the corrupt BLM is taking them off all the Checkerboard (public & private) because the richest grazing association in the country doesn’t fence out their private property yet they complain there are too many federally protected wild horses.

The truth will reveal itself in a couple of years when the Checkerboard is swarming with fracked oil and gas wells, the ground water is poisoned and the grazing association has been busted as a Big Oil and Gas front group. Industrialization of the West is wiping out our iconic wild horses. Tell YOUR elected officials NO!

Help us get to Wyoming to watchdog the roundup

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

HELP us get to the Wyoming Checkerboard Roundup to WATCHDOG the situation and take action to prevent animal cruelty. Please donate via www.PayPal.com to Contact@ProtectMustangs.org or by mail to Protect Mustangs, P.O. Box 5661, Berkeley, Ca. 94705 Mark “Watchdog WY” on your donation. Frequent flyer miles will help too. We also need a used mac laptop and camera for journey. Thank you so much!

Background: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/court-sides-with-wyoming-in-wild-horse-roundup/article_7c23d57a-3059-597a-b3c0-3249958dc98f.html

Follow https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs for info and go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wild-Horses-In-Wyoming-Need-Help/587758424612113 to HELP the WY wild horses who will lose their freedom, their families and their place in the world in this heinous BLM roundup.

Tweet this: #StopWyRoundup Now! Get 2 WY. Meet w/ your Rep. Write letters. Protest. Get creative against #AnimalCruelty www.ProtectMustangs.org

We are 100% volunteer nonprofit organization. When you give to Protect Mustangs your donations go directly to feed and care for rescued wild horses, field and watchdog work, gas and to keep the phone and internet on. You can donate via www.PayPal.com to Contact@ProtectMustangs.org or by mail to Protect Mustangs, P.O. Box 5661, Berkeley, Ca. 94705 We are grateful for your support. You keep us going.

500 walking billboards needed to save American wild horses & burros

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

JOIN the 500 Walking Billboard Campaign to STOP the ROUNDUPS! Go here now to get your t-shirt: https://www.booster.com/protect-mustangs Wear the t-shirt and gift them to friends and family to help spread awareness!

Remember to share widely because Sharing is Caring. Thank you for taking action to educate the public that taxpayer funded roundups are cruel and must stop!

SHARE if you want to STOP ALL ROUNDUPS!

The campaign is ending soon: https://www.booster.com/protect-mustangs All money raised goes to feed and care for wild horses in our Outreach Program. We are 100% volunteer.

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs/photos/a.240625045996522.58710.233633560029004/748930115166010/?type=1&theater

www.ProtectMustangs.org is a nationwide grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving native and wild horses.

Wild horses in crisis

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Foals see their parents for the last time. The majority of Wyoming wild horses rounded up by BLM in March 2014 were sold to a Canadian slaughterhouse for human consumption. Protect Mustangs.org rescued 14 youngsters (WY14) before they were slaughtered.

Dear Friends of Wild Horses and Burros,

Despite nationwide outcry, the Bureau of Land Management plans to continue rounding up America’s wild horses and burros–even though most of their holding facilities are inhumane without shade and shelter. They are already stocked full with 50,000 native equids. The Burns Amendment to the Wild and Free Roaming Horse and Burros Act of 1971 puts ALL those in holding at-risk of going to slaughter. This is very dangerous.

This week’s Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Meeting was revealing. The BLM plans to exploit our treasured wild horses as lab rats for pharmaceutical research on various forms of drug/fertility control, 80% of the forage is going to livestock not wild horses and burros and more than 2,000 wild horses are slated for removal in the next fiscal year starting this fall. That’s after the massive checkerboard removals in Wyoming now being considered by a judge–with the governor of Wyoming and the Rock Springs Grazing Association breathing down his neck to roundup the mustangs ASAP.

Public outcry must get louder!

It’s important to create awareness around the BLM’s cruel roundups–funded with your tax dollars. We need to let people know what’s going on and t-shirts are an easy, grassroots way to do this because you basically become a walking billboard.

People will naturally ask questions about your t-shirts and that’s when you can educate them and enlist support for America’s wild horses and burros.

Gifting t-shirts to friends and family puts the STOP the ROUNDUPS message into their extended circle of friends too. Our website address is on the t-shirt so people can go there for more information about what’s going on.

We are doing a special run of “STOP THE ROUNDUPS Wyoming 2014” t-shirts with only hours left to meet the goal so they will go to print. The fundraiser is right here: https://www.booster.com/protect-mustangs All funds raised go to feed and care for the wild horses in our Outreach Program. We are 100% volunteer and able to serve America’s wild horses with donor support because we aren’t selling out.

Helping America’s wild horses in crisis takes a village. . . Write your elected officials weekly http://www.contactingthecongress.org to request they defund the roundups, bring captives shade and shelter and re-protect our treasured wild horses and burros in the wild. Sign up at our website www.ProtectMustangs.org for alerts. Please share the petition for shade and shelter https://www.change.org/p/bring-emergency-shelter-and-shade-to-captive-wild-horses-and-burros because we need to double the signatures going to officials in Washington. They are watching this petition.

Thank you for caring and helping America’s wild horses and burros. Together we can turn this around.

Many blessings,
Anne

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

Petition to grant a 10-year moratorium on wild horse roundups for recovery and studies

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Protect Mustangs

Wyoming, March 2014: BLM’s stealth roundup of 41 American wild horses

The issue

Science must start guiding the management policy of Americas wild horses and burros on public land.

It’s time for real science for real solutions.

We need scientific studies on population, migration, holistic land management and more before the government continues to roundup or tamper with America’s equine herds using permanent/temporary sterilization or kill them. We support wild horse and burro recovery on public land.

Right now the feds are managing our indigenous wild horses and burros to extinction. They want to aggressively sterilize the herds. There is “no evidence” of overpopulation according to the National Academy of Sciences 2013 report.

Together we can turn this around.

The Petition

To:
Sally Jewell, Secretary of Interior
President of the United States
U.S. Senate
U.S. House of Representatives
Rep. Tom Rooney, Florida-17
Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa
Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois
Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Maryland
Sen. Barbara Boxer, California
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California-12
Rep. Barbara Lee, California-13
Sen. Mark Kirk, Illinois
Rep. Raul Grijalva, Arizona-03
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida-23
Rep. John Garamendi, California-03
Science must start guiding the management policy of America’s wild horses and burros on public land.

It’s time for real science for real solutions.

We support wild horse and burro recovery on public land and request your help.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

Please sign and share the petition now. Here is the link: https://www.change.org/p/sally-jewell-urgent-grant-a-10-year-moratorium-on-wild-horse-roundups-for-recovery-and-studies

Protect Mustangs™

Forever wild and free™

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