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Road to fracking or to study wild horses?
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Tag Archives: Mustang
Save America’s wild horses from slaughter!
What will happen when the money runs out to feed and care for America’s wild horses that BLM rounded up for the extractive industry? Clearing them off their legally designated land wipes away a layer of environmental delays so they can go ahead with FRACKING and use tons of water for mining in alleged drought zones, etc.
WRITE your Congressional Rep a hand written letter in your own words and request they intervene to:
1.) Cease using PESTICIDES (“birth control”) on America’s wild horses pushed by lobbyists with conflict of interest!!!
2.) Reverse EPA’s PEST designation when they recently approved a version of PZP to be used as a Restricted-Use PESTICIDE for RETURNED-NATIVE wild horses & burros NOT found safe for domestic horses!!!
3.) The National Academy of Sciences established this summer there is NO EVIDENCE of overpopulation and stated the BLM Roundups increased the birthrate. Fear of EXTINCTION innately makes wild horses reproduce at a faster rate.
4.) Enact an immediate MORATORIUM on all Roundups & Removals for population studies!!! SCIENCE must come first.
5.) Bad BLM policy has put the lives of 50,000 American wild horses AT-RISK of being KILLED or being SOLD to SLAUGHTER as permitted by the 2004 Burns Amendment.
6.) Establish wild horses as a returned-native wildlife species to end all abuses. (Info on Native Wild Horses:http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562 )
7.) Return all 50,000 wild horses and burros to the Herd Management Areas legally given to them for their primary use in 1971. Native wild horses heal the land and create biodiversity.
When our Congressional Reps come back to work for their constituents your hand-written letter will be waiting for them. One kitchen table letter represents 1,000 opinions. Then if you are able, call and make an appointment to meet with your Representative to request their intervention again in person. Small steps make change! YOU can really help the wild horses & burros!!!
SIGN the Petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups
Thank you for helping the wild horses & burros!
Get the word out!
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs
(You may use this photo taken by Anne Novak at Palomino Valley Center, near Reno, Nevada while respecting the Copyright and change nothing to it.)
BLM ensures wild horses will have water
Cross-posted from the Elko Daily Free Press
October 11, 2013 4:45 pm • By DYLAN WOOLF HARRIS
ELKO — Reports that wild horses were without water prompted local Bureau of Land Management to investigate this week.
Contracted water hauler Jackie Wiscombe told the county commission Wednesday that the federal government shutdown had prohibited her from watering wild horses in Ruby Valley and Deer Springs, an area about 15 miles north of Currie.
She said she was concerned the animals were dying of thirst. The road to Deer Springs had been washed out, Wiscombe added, and she was unable to drive to the guzzlers.
Alerted by the news, BLM Elko District Director Jill Silvey said an employee was sent to Deer Springs to check on water and horse conditions.
The BLM employee was able to get to Deer Springs on a road that had some washout but was passable, Silvey said. The employee also reported that the horse guzzler still had water.
The employee didn’t see any horses, but because water was available, she said, the BLM believes the horses to be in good shape.
Silvey was unsure where the communication broke down, but said hauling water to the horses is an essential service and the BLM didn’t intend for Wiscombe to stop watering the two areas.
Wiscombe said she was contacted Thursday night and told that she should have received an email and voice message when the shutdown began, telling her to continue hauling water.
Wiscombe is also unsure how the miscommunication occurred, but couldn’t recall getting an email.
In any event, Wiscombe said she’s glad to be working with the agency again.
“I like working with this BLM office,” she said, “and they really do care about these wild horses.”
Mostly, she’s happy to be watering horses again.
On Friday she hauled water to Ruby Valley where the tubs were “bone dry.”
Wiscombe said she didn’t see any horses but did find fresh horse tracks near the guzzlers.
“I filled them up,” she said. “And I’ll go fill them back up in a few days.”
Commissioner Demar Dahl said Wednesday he could help fix a road if it was impassable.
Wiscombe said she would keep in contact with the commission if the road needed repair.
The Elko District BLM office is closed. Almost all of its employees have been on furlough since Oct. 1, when the federal government shut down.
Link to the Elko Daily Free Press: http://elkodaily.com/news/blm-horses-have-water/article_3abd77c2-32cf-11e3-9b92-0019bb2963f4.html?comment_form=true
Blondie was taken from family and freedom then facing her 3rd-Strike the yearling was at risk of being sold to probable slaughter
Today she is safe and part of our outreach program because we stepped in to save her life with the help of her anonymous sponsor who has been making this rescue possible. We are 100% volunteer and so grateful to help Blondie and other American wild horses .
7 legal points for wild horses and burros
Truck in the pens (© Anne Novak, All rights reserved)
by Kathleen Hayden
1. Wild horses and burros are no less “wild” animals than are the grizzly bears that roam our national parks and forests (Mountain States v. Hodel) neither the states of the federal government have the right to harm Our Heritage Wildlife as found by the 1995 Supreme court Ruling Babbit v.Sweet Home.
2. The Babbit v Sweet Home case found that the term “take” means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19)
3. By a 6-3 vote, the Court upheld the statutory authority of the Secretary of the Interior to include “habitat modification and degradation” as conduct which constitutes “harm” under the ESA.
In addition to the statutory provisions described above,
4. Section 5 of the ESA authorizes the Secretary to purchase the lands on which the survival of the species depends. Accordingly, Sweet Home maintained that this Section 5 authority was “the Secretary’s only means of forestalling that grave result [i.e. possible extinction)
5. As a result, based upon “the text, structure, and legislative history of the ESA the Supreme Court concluded that “the Secretary reasonably construed the intent of Congress when he defined ‘harm’ to include ‘significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife species.
6. Pursuant to BLM’s 2001 Special Status Species Policy requirement that “sensitive” species be afforded, at a minimum, the same protections as candidate species for listing under the ESA. It called on BLM managers to “obtain and use the best available information deemed necessary to evaluate the status of special status species in areas affected by land use plans . . . .
7. See Policy at § 6840.22A. Under the Policy, those land use plans “shall be sufficiently detailed to identify and resolve significant land use conflicts with special status species without deferring conflict resolution to implementation-level planning.” Id. (Case 4:08-cv-00516-BLW Document 131 Filed 09/28/11 Page 8 of 37 (Sagegrouse decision)
Comments against Wyoming’s Checkerboard roundup
Wyoming wild horses (Photo ©Rachel Anne Reeves all rights reserved)
Send your original comments in today!
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Wild Horse Scoping Comment
From: <@protectmustangs.org>
Date: Fri, September 27, 2013 11:53 am
To: BLM_WY_RockSpringsRMP@blm.gov
Dear Sirs,
We request you do not roundup, remove, kill, give birth control or sterilize wild horses in Wyoming’s Checkerboard area.
We call for a moratorium on roundups in the Checkerboard and elsewhere for immediate scientific population studies lasting 10 years.
Fertility control (birth control, sterilization, etc.) must not be used before 10-year population studies.
We request an investigation into conflict of interest governing discussions and decisions for removals of the Checkerboard wild horses in Wyoming.
Federal law cannot be violated under a consent decree.
American wild horses are legally allowed to roam on the 2.3 million acres under the Free Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act of 1971. It’s important to uphold the law.
Non-reproducing herds are not protected wild horses according to the 1971 Act as they would be harassed in order to be sterilized. Also their social structure and their natural behaviors would ruined if sterilized.
The wild horses mentioned are a national living treasure and historically significant. They benefit the ecosystem as well.
We request you:
- Do not remove horses from or zero out the Divide Basin herd and do not kill or sterilize.
- Do not remove horses from or zero out the Salt Wells herd and do not kill or sterilize.
- Do not remove horses from or reduce the AML (number of wild horses) for the Adobe Town herd and do not kill or sterilize.
- Do not remove horses from or reduce the horses at White Mountain and do not kill or sterilize.
- Do not remove horses from or reduce the horses at Little Colorado and do not kill or sterilize.
Members of our organization have visited the herds for research, inspiration, photographic and other artistic projects and plan to do so in the future. We request you do not interfere in their work by removing wild horses.
Rounding up and removing any wild horses in the Checkerboard area or performing killings or sterilizations in the field will increase global warming due to increased motorized vehicle usage on the range as well as damage the fragile ecosystem.
Tourists, researchers and students don’t want to hear about a bunch of killed horses nor do they want to see a bunch of sterilized horses out on the Checkerboard. Sterilized horses loose their natural behaviors. The essence of their social structure–the family band–would be destroyed.
Removing American wild horse to frack the land is wrong.
Have you seen GASLAND 2? It talks about why beloved American wild horses are being removed in Wyoming! Millions of people have seen the new film on HBO and around the world. Now everyone realizes you are willing to remove the wild horses to facilitate fracking and other energy/mining interests on the Checkerboard area because of the money you receive from the extractive industry.
We look forward to hearing from you regarding our request for an immediate 10-year moratorium on roundups, trapping and removals for population studies.
The wild horses in question belong to the American people. The Bureau of Land Management has been put in charge to protect them. Please do your job.
Thank you for your kind assistance.
Sincerely,
Anne Novak
Anne Novak
Executive Director
Protect Mustangs.org
San Francisco Bay Area
Legal win creates public transparency and halts 2-year roundup contract
Photo James Marvin Phelps / Foter.com / CC BY-NC
For immediate release
Legal victory stops illegal USFS Gather Agreement that was sending horses into alleged kill buyers hands
RENO, NV. (September 26, 2013)–Protect Mustangs, the California nonprofit, dedicated to protecting native wild horses and Citizens Against Equine Slaughter (CAES), the Oregon nonprofit, won their lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS). The groups fought for public transparency and to halt the government’s two-year roundup agreement.
The United States Forest Service and the Fort McDermitt Tribe signed a Gather Agreement on May 30, 2013, which directed taxpayer dollars and federal personnel to illegally roundup unbranded, wild, free-roaming horses on Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest lands and tribal lands until May 31, 2015.
However, as a direct result of the complaint and injunction filed by Protect Mustangs and CAES, the USDA Forest Service terminated the Gather Agreement on September 3, 2013.
The groups specifically requested the court order “the USFS and the BLM to withdraw the Notice and 2013 Horse Gather Agreement until such time as the agency demonstrates to this Court that it has adequately complied with the law.” Instead of litigating the legality of the Gather Agreement, the USFS did exactly what the two groups requested and terminated the Agreement.
“The McDermitt nightmare was the first of what could have been two solid years of heinous roundups authorized by the USFS Gather Agreement,” says Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “We are grateful the lawsuit resulted in the Forest Service terminating the agreement because so many horses were ending up in kill-buyers hands. Many were saved by equine welfare groups but sadly a lot of horses ended up allegedly slaughtered.”
“It’s unfortunate the first McDermitt roundup wasn’t stopped before horses were sold at auction, but we’re glad we got rid of the underlying Agreement that made the McDermitt roundups possible and authorized an undisclosed number of similar roundups until May of 2015,” explains Dr.Lester Castro Friedlander, DVM, president of Citizens Against Equine Slaughter.
Academy Award-winner and member of Protect Mustangs, Michael Blake (Dances with Wolves), stated in his declaration that he received “great inspiration watching wild horses roaming free in Nevada”. He believes if they are rounded up, removed, killed or slaughtered he would suffer harm by loosing that inspiration. Blake is pleased the two year roundup agreement was terminated.
Protect Mustangs is a nonprofit organization 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.
Citizens Against Equine Slaughter is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of America’s wild and domestic horses.
Protect Mustangs and Citizens Against Equine Slaughter were represented in this case by Jones Law Firm of Reno, Nevada and Beckett Law Office of Ashland, Oregon.
# # #
Media Contacts:
Anne Novak, 415-531-8454, Anne@ProtectMustangs.org
Jordan Beckett, 541-510-0333. jordan@roguevalleylawyer.com
Photos, interviews and video available upon request
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Links of interest™:
  Academy Award-winner, Michael Blake, joins lawsuit to stop ongoing wild horse roundups (August 24, 2013): http://protectmustangs.org/?p=5060
Lawsuit filed to save wild horses from alleged slaughter (August 16, 2013): http://protectmustangs.org/?p=5001
Read the complaint here: PM Complaint CAES Protect mustangs v USFS BLM
U.S. Judge refuses to block NV tribe’s mustang sale, The Associated
Protect Mustangs www.ProtectMustangs.org and https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs
Citizens Against Equine Slaughter http://www.noequineslaughter.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/CitizensAgainstEquineSlaughter
Beckett Law Office, P.C. http://www.roguevalleylawyer.com/
Jones Law Firm http://cjoneslawfirm.com/
Wild Free Roaming Horse & Burro Act http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/92-195.htm
Roundup footage & abuse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF49csCB9qM
Link to this press release: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=5185
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Judge hears arguments on controversial proposal to roundup wild horses
Wild mustang weanling in holding. (Photos © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)
By Sarah Favot,
PASADENA — Wildlife activists packed a federal appeals court hearing Thursday afternoon to oppose the roundup of wild horses, which were recognized by the 1971 Congress as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.”
“It’s cruelty,” said Patty Shenker of Tarzana, who has rescued five horses. “I want to see wild animals stay in the wild and enjoy it.”
In a 2010 lawsuit, In Defense of Animals alleges the Bureau of Land Management violated the Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it planned to round up about 2,300 wild horses and burrows in 2010 on the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area, which consists of about 800,000 acres in Northeastern California and Northwest Nevada. About 180 wild horses and burros were to be released back into the wild. The remaining horses were transported to BLM facilities for adoption, sale or long-term holding in private facilities, under what In Defense of Animals describes as “zoo-like” conditions.
While In Defense of Animals filed an injunction to stop the roundup, the motion was denied and the roundup went forward.
A total of 1,799 horses and burros were gathered and 59 were returned to the range. Fifteen animals died, according to BLM’s website.
In November, a U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of BLM and the U.S. Department of Interior saying the roundup did not violate the NEPA or WFRHBA.
In Defense of Animals appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments for about one hour Thursday afternoon.
The Act, approved by Congress in 1971, allows the Department of Interior to manage the population of wild horses if the natural ecological balance of the land is threatened.
The wildlife advocacy organization’s attorney Rachel Fazio said BLM did not adequately prove wild horses solely threatened the ecological balance at Twin Peaks.
“In this situation, that benchmark was not established by BLM before they proceeded to round up 80 percent of the animals on this range,” said Fazio.
Mark R. Haag, BLM’s attorney, argued BLM had established the number of horses on the range exceeded the appropriate management level. He said areas of the range were trampled, vegetation was lost and cultural artifacts were damaged due to erosion.
“My problem here is I thought the purpose was to achieve a thriving natural ecological balance and that the appropriate management level determination was just a tool to get to that thriving natural ecological balance, but it seems to me the agency disregarded that,” said Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson.
Jack Carone, communications and campaigns director for In Defense of Animals, said if the court rules in their favor, he hopes other parties would question other BLM roundups.
Apache Running-Hawk Daklugie, who grew up on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, described the sacred relationship between wild horses and Native Americans.
“They’re brothers and sisters to us,” he said. “We painted and fought with them. We went to war with them and we tamed them.”
Tonya Littlewolf, founder of Wolf Mountain Sanctuary in Lucerne Valley, said during the roundups some horses’ hooves fall off and their legs are broken.
“They can’t speak for themselves so we have to speak for them,” she said.
She was hopeful the case would rule in the activists’ favor.
“I feel it will be a good thing today because God walks with us and these are his creatures,” she said. “He made animals before He made us.”
Comment at the Pasadena Star News
BREAKING NEWS: Michael Blake joins lawsuit to stop ongoing wild horse roundups
Michael Blake with Twelve
For immediate release
Protect Mustangs and Citizens Against Equine Slaughter file preliminary injunction Friday.
RENO, NV. (August 24, 2013) — Academy Award Winner Michael Blake, author of Dances With Wolves, and member of Protect Mustangs, joins Citizens Against Equine Slaughter and Protect Mustangs versus The United States Forest Service, a department of the United States Department of Agriculture; Jeff Ulrich, Santa Rosa District Ranger; The United States Bureau of Land Management, a department of the United States Department of the Interior, to stop alleged illegal and continuous roundups of federally protected wild horses and burros through the duration of the agreement ending on May 31, 2015. Attorneys, Jordan Beckett, of Ashland, Oregon and Charles A. Jones, of Reno, filed a preliminary injunction friday to safeguard federally protected wild horses in the vast Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.
Blake states in his declaration he has received great inspiration, for decades, watching wild horses roaming free in Nevada. He believes that if they are rounded up, removed, killed or slaughtered, he would suffer harm by the loss of his inspiration.
Michael Blake writes in his book Twelve, The King:
“But he and hundreds of thousand like him are gone now from this beautiful land, and for that reason alone I could not stop as I traveled over four hundred miles of Nevada roads. Something evil is still afoot in this land, and it has left its imprint everywhere. In all those miles of open, free country, the mark of evil is present in what is absent. The wild horses are missing from the land.”
Blake is a long time admirer of the american wild horse. His book and acclaimed screenplay Dances with Wolves prominently features horses in the American West.
In the early ’90s he commissioned the first independent aerial survey of wild horses. They found the population on the range was much lower than the BLM’s overpopulation claim.
This summer the National Academy of Sciences announced there is no evidence to support the BLM’s rampant chant alleging overpopulation. Protect Mustangs has called for a moratorium on all roundups in order to conduct scientific population studies before using widespread fertility control. The conservation group is concerned wild horses are being managed to extinction by the BLM–the agency put in change of allegedly protecting America’s iconic wild horses.
“We filed in court to end this nightmare,” explains Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “We believe federally protected wild horses are at risk of going to slaughter as a result of the flawed roundups. We want this to stop now.”
“We are very thankful people have come together to save wild horses from auction but we never want to see this happen again,” says Dr.Lester Castro Friedlander, DVM, president of Citizens Against Equine Slaughter.
Esteemed wildlife biologist and author, Craig Downer, a member of Protect Mustangs, filed a compelling declaration filled with details from decades of studying the area.
“Most of the legal wild equid herds throughout the West have dangerously low populations and the ratios of wild equids to livestock/big game animals are ridiculously low,” explains Downer. “For example, in the Spring Mountain Complex of wild horse and burro herd areas, the Las Vegas BLM District and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest plans to allow only one wild equid per seven thousand-plus legal acres. Here big game and to a lesser extent livestock outnumber and out-consume the wild equids many times over . . . . And here most of the Spring Mountain public waters have been fenced off so that wild horses cannot access them, but game animals, such as trophy bighorn sheep, can.”
Protect Mustangs and Citizens Against Equine Slaughter are challenging the entirety of the USFS decision authorizing an undisclosed number of roundups and an undisclosed number of horses to be removed from the range over the next two years. They filed their original complaint on Friday, August 16, 2013.
“While the first roundup has already been conducted, without further legal action these unbranded, wild horses will be continuously rounded up and removed from the range, impounded, and auctioned off to the highest bidder until May 2015,” explains Jordan Beckett, attorney for Plaintiffs. “The public’s unbranded wild horses are under the jurisdiction of the USFS and the BLM. They need to be managed in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act.”
Protect Mustangs is a California-based non-profit organization devoted to protecting native wild horses. Their mission is to educate the public about the indigenous wild horses, protect and research American wild horses on the range and help those who have lost their freedom.
Citizens Against Equine Slaughter is an Oregon-based non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of America’s wild and domestic horses.
# # #
Media Contacts:
Anne Novak, 415-531-8454, Anne@ProtectMustangs.org
Photos, interviews and video (Preview) available upon request
Links of interest™:
Preliminary Injunction filed Friday: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=5056
Read the complaint here: PM Complaint CAES Protect mustangs v USFS BLM
Sign the petition to Defund the Roundups: http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups
Last week’s press release with links of interest:
For immediate release
Alleged violations put iconic wild horses at risk of disappearing
Coalition against slaughter and for the protection of mustangs files lawsuit
RENO, NV. (August 16, 2013)–Protect Mustangs, the California-based conservation group, dedicated to protecting native wild horses and Citizens Against Equine Slaughter(CAES), the Oregon nonprofit, have filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management and the USDA Forest Service asking for an injunction on their intent to impound unauthorized livestock in conjunction with the Fort McDermitt Tribal Council on and in the vicinity of the Humboltd-Toiyabe National Forest. The coalition hopes to prevent wild horses from loosing their protections and going to probable slaughter.
“This may be the first time that protected mustangs are being auctioned off for alleged slaughter en masse and publicly with the tacit approval & cooperation of federal officials,” explains Anne Novak, executive director for Protect Mustangs.
Right now hundreds of wild horses are being fattened up at a Fallon, Nevada auction yard for the sale because the Forest Service allegedly rounded up wild free roaming horses in violation of the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act and in violation ofNational Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).
“Horse slaughter is cruel and inhumane and we need to stop it,” says Dr. Lester Friedlander, DVM and president of Citizens Against Equine Slaughter. “This stealth roundup is a heinous act toward our icons of liberty.”
“The U.S. Forest Service needs to comply with the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act as well as NEPA before rounding up hundreds of potentially wild horses–especially when the BLM’s nearby Owyhee gather plan doesn’t authorize this action,” states Jordan Beckett, attorney for Plaintiffs Citizens Against Equine Slaughter and Protect Mustangs.
The Judge has not ruled on the complaint filed by Protect Mustangs and Citizens against Equine Slaughter as of this moment.
Protect Mustangs is 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.
Citizens Against Equine Slaughter is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of America’s wild and domestic horses.
# # #
Media Contacts:
Anne Novak, 415-531-8454, Anne@ProtectMustangs.org
Patience O’Dowd, 505-610-7644, patience_odowd@yahoo.com
Photos, interviews and video (Preview) available upon request
Links of interest:
Read the complaint here: PM Complaint CAES Protect mustangs v USFS BLM
U.S. Judge refuses to block NV tribe’s mustang sale, The Associated Press,http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/15/3565447/us-judge-in-nv-asked-to-block.html
Protect Mustangs www.ProtectMustangs.org
Citizens Against Equine Slaughterhttp://www.noequineslaughter.org/
Beckett Law Office, P.C. http://www.roguevalleylawyer.com/
Jones Law Firm http://cjoneslawfirm.com/
Wild Free Roaming Horse & Burro Act http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/92-195.htm
NEPA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Environmental_Policy_Act
Roundup footage & abuse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF49csCB9qM (Preview)
PLAINTIFFS’ PRAYER FOR RELIEF
Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court:
1. Declare that the USFS and the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and their implementing regulation in implementing the Fort McDermitt Horse Gather;
2. Order the USFS and the BLM to withdraw the Notice and 2013 Horse Gather Agreement until such time as the agency demonstrates to this Court that it has adequately complied with the law, including but not limited to putting the 2013 Agreement through notice and comment procedures, ordering DNA testing to determine the origin of captured wild horses, ordering the BLM and USFS to comply with the law to determine ownership of the wild horses, and ordering the BLM and USFS return to public lands or the HMAs all seized or removed wild, free-roaming, and unbranded horses being held at Fallon Livestock Auction;
3. Enjoin the USFS, the BLM, and their agents from proceeding with the Fort McDermitt Horse Gather, or any portion thereof, unless and until the violations of federal law set forth herein have been corrected to the satisfaction of this court;
Michael Blake: This is extermination not a rescue
Wild horses: the government is rounding up ‘excess’ animals, condemning many to slaughter despite a law protecting them
Copyright LA Times- February 08, 1993
by Michael Blake, the author of “Dances With Wolves” (Fawcett).
It is raining today in Las Vegas and I am thinking again of the horses. Now they are trying something new to get rid of them. They have 50 of them in a pen between two, large casino-hotels near the fabled Strip. As a new Administration begins its work, these horses stand as a testament to 20 years of failed governmental policy.
I know what the people who drift past that pen are seeing. They are viewing animals that have been humiliated and defeated. Most have lost weight since they were captured. Dehydration is a common condition at this stage. Some of them are still in shock. All of them are terrified.What the people looking through the pipe corral don’t know is that the horses inside are not just a few excess animals rounded up for humane adoption. They and thousands like them are victims of a vicious, long-running campaign of annihilation that has recently accelerated into what is the final phase.There has been great controversy over the number of wild horses in Nevada. Estimates for 1992 ran as high as 75,000, but the government agency directly responsible, the Bureau of Land Management, has most often estimated 30,000 to 35,000. The government has said it will forcibly remove 14,000 “excess” wild horses from public lands this year.
Last August, I helped commission the first comprehensive aerial census of wild horses in Nevada. In almost every herd area, the horses were far less numerous than BLM estimates. Thefinal count in our survey was 8,324.The horses will be gone this year or next if something isn’t done to protect them.In 1971, Congress passed a law giving the horses federal protection. This came about as a result of the second-largest write-in campaign in American history. The law states that the horses are notto be hunted withaircraft, harassed or rounded up for slaughter.But since 1971, the horses have been given no protection. They have been shot, poisoned and rustled for slaughter in huge numbers by people who have gone unpunished.
And they have been captured and removed in the thousands by the same government charged with protecting them.
Each cycle of the adopt-a-horse program is the same. Once certain herds are targeted for elimination, the cycle begins with the horror of horses being herded many miles by helicopter. Foals or fetuses are often lost during the forced march and any ailing animals are dead in days. The horses are stuffed into holding pens, where many become sick from the constant dust of close confinement. All the horses must be inoculated against common domestic diseases, which they have never known.
While waiting their turn in the squeeze chute, families are broken up. The wild horses are then jammed into trucks and hauled to large centers. All stallions are castrated upon arrival. The prettiest horses are adopted quickly, but most languish in the concentration centers before finally ending up in a place they are expressly forbidden by law–the slaughterhouse.
The adopt-a-horse program is effectively eliminating wild horses from the American scene and every dime of its support comes from tax dollars. After paying for this destruction, the taxpayer is asked to come down and buy a horse and take it home. But not very many taxpayers are equipped to take the government up on its offer; most of America’s wild horses end up as meat, sliding over the palates of Europeans and Asians who have acquired a fondness for the flesh of our horses.
I have seen wild horses in their natural state and I have spoken to many other people who have seen them. All agree that it is a sight that cannot be adequately described.
What I remember is being awed by the power of their unity. The family units, both large and small, are run with a precision and intelligence that is somehow beyond what we know. It may be a cliche, but it is certainly true that wild horses possess a certain pride in freedom. They are models for the world, living symbols of freedom.
Along with millions of other Americans, I want wild horses to stay, to remain a permanent part of the national landscape, protected and managed, not only in accordance with our laws but in the spirit of our laws as well.
The new Administration must stop these captures and start doing something positive for wild horses and for the public lands upon which they run. Nothing can be done for the 50 horses standing in the rain this day in Las Vegas. I hope that a few of them will find loving homes. For the others, the ones still out and running free, there can be great opportunities. But the hour is late.
Reprinted for educational purposes: