BLM Press Release: President Proposes $1.3 Billion Budget for BLM in Fiscal Year 2017

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Protect Mustangs does not endorse any of this. Read about drastic changes proposed for America’s wild horses and burros resembling the Salazar Plan towards the bottom and let your elected officials know you don’t want America’s wild horses to lose their protections and  be put at risk of going slaughter by way of these “transfers”.. This change will put America’s wild horses and burros at great risk.

Request addresses critical priorities including sage-steppe restoration, modernizing the energy program, and investing in our National Conservation Lands
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama today requested a Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that further strengthens the Administration’s commitment to restoring and conserving the Nation’s sage-steppe ecosystem, supports the safe and effective management of the agency’s oil and gas program, makes historic investments in the BLM’s National Conservation Lands, and takes a proactive approach to better manage the unsustainable proliferation of wild horses and burros on Western public lands.

“The President’s budget gives the BLM the resources we need to manage the public lands on a landscape scale,” said BLM Director Neil Kornze. “This funding will help us continue to devise 21st century solutions to the challenges we face.”

The FY 2017 budget requests $1.3 billion for BLM operations and activities, more than $7 million above the BLM’s FY 2016 enacted budget, and positions the agency for success by restoring the health of the West’s 65 million acres of sage-steppe ecosystem and ensuring responsible development of energy resources on the public lands. It also invests in the agency’s National Conservation Lands — including many of the Nation’s most precious and wildest areas — and seeks new tools to address a rapidly growing and unsustainable wild horse and burro population.

Charged by Congress with a dual mandate of managing public lands for multiple use and sustained yield, the BLM carries out its mission of maintaining the health, diversity, and productivity of these lands in a fast-changing nation. The agency manages 245 million surface acres of public lands — the most of any Federal agency — primarily in 12 Western States, including Alaska, and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate nationwide. This equates to 13 percent of the Nation’s surface and roughly one-third of its subsurface mineral resources.

The FY 2017 budget proposes $1.2 billion for BLM operations, which is $2.1 million above the 2016 enacted level. The request includes $107 million for the Oregon and California Grant Lands appropriation and $1.1 billion for the Management of Lands and Resources appropriation. The change in total program resources relative to 2016 reflects the budget’s proposed offsetting user fees in the Rangeland Management and Oil and Gas Management programs, which together offset the total request by $64.5 million allowing support for additional priorities.

The FY 2017 budget includes the President’s continued focus on the following priorities:

Land and Water Conservation Fund: The Department of the Interior will submit a legislative proposal to authorize permanent annual funding, without further appropriation or fiscal year limitation, for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the innovative, highly successful program that reinvests royalties from offshore oil and gas activities into public lands across the Nation. In 2017, the proposal includes $43.9 million in discretionary funding and $44.8 million in mandatory funding for the BLM’s land acquisition program.

Restoring the Sage-Steppe Ecosystem: In 2015, the BLM’s update of almost 70 land use plans in 10 Western States was integral to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) decision in September 2015 to keep the Greater sage grouse off the Endangered Species Act list at this time. An unprecedented undertaking, the Greater sage-grouse conservation effort has significantly reduced threats to the rangeland bird across 90 percent of its breeding habitat, resulting from sustained collaboration among private stakeholders and local, State, and Federal partners. Moreover, the FWS determina­tion and the conservation mechanisms in place provide the regulatory certainty needed for sus­tainable economic development across millions of acres of Federal and private lands throughout the western United States. Success in sage-grouse conservation will demonstrate the value of planning for conservation and development at a landscape level through collaborative partnerships. The President has requested an additional $14.2 million in FY 2017 for sage-grouse conservation, bringing to $74.2 million the BLM’s total investment in protecting and restoring the sage grouse habitat, in addition to a complementary increase of $5 million for the BLM’s National Seed Strategy to appropriately restore priority sage steppe habitat. This strategy, which aims to ensure the right seeds are available in the right places at the right time, also guides efforts to make treated lands more resilient to fires, invasive species, and drought.

Support for BLM’s National Conservation Lands: The President’s FY 2017 budget request includes a $13.7 million program increase for BLM’s National Conservation Lands, which contain some of the West’s most spectacular landscapes and receive about one-third of all visitors to BLM lands. The increase will bring funding for the program to a historic $50.6 million level, and helps solidify the importance of National Conservation Lands protection as the program embarks beyond its 15th anniversary. This investment will address high-priority on-the-ground needs in national monuments and national conservation areas, including developing management plans for recently designated units, and developing and implementing travel management plans for high-use areas.

Promoting Responsible Energy Development and Modernizing Regulations: The President’s FY 2017 budget request will enable the agency to continue strong support for the Administration’s energy goals. Many of the BLM’s oil and gas regulations date to the 1980s, soon after the BLM assumed responsibility for onshore leasing. The budget request includes a net increase of $19.9 million in program increases for several priorities, including:
Instituting new rules that establish procedures for how producers measure and account for oil and gas extracted from the public lands, which will ensure accurate royalties are paid;
Implementing stronger regulations to reduce the wasteful release of natural gas from oil and gas operations on public and American Indian lands, reducing harmful methane emissions and providing a fair return on public resources;
Implementing the hydraulic fracturing rule;
Modernizing the Automated Fluid Minerals Support System to increase efficiencies in the management of oil and gas operations;
Funding special pay for certain oil and gas program positions to improve recruitment and retention of these vital resources.
Addressing legacy wells on the Alaska North Slope.

Collaboratively Managing Wild Horses and Burros: With more than 100,000 horses in BLM’s care both on and off the range, the agency is redoubling its efforts to reduce the number of horses in holding facilities. The FY 2017 budget request supports new, innovative efforts to secure safe and cost-effective placement for unadopted animals, including proposed legislation to better facilitate the transfer of animals to other public entities at the local, state, and Federal levels. This proposal will work in tandem with other proactive efforts beginning in 2016 to better manage the nation’s large and growing population of wild horses and burros. Each animal placed into private care can save taxpayers almost $50,000.

The President’s FY2017 budget request of $13.4 billion for the Department of the Interior reflects his commitment to conserve vital national landscapes across the Nation, promote the responsible development of energy and mineral resources on public lands and meet Federal trust responsibilities to Native Americans. The Interior Budget in Brief is online: www.doi.gov/budget and www.doi.gov/budget/2017/Hilites/toc.html.

The BLM’s mission is to manage and conserve more than 245 million acres of public land­ for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations under our mandate of multiple-use and sustained yield. To download highlights of BLM’s FY 2017 budget, click this link.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s mission is to manage and conserve the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations under our mandate of multiple-use and sustained yield. In Fiscal Year 2014, the BLM generated $5.2 billion in receipts from public lands.
–BLM–

From a BLM press release: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2016/february/nr_02_09_2016.html

BLM announces 12 million in budget for helicopter roundups. Share the petition to stop cruel roundups!

 

Protect Mustangs.org (Photo © Cat Kindsfather)

Protect Mustangs.org (Photo © Cat Kindsfather)

 

Watch what a roundup looks like:

Please sign and share the petition to defund the roundups: http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

It reads:

According to a press release from National Academy of Sciences released June 5, 2013, “The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) current practice of removing free-ranging horses from public lands promotes a high population growth rate, and maintaining them in long-term holding facilities is both economically unsustainable and incongruent with public expectations, says a new report by the National Research Council.” 

The NAS report states there is “no evidence” of overpopulation. Only tobacco science and spin backs up BLM’s population claim to justify roundups and fertility control/sterilizations.

We request an immediate moratorium on roundups for scientific population studies.

Wild horses are a returned-native species to America. Rounding up federally protected wild horses and burros has been documented as cruel. Warehousing them for decades is fiscally irresponsible. Clearing mustangs and burros off public land–for industrialization, fracking, grazing and the water grab–goes against the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act put in place to protect the living legends of the American West. They must never go to slaughter.

We request you defund and stop the roundups immediatly.

There is no accurate census and the BLM figures do not add up. We request population studies for each herd management area (HMA) and each herd area (HA) because we are gravely concerned there are less than 18,000 wild horses and burros in the 10 western states combined. More roundups or fertility control/sterilizations will wipe them out because the majority are no longer genticaly viable herds.

Wild horses are not overpopulating despite spin from the forces that want to perform heinous sterilizations in the field. Humane fertility control could be looked at as an option only after scientific population studies have been conducted for each HMA and each HA. Right now it’s premature.

Field observers have noticed a worrisome decline in wild horse and burro population since the BLM’s rampant roundups from 2009 to this day.

Kindly allow returned-native wild horses and the burros to reverse desertification, reduce the fuel for wildfires and create biodiversity on public land–while living with their families in freedom.

Sequester prompts call for wild horses and burros to be returned to the wild

Wild horse mares in holding (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Wild horse mares in holding (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Conservation group requests a freeze on roundups

WASHINGTON (April 8, 2013)–Last week Protect Mustangs, the California based conservation group, officially called for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to put a freeze on roundups and return all wild horses and burros, in government funded holding, to herd management areas in the West. They cited the current climate of federal economic instability as putting captive wild horses and burros at risk. As of April 7th, Protect Mustangs has not received a response from from BLM officials.

“It’s fiscal folly to roundup more wild horses and burros than they can adopt out,” explains Anne Novak, executive director for Protect Mustangs. “The roundups need to stop now. We are calling for the more than 50,000 stockpiled native wild horses and historic burros to be returned immediately to public land. We are concerned the government won’t be able to pay for their feed and care during the federal fiscal crisis. We need to be proactive to ensure their safety. If a government shutdown occurs, their only chance of survival is in the wild.”

The Weekly Standard broke the story on BLM’s $6 Mil helicopter contract for the wild horse and burro program after the sequester went into effect.

Roundups increased dramatically in 2009–the same year BLM started fast tracking energy projects with the Stimulus Act in full force. The deadly Calico Roundup and others popped up all along the Ruby Pipeline natural gas route. Protect Mustangs believes wild horses and burros are being removed from 26 million acres to avoid environmental mitigation and costly delays for the extractive industry.

Last month, in response to the BLM’s request for comments on the controversial Continental Divide-Cresta natural gas development project, Protect Mustangs called for a $50 Mil fund to mitigate environmental distress and removal of Wyoming’s wild horses.

In 2012, Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board member, Callie Hendrickson, suggested slaughtering native wild horses as a solution for the government’s holding crisis. Protect Mustangs is concerned the pro-kill faction of the BLM will jump on current federal economic instability to spin a death or slaughter sentence for captured wild horses and burros.

“Native wild horses should not be made to suffer further because of the BLM’s fiscal irresponsibility,” states Kerry Becklund, outreach director for Protect Mustangs. “Killing them is wrong. Now it’s time to return them to their wild lands. All the captive males have already been castrated so they won’t be reproducing. Overpopulation is a myth anyways.”

The BLM justifies using fertility control drugs because of the overpopulation myth. Yet cattle outnumbers wild horses at least 50 to 1 and is the source of most range damage. EPA approved “limited use pesticides” such as SpayVac®, GonaCon™ and ZonaStat-H appear to be risky forms of fertility control. Currently the BLM is using these drugs on wild horses and burros on the range. Protect Mustangs is against using pesticides on native wild horses–especially the nonviable herds.

“Why aren’t these drugs FDA approved for domestic horses if they aren’t harmful?” asks Novak. “We are against using these drugs on mares being released back into the wild. It’s dangerous to use these drugs on nonviable herds. If the herd numbers drop then inbreeding occurs and that’s bad.”

Wild horses are a native species. The horse evolved in America millions of years ago. There were 2 million roaming in freedom in 1900. Today they are underpopulated on the range. Advocates estimate there are less than 20,000 left in the wild. They can fill their niche in the ecosystem and be managed using holistic methods to reduce wildfire fuel, reseed the land, create biodiversity and reverse desertification.

“We are asking for a proactive solution to avoid disaster,” adds Novak. “It’s simple. Return wild horses and burros to the range and save more than $50 Mil taxpayer dollars annually.”

# # #

Below is a copy of the official email sent to Ms. Guilfoyle, Division Chief of Wild Horses & Burros. It was copied to the BLM Acting Director and other staff:

——– Original Message ——–

Subject: Calling for a Freeze on Roundups & Return to HMAs

From: <anne@protectmustangs.org>

Date: Mon, April 01, 2013 1:02 pm

To: jguilfoy@blm.gov

Cc: dbolstad@blm.govnkornze@blm.govjconnell@blm.gov

Joan Guilfoyle, Division Chief

Division of Wild Horses and Burros

20 M Street, S.E.

Washington, DC 20003

Main Contact Number: 202-912-7260

 

Dear Ms. Guilfoyle,

In this climate of federal economic instability, including the possibility of government shutdown, we request that all wild horses and burros in government funded holding be returned to the herd management areas immediately. We call for a freeze on all wild horse and burro roundups to prevent the equids from being caught up in an uncertain fate.

Sincerely,

Anne Novak

 

Anne Novak

Executive Director

Protect Mustangs

 

Media Contacts:

Anne Novak, 415.531.8454 Anne@Protect Mustangs.org

Kerry Becklund, 510.502.1913 Kerry@ProtectMustangs.org

Photos, video and interviews available upon request

Links of interest:

$6 Mil helicopter contract during sequester: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/feds-sign-6m-helicopter-contract-wild-horse-and-burro_714436.html  

Sequester affects wild horse adoption center near Reno: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020634912_apnvbudgetbattlewildhorses1stldwritethru.html

Ruby pipeline and wild horse roundups? http://www.8newsnow.com/story/12769788/i-team-bp-connected-to-wild-horse-roundups

Protect Mustangs calls for $50 Mil Wyoming mitigation fund for wild horses http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/20979  and http://protectmustangs.org/?p=3954

Callie Hendrickson, pro-slaughter appointee: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/03/callie_hendrickson_wild_horse_board_slaughter.php

GonaCon press release spins wild horse overpopulation myths: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/2013/02/horse_vaccine_approval.shtml

ZonaStat-H EPA Pesticide Fact Sheet: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/pending/fs_PC-176603_01-Jan-12.pdf

Cloud Foundation report: Observations of PZP contraceptive us in the Pryors http://protectmustangs.org/?p=3901

Cloud Foundation paper: PZP-22 . . . Do unintended side effects outweigh benefits? http://protectmustangs.org/?p=3270

Native wild horses: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562

Protect Mustangs in the news: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=218

www.ProtectMustangs.org

Protect Mustangs is devoted to protecting native wild horses. Our mission is to educate the public about the native wild horse, protect and research American wild horses on the range and help those who have lost their freedom.

 

Andrew Cohen reports for The Atlantic about the pro-slaughter appointment to the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board

The Lasso Tightens Around America’s Wild Horses

FEB 13 2012 –With 45,000 or so wild horses in federal control, the Bureau of Land Management selects a “pro-slaughter cattlewoman” to be the public’s voice on its advisory board.

To wild horse advocates, the ones who fret daily over the worsening plight of the American mustang, Montana’s Republican former senator Conrad Burns holds a special spot in the pantheon of enablers, cynics, scoundrels and villains who have conspired for generations to endanger the health and safety of the herds. In November 2004, at the last minute, it was then-Senator Burns who inserted into a 3,300-page budget appropriations bill a single-paged rider that amended the 1971 Wild Horse Protection Act so it was legal, once again, to slaughter wild horses.

With the subsequent stroke of President George W. Bush’s pen, Burns thus achieved (without any legislative debate) what Wild Horse Annie‘s Act had specifically sought to prevent. By re-authorizing slaughter, Burns had nurtured the political incentive for the feds to capture and control more wild horses. The economics of that, in turn, helped free up more public/private land for more use by the livestock, oil and mining industries. The free market, in other words, was unleashed upon the horses. They never stood a chance. And they still don’t.

 The answers come easier not because they are wiser, but because of the absence of any meaningful dissent or discussion about alternatives.

In November 2006, Kurt Brungardt wrote an important essay in Vanity Fair chronicling most of this story. Back then, rather than undertake a meaningful revision to the Wild Horse Act that would restore some spine to the federal legislation, Congress instead effectively banned the slaughter of all horses on American soil. The legislation didn’t end the slaughter business that Burns had stimulated, of course. It just outsourced it to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. Last fall, Congress conceded defeat; now, U.S. slaughterhouses are re-opening.No one knows how many wild horses have been slaughtered since 2004. Today, for now, the Bureau of Land Management is prohibited from selling wild horses to those who would then “knowingly” sell them to slaughter. As slender a reed of protection as that is for the horses, it’s actually an improvement from the way it was after Burns first struck. But the current status on slaughter doesn’t even purport to answer the bigger question here: What will now happen now, if not eventual slaughter, to the wild horses under federal control?

According to their own figures, the feds now control in pens or fenced pastures at least 45,000 wild horses. Last year, they rounded up over 10,000 wild horses, about the same as the year before . At the same time, however, the government says the number of wild horses roaming free is approximately the same as it was in 2004. Horse advocates believe this latter number is far less than the feds acknowledge but no one knows for sure, which is one reason why the National Academy of Science is currently reviewing the BLM’s wild horse policies.

THE BLM AND THE ADVISORY BOARD

Once dubbed one of the five worst senators by Time, Burns is gone from political office. In 2008, after he was tainted by the Jack Abramoff scandal, he lost his reelection bid. What’s significant here about his career, however, came before he went to Congress. Wikipedia tells us that Burns was a cattle auctioneer before becoming manager of a livestock expo. He was a farm guy; another farm guy, economically and philosophically opposed to wild horses on public land, who was dictating harmful policy about the horses under color and cover of law.

Burns may be Public Enemy Number One to the wild horse folks. But the Bureau of Land Management (the “Bureau of Livestock and Mining,” as it has been called) is not far behind. And here is one reason why. Last Monday, for example, the BLM announced that it had “made selections for three positions on the National Wild Horse and Bureau Advisory Board,” a group designed under the 1971 Wild Horse Act to advise the bureaucrats on wild horse policies. One of the BLM’s choices for a “public” spot on the Board was Callie Hendrickson.

Here’s how the feds described her:

Ms. Hendrickson is Executive Director, White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts, and owner and consultant for E-Z Communications. As executive director of the conservation districts, Ms. Hendrickson has extensive experience in addressing public rangeland health concerns for the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts. Her career is focused on natural resource policy development and education. She has served on the Colorado Foundation for Water Education, Mesa County 4-H Foundation, Mesa County Farm Bureau, and the Mesa County Cattlewomen. Ms. Hendrickson replaces Janet M. Jankura.

Could it be? Yet another farm and livestock soul, purportedly the “public’s” voice on the Horse Board, getting a chance for input into wild horse policy? And not just a cattlewoman with an evidently open mind, mind you, but one who seems already to have expressed a great deal of hostility toward the horses? The Cloud Foundation, for example, a leading horse advocacy group, immediately noted that Hendrickson was part of a group which had intervened against it in a lawsuit brought to better protect a free-roaming herd on Colorado’s Western Slope.

And the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, another one of the nation’s leading horse advocacy groups, formally protested the BLM’s inclusion onto the Board of what the AWHPC called a “pro-slaughter cattlewoman.” To the BLM, the advocates wrote:

Particularly objectionable is the recent appointment of Callie Hendrickson, an outspoken advocate for horse slaughter and lethal management of America’s wild horses, to the “Public Interest” position on the board. At a time when public opinion surveys have reconfirmed the American public’s strong opposition to horse slaughter, Ms. Hendrickson’s appointment to represent “general public interest” is, frankly, appalling.

Ms. Hendrickson… has a history of anti-mustang positions and in favor of slaughter. In fact, she will be a featured speaker at the United Horsemen summit in Oklahoma, which is being organized to plan strategy for resumption of horse slaughter in the U.S. She has also lobbied for removal of wild horses from public lands; endorsed the destruction of “excess” wild horses and the unlimited sale of captured mustangs for slaughter; testified in favor of anti-wild-horse legislation; criticized wild horse advocates [and] supported legislation to block environmental and animal protection organizations from filing lawsuits (internal links omitted by me).

This kind of political and bureaucratic deck-stacking — the BLM truly couldn’t find a neutral new member for the Board? — is a recurring theme in the story of these horses. The people who are responsible for their protection and management typically have enormous conflicts of interest against them. The Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, is a Colorado rancher. The governor of Wyoming, Matt Mead, is a rancher. And the beleaguered, old Wild Horse Protection Act is only as sound as the men and women who interpret and implement it.

THE PROBLEM

Late last week, I asked the BLM to comment on the Hendrickson controversy. Here is the initial response I got back via email from Tom Gorey, a BLM spokesman:

The attempt by activists to discredit the new appointees to the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is a typical tactic employed by anti-BLM partisans to push their anti-management agenda by any means possible. Their apocalypse-now, sky-is-falling rhetoric is flagrantly dishonest and is clearly aimed at preventing the BLM from gathering horses from overpopulated herds on the range. The BLM is not ‘managing for extinction.’ There is no conspiracy to put down healthy horses that are in off-the-range holding facilities. Members on our board are qualified based on their knowledge of the law, current program actions, and their commitment to ensuring that healthy horses thrive in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses.

The next day, Gorey sent me another email. Citing the language of the 1971 statute, he wrote that Hendrickson “was found to meet all of the requirements for the General Public appointee. Requirements include a special knowledge about protection of wild horses and burros, management of wildlife, animal husbandry, or natural resource management.” Gorey told me that both the Secretary of the Interior — that would-be rancher Salazar — and the Secretary of Agriculture had signed off on Hendrickson’s appointment.

To Suzanne Roy, of the Horse Preservation Campaign, Hendrickson’s new role is only half the bad news delivered by the BLM last week. The other half was the removal from the Advisory Board of Janet Jankura, whom Hendrickson replaced. According to Roy, Jankura had applied to continue in her “public” spot on the Board but was replaced. Why? Roy suggests it is because Jankura during her tenure pressed “the BLM to document and consider public comments” about the wild horses. Roy also offered some perspective about the board itself:

Last year, the BLM reconfigured the board membership. Previously, there were two slots for livestock/ranching interests. One of those slots was converted to public interest with equine knowledge, meaning that there are now 2 representatives of the public and 1 livestock representative on the board. BLM embraced this change as evidence of their commitment to reforming the program. With the appointment of Hendrickson, the BLM is, in essence, taking back the livestock slot, providing more evidence (as if we needed any more!) that the BLM talks about reform while continuing the same old business as usual.

“Business at usual” at the BLM is not good news for the horses. First, the horses got the shaft during the Reagan Administration, from the brush-clearing California cowboy himself. Next, their situation became materially worse during the administration of George W. Bush, the Connecticut oilman with the cowboy hat. And things look even worse now after three years of President Barack Obama, the politician who campaigned against horse slaughter, but who nevertheless signed last fall’s slaughter bill.

THE SOLUTION

So what is America going to do with all the wild horses it has rounded up to keep America’s public lands available for cattle and sheep? How is the BLM going to continue to justify the continuing costs of keeping the horses penned or pastured? The concern, for wild horse lovers, isn’t just that no one in Washington seems to have a good answer to those questions. The concern is that when the answers finally do come from government they’ll come from folks like Hendrickson, who evidently believe that large-scale slaughter is a valid option.There is no conspiracy, the BLM’s Gorey says, but there doesn’t have to be one to doom the horses. You get enough like-minded people into a bureaucracy, or onto an advisory board, and pretty soon everyone agrees about what ought to be done. The answers come easier not because they are wiser, or because they purport to follow the spirit of the law, but because of the absence of any meaningful dissent or discussion about alternatives. That’s how bad policy gets made, how it sustains itself, and how, eventually, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

From the BLM’s newly-constituted Advisory Board to the number of hooves now penned in; from the Interior Secretary’s ranching interests to complaints about the taxpayer costs of keeping so many public horses in captivity; from the resumption of horse slaughter on American soil to the heightened pace of yearly round-ups, there is little that advocates can point to today as a sign that things are going to get better, and not much worse, for the wild horses (who, as I’ve written before, constitute a tiny fraction of all animals ranging public land).

It would take a great many acts of political courage on Capitol Hill to restore some sense of balance to the policy argument over the fate of the horses. It would take an amendment to the 1971 law — a revision that would go against the interests of the powerful livestock and ranching lobbies and their tribunes in state and federal government. And it would take a change in personnel and policy at the Interior Department, and its Bureau of Land Management, to make the executive branch the honest broker that wild horse advocates want it to be.

It would take, in other words, an honest and meaningful national discussion about whether we want to continue to protect our wild horses and precisely how we want our BLM bureaucrats to “manage” them. It’s a debate which horse advocates would welcome — the polling looks good — but which isn’t likely to ever happen. Instead, the spirit of the federal law which protects the wild horses will continue to be whittled away, one Hendrickson or Burns at a time. For the nation’s symbolic horses, their friends are close — but their enemies are closer.

© The Atlantic.

The article is here http://bit.ly/ydKDkD Please share this far and wide so the public knows what’s going on with their tax dollars.

Breaking News: Celebrities speak out against roundups & Old Gold’s death

 

"Old Gold was traumatized and killed," say the Barbi Twins. "Stop the Calico roundup now!"

Michael Blake and The Barbi Twins speak out against wild horse roundups 

Do the death counts dupe Congress?

LOS ANGELES (November 28, 2011)—Academy Award winner-Michael Blake and the Barbi Twins join the American public and Protect Mustangs in their outrage over the death of Old Gold, a palomino wild mare who was euthanized by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) after being rounded up. Cat Kindsfather’s photos were released on the Protect Mustangs website showing the traumatized wild horse slammed into a metal panel at the trap, yet the (BLM) reports the mustang was euthanized because she was more than 20 years old—with a lack of body condition and worn teeth.  The BLM counts Old Gold’s death as ‘not gather-related’. California-based Protect Mustangs believes the horse’s death is roundup-related and must be counted as such. They want Congress to be informed and taxpayers to know how their money is spent. Protect Mustangs asks the Obama Administration to freeze all roundups now, end inhumane treatment of wild horses and burros, save taxpayer money and conduct an exact head count on the ranges to know exactly how many treasured wild horses and burros exist in the wild.

“Old Gold was traumatized at the trap and slammed into a metal fence where she surely was injured,” explains Anne Novak, Executive Director of Protect Mustangs from Berkeley. “Congress hears about a 1% death rate at roundups but how can that be? BLM’s accountability is in question now that the agency lists Old Gold’s death as ‘non gather-related’”.

As of November 27th, six deaths have occurred at the Calico roundup. Five were listed as ‘non gather-related’ deaths—including killing Old Gold. Only one death has been classified as a “gather-related” death, according to the BLM death report.

“Killing the wild mare, Old Gold, is nothing new. The United States government has allowed its BLM and other agencies to kill animals forever . . . just for money,” states Michael Blake, Academy Award winning screenwriter of DANCES WITH WOLVES.

BLM must correct its policy to insure that the welfare of wild horses and burros is considered above the contractor’s payment per head for each animal rounded up and delivered to BLM.

Protect Mustangs is requesting transparency from the BLM about the amount paid per wild horse (adult and youngster) and at what point is the horse considered “delivered” for payment. Also they want to know if the contractor gets paid if a horse is euthanized after “delivery”.

“American taxpayers don’t want to pay for animal cruelty,” states Novak. “We don’t want wild horses and burros to be traumatized, injured and killed at the hands of our government. We want the roundups to stop now.”

Two winters ago BLM rounded up Calico wild horses in what was the deadliest wild horse roundup documented. Of the 1922 mustangs rounded up, more than 158 deaths are attributed to the roundup.

Protect Mustangs is concerned the 2011 Calico roundup will virtually wipe the wild horses off the half a million acre landscape near Gerlach, Nevada where Burning Man is held. They are circulating a petition to stop the Calico roundup.

“If it weren’t for horses, we wouldn’t have a country or a flag,” say The Barbi Twins (Shane & Sia). “Why can’t there be laws to protect them, like there are for the flag? Horses are living beings. Their blood’s been used to make the red in the red, white and blue, as you can see in the forthcoming movie, WAR HORSE.”

The wild horse advocacy group asks Congress for a full investigation into deaths at helicopter roundups and resulting from roundups 4 months after capture.

Protect Mustangs is a California-based non-profit whose mission is to inform the public about the mustang crisis, protect America’s 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

Kerry Becklund 510-502-1913 Kerry@ProtectMustangs.org

Photos, video and interviews available upon request.

Links of interest:

KPFA Evening News Interview at 26:25 http://bit.ly/rssRl5

Questions over fate of “Old Gold” http://bit.ly/vr1MX9

Protect Mustangs asks Obama to stop dangerous Calico Roundup http://bit.ly/vgqIOv

BLM Death Report: http://on.doi.gov/vttLwA

Protect Mustangs’ Petition to Stop Calico Roundup: http://chn.ge/rBoej7

CBS reports on deadly 2010 Calico roundup stampede http://bit.ly/sZaHZ


Lisa Friday followup report exposes more mustang neglect

Inhumane wild horse management plagues BLM Utah facilities

The Cloud Foundation (TCF) received a report from wild horse advocate, Lisa Friday, regarding the conditions of two Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wild horse holding facilities in Utah. Friday was following up on the wild horses she found living in squalor at the Herriman holding facility outside Salt Lake, who were relocated to other facilities in the state. Despite finding the horses living in clean pens with plenty of hay, Friday’s report contains stills and video which reveal more inhumane treatment of wild horses.

Photo © Lisa Friday and The Cloud Foundation

“I saw captive wild horses in Utah with severely long, curled hooves,” explains Friday. “Dozens of mustangs were very lame with shocking sled-runner feet. When I asked why their feet were not trimmed I was told they did not have the funding to hire a professional farrier and were just beginning to ‘train’ a fellow to trim hooves. I would like to see the two facilities (Delta & Gunnison) allocate funding to have the mustangs’ feet cared for by a professional. The facilities have a paid public relations specialist on staff but no professional farrier to care for the horses. Their priorities are mixed up.”

In March of this year, Friday revealed wild horses living in knee-deep mud, manure and urine with no dry place to lie down at the Herriman facility. As a result of her video, released by TCF, and subsequent BLM reviews, the facility is closed for the winter with plans to close  permanently within the next two years.

Friday was not permitted to take pictures or video when she visited the Gunnison Correctional Facility on October 27th, however she reports seeing the same long, uncared for hooves and lameness. She even saw an inmate riding a lame mustang with severely long toes.

“This is definitely gross neglect,” states Dr. Lisa Jacobson, an equine veterinarian in Clyde Park, Montana who examined Friday’s photographs. “There is no excuse for allowing hooves to be in this crippling state.”

Friday took pictures of 20 or more captive wild horses in the Delta Facility with severely curled hooves and reported that the Gunnison facility had the same problems. Horses in the care of private citizens are often trimmed every 6-8 weeks. Hoof health is essential for horse health.

“I have never seen wild horses in the BLM Canon City, Colorado holding and training facility with hoof problems like those in Lisa’s pictures,” explains Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation, who has been visiting the Colorado facility for the past 13 years. “BLM schedules all horses for regular hoof care every two months or so in Canon City. If Utah cannot do the same, they should not have horses warehoused there.”

Friday also discovered a bay mare (Neck tag #7081) in the Delta facility with a very severe-looking eye condition. The veterinarian for the facility did not know what had caused the problem. Eye problems in horses can cause blindness. Two weeks later, the condition has yet to be diagnosed or treated.

“I visited a holding facility and adoption center this year in Mississippi,” says Friday.  “All the horses seemed very well taken care of—quite a contrast with the Utah facilities.”

Friday attended the Winter Ridge roundup near Vernal, Utah two months ago. She wanted to check in on those horses now in holding who were shipped to the Delta facility. She was shocked to see a lot of the wild horses were not freeze branded and did not have ID tags.

“Why weren’t the Winter Ridge horses branded and wearing their ID tags? asks Lisa Friday. “Without indentification, captured wild horses are at risk of slipping into the slaughter pipeline. What’s going on here?”

In August, a trailer was busted at a port of entry outside of Helper, Utah under suspicious circumstances and 64 BLM mustangs bound for slaughter in Mexico were impounded.

Links of Interest:
Lisa Friday’s Fall Report: http://bit.ly/spHCeh
Video followup report from Utah (Fall 2011): http://bit.ly/vXRxzv
Video report from Herriman Facility (April 2011): http://bit.ly/tevV3H
Slaughter Bust–Mustang Killer Buyer Indictment: http://bit.ly/px8pvg