Senate Appropriations maintains protections for wild horses

Despite crazy ideas pushed around to kill or slaughter America’s last wild horses, the United States Senate Appropriations Committee has upheld the law and we are grateful. We would like to thank Senator Udall for spearheading the moral path to honor the law.

We also want to thank you for taking action with phone calls, meetings and emails!

Please call the following Senators. Thank them for protecting America’s last wild horses and politely ask them for an independent head count.

Sen. Mitch McConnell: (202) 224-2541
Sen. Chuck Schumer: (202) 224-6542
Sen. Thad Cochran: (202) 224-5054
Sen. Patrcky Leahy: (202) 224-4242
Sen. John Hoeven: (202) 224-2551
Sen. Jeff Merkley: (202) 224-3753
Sen. Lisa Murkowski: (202)-224-6665
Sen. Tom Udall: (202) 224-6621

Join more than 46,000 people who have signed the Petition for a Head Count of Wild Horses and Burros: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-investigate-the-wild-horse-burro-count-in-captivity-and-freedom It’s essential we find out how many are left.

The fight continues

Sadly the Bureau of Land Management and groups who lobby for population control experimentation, as well as permanent and semi-permanent sterilization will continue to fear monger the trusting public up through the end of the year. . . It’s now that the public can notice who is in the fight to protect the wild horses and who is playing the game for the research grants, long-term holding contracts and slick end of the year campaigns for fertility control–on a species threatened with extinction.

For the Wild Ones,

Anne Novak
Volunteer Executive Director
Protect Mustangs

Anne Novak interviewed at a protest outside Senator Feinstein’s office July 3, 2017

Protect Mustangs is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of native and wild horses. www.ProtectMustangs.org



Agency is wiping out America’s last wild horses based on fake numbers

Photo by BLM, public domain

 

“My family helped settle Oregon and I’ve always liked going out into the wild to see the wild herds,” says Bob Pritchett. “Now I go out there and don’t see any. BLM is lying. The truth is they are underpopulated.”

So called “humane fertility control”, Pesticide PZP, etc. will eventually manage wild horses and burros to extinction. Overpopulation is Fake News planted to then fear monger the public with BLM’s killing/slaughter proposal yet their goal is to ultimately push for public approval of sterilization using the Problem -> Reaction -> Solution Hegelian Dialectic method. Sterilized wild horses will eventually die off leaving no more wild horses on public land. This #WildHorseWipeOut is what they want. The American public wants land and forage given to native wild horses and burros for their principal use according to the 1971 law.

Right now an independent head count is needed! Demand an Urgent Congressional Investigation and Head Count of all Wild Horses and Burros in Captivity and in the Wild: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-investigate-the-wild-horse-burro-count-in-captivity-and-freedom  

Marybeth Devlin reports that America’s wild horses are Underpopulated:

Per the guidelines of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) own geneticist, the arbitrary management levels (AMLs) of 83% of wild-horse herds are set below minimum-viable population (MVP). Further, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature says the MVP should be 16 times higher for the species to survive and thrive.

Sparsely Populated: Wild horses are few and far between.

In Wyoming, BLM limits the Red Desert herds to 1 wild horse per 1569 acres that’s 2½ square miles. In Oregon, BLM restricts the Beaty’s Butte herd to 1 wild horse per 4381 acres (7 square miles). In Nevada, BLM limits the Silver King herd to 1 wild horse per 9591 acres (15 square miles).  *Note: figures are based on BLM’s low AML which is their management protocol.

Fraudulent figures: BLM reports biologically-impossible population-growth-figures. Normal herd-growth = 5%. Here are just a few examples of BLM’s growth-figures:

418% — 84 times the norm — Black Rock Range East
293% — 59 times the norm — Diamond Hills South
237% — 47 times the norm — Divide Basin
417% — 83 times the norm — Nut Mountain
260% — 52 times the norm — Shawave

How many wild horses have been rounded up and shipped to slaughter?

 

Protect Mustangs is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of native and wild horses. www.ProtectMustangs.org



Groups who want Pesticide PZP used on America’s last wild horses

 

According to a press release by Return to Freedom Sanctuary, who seems to have received money from the BLM in the past, the following groups want to use PZP on wild horses:

Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

Animal Legal Defense Fund

Animals Voice

Animal Welfare Institute

Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary

Center for Animal Protection and Education

Citizens Against Equine Slaughter

The Cloud Foundation

Corolla Wild Horse Fund

Friends of a Legacy

Front Range Equine Rescue

Habitat for Horses

Hidden Valley Wild Horse Protection Fund

Horses for Life Foundation

Humane Society of the United States

Jicarilla Mustang Heritage Alliance

Least Resistance Training Concepts

Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue

Montgomery Creek Ranch

National Mustang Association, Colorado Chapter

Oregon Wild Horse & Burro Association

Photographers for the Preservation of Wild Horses and Burros

Pine Nut Wild Horse Advocates

Respect 4 Horses

Return to Freedom Wild Horse Sanctuary and Preservation

Salt River Wild Horse Management Group

Serengeti Foundation

Southern Sun Farm Sanctuary

Steadfast Steeds

Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Association

Wild Equid League (Colorado)

Wild Horses of America Foundation

Wild Horse Connection

Wild Horse Education

Wild Horse Observers Association

Wild Horse Preservation League

Pm PZP Darts

 

PZP = Slow Extinction

 

Don’t let yourself be fear mongered. Read the Science Against PZP:

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

PZP is Dangerous: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=6922

 

PM No Evidence Overpopulation

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




Underpopulation, sterilization, pesticides and Pandora’s box

Watch the Pro-Cattle, Pro-Sterilization, Pro-Slaughter Activists Push to Wipe Out America’s Wild Horses and Burros in the House Committee on Natural Resources

When advocates stop fighting for wild horses and burros to remain really free in large numbers on public land put aside by Congress for their principal but not exclusive use, then we have a problem.
 
When advocates go along with BLM’s overpopulation myth and their agenda for “fertility control” we have a problem.
 
When the advocacy is divided over forced drugging wild mares with Pesticide PZP, as defined by the EPA, we have a problem.
 
Now wild horse haters and special interest groups are gaining ground in Washington with YOUR elected officials! Are YOUR senators and congress people representing your voice in government or are they representing Dirty Money?
 
Never underestimate the Pandora’s Box known as PZP and other methods used to manage underpopulated wild horses to EXTINCTION.
 
American wild horses & burros have the right to be an essential part of the thriving natural ecological system on public lands!
 
Contact your elected officials today! Senators are in office until July 1: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/ ASK that they stop the assault on wild horses and PROTECT them!
PUBLIC comment allowed for 10 Business days after the Natural Resources meeting, which is July 7, 2016.  EMAIL: the Clerk: aniela.butler@mail.house.gov

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




URGENT: Comments due February 3 against wild horse mare sterilization experiment

574px-Blm.svg

There is no overpopulation of wild horses. BLM’s harvesting model based management via roundups is disrupting herd dynamics and increasing the birthrate. Even so BLM’s allegations of overpopulation are fraudulent based on false data. They don’t even account for the correct mortality rates in the wild. Predators need to be reintroduced if anything. Wild horses are a return-native species that help reduce catastrophic wildfires and create biodiversity. The BLM is trying to manage America’s wild horses to extinction. The bottom line is America’s federally protected wild horses are underpopulated today. The BLM is creating a false crisis to cash in on wild horses as laboratory animals for fertility control experiments.

The content below is a BLM Press Release and does not reflect the views of Protect Mustangs:

 

Hines, Ore. – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Burns District announces the availability of a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for Mare Sterilization Research at Oregon’s Wild Horse Corral Facility in Hines. In cooperation with Oregon State University, the BLM is proposing to investigate the safety and efficacy of three separate methods of surgical sterilization of wild horse mares: ovariectomy via colpotomy, tubal ligation, and hysteroscopically-guided laser ablation of the oviduct papilla.

A 30-day public comment period on the EA is set for January 5 through February 3, 2016. Comments can be mailed or faxed to the BLM Burns Office at the address below, or submitted by email to: blm_or_bu_mareresearchea@blm.gov. Entire comments – including personal identifying information – may be published as part of the EA and Decision Record process. Copies of the draft EA are available for review at the BLM Burns District Office during regular business hours, or online at https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office. This link takes you to BLM’s new ePlanning website. To search for the EA and unsigned FONSI you can either use the map to locate Burns District or click on the “Text Search” tab and search by state, document type, year, and program.

Mail or deliver to:

Mare Sterilization Research Project Lead
BLM Burns District Office
28910 Highway 20 West, Hines, Oregon 97738

Fax:

(541) 573-4411
Attention: Mare Sterilization Research Project Lead

The BLM is investing in a diverse portfolio of research projects to develop new, modern technologies and methods for wild horse and burro management.

Research is aimed at finding safe and effective ways to slow the population growth rate and reduce the need to remove animals from public lands. The studies are in response to a 2013 recommendation from the National Academy of

Science to develop new or improve existing population grown suppression methods for wild horses and is in accordance with The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. Utah, Wyoming and Oregon have current or upcoming research projects.

For further information about Oregon’s Mare Sterilization Research project or to have your name added to the project mailing list, contact the Project Lead at (541) 573-4400.

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

The above is from a BLM Press Release and not reflecting the views of Protect Mustangs. The BLM is trying to manage America’s wild horses to extinction.


Tracy Mohr speaks out against against experiments to wipe out wild horses

The War on Wild Horses

The War on Wild Horses

Advocate sees how disturbed the Sheldon wildlife preserve wild horses are after decades of experimentation 

Tracy Mohr writes:

Here is a link: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/whbprogram/science_and_research/usgs_partnership.html to the BLM’s page of all the research they are proposing to do on the wild horses to “effectively manage them” on public lands. Keep in mind that the bottom line for BLM is that the proposed procedures, “when applied, are expected to result in a static to decreasing population level”.

In other words, the goal of all this research is to reduce the number of horses on public lands over time through permanent sterilization, with extinction being the eventual result.

If anyone is familiar with the concept of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) with feral cats, it is the method proven most effective to reduce and eventually eliminate feral cat colonies.

The most concerning part of all this is that according to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) 2013 report, there is no scientific basis used by BLM to determine the number of horses that should be on the range, nor does BLM know how many horses are actually on the range. Population estimates have been know to be 800% higher than actual numbers. The NAS report also stated that current management practices (ie. removals) are actually contributing to higher rates of population growth due to decreased competition for forage and water.

So how can BLM say they need to reduce wild horse reproduction when they don’t really know how many horses are on the range or how many horses the range can hold?

Yet the BLM continues to reduce the number of horses allowed while increasing the number of livestock permitted to graze on public lands.

Make no mistake, the goal is to eliminate wild horses from public lands.

We currently have 45 horses from the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, and some of these procedures had been done on the horses prior to their removal. It is obvious to us that higher male to female ratios, and spaying of mares and gelding and vasectomizing of males, does affect herd dynamics.

This was not the intention of the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, which was to preserve wild horses and burros on the land where they were found, and keep them free from slaughter and harassment from man.

This research is not only unnecessary because there is no wild horse or burro overpopulation, but it is redundant, has already been shown to be detrimental to overall herd health, and will result in the eventual elimination of wild horses from our public lands.

~ Tracy Mohr, founder The Mustang Project

Conversation about fertility control with Brett Hass, retired biologist previously with NSA (part 1)

Don’t let pesticides like Gonacon™, PZP or SpayVac® manage native wild horses to extinction. The Spin Dr.’s and some ignorant horse advocates are pushing fertility control on underpopulated wild horses. Know the truth and expose those spewing the spin.

PM Gonacon Pesticide Fact Sheet

Read the entire Gonacon™ Pesticide Fact Sheet

Interview

John Cox: Brett, you’re a retired biologist, previously with the NSA for how many years?

Brett Hass: 46 long years John. We met in Vietnam, when we a lot younger my friend (smiles). We were doing wildlife and vegetation studies in your AO (area of operations). That was my first assignment with the NSA, as a matter of fact.

John Cox: Let’s cut through all of that. What do you think of Gonacon™ and some of the other fertility controls BLM is using?

Brett Hass: As usual, and as government agencies do and BLM and DOI are extremely guilty, they pretend that science guides its wild horse and burro management strategies. So the agencies involved go forth and resolve issues, supposedly, with experimental drugs–in this case GonaCon™. The question is, in reality, does it resolve anything at all, or is it simply to further experimentations with this drug and the wild horses the most expendable of situations currently?

The problem is very obvious, with the first-time use of an experimental drug, they act like children with a new toy–but this toy is extremely dangerous, to not only the horses and actually lead them to extinction, but the environmental consequences are apparently neglected entirely? (shakes his head negatively). . .

But let’s get real, the very absence of science contradicts any time of sound reasoning for its use whatsoever. So once again we have a government agency, using a Nazi-Type experimental fertility drug on horses and other wildlife–without knowing, or even acknowledging for that matter, what the long-term consequences are–or in perception–the problems that will arise in its actual use.

There is no resolution, as I reviewed the population situation and see first hand there is no over-population if wild horses just within the BLM numbers alone; but livestock, that is a completely different matter, in reality.

John Cox: In your appraisal of the information you’ve read, would you, as a tenured Wildlife Biologist for over 50 years, use this drug?

Brett Hass: Absolutely not! There is no pertinent reasoning to use it right now and especially on wild horses or much of anything else for that matter. Our wildlife and environment is simply too important to be so frivolous with such activity, especially an unknown situation, as fertility drugs used in our natural environment. But as you say, ignorance is quite something, and our government seems to portray ignorance quite well, and frankly the only situation they seem to be competent to accomplish.

Much more on this discussion with Brett Hass later . . .

574px-Blm.svg

Below is the original PZP Pesticide Fact Sheet before HSUS seems to have lobbied the EPA to make changes to the chemical class. It’s still only approved as a pesticide to manage pests. PZP is made from slaughterhouse pig ovaries mixed with modified freund’s complete adjuvant.

PM PZP Test mares

(American wild horses used in fertility control experiments)

© John Cox, printed with permission

John Cox is a Vietnam Vet, living in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest who writes about the environment. He’s passionate about saving America’s wild horse herds and wolves. 

Read John Cox’s blog at: https://prophoto7journal.wordpress.com

Have you read about the Gonacon™ Experiment on the Water Canyon herd and the UNLUCKY 11 orphans? It all started as a PZP proposal and went down the slippery slope. . .  Read about it here: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8488





PZP Pushers are misleading the public as there is no evidence of overpopulation

PM PZP Auto-immune disease

PZP = Slow Extinction

While touted as a “vaccine,” porcine zona pellucida — PZP — is actually a perversion of a vaccine — an anti-vaccine — whose mode-of-action is to cause auto-immune disease. PZP tricks the immune system into producing antibodies that attack the ovaries, inducing ovarian dystrophy, oophoritis (inflammation of the ovaries), and ovarian cysts. Worse yet, per radioimmunoassay, the PZP antibodies are transferred from mother to young via the placenta and milk. The antibodies cross-react with and bind to the zonae pellucidae of female offspring. Although hyped as a “non-hormonal” method of birth-control, PZP causes estrogen-levels to plummet as the ovaries degenerate. Despite the manufacturer’s claim that PZP is “reversible,” its effects wear off unpredictably. In herds under PZP “management,” the birthing season extends to nearly year-round, putting the life of the foals and mares at risk. Because PZP messes with the immune system, it “works” best on the healthiest fillies and mares — those with strong immunity — ironically, rendering them sterile even with just a few treatments. Filles injected with PZP before they have reached puberty are particularly vulnerable to immediate sterilization. Conversely, PZP has little-to-no effect on fillies and mares with a weak immune system — they continue to become pregnant. Thus, a herd being treated with PZP is undergoing selective breeding for low immunity, which puts the population at risk for disease — and ultimately, extinction. ~Marybeth Devlin, member of The Facebook Forum on PZP for Wild Horses and Burros.

PZP = Slow Extinction

Stop the war on wild horses

The War on Wild Horses

The War on Wild Horses

Icons of freedom are under attack

Take action against the war on wild horses by contacting your congressional representative today. Request an immediate moratorium on roundups before the herds are wiped out and symbols of the American spirit are trafficked to slaughter.

The evidence is in they are being sold to slaughter violating the public trust and the news story is going viral.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been selling America’s protected wild horses by the truckload to kill buyers like Tom Davis, as revealed in the Inspector General’s report released October 23rd

Please sign and share the petition to increase the fine for trafficking a wild horse to slaughter to $50,000. Since kill buyers are motivated by profit, the fines need to increase to make buying wild horses and selling them to slaughter a risky and unprofitable business.

The BLM has plans to sterilize herds to manage them to extinction. This is a gross violation of the Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act and must be stopped. How? We need to start rallying to raise public awareness, write letters and meet with elected officials to demand the BLM stop managing wild horses to extinction. The clock is ticking . . .

Some mustang groups have bought into a belief that fertility control drugs like PZP made from slaughterhouse pig ovaries and others are needed to “control” population when the truth is there aren’t enough wild horses left on public land that has been ravaged by livestock overgrazing. Before you agree to PZP ask yourself, “Are there really too many wild horses left on public land?”

America’s wild horses are an indigenous species that must be protected to fill their niche in the ecosystem and inspire future generations with their beauty and spirit. Take action today!

 

Links of interest™

Viral news story on wild horses sold to slaughter: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/10/24/investigation-says-buyer-shipped-horses-killed-meat-mexico/74547060/

Inspector General’s report: https://www.doioig.gov/reports/investigative-report-bureau-land-management-wild-horse-buyer

Forum on PZP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ForumPZPWildHorsesBurros

Petition for a Moratorium on Roundups: https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-urgent-grant-a-10-year-moratorium-on-wild-horse-roundups-for-recovery-and-studies

Petition to Stop Wild Horse Trafficking: https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-u-s-senate-u-s-house-of-representatives-increase-fines-to-50-000-per-mustang-for-selling-american-wild-horses-to-slaughter

Protect Mustangs on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs

Protect Mustangs: http://protectmustangs.org

Media placement spins wild horses as scary pests to push PZP at upcoming BLM meeting?

Pine Nut Wild Horses ©Anne Novak for Protect Mustangs

Pine Nut Wild Horses ©Anne Novak for Protect Mustangs

Are the PZP PUSHERS buying CNN media placement ahead of the BLM’s Wild Horse Advisory Board Meeting April 22-23rd in Ohio to PUSH PZP, take over and control America’s wild horses that they see as “pests” deserving of a pesticide for “birth control”? Follow the money and you find millions of donor dollars that would pour in (think of who is on the top of the PZP pyramid) if they were able to claim they solved the wild horse “problem” with PZP.  (EPA Pesticide Fact Sheet: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/pending/fs_PC-176603_01-Jan-12.pdf)

PM PZP Syringe Yearling Meme

 

Wild horses and the world’s forgotten animals
by Motez Bishara, for CNN April 21, 2015

(CNN)The Rolling Stones sang about them, and Ford named its most iconic sports car after them.

Their numbers are increasing, yet mustangs are among the ever-growing list of animals being eclipsed by the modern world.

That’s the view of Dutch artist Charlotte Dumas, who holds a particular fascination with the wild horses that populate the western U.S., together with the overall roles that animals play in society.

“Their physical presence may be growing, but what they stand for is deteriorating,” Dumas explains. “The whole idea of the wild and free horse is not sustainable anymore.”

From her observations, much of the world’s attention when it comes to animals either fixates on pets, which she says are “put on a pedestal, almost to excess,” or those consumed as part of the giant produce industry. “And then there is a big midsection that completely disappeared,” she says.

Dumas, 37, uses her medium of undirected portrait photography to humanize a largely anonymous subset of the animal population. She avoids zooms, taking photos only with portrait lenses that force her to get up close and personal with the animals — even when those subjects are wolves, wild dogs and tigers (she was safely behind a fence for the tigers).

Her two most recent bodies of work were recently on display at The Photographer’s Gallery in London. For “The Widest Prairies,” Dumas shadowed the mustangs from a trailer in Dayton, Nevada, while “Anima” is a video montage of military horses falling asleep in the stables of Arlington National Cemetery.

“Those horses make for a more appealing subject simply because they are more realistic of how most horses live, rather than in a very artificial habitat (catered to) horses that we might see in the Olympics,” says Dr. Thomas Witte, lecturer in equine surgery at the Royal Veterinary College in London.

Both projects required multiple trips from New York, where Dumas was living at the time, and countless hours behind the lens. Dumas believes taking her time is essential in order to catch the subjects in a relaxed and natural state.

The 12-minute film “Anima” was compiled from footage shot over the course of 15 nights, usually from midnight until 4 a.m.

“I encounter a lot of people in my work, and what they all find the strangest is that I stay around that long,” she explains. “(They ask), don’t you already have it by now?”

A press officer from the cemetery was assigned to accompany her during the overnights, shuffling back and forth between the stables and alerting Dumas when a horse was nodding off.

“I felt really guilty in the beginning because he had to be there for all these insane hours, but he didn’t mind at all,” she says.

The time spent allowed her to present a behind-the-scenes look at the working life of a regal animal. Known as caisson burial horses, the likes of Major and Ringo lead the procession for honored deceased servicemen up to eight times a day.

“(A working horse) is one of the few places where there is still this interaction where man and animal depend on each other,” says Dumas. “They are not as visible anymore, whereas they used to be very much part of everyday life.”

Tens of thousands of tourists go on African safari every year. Many will see the continent most beautiful beasts from the safety of a four-wheel drive vehicle, but some brave the bush on the four legs of a horse.

Witte points to an old adage in the veterinary world: that 10% of the world’s equine population receives 90% of the veterinary care.

“All those equids that are doing the grunt work and supporting their human families in developing parts of the world — the mules and donkeys — they get very little in the way of veterinary care and very little in the way of attention,” he says.

After such an intimate project, Dumas decided to profile the exact opposite type of horse for her followup — one with almost no human interaction or discipline.

“The wild horses have such a romantic connotation; I wanted to challenge myself, and see if it was possible to take a portrait of one,” she says. “I thought it was always a daring topic to go near, so it took me a while before I was ready to take that on. Practically they are very different from each other.”

Dumas spent nights in a trailer loaned by a wild horse preservationist in Nevada. The topic is controversial, since the free-roaming horses (numbering 40,815 throughout 10 states) can overpopulate and encroach on residential areas.

“They keep coming closer and closer to civilization because there is no food on the hills anymore. So (there is a question of) who’s infringing on who,” she explains.

Witte notes that overpopulation can lead to a spread of diseases between species. “Wherever you have that interface between human population and animal population, you’ve got to do something to control the situation; that is for animal welfare as much as it is for human convenience,” he says.

There are a further 16,203 horses up for adoption in holding shelters, and another 31,250 in long-term pastures. All the horses fall under the care of the Bureau of Land Management and are protected under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

On a gamble, Dumas took to the mountains of Nevada and befriended a local watcher who put her up in her trailer. After studying the horses up close, Dumas decided to return months later — and noticed how their personalities had changed. Oddly, the more time she spent in the mustangs’ proximity, the less comfortable she became.

“I went in early spring which, was like mating season, and then they got really wild. You really had to be careful that you didn’t get caught up between two stallions fighting for mares,” she recalls. “The more I spent time with them, in a sense I got more and more afraid of them.”

Dumas’ other projects have profiled the retired search and rescue dogs of 9/11 (only one was reportedly still alive in 2014, 13 years after the World Trade Center attacks) and stray dogs in Palermo, Italy, along with tigers and wolves living in animal sanctuaries.

“They have so much power,” she says, recalling her nervousness around the tigers, “and when you see them up close they are so much bigger.” The tigers were shot at an eccentric private animal park in Texas that housed over 250 wild cats, while the wolves were photographed at a preserve in Colorado and in upstate New York.

Now back in Amsterdam, Dumas is focusing on her next projects: the logging horses of Lapland, Sweden, along with the eight native horse breeds of Japan, which she says are in danger of extinction.

Each series is part of a collective calling, to preserve a lasting image of a place in time for an unheralded group of animals that may not be around forever.

“What is the value of something that has no real direct use anymore to society?” she asks. “If there is no economic purpose, then they are just going to go extinct. That’s just how it is.”

# # #

Cross-posted from http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/21/sport/wild-horses-photographer-charlotte-dumas/ for educational purposes

Is this CNN article another subliminal push for the registrant of PZP (The Humane Society of the United States) to take over wild horse and burro management based on using PZP?  Besides lobbying, are they buying media placements through PR firms too?

Learn more about PZP, the restricted use pesticide used as “birth control” that permanently sterilizes wild mares after multiple use on the Facebook Forum: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ForumPZPWildHorsesBurros

 

PM PZP Betrayal