Tag Archives: #NoKillMustangs

Outrage over winter roundup likely to cause deaths

Posted on by
2

Feds to conduct cruel and costly wild horse helicopter stampede

ELY, Nev. – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is planning a helicopter roundup stampeding native wild horses for miles over harsh icy terrain into traps on or about January 23 despite no concrete evidence of wild horse overpopulation in the Triple B Complex.

The Eastern Nevada complex near Ely and Elko is made up of the Triple B HMA, Maverick-Medicine HMA, and Cherry Springs Wild Horse Territory (USFS). Together these three legal wild horse areas contain 1,682,998 acres.

Instead of protecting or preserving America’s indigenous wild horses using holistic land management methods, the feds intend to chase our icons of freedom with helicopters for miles to round them up, break up their families, probably killing some.

Please sign and share the Petition to Defund the Roundups: https://www.change.org/p/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups Members of Congress are watching this petition. If one million people sign the petition then together we will stop the roundups.

The BLM’s roundup for “population control” plans on permanently removing at least 1,000 native wild horses, forcibly drugging approximately 250 indigenous mares with dangerous population control Pesticide PZP-22. Then the feds plan to release those drugged wild mares back into the gigantic Eastern Nevada complex–along with about 250 stallions. At least 1000 native wild horses will lose their homes despite returning some.

Right now all the wild horses in federally funded holding facilities are at risk of being shot or sold to slaughter because of poor management choices, overpopulation, lies and nasty politics.

As if that’s not bad enough, the BLM is planning on adding 1000 more wild horses to their broken captivity system with expensive holding facilities and an adoption program with rotten customer service.

It’s essential for Congress to know exactly how many wild horses and burros are living in the wild and in captivity. We have a petition you can sign and share that demands a head count and an investigation into the BLM’s sketchy program: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-investigate-the-wild-horse-burro-count-in-captivity-and-freedom . Please send your elected officials the petition and take it with you to meetings to be a voice for the voiceless.

(Sadly the only paid lobbyists seem to be pushing Pesticide PZP so elected officials are getting the wrong education.)

Congress should insist the BLM take wild horses out of costly holding facilities to repatriate them into the wild in friendly areas, where neighbors appreciate them, and onto legal but empty Herd Areas to help prevent catastrophic wildfires and heal the land. The BLM must not put more native wild horses in costly holding facilities.

The Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Interior want to find ways to dispose of our national treasures so they can control and make billions of dollars off the public’s land.

Helicopter contractors, earning millions from roundups, will be paid to stampede native wild horses for miles and miles over snow, ice, and dangerous rocky terrain. Stampeding wild horses is cruel, unnatural and terrifying.

Then the wild horses will be shoved, sweating, into trap corrals with a fog of steam emanating from their wet, stressed bodies in freezing temperatures . . . The wild ones’ muscles can seize up after the terrifying stampede causing severe pain, and the wild horses’ upper respiratory systems will suffer.

The expensive helicopter roundup–which is expected to last approximately a month in freezing temperatures–will put native wild horses at risk of upper respiratory diseases such as strangles and equine pneumonia. Some may die.

These deaths won’t be counted as “roundup related” because the wild horses will die painful deaths while suffering in holding facilities. Dead bodies of native wild horses will be scooped up by BLM tractors before public watchdogs can notice.

The Triple B roundup is being conducted by the BLM Ely District Office which is conflicted with extreme energy industry and mining bias. The Bureau gets a kickback from what is extracted on BLM land–whether it’s gold, copper, lithium, oil, natural gas or other resources. The BLM has boasted that they made more than 4 billion dollars last year. Most of that is from the extractive industry polluting the environment on public land. The agency only cares about money.

Less than 2,700 wild horses will remain in the vast Triple B Complex if this cruel roundup starts and it isn’t stopped in the courts.

In 2010, when the BLM managers were shipping wild horses to slaughter through middleman Tom Davis, the vast Herd Management Areas had many more wild horses living in freedom. The Bureau then decided it could lower the allowed numbers through a sleight of hand, by joining all the HMAs into a “complex.” No one challenged the formation of complexes in court, so the BLM went ahead with their plan to reduce the number of wild horses allowed in the area.

The Triple B Complex is made up of 1,682,998 acres. To leave only 2,766 wild horses on that vast amount of acreage translates to 608 acres per wild horse. With 200 acres per wild horse 8,414 wild horses could live on the huge landscape and with 100 acres per wild horse 16,829 wild horses could stay living wild and free at virtually no cost to the American taxpayer.

The public should know how much privately owned domestic livestock, cattle, and sheep would be allowed to graze in the Triple B Complex after native wild horses are rounded up.

Through control of gathering data, BLM scapegoats native wild horses for livestock damage made by one million head of domestic cattle and sheep on public land.

Public Relations campaigns funded through the BLM claim that the purpose of the roundup is to prevent degradation of public lands by an “excess” of wild horses, and to restore a “thriving natural ecological balance” and create “multiple-use relationship’ on public lands, consistent with the provisions of Section 1333(b) of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFRHBA)

Yet the BLM has never proved that there are any “excess” wild horses. The key word in the BLM’s PR phrase is “relationship”. Instead of working with local public land users to create healthy rangelands using wild horses as a resource for holistic land management, the BLM and the locals are ignoring possibilities to take land management out of the dark ages.

The reality is that the agency doesn’t think twice about the ecological damage associated with a helicopter roundup, stampeding wild horses for miles over the terrain and into trap corrals. The BLM ignores that trucks and trailers would be destroying the habitat and the amount of greenhouse gas polluting the environment as a result of a million dollar roundup.

Million dollar roundups fund the BLM’s mess of a Wild Horse Program. They need the “problem” to keep the flow of cash coming in from Congress. The reality is there is no overpopulation and no problem, only out of date land management.

The truth is, the current population for the Triple B Complex is unknown. The BLM’s guess is “approximately 3,842 wild horses” in the Triple B Complex consisting of 1,682,998 acres. As discussed above, more than 16,829 native wild horses could live in the Triple B complex with 100 acres per wild horse. That’s 12,987 more wild horses than the BLM claims are living there now!

The BLM’s management level for all the Herd Management Areas within the targeted Triple B Complex helicopter stampede is ridiculously low–at only 472 to 884 wild horses for 1,682,998 acres. The BLM must revise management levels and be honest about unfair grazing allocation to livestock and stop blaming native wild horses for livestock damage from years beforehand as well as today.

The BLM plans to roundup 1,500 wild horses and remove approximately 1,000 indigenous wild horses forever. The BLM will only release about 250 mares that they will forcibly drug with the dangerous population control pesticide PZP-22 to slow the population growth for 2 years despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences found there is no evidence of overpopulation. PZP-22 is dangerous.

PZP wreaks havoc with the law of nature, the mustangs’ immune systems, hormones, social behaviors and sense of well-being–and ruins federally protected wild horses’ right to freedom from harassment, branding, and abuse.

All forms of the EPA Restricted Use Pesticide PZP will sterilize wild horses after multiple applications. Only 250 stallions will be returned to the range yet established families (harem bands) will be destroyed.

These wild captives will be subjected to the horrors of the BLM’s processing facilities where families are ripped apart, males are separated from females, and ID numbers are tattooed on their bodies. Some American wild horses will be cruelly abused in population control experiments, and they all will be at risk of death.

The lack of compassion and violation of the federal law protecting wild horses from abuse and harassment opens the BLM up to costly lawsuits and continued waste of tax dollars. It’s time to look at this whole situation differently and come up with holistic management that works!

For the Wild Ones,
Anne Novak

Executive Director
Protect Mustangs
Contact@ProtectMustangs.org

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



Note: The roundup is being conducted under the DOI-BLM-NV-E030-2017-0010-EA Antelope and Triple B Complexes Gather Plan Environmental Assessment decision signed on December 21, 2017. The decision record and determination of National Environmental Policy Act adequacy can be accessed at the national NEPA register at www.goo.gl/HQJ73h.

Sources:

Thomas, C. D., A. Cameron, R. E. Green, M. Bakkenes, L. J. Beaumont, Y. C. Collingham, B. F. N. Erasmus, M. Ferreira de Siqueira, A. Grainger, Lee Hannah, L. Hughes, Brian Huntley, A. S. van Jaarsveld, G. F. Midgley, L. Miles, M. A. Ortega-Huerta, A. Townsend Peterson, O. L. Phillips, and S. E. Williams. 2004. Extinction risk from climate change. Nature 427: 145–148.

Endangered Species. 2009. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Available in Encyclopedia Britannica Online at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186738/endangered-species.

Chivian and Bernstein 2008, citing IUCN.

Wildlife crisis worse than economic crisis. 2009. Press release. http://www.iucn.org/?3460/Wildlife-crisis-worse-than-economic-crisis–IUCN.

Wake, D. B. and V. T. Vredenburg. 2008. Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? A view from the world of amphibians. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105: 11466–11473. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/08/0801921105.abstract.

McCallum, Malcolm L. 2007. Amphibian decline or extinction? Current declines dwarf background extinction rate. Journal of Herpetology 41(3): 483–491. Copyright Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles.

— http://www.stateofthebirds.org

Jelks, H. J., S. J. Walsh, N. M. Burkhead, S. Contreras-Balderas, E. Díaz-Pardo, D. A. Hendrickson, J. Lyons, N. E. Mandrak, F. McCormick, J. S. Nelson, S. P. Platania, B. A. Porter, C. B. Renaud, J. J. Schmitter-Soto, E. B. Taylor, and M. L. Warren, Jr. 2008. Conservation status of imperiled North American freshwater and diaddromous fishes. Fisheries 33(8): 372–407.

Klappenbach, L. 2007. How many species inhabit our planet? About.com Guide to Animals. http://animals.about.com/b/2007/08/13/how-many-species-on-earth.htm

Tilman, D., R. May, C. L. Lehman, M. A. Nowak. 1994. Habitat destruction and the extinction debt. Nature 371:65–66.

Walters C, Gunderson L, Holling C. 1992. Experimental policies for water management in the Everglades. Ecological Applications 2:189–202.

Walters CJ. 1986. Adaptive management of renewable resources. New York: Macmillan.

Wilhere GF. 2002. Adaptive management in habitat conservation plans. Conservation Biology 16:20–29.

Wilhere GF. 2009. Three paradoxes of habitat conservation plans. Environmental Management 44:1089–1098.

Williams BK. 1996. Adaptive optimization of renewable natural resources: solution algorithms and a computer program. Ecological Modelling 93:101–111.

Williams BK, Szaro RC, Shapiro CD. 2007. Adaptive management: the U.S. Department of the Interior technical guide. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Adaptive Management Working Group. Available: http://www.doi.gov/initiatives/AdaptiveManagement/TechGuide.pdf (November 2011).

Nichols JD, Williams BK. 2006. Monitoring for conservation. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21:668–673.

Possingham H, Lindenmayer D, Norton T. 1993. A framework for the improved management of threatened species based on population viability analysis (PVA). Pacific Conservation Biology 1:39–45. Prato T. 2005. Accounting for uncertainty in making species protection decisions. Conservation Biology 19: 806–814.

Ralls K, Beissinger SR, Cochrane JF. 2002. Guidelines for using population viability analysis in endangered species management. Pages 521–550 in Beissinger SR, McCullough DR, editors. Population viability analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ralls K, Starfield AM. 1995. Choosing a management strategy: two structured decision making methods for evaluating the predictions of stochastic simulation models. Conservation Biology 9:175–181.

Regan HM, Ben-Haim Y, Langford B, Wilson WG, Lundberg P, Andelman SJ, Burgman MA. 2005. Robust decision making under severe uncertainty for conservation management. Ecological Applications 15:1471–1477.

Regan TJ, Taylor BL, Thompson G, Cochrane JF, Merrick R, Nammack M, Rumsey S, Ralls K, Runge MC. 2009. Developing a structure for quantitative listing criteria for the U.S. Endangered Species Act using performance testing: Phase I report. La Jolla, California: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Southwest Fisheries Science Center. NOAA Technical Memorandum, NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-437. Available: http://www.sefsc.noaa.gov/turtles/TM_NMFS_SWFSC_437.pdf (November2011). Ruhl J. 1990. Regional habitat conservation planning under the Endangered Species Act: pushing the legal and practical limits of species protection. Southwestern Law Journal 44:1393–1425.

Ruhl J. 2004. Taking adaptive management seriously: a case study of the Endangered Species Act. University of Kansas Law Review 52:1249–1284.

Ruhl J. 2005. Regulation by adaptive management—is it possible? Minnesota Journal of Law, Science &Technology 7:21–57.

Ruhl J. 2008. Adaptivemanagement for natural resources—inevitable, impossible, or both? Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute Proceedings 54.

Runge MC, Bean E, Smith DR, Kokos S. 2011a. Non-native fish control below Glen Canyon Dam—report from a structured decision making project. U.S. Geologica Survey Open-File Report 2011-1012:1–74. Available: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1012/pdf/ofr20111012. pdf (November 2011).

Runge MC, Converse SJ, Lyons JE. 2011b. Which uncertainty? Using expert elicitation and expected value of information to design an adaptive program. Biological Conservation 144:1214–1223. [SARA] Species at Risk Act. 2002. Statutes of Canada 2002, c. 29. (Assented to December 12, 2002).

Shaffer ML. 1981. Minimum population sizes for species conservation. Bioscience 31:131–134.

Smith CB. 2011. Adaptive management on the central Platte River—science, engineering, and decision analysis to assist in the recovery of four species. Journal of Environmental Management 92:1414–1419.

Smith CL, Gilden J, Steel BS, Mrakovcich K. 1998. Sailing the shoals of adaptive management: the case of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Environmental Management 22:671–681.

Starfield AM. 1997. A pragmatic approach to modeling for wildlife management. Journal of Wildlife Management 61:261–270.

Tyre AJ, Peterson JT, Converse SJ, Bogich T, KendallWL,Miller D, Post van der Burg M, Thomas C, Thompson R, Wood J, Brewer DC, Runge MC. 2011. Adaptive management of bull trout populations in the Lemhi basin. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management 2(2):262–281.

Volkman JM, McConnaha WE. 1993. Through a glass, darkly: Columbia River salmon, the Endangered Species Act, and adaptive management. Environmental Law 23:1249–1272.

Senate Appropriations maintains protections for wild horses

Posted on by
1

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



Red Alert! Urgent Call to Save 3-Strikes Mares from Possible Slaughter #EquinoxMustangs

Posted on by
2

“Hell, some of the finest meat you will ever eat is a fat yearling colt,” said the infamous kill-buyer, Tom Davis. “What is wrong with taking all those BLM horses they got all fat and shiny and setting up a kill plant?”

BLM is getting ready to ship out 3-Strikes wild mares from Palomino Valley Center near Reno to “long-term holding” at taxpayer expense which mean these creeps, who are licking their chops, will want to get their hands on them. If Congress is stupid and votes for unlimited sales then 30,000 wild horses will be fat in long-term pastures and ready to ship to the slaughterhouses after their “middlemen” purchase them!

We aren’t going to let that happen!

You can buy up to 4 wild horses per year without special approval like Tom Davis had to buy them by the truckload. Here is the sales application: http://protectmustangs.org/…/PM-Application-to-Purchase-BLM…

The cost to buy the 3-Strikes mares is $25. each. Buyers are responsible for transportation so if you join up with buyers near you then you can save money in transport.

You need to FAX your purchase application in to BLM’s Palomino Valley Center’s fax number is (775) 475-2053.

Call me 415-531-8454 if you need help to get through the application. BLM wants specifics. Fencing issues can be solved. People can borrow panels from neighbors or build high pens with cheap materials.

Keep in mind these mares are wild and will need gentling. We can refer you to trainers who board wild horses .

Remember BLM wants their adoption program to fail and that’s why these mares have their 3-Strikes. BLM employees get paid the same government salary whether they adopt them out or ship them out. BLM’s goal is disposal. “Disposal” is written all over Congressional documents.

When you call the BLM they will tell you not to worry that everything is fine . . . Are you going to believe that?

Buying 3-Strikers is different than adopting. You get title right away then you are done with BLM. If you ever thought you would like to save some wild horses from potential slaughter–now is the time!

For the Wild Ones,

Anne Novak

Volunteer Executive Director

Protect Mustangs

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



2 special needs wild horses escape death at roundup

Posted on by
12
Day 2 of Devil's Garden Roundup courtesy Devils Garden Wild Horses FB Page

Day 2 of Devil’s Garden Roundup courtesy Devils Garden Wild Horses FB Page

Protect Mustangs will help find homes for 2 wild horses who would have been killed at Modoc Forest roundup

ALTURAS, Ca.(September 27, 2016)–Last week Anne Novak, founder and director of Protect Mustangs reached out to U.S. Forest Service staff with an offer to help find homes for any wild horses rounded up with pre-existing conditions–who would be killed–not offered a chance at adoption. Tonight Novak received the first call from Forest Service staff.

“It’s always bothered me that after wild horses heal from injuries and survive in the wild, they are chased by helicopters, rounded up and killed upon capture because they don’t seem like they would get adopted,” says Novak. “Some people don’t want a riding horse. Some people want to save a life.”

So far, two wild horses from the roundup have pre-existing conditions. One is believed to be pigeon toed due to a broken foot that healed in the wild. The other mustang’s condition is unknown at this time.

“They need to go to loving homes to become pets–not riding partners–or go to sanctuaries,” explains Novak. “They have survived in the wild and that’s a harsh life. They deserve our compassion after the roundup and they deserve to live.”

After the mustang protectors make an assessment of the wild horses with pre-existing conditions, a sanctuary might be a more suitable forever home. It’s too early to tell.

These two California wild horses from Modoc County will join their herd-mates at the Bureau of Land Management’s Litchfield holding Corrals near Susanville. There they will be prepared for adoption with the others.

Adoption applications are here: Protect-Mustangs-BLM-facility-adoption-app

    • Cost to adopt is $125.
    • Adoptions by appointment only, call (530) 254-6575.
    • Open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Summer hours are 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. The facilities are closed on federal holidays. Please call for current information.
    • Information is available 24 hours a day by calling 1-800-545-4256.
    • Completed adoption applications can be sent to Videll Retterath by e-mail vrettera@blm.gov or fax (530)252-6762.
    • The Corrals are located 21 miles east of Susanville , CA on US Highway 395.
    • Adopters receive title to wild horses after one year

Protect Mustangs will post photos as soon as we get them. Tax-deductible Gas donations are always needed to help us help the wild ones.

pm-ufs-devils-garden

Photo by the US Forest Service

Members of the public with questions about the BLM’s requirements for adoption, questions about the wild horses with pre-existing conditions, who want to help network homes for wild horses who would be killed for pre-existing conditions, need trainer referrals, or want some tips on how to build an inexpensive shelter are invited to email the mustang protectors at Contact@ProtectMustangs.org

“I pray we can change the trend of killing special needs wild horses at roundups,” says Novak. ‘Someone’s going to fall in love with them. After all they’re still American mustangs.”

Protect Mustangs is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of native and wild horses. www.ProtectMustangs.org




In January we offered to help adopt hundreds of wild horses and the Department of Interior blew us off

Posted on by
7
PM Oct 2014 PVC Mirror
The Honorable Sally Jewell Secretary of the Interior
U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street, NW Washington, DC 20240
Friday January 29, 2016
 
RE: Official request to stop using federally protected American wild horses in cruel experiments, offer all the wild horses at the closed door Indian Lakes holding facility for adoption and provide transparency with public access, etc.
Dear Secretary Jewell,
Pregnant mares were moved Friday January 22, 2016 from Palomino Valley Center (PVC) outside of Reno to the closed door, privately owned and operated, facility called Indian Lakes aka Broken Arrow, located at 5676 Indian Lakes Road, Fallon, Nevada.
Does the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) intend on using the pregnant mares from Beatys Butte, Oregon and other herds in the horrible Nazi-type sterilization experiments in Oregon, Kentucky or elsewhere?
The Beaty’s Butte pregnant mares and members of their herd seem to have been rounded up because Country Natural Beef, a supplier of Whole Foods Market, was pushing for the roundup. Do they want the federally protected wild horses gone so they can use the public grazing land for more grass fed beef?
 
Protect Mustangs officially requests the mares from Beatys Butte, Oregon, as well as all the other wild horses (male and female) at the Indian Lakes facility, be immediately put up for adoption–not experimented on. Wild horses over 10 years old must be offered to the public as well. They are not yours to engage in animal testing. This cruelty must stop now.
 
We also request you immediately create transparency for the public, show good faith and therefore request you:
  1. Halt transporting American wild horses out of the closed door Fallon facility called Indian Lakes (aka Broken Arrow). The public wants to save all these wild horses–including the pregnant mares–through adoption or purchase.
  2. Provide all identification numbers and descriptions all the wild horses as well as a headcount of unbranded, untagged wild horses and foals at Indian Lakes as of today January 29, 2016.
  3. Provide a separate list of all identification numbers and descriptions of all the wild horses as well as a headcount of unbranded wild horses and foals at Indian Lakes from January 20 to today.
  4. Provide a list of identification numbers of all the wild horses who have transported out of Indian Lakes since January 1, 2016 and show exactly where they have gone and where they are now.
  5. Grant immediate visitation to members of Protect Mustangs, elected officials and their staff, as well as other members of the public to the closed door facility known as Indian Lakes (aka Broken Arrow) to witness, document, photograph and video all the wild horses for as many days as needed at the facility to help them get adopted in order to keep them safe from cruel experiments, dubious sales or worse.
How many wild horses have been sold or given away to be used in research projects, “studies” or experimentation since 2009? How many wild horses have been used in research projects, “studies” or experimentation since 2009 and then later offered for adoption, moved to long-term holding or sold?
Sterilization and “fertility control” experiments are cruel and unjustified
 
The BLM’s overpopulation claims are fraudulent and any action such as experimentation for population control, fertility control, or other actions taken that are based on fraudulent information is wrongful.
There are no “excess” wild horses on public land. Roundups have been based on fraudulent data. Read more about that here: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=8551
There exists no accurate head counts of America’s wild horse populations and many herd management areas have no wild horses left on them.
The BLM’s horrible customer service, lack of problem solving and poor marketing are the reasons wild horse adoption has dropped. The public wants to adopt wild horses but the BLM is making it impossible for adopters to get the wild horses they want. It’s as if the BLM wants their adoption program to fail.
Americans do not want their tax dollars funding cruel experiments reminiscent of the notorious Nazi–Dr. Joseph Mengele. The rights of American wild horses are being violated. This is animal cruelty at its worse. All wild horses–especially pregnant mares–must never be used in sterilization or other experiments.
To sum things up:
  1. There is no overpopulation of wild horses. They are underpopulated on the vast acreage of public land in the West. Even the National Academy of Sciences said in 2013 that there is “no evidence of overpopulation”.
  2. BLM’s harvesting model based management via roundups is disrupting herd structure and increasing the birthrate.
  3. BLM’s allegations of overpopulation are fraudulent based on false data. Besides no head counts, they don’t even account for the correct mortality rates in the wild for example.
  4. Predators should not be killed off and if there are none left then they need to be reintroduced for the thriving natural ecological balance for the herd management area.
  5. Wild horses are a return-native species who help reduce catastrophic wildfires, create biodiversity, etc. We need the herds to reverse desertification. Read more about native wild horses here: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562
  6. The BLM is creating a false overpopulation crisis to cash in on wild horses as laboratory animals for fertility control experiments while reducing the herds to nonviable levels.
  7. GonaCon™, PZP, SpayVac® are all pesticides that classify wild horses erroneously as pests–ultimately sterilize them and are not needed because wild horses are underpopulated. There are no “excess” wild horses in America.
  8. Experimenting on wild horses to sterilize them is animal cruelty funded by tax dollars and must stop now.
  9. The BLM is trying to manage America’s wild horses to extinction.
Federally protected wild horses and burros are to be protected from harassment according to the law. You can read about the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_and_Free-Roaming_Horses_and_Burros_Act_of_1971
The public is outraged the BLM, the federal agency put in charge of managing and protecting wild horses and burros, would engage in animal cruelty and try to use America’s icons of freedom in population control experiments.
Any and all experimentation, “research” or harassment of a federally protected wild horse or burro–based on the overpopulation myth, decreased adoptions or any other excuse must stop now.
Sincerely,
Anne Novak
 
Links of interest:
 
Anne Novak
Executive Director
Tel./Text: 415.531.8454
Read about native wild horses: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562  
Then on June 22, 2016 the subcommittee hearing on wild horses and burros was held in the House of Representatives and this is what the elected officials said:
On September 9, 2016, the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board voted to kill the alleged 45,000 wild horses in taxpayer funded holding facilities and pastures. Do they want to cover-up the fraud that has been going on for years by killing the evidence?

Don’t Let Them Kill 45,000 Wild Horses and Burros! Sign and Share the Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/907/592/301/demand-nokill-45000-wild-horses-burros-in-holding

 

Protect Mustangs is a 501c3 nonprofit organization who protects and preserves native and wild horses.

Response to Ben Masters’ justification of drastic measures toward America’s last wild horses and burros

Posted on by
4

PM Craig Downer by Rona Aguilar

CRAIG DOWNER·SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

I have just read Ben Masters’ justification for the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board’s recommendation to either adopt out, place, sell to killer buyers, or have BLM itself kill the 44,000 wild horses being held at public expense. His justification rests on the premise that the wild horses are destroying the habitats, not only in the Antelope Valley HMA’s eastern side around the Dolly Varden spring, but in many other similar areas throughout the West. I was also on this field trip and heard what the BLM officials had to say. It should be noted that on the west side there were much better habitat conditions and there were bands of wild horses here as well, though not as many. I also attended the Thursday meeting of the board and heard BLM’s presentations by Alan Shepherd, Nevada BLM wild horse and burro lead, and also by John Ruhs, Nevada BLM State Director, among others. I heard all the testimonies given, and was able to give testimony myself.

I think a lot is being overlooked and that there is a rushing to judgment concerning the wild horses and their effect on the ecosystem. Especially being overlooked is how the wild horses often find themselves being set up, placed into difficult situations, not allowed to adequately spread out. Much of this is due to not securing adequate water for them and to fencing. I am particularly concerned about the over-pumping of subterranean aquifers by ranchers and mining companies that lowers the water tables and causes many of the areas where wildlife still have a place to survive to be parched and declining ecologically speaking. This was particularly noticable in many parched mountain ranges above ranchers and also around large open-pit mining operations, where water tables have subsided at an alarming rate.

I have seen and photographed the graphic evidence of this during flights I have realized thanks to LightHawk pilots. One of the areas I overflew was eastern Nevada including in the Ely BLM district and also portions of the southern Elko BLM district where the Antelope Valley hma is located. I have been in this area several times before, hiked around,and spend considerable time there during two recent summers doing field investigation concerning the ecosystem, its condition, and the wild horses and other animals, including livestock and deer, sage grouse etc. What I noted was that the ranchers and miners are being given priority consideration and access to the most productive and intact portions of the Antelope Valley Complex as well as to the Triple B Complex of wild horse herd management areas just to the south in the Ely BLM District (White Pine County), and that the wild horses are being relegated to what’s left. This runs contrary to the provision of the Wild Horse and Burro Act that states that the legal 1971 lands where the wild horses and burros lived in 1971 be “devoted principally” (Section 2 c) though not exclusively to the welfare and benefit of the wild horses. What I see as happening is that the other interests are being given priority treatment and the wild horses left to defend for themselves. This is why they find themselves on the least productive lands.

And though Alan Shepherd repeatedly stated that no livestock had grazed the declining land around the Dolly Varden Spring for ca. 7 years, sorely lacking was a revelation of the historical use by livestock in past years. An area that has been severely impacted by decades of livestock grazing can take centuries to recover, and I have reason to believe that the area around the Dolly Varden spring is just such an area. During all these 45 years since the Wild Horse and Burro program has been in effect, there has been ample opportunity for our BLM and USFS to secure much more adequate and well-spaced watering and foraging areas that would have obviated the present crisis we witnessed around Dolly Varden.

I also noted how all of the wild horses both on the east and the west sides of Antelope Valley HMA as well as its south side coming along Hwy 93 were very flighty and took off immediately when our cars stopped to view them. On the northwest side of the Antelope Valley HMA at the end of the day (near Deer Spring), I stayed longer and tried to get closer to a few bands far off to the south. Though I drove a few miles, these bands and particularly their lead stallions would never let me get within a mile of them. From a lifetime of experience as an observer of the wild horses mainly in my home state of Nevada, I know this to be a sure sign that the wild horses are being persecuted, particularly shot at with long-range rifles. So now perhaps we know the reason why the wild horses from the east side are not coming over to the west side of the hma where the grass is lusher! The horses on the west side were considerably more frightened than those on the east side, though these too were quite afraid of people and their cars, clearly alarmed when our tour caravan came into view.

During my brief presentation I indicated how it is the human population and its impacts upon natural ecosystems both here in Nevada, in the U.S.A. and around the world, that are presently reaching crisis levels. How convenient it is then to shift the focus of attention upon such a noble and highly evolved animal as the horse, returning to living in its natural state, and to claim that it is the one who is overpopulating, all the while ignoring all of its many positive contributions to the ecosystem. I have written a book on this subject and in chapter II, I point out how the post gastric, caecal digestive system of the horses and burros provides a much needed balance to the monopolization of our public lands by ruminant digesting grazers such as cattle, sheep and deer. The horses and burros contribute much more humus to build the soils and many more intact seeds capable of germinating than do the ruminant grazers that much more thoroughly digest and break down what they eat. I go on to elaborate on this and to explain many of the positive benefits that accrue from this basic biological observation in my book. It is available through Amazon and is entitled The Wild Horse Conspiracy. You can read it as an ebook and considerable portions of it in the preview. www.amazon.com/dp/1461068983

I would also like for you to note that although Ben Masters alludes to similar extremely degraded conditions being caused by the wild horses throughout the West, again each area has its own special history, and the vying of special interests especially livestock ranchers, mining companies, oil and gas companies, Off Road Vehicle operators, and Hunters for the available resources often works very much against the wild horse and burro interests. In other words, they end up getting the short end of the stick, being placed on the bottom of the totem pole by profit-oriented individuals and corporations as well as the government officials who largely serve the latter rather than the General Public’s major interest in this Quality of Life issue. I have found this to be almost invariably the case in visiting and investigating many of the wild horse and burro herd areas/herd management areas on BLM lands and wild horse and burro territories on USFS lands in several states, as I discuss in some detail in my book.

I would also like to address Masters’ advocating for the intensive and widespread use of PZP to inhibit the reproduction of mares. The effects of PZP upon individual wild horses and their social units, be these bands or herds, have been studied by professional behavioral zoologists, such as Dr. Cassandra Nunez, and there are some serious detrimental effects that have been noted. These have been the subject of peer reviewed articles and used in court cases that have recognized their serious effects on the wild horses. In short, we should not overly compromise the future well-being of the wild horses in the wild, take away their natural vitality, in order to obtain a “quick drug fix” instead of doing right and providing adequate resources, space, habitat, etc. for long-term viable and thriving wild horses able to realize their ecological niche in their legal areas. We must not replace natural selection by artificial selection by people, as this will only thwart the natural, ecological adaptation of the horses and burros to each particular ecosystem. Remember that Section 3 a of the Act clearly states that the wild horses and burros must be allowed and managed “to achieve and maintain a “thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands” and “at the minimum feasible level” of management, or interference. The Act’s preamble also clearly states that they are to be considered “as an integral part of the natural system of public lands”. To me this clearly signifies being allowed to naturally adapt to the ecosystem where they have their legal rights. Why is this being denied them in spite of the law?!

As a Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, I have presented a Reserve Design proposal to the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board as well s to the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program itself. I had done so repeatedly and outlined a way forth that does not involve all these cruel and unnatural manipulations and restrictions upon the wild ones. I have presented this proposal as a way to achieve long-term genetically viable, ecologically well-adapted, and naturally self-stabilizing populations that would live in harmony with and contribute positively to all the other plants and animals in the legal herd management areas and territories. These wild horse/burro-containing ecosystems would be enhanced ecosystems, not degraded ones, if we people would only give them adequate habitat. Key to the success of Reserve Design is the provision of viably sized habitat of good enough quality for the horse/burro populations to realize the above. Such provision is what has been so sorely lacking in the past, and this is what must change today. Please check out my Reserve Design proposal at www.gofundme.com/mstngreservedesign and let me know what you think. I believe it is in the true spirit of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and that we Americans both can and should restore the true and noble intent of this unanimously passed act. It is one that has to do with the Quality of Life we all experience and is a General Public issue.

I appreciate your listening to what I have to say. The horses are depending upon us. What is happening in Antelope Valley, the West, North America, or on Planet Earth today is not their fault. They are restorers of North American wildlife and ecosystems in many places, and they are of ancient and long-standing ancestry here. They are awesome presences and quickly revert to living in harmony with nature, reviving their age-old instincts. We should give them adequate areas where they can be themselves and prove their healing work in our world.

Submitted by Craig C. Downer, Wildlife Ecologist. A.B. UCB; M.S. UNR; Ph.D. Cand. U. Durham UK. Link to his article The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributed Returned Natives in North America is http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo.aspx?journalid=118&doi=10.11648/j.ajls.20140201.12 or just Google it by title and author. Website to check out is www.thewildhorseconspiracy.org in which the links to the article and how to order his book are present.

Listen to Craig Downer starting at 55 min mark on Big Blend Radio: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/big-blend-radio/2016/09/12/nature-connection-pipelines-and-wild-horses

Also please consider signing this important petition to stop this massacre of the wild horses and burros from happening: The link to this petition is: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/907/592/301/demand-nokill-45000-wild-horses-burros-in-holding/

image

Protect Mustangs is a 501c3 nonprofit organization who protects and preserves native and wild horses.