Appeal to stop the wild horse wipe out

© Cynthia Smalley

 

Dear Friends of wild horses and burros,

Despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences stated there is “no evidence of overpopulation”, a group with alleged funding related conflict of interest is pushing the sterilizant known as PZP on an uninformed public using the ‘it’s either slaughter or PZP’ scare tactic.

Today’s drug pitch is found in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzanne-roy/wild-horses-at-risk-of-sl_b_4934857.html  It references population control experiments on the less than 48,000 acre Assateague Island in the East and lacks scientific comparison with the vast open range found in the West–where some herd management areas cover 800,000 acres or more.

Why did the coalition of several groups give up the fight for wild horses’ real freedom?

Freedom is the American mustangs’ right according to the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971. They should not be manipulated by man on the range nor in congressional back rooms. Native wild horses should never be domesticated through sterilizants with man choosing who breeds. That’s nature’s job in the wild. It fosters survival of the fittest.

The solution to the fertility control debate is to focus on what the wild herds need to thrive in freedom not what a campaign, driven by a sanctuary or the BLM, wants to achieve. We need good science to find solutions.

The BLM wants to eliminate the majority of wild herds to free up public land for toxic drilling so why is this coalition following BLM’s lead to push population control before science?

There is no accurate population count to justify roundups. BLM’s overpopulation claims are a farce.

What’s the solution for a falsified overpopulation problem?  A reality check and good science.

Fearing extinction from excessive roundups since the 2009 public land grab for energy exports, America’s wild horse birthrate in the West is abnormally high. That should be a red flag that there is something seriously wrong with ecology on their native range.

The Chainman Shale deposit of oil and natural gas in northeastern Nevada and into Utah is about to boom. Exploration began around 2009 in tandem with vast roundups removing the majority of wild horses who have the legal right to be on public land. Some went to probable slaughter and others make up the 50,000 captives warehoused in long-term holding facilities at taxpayer expense.

America’s wild horses should live wild and free–not drugged up with “restricted use pesticides” passed by the EPA for pest control and unsafe for domestic horses.

We invite the public and elected officials to demand a 10 year moratorium on roundups for recovery and studies to develop good science for management. Wild horses are an essential part of the thriving natural ecological balance. They will help reverse desertification and reduce global warming by filling their niche on their native range.

Please sign and share the petition for a 10 year moratorium on roundups for recovery and scientific studies: http://www.change.org/petitions/sally-jewell-urgent-grant-a-10-year-moratorium-on-wild-horse-roundups-for-scientific-studies

Contact us if you want to keep America’s herds wild and free. Our email is Contact@ProtectMustangs.org  We need your help in various ways.

Remember the herds are the lifeblood of our native wild horses. Due to underpopulation their genetic viability is in crisis today. American wild horses must be protected from experimentation and from domestication so they can always run wild and free.

Many blessings,
Anne

Anne Novak
Executive Director for Protect Mustangs™
www.ProtectMustangs.org

Links of interest:

Chainman Shale: http://info.drillinginfo.com/chainman-shale-could-it-be-the-next-big-land-grab/

One of the many pesticide fact sheets: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/pending/fs_PC-176603_01-Jan-12.pdf

Are wild horses going to be sterilized due to an advocacy campaign? http://protectmustangs.org/?p=6356

Washington Post reports: U.S. looking for ideas to help manage overpopulation http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-looking-for-ideas-to-help-manage-wild-horse-overpopulation/2014/01/26/8cae7c96-84f2-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html

The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America: http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo.aspx?journalid=118&doi=10.11648%2Fj.ajls.20140201.12

Press Release: No proof of overpopulation, no need for native wild horse fertility control http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4453

Bogus Science and Profiteering Stampeding Their Way into Wild Horse Country http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4475

Protect Mustangs speaks out against the Cloud Foundation’s PARTNERSHIP with BLM using risky PZP that could terminate natural selection: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4941

Wildlife Ecologist, Craig Downer, speaks out against using PZP in the Pryors: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4178

Report unveils wild horse underpopulation on 800,000 acre Twin Peaks range: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=6278

www.ProtectMustangs.org
Protect Mustangs educates, protects and preserves native and wild horses. The nonprofit conservation group strives for a moratorium on roundups and science-based holistic land management to reduce global warming.

 

The 42nd Virginia Range horse is found

Meet Rambles

We got some background on the “pony” picked up with the 41 Virginia Range horses.

The Pony is “Rambles.”   If I recall the information correctly, Rambles was foaled in April of 2011.  She’s actually a Virginia Range horse.

Rambles had a congenital birth defect that caused her to become a dwarf and created some leg disfigurement.  She could walk around OK with her band, but she had difficulty running, looking more like a spider moving over the ground rather than a horse.  However her dam took good care of her so she was able to stay in her band.  (She’s in the lower right.)

Last year her dam was found dead with two broken front legs, apparently suffering some kind of accident out on the range.  Rambles was not seen since then and it was presumed she had died – until she was picked up in very poor condition.

Rambles has turned out to be very friendly and somewhat needy.  She is going to need special care and we may have an experienced rescuer who may take her in and who could afford veterinary expenses if she needs work on her legs.  More will be posted shortly.

It was great that Hidden Valley decided to also pick up this “sad little pony” as it turned out to be a 42nd Virginia Range horse.  How’s that for an ironic twist?

Thanks to Anne Hall for digging out the historic photos of Rambles and her band.

~ WIllis Lamm

Protect Mustangs asks CNN to correct glaring error about the indigenous American wild horse

Wild War Horse (Photo © Cynthia Smalley, all rights reserved.)

We were surprised to see CNN publish the error about American wild horses in  Polish pony that survived the Nazis uniting Europe’s nature reserves. The author states that zoologists claim the American mustang is not a wild horse so we sent them comments and are asking for them to correct their article.  Here are our comments:

RE: Shocking Error Published by CNN

American wild horses, aka mustangs, are an indigenous species. The horse originated in North America.

The author of this article appears to make erroneous claims about American mustangs, “zoologists say that strictly speaking these are really feral domesticated horses.” That is incorrect. Recent science proves mustangs are not only a wildlife species but most importantly indigenous.

Which zoologists are claiming the American mustang is not a wild horse but a “feral” back alley horse? Why didn’t the author cite the names of the alleged zoologists?

Most zoologists are familiar with the work of PhD.s J.F. Kirkpatrick and P.M. Fazio and the revised January 2010 paper Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife. The Science and Conservation Center, ZooMontana, Billings. 8 pages seen here: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562

Their scientific paper states, “Thus, based on a great deal of paleontological data, the origin of E. caballus is thought to be about two million years ago, and it originated in North America.”

Also the paper cites, “The fact that horses were domesticated before they were reintroduced matters little from a biological viewpoint. They are the same species that originated here, and whether or not they were domesticated is quite irrelevant. Domestication altered little biology, and we can see that in the phenomenon called “going wild,” where wild horses revert to ancient behavioral patterns. Feist and McCullough (1976) dubbed this “social conservation” in his paper on behavior patterns and communication in the Pryor Mountain wild horses. The reemergence of primitive behaviors, resembling those of the plains zebra, indicated to him the shallowness of domestication in horses.”

We kindly request CNN correct this error immediately.

Sincerely,

Anne Novak

Executive Director of Protect Mustangs

 

Taking action to inform, protect and help America’s wild horses

http://www.ProtectMustangs.org

CNN Article: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/21/world/europe/poland-pony-nazi/