Comments needed on BLM’s proposed collection of information on wild horses and burros

Stop the Roundups!

 

Roundups occur to PZP the wild mares with a pesticide for birth control!

 

PZP EPA Sterilisant

 

 Send in your public comments and be a voice for America’s wild horses and burros! Ask for management levels to rise for genetically viable herds to survive and for holistic management for all Herd Management Areas. Speak for the voiceless today.

NOTICE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Bureau of Land Management

[15XL1109AF LLWO260000 L10600000.PC0000 LXSINASR0000]

Proposed Collection of Information on Wild Horses and Burros; Request for

Comments.

AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior.

ACTION: 60-day notice and request for comments.

SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Bureau of Land

Management (BLM) will ask the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve

the information collection (IC) described below, and invites public comments on the

proposed IC.

DATES: Please submit comments on the proposed information collection by May 11, 2015.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be submitted by mail, fax, or electronic mail.

Mail: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 1849 C Street, NW,

Room 2134LM, Attention: Jean Sonneman, Washington, D.C. 20240.

Fax: to Jean Sonneman at 202-245-0050.

Electronic mail: Jean_Sonneman@blm.gov.

Please indicate “Attn: 1004-NEW” regardless of the form of your comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sarah Bohl at (202) 912-7263.

Persons who use a telecommunication device for the deaf may call the Federal

Information Relay Service on 1-800-877-8339, to contact Ms. Bohl. You may contact Ms. Bohl to obtain a copy, at no cost, of the draft discussion guides for the focus groups and in-depth interviews described in this 60-day notice. You may also contact Ms. Bohl to obtain a copy, at no cost, of the regulations that authorize this collection of information.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Proposed Information Collection
Title: Knowledge and Values Study Regarding the Management of Wild Horses and Burros.
OMB Control Number: 1004-NEW.
Frequency: On occasion.
Respondents’ obligation: Voluntary.
Abstract: The BLM protects and manages wild horses and burros that roam Western public rangelands, under the authority of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (Act), 16 U.S.C. 1331-1340. The Act requires that wild horses and burros be managed in a manner that is designed to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands. 16 U.S.C. 1333(a). Stakeholders and the general public hold a variety of views on how wild horses and burros should be managed. The BLM has determined that conducting focus groups, in-depth interviews, and a national survey will lead to a better understanding of public perceptions, values, and preferences regarding the management of wild horses and burros on public rangelands.
After reviewing public comments and making appropriate revisions, the BLM will include the discussion guides in a request for OMB approval. Upon receiving OMB approval, the BLM will conduct the focus groups and in-depth interviews. The results of focus groups and in-depth interviews will be used to help design a national survey, which will be the second and final phase of the research.

The BLM will prepare a draft of the national survey and publish a second 60-day notice and invite public comments on the draft national survey. After reviewing public comments and making appropriate revisions, the BLM will include the national survey in a request for OMB approval. Upon receiving OMB approval, the BLM will conduct the national survey.

Need and Proposed Use: The proposed research was recommended by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in a 2013 report, Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward. Conducting the focus groups and in-depth interviews will enable the researchers to characterize the range of preferences that exist for wild horse and burro management. The national survey will then assess the distribution of these preferences across the larger population. The research results will assist the BLM to more effectively manage wild horses and burros by providing information to:

  • Help evaluate the benefits and costs of competing rangeland uses and variousmanagement options;
  • Help identify areas of common ground and opportunities for collaboration with stakeholder groups; and
  • Communicate more effectively with the public and with stakeholder groups.Description of Respondents: The BLM intends to survey a variety of respondents for this project by conducting focus groups, in-depth interviews, and a nationally representative survey. For the focus groups and in-depth interviews, the primary respondents will be individuals belonging to a variety of organizations that have previously lobbied, commented on program policy or activities, or have otherwise sought influence with the BLM in regard to its wild horse and burro program. Representatives of wild horse and burro advocacy groups, domestic horse owners, wild horse adopters, the Western livestock grazing community, environmental conservationists, hunters, and public land managers will be included. Nine focus groups across three locations around the country and up to 12 in-depth interviews will be conducted with individuals from these groups. Focus group participants will be recruited by BLM’s research contractor through a variety of approaches tailored to the communities participating in the discussions. In addition, four focus groups (spread across two locations) will be conducted with the general public to explore public understanding of various terms and issues involved in wild horse and burro management so that the questionnaire for the national survey can effectively communicate the relevant topics.

II. Estimated Reporting and Recordkeeping Burden

The estimated reporting burden for this collection is 142 responses and 272 hours. There will be no non-hour burdens. The following table details the individual components and estimated hour burdens of this collection.

Activity

Estimated

number of respondents

Estimated number of responses per respondent

Completion time per response

Total burden hours

Focus Groups

130 (13 groups)

1

120 mins

15,600 mins/260 hrs

In-depth Interviews

12

1

60 mins

720 mins/12 hrs

Activity

Estimated

number of respondents

Estimated number of responses per respondent

Completion time per response

Total burden hours

Totals

142

272 hrs

III. Request for Comments

OMB regulations at 5 CFR 1320, which implement provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501-3521), require that interested members of the public and affected agencies be provided an opportunity to comment on information collection and recordkeeping activities (see 5 CFR 1320.8(d) and 1320.12(a)). The BLM will request that the OMB approve this information collection activity for a 3-year term.

Comments are invited on: (1) the need for the collection of information for the performance of the functions of the agency; (2) the accuracy of the agency’s burden estimates; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information collection; and (4) ways to minimize the information collection burden on respondents, such as use of automated means of collection of the information. A summary of the public comments will accompany the BLM’s submission of the information collection requests to OMB.

Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment — including your personal identifying information — may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

Jean Sonneman,

Bureau of Land Management, Information Collection Clearance Officer.

15 08:45 am; Publication Date: 3/12/2015]

4310-84-P

 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-03-12/pdf/2015-05623.pdf

BLM ignores stakeholders and schedules tour of 102 forcibly drugged mares at Fallon facility with short notice

PM PZP Syringe FB

Mostly insiders knew about the tour in advance of the general public

RENO, Nev. —The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is offering a rare public tour of the Indian Lakes Off-Range Corral in Fallon, Nevada, March 7 without adequate public notice for all stakeholders. This is one of three facilities in Nevada that keep and process wild horses and burros removed from the range, including horses recently rounded up from the Fish Creek Herd Management Area in Eastern Nevada.

The tour is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Pacific Standard Time and last approximately two hours. The tour will accommodate only 20 people. Space will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. The public can sign up to attend and get driving directions to the facility by calling the BLM at 775-475-2222. You may also call Jason Lutterman, 775-861-6614 to get a spot or email him at jlutterman@blm.gov or Brenda Beasley Cell: 775-315-5391
bbeasley@blm.gov

About a 90-minute drive east of Reno, the Indian Lakes Corral is located at 5676 Indian Lakes Road, Fallon, and is privately owned and operated. Tour attendees will be corralled in a wagon and taken around the facility hear BLM’s spin on the failing Wild Horse and Burro Program and the wild horses at Indian Lakes.

The few attendees will have the opportunity to observe 102 wild mares from the recent Fish Creek roundup. The native mares have been forcibly drugged with an EPA restricted-use pesticide made from slaughterhouse pig ovaries called PZP for Porcine Zona Pellucida. Their release was stopped by an Interior Board of Land Appeal filed by a disgruntled rancher and the Eureka Country commissioners. Now drugged with the pesticide that sterilizes after multiple use, the Fish Creek mares wait in limbo.

The public is becoming aware that PZP is part of the BLM’s final solution to manage wild horses to extinction.  Roundups will increase with PZP programs and evidently puts more wild horses at risk of never being “released”.

“The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is holding off on plans to return 186 wild horses to the range in central Nevada pending the review of an appeal filed by a rancher and rural county opposed to the move. . . Rancher Kevin Borba and Eureka County commissioners, who filed the appeal with the Interior Board of Land Appeals on Friday, oppose the return of any of the 424 horses to the range,” according to the Associated Press article from February 22nd.

With outrageously short notice, the Nevada BLM is hosting a public tour where only insiders have more than a few days notice.

The Indian Lakes Corral can hold up to 3,200 wild horses or burros who have been chased by helicopters, ripped from their families and removed from their native lands. The facility contains 43 large holding pens. Touted as a feedlot setting to fatten up wild horses “as fat as butterballs” the BLM proclaims they “don’t sell wild horses to slaughter”. Despite the public dis-information campaign, BLM has sold truckloads to slaughter middlemen such as the infamous Tom Davis who received more than 1,700 American wild horses–delivered at tax-payer expense.

Every time a wild horse is offered for adoption but is not picked they acquire a strike against them. With 3-Strikes they lose their federal protection and can legally be sold by the truckload according to the Burns Amendment to the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act.

The BLM claims to the press and to congressional aides that they want to place wild horses into good, private homes yet they are notorious for making it hard to adopt wild horses. The Indian Lakes Corral is a prime example. It’s a private facility that is “closed to the public” with maybe two or three public access days a year open to only a small amount of people even though the contractor is paid with public tax dollars. The captives are funneled out to off-site adoptions where their chances of adoption are slim due to BLM’s poor marketing and rotten customer service. Every time wild horses aren’t picked at an adoption event they get another strike towards becoming wild horse sashimi abroad.

 

 

 

Links of interest™

BLM holds off on plan to return 186 mustangs to range in NV http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/state/blm-holds-off-on-plan-to-return-mustangs-to-range/article_5eaf59ac-008c-5977-8f3a-491f9e9dad06.html

Tour announcement published March 5th in the Nevada Appeal: http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/lahontanvalley/15305301-113/blm-schedules-tour-of-off-range-horse-corral

 

Take Action: Save 6 wild horse herds BLM wants to wipe out!

PM Craig Downer by Rona Aguilar

Wild horse expert sounds alarm

As the new Director of Ecology and Conservation at Protect Mustangs and a concerned Carson Valley resident, I attended the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “Carson City District Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) / Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)” meeting at the Spark’s Nugget hotel casino on Tuesday, January 13, from 5 to 7 pm.

I spoke with several BLM officials including John Axtell, the Wild Horse and Burro Specialist for this district, and Leon Thomas, Field Manager for the Sierra Front Field Office. I voiced my concerns that stakeholders who previously gave much input for increased numbers and resources in regard to wild horses were being ignored in the Draft Resource Management Plan.

I heard the overview explanation of the document by Colleen Sievers, RMP Project Lead, and instructions for reviewing it. I had given earlier input during the 2012 Scoping meetings in Carson City, along with many other pro-wild horse stakeholders.

It’s important to note there are two new wilderness designations that have just been passed by Congress for this area: Pine Forest and Wovoka Wilderness Areas.

Wild horses need you more than ever to stand up for them and here’s why:

There are five alternatives presented in the RMP document, one of which is No Action, or status quo, that will include improvements for Sage Grouse survival, but little else. Another is for maximizing resource exploitation that would be disaster for many natural values upon which the long term survival of life depends. Another (Alternative C) is for maximizing conservation of nature, and another is for bringing a so-called balance of these (Alternative E). This is the preferred alternative although it does not allocate enough land, water and forage for native wild horses who are needed to reduce wildfires, restore balance to the ecosystem, and reverse desertification on public land.

The Conservation Alternative would greatly reduce livestock grazing and expand wilderness designations but pro-wild horse stakeholders and native wild horses themselves appear to have been ignored. Wild horses should be regarded as native restorers of these natural ecosystems, but in the BLM’s Draft RMP there are serious errors which imply that they are non-native invasive pests with no value to the ecosystem. This, of course, is false.

In my preliminary view, and pending a more thorough analysis of this document, it’s  outrageous to see that federal officials appear to have completely neglected the wishes of stakeholders favoring wild horses. They unfairly sided with wild horse enemies to zero out herd management areas (HMAs). The BLM’s preferred alternative are plans to zero out six wild horse “herd management areas,” (HMA’s) rendering them “herd areas.” This is a twisting of language by which the original designation of a “herd area” as an area for wild populations of wild horses/burros in perpetuity, now according to BLM means an area where the wild horses/burros have been eliminated, or “zeroed out.”

John Axtell told me that there was not enough forage or water in these areas and that their numbers were too low. However, he conveniently failed to mention how cattle and sheep have been given the great majority of forage allocations in these same areas, or how the BLM has intentionally failed to exercise the wild horses and burros’ Implied Federal Water Rights that come with any major federal act of Congress in order to secure their basic survival requirements.

The areas that the BLM appears to be planning to zero out in the preferred alternative includes some HMA’s north of Reno such as Granite Peak and Flannigan that have been assigned truly ridiculous, low appropriate management levels (AML)—plus or minus 20 or so horses.

The minimum number for a genetically viable herd is 2,500 wild horses, according to the IUCN Species Survival Commission Equid Specialist Group and these levels are even a far cry from the suspect 150 individuals that BLM documents often cite as being genetically viable for a population.

BLM also wants to eliminate the historic Wassuk wild horse herd in the Wassuk HMA just north of Mt. Grant–where Axtell told me about 125 wild horses still survive.

Axtell claimed there was not enough forage for the horses here. I can’t believe this. I have repeatedly visited this wonderful spirited herd of Spanish-type mustangs and over many decades.

Nevadan biologist and teacher Steven Pelligrini studied the Wassuk herd for his Master’s Degree in biology at the University of Nevada-Reno. His thesis was presented to the public and to the Congress in support of the passage of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, when he went to testify together with Wild Horse Annie and his professor Dr. John Pontrelli of UNR.

The Carson City BLM’s RMP is targeting our wild horses for removal yet it is mandated to protect them. There exists large-scale public support for them both among the local public, nationally and internationally.

We must stand up and fight for the Wassuk wild horses and for the other venerable wild horse herds that are being dishonestly used as scapegoats for abuses attributable to uncaring people.

I noticed that at the meeting leaders of the Toiyabe Sierra Club and long time wild horse enemies, were present, and engaged with the BLM wild horse specialists and other officials. It appears they have been working to undermine the wild horse presence on public lands for many years, and I am very disturbed about this.

In the “Toiyabe Trails” publication that goes out to many thousands as a free quarterly publication, their President, Tina Nappe seems to be given carte blanche to badmouth wild horses, while those who used to be afforded the opportunity to reply, such as myself, no longer are given this basic right, even in the form of a short letter to the editor.

In spite of the horrible news in the RMP, I was urged to make a strong statement concerning my reasons against the proposed “zeroings out”. These would include how the wild horses are not getting fair grazing allocations compared to livestock in their legal areas, failure to develop or fend for watering sources for the animals and illegal fencing prohibiting their “free-roaming” lifestyle, an inherent part of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.

Protect Mustangs is calling all wild horse supporters to speak out strongly in an informed and intelligent manner, for the wild horses and burros of the Carson City BLM District. This RMP/EIS revision will govern land use policy for the next 15-20 years and we must not allow it to be a death sentence for the wild horses and burros, which it largely appears to be.

This is the public’s chance to improve the treatment of the wild horses and burros, and we cannot allow another act of subterfuge.

The proposal can be viewed online at http://on.doi.gov/1uYBNGT and more information can be found here: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/carson_city_field.html

Here are some talking points:

1.) Both horse and burro evolution originate and have immense multi-million year duration in North America.

2.) As post-gastric digesters, different from ruminant digesters, the equids truly restore balance to the North American ecosystem. There is a lopsided preponderance of ruminants today, encouraged by established rancher, hunter, and other linked interests.

3.) Natural predators must not continue to be persecuted and eliminated, such as puma and wolf, natural predators of the wild equids.

4.) PZP and other tamperings with basic biology and social structure of wild horses and burros is contrary to the “minimum feasible” management tenet of the WFHBA as stated in Section 3 a. See my 19 points of law on pages xi to xiii of The Wild Horse Conspiracy. See sections on PZP  in the Index as well

5.) Also look up “Pine Nut wild horse herd area” in the Index of my book for more specific information http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Horse-Conspiracy-Craig-Downer/dp/1461068983

To be most effective, please make your own personal analysis of the pertinent sections of this document about which you are knowledgeable and/or concerned, especially the wild horses and burros. You can submit your comments electronically by email to:  BLM_NV_CCDO_RMP@blm.gov  or by US mail to: BLM Carson City District, Attn: CCD RMP, 5665 Morgan Mill Road, Carson City, NV 89701.

Send a copy of your comments to your two senators and your representative asking them to intervene.

The deadline for these comments is March 27th, 2015. Questions can be addressed to Colleen Sievers, Carson City District RMP Project Lead. Tel. 775-885-6000

Examples of what BLM consider to be substantive and nonsubstantive comments can be found at  http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/planning/nepa/webguide/document_pages/6_9_2_1__examples.html 

Thank you for standing up for the wild ones!

Craig
Craig C. Downer
Wildlife Ecologist
Director of Ecology and Conservation at Protect Mustangs
Author of The Wild Horse Conspiracy http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Horse-Conspiracy-Craig-Downer/dp/1461068983
and The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America (American Journal of Life Science) http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo.aspx?journalid=118&doi=10.11648/j.ajls.20140201.12

Protect Mustangs is a nonprofit organization who protects and preserves native and wild horses. Join us at www.ProtectMustangs.org