Yellow journalism in Wall Street Journal pushing pesticide as “birth control” on wild horses?

Pm PZP Darts

Made with slaughterhouse pig ovaries PZP is dangerous to herd health

To:  Jacob Bunge, Wall Street Journal

Dear Mr. Bunge:  Regarding your article — They Shoot Horses (With Birth-Control Darts), Don’t They? — here are facts to correct the lies and disinformation you have been told.

Sting of the dart:  If it were only a sting!  Fact: Many wild horses develop an abscess at the dart-injection site.

Bogus ballooning population:  Wild horses are a slow-growth species when it comes to reproduction.  The gestation period lasts 11 months, and a mare produces just 1 foal.  While an independent study of BLM’s records confirmed an almost 20% birth rate, that study also found that 50% of foals perish before their first birthday.  Thus, the effective increase in population from new foals is just 10%.  But adult mustangs also die.  They succumb to illness, injury, and predation at a rate of at least 5% a year.  So, what is a normal herd-growth rate?  About 5%, probably less.

Fraudulent figures:  The Big Lie of “overpopulation” is the pretext for BLM’s war against the wild horses, and the wild horses are prisoners of that war.  It’s BLM’s version of the “Shock Doctrine,” wherein BLM concocted a phony crisis to push through policies antithetical to the Wild Horse Act against the will of The People.  There is no overpopulation except on BLM’s falsified spreadsheets.  Reviews of BLM’s population-estimates reveal biologically-impossible herd-growth rates.  For instance, in Utah, BLM claimed that the Conger herd grew from 156 horses to 285 horses in one year, an 82.7% increase, to which BLM tacked on another 20% by counting the unborn foals — the fetuses.  In Wyoming, BLM declared that the Salt Wells Creek herd grew from 29 horses to 616 horses in 6 months (yes, months), a 2,024% increase.  BLM’s “data” is chock-full of such preposterous growth-estimates.  So, when you hear talk of how the wild horses are reproducing “exponentially,” that’s a sure sign that BLM has falsified the data.

Wild horses are underpopulated:  Per the guidelines of BLM’s own geneticist, 83% of the herds suffer from arbitrary management levels (AMLs) set below minimum-viable population (MVP).  Low AMLs enable BLM to claim an “excess” in herds whose numbers, even if they were over AML, would still not reach MVP.  So being “over AML” is meaningless as well as misleading.  But the low AMLs, combined with falsified, biologically-impossible herd-growth estimates, give BLM an excuse to scapegoat those few wild horses for the range-damage done by the millions of livestock that overgraze the public lands.

Whose grass?  In fact, it is the livestock who are eating the wild horses’ grass.  Some background — the dedicated wild-horse habitats cover only 11% of BLM land.  Cattle are allowed to graze about 5 times that much, including within all but 4 of the wild-horse herd areas.  Yet in those official wild-horse habitats where livestock are given allotments, the mustangs are restricted to 18% of the forage while the cattle get 82%.

Bogus billion:  The wild horses being held in captivity are the “legacy” of former Secretary Salazar’s equid cleansing era, during which he had thousands of wild horses removed from the range.  However, the mortality rate of captive wild horses is about 8% a year.  So, obviously, since they are not reproducing, their numbers will steadily drop, showing that BLM’s billion-dollar figure for their care is just another Lie.  The Wild Horse and Burro program, if run per the minimum-feasible management-model specified by Law, would not cost much at all.  BLM does not lack for resources.  There are 22 million acres of legally-designated wild-horse herd areas — which BLM previously took away for expediency — that can be reopened as habitat.  The horses now held captive can be released to those areas, where the cost of their upkeep will be $0.

Adoptions:  Have not declined.  It’s just that BLM used to count sales-for-slaughter as “adoptions.”  Now, only “forever-family” placements qualify.  However, wild horses are not homeless horses.  They have a home — where they belong — on the range.

Persecuted predators:  Contrary to BLM’s disinformation campaign, wild horses do have natural predators — mountain lions, bears, wolves, and coyotes.  But those predators are persecuted mercilessly.  The government exterminates what the hunters don’t shoot.  However, the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros — Wild Horse Annie’s foundation — notes that even without predators, wild-horse herds self-regulate their numbers, with population-growth in the single digits.

Science and Conservation Center:  Is the manufacturer and distributor of PZP / ZonaStat-H.  Thus, its information is not impartial.  PZP is a registered pesticide that was approved by the EPA for use on wild horses and burros “where they have become a nuisance.”   However, PZP was registered without the standard testing requirements.  There is currently a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of the registration, especially in light of studies that have disclosed PZP’s many adverse side-effects.

Shooting wild horses:  PZP is a potent weapon in BLM’s arsenal — for its biological warfare against the wild horses.  But birth control for wild horses is unnecessary because there is no overpopulation.  Why would we contracept herds whose population is inadequate for genetic viability?  Why would we contracept herds based on falsified figures?  Logically we wouldn’t and ethically we shouldn’t.  Further, if PZP were going to stop the roundups, it would have done so long ago for the Pryor Mountain herd, which has been darted with PZP for nearly two decades.  Yet roundups have been scheduled there like clockwork every 3 years and, in spite of intensifying the PZP treatments recently, BLM tried to implement yearly roundups until stopped by a Friends of Animals lawsuit.

PZP — the anti-vaccine:  PZP causes auto-immune disease.  PZP “works” by tricking the immune system into producing antibodies that target and attack the ovaries.  The antibodies cause ovarian dystrophy, oophoritis (inflammation of the ovaries), ovarian cysts, destruction of oocytes in growing follicles, and depletion of resting follicles.  The mare’s estrogen-levels drop markedly as PZP destroys her ovaries.  Ultimately, PZP sterilizes her.  Because PZP stimulates the immune system, it ironically works “best” — sterilizes faster — in mares that have strong immune-function.  Such mares respond to the anti-vaccine and produce quantities of PZP antibodies that destroy their ovaries.  But, conversely, PZP may not work at all in mares whose immune-function is weak or depressed.  Those mares fail to respond to PZP.  They keep getting pregnant and producing foals who, like their dams, suffer from weak immune-function.  So, the PZP pesticide works against the very horses that Nature has best equipped for survival-against-disease while favoring and selecting for the immuno-compromised.  Worse yet, radioimmunoassay tests indicated that PZP antibodies are transferred from mother to female offspring via the placenta and milk.

Health-risks to volunteers:  As for the well-meaning volunteers who dart wild horses, EPA’s Pesticide Fact Sheet for PZP advises that Personal Protective Equipment requirements include long sleeved shirt and long pants, gloves and shoes plus socks to mitigate occupational exposure.  EPA specifically warns that pregnant women must not be involved in handling or injecting ZonaStat-H, and that all women should be aware that accidental self-injection may cause infertility.  Unfortunately, PZP’s manufacturer has misrepresented PZP as “so safe it is boring.”   But research shows that PZP is a powerful hormone disruptor.  Further, consider the magnitude of the risk — the PZP-in-question is a horse-size dose.  If volunteers think PZP is safe, they will be less likely to protect themselves from this dangerous pesticide.  Indeed, please note that in the photo accompanying your article, Ms. Bolbol is not in compliance with EPA’s safety-precautions.  She is not wearing the required protective gear.

Mengelian experiments:  Now, BLM wants to perform diabolical sterilization experiments on these equine POWs to develop a Final Solution to the “problem”.  BLM is handing out $11 million for sterilization-studies.  The grant money is surely intended to buy loyalty and silence potential criticism from academia.  Plus, BLM, a corrupt agency, gets to cloak itself in respectability by affiliating with prestigious universities.

The ugly side of PZP is humane-washed by feel-good features that describe it with humor, sweetness and light.  However, the true story of PZP is one of scandal, whose deceit and danger — to both horses and humans — must be exposed.  That is the story that needs to be reported.

Sincerely,

Marybeth Devlin

 Marybeth Devlin is a member of the Protect Mustangs Advisory Board and a member of the Alliance for Wild Horses and Burros
This mare waits in the alley before being led into the chute where her age and body condition will be checked. After being treated with the PZP fertility control agent, this mare will be released back to the Owyhee HMA.

This mare waits in the alley before being led into the chute where her age and body condition will be checked. After being treated with the PZP fertility control agent, this mare will be released back to the Owyhee HMA.

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




Agency claims limiting sales and not killing wild horses has caused problem

PM Star Creek #1483 Fish Creek 3-Strike Sale

BLM officials stated that operating contrary to implemented legislation by limiting sales and not destroying horses has contributed to an unmanageable number of horses.

 

From the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Interior:

Report Date:

Friday, October 23, 2015

The Office of Inspector General completed an investigation into Tom Davis, a Colorado rancher and livestock hauler, after receiving allegations that Davis purchased approximately 1,700 horses from the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program (WH&B) between 2008 and 2012 and wrongfully sent the horses to slaughter.

BLM established WH&B to protect, manage, and control the wild horse population. Since establishment of the program, Congress passed several laws that provided for protection and management of these animals, including adoption and sales authority. In 2005, BLM implemented a policy that placed limitations on the amount of horses sold and required buyers to provide good homes and humane care to prevent the horses from being sent to slaughter.

During our investigation, Davis admitted that most of the horses he purchased from BLM went to slaughter, but he denied that he transported the horses directly to slaughter. He explained that prior to purchasing horses from WH&B, he made arrangements with buyers—whose names he would not disclose—who transported the horses to Mexico. Davis said WH&B employees asked him several times if he was selling the horses to slaughter. He reassured WH&B that he was not selling them to slaughter and reported on his applications that the horses were going to good homes. Davis also admitted that he knew he was not supposed to sell the horses to anyone that would take them to a slaughterhouse.

In addition, we found that BLM implemented and followed policy that contradicted legislation, by not destroying horses to maintain an ecological balance, and the 2004 Burns Amendment, by placing limitations on horse sales. BLM officials stated that operating contrary to implemented legislation by limiting sales and not destroying horses has contributed to an unmanageable number of horses.

We referred this investigation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado as well as the State of Colorado Conejos County District Attorney’s Office, which declined civil and criminal prosecution.

Here is the report released for the public: PM Tom Davis WildHorseBuyer Public

What does the other OIG report contain that they are keeping from the public?

They are taking no responsibility for former Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, rounding up too many wild horses and burros.

PM Nellie Diamond #0484 PVC 3-Strikes

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




32,000 Adopted Horses, Burros Are Missing in Action at BLM (AP: Reprint 1997)

 

PM Sick Filly PVC March 25 2014

Government: People who want the formerly wild animals are supposed to wait a year to get title before they can be sold. But enforcement is lax and many end up slaughtered.

February 02, 1997MARTHA MENDOZA | ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cross-posted from the LA Times for educational purposes

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A federal program to protect wild horses and burros has lost track of more than 32,000 animals placed in adoption, allowing people to neglect, abuse and even slaughter some of them for profit.

In addition, officials of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management may have falsified records to cover up the problem and ignored warnings that thousands of adopters have not been checked and have not received titles to their animals, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

“Records are systematically falsified and no one wants to know about it,” said Reed Smith, a former BLM administrator who retired from the New Mexico office in 1995.

In 1971, Congress enacted a law to protect wild horses and burros and place excess animals for adoption. In 1978, to better prevent their slaughter or sale, it created a system of legal titles: The adopter would keep each animal for one year, comply with a health check, then get title.

Until the title is issued, the animal would remain government property.

Using the BLM’s computerized records maintained in Denver and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the AP found that 32,774 of all adopted animals–or 20%–remain untitled. Legally, those horses and burros are still federal property.

The adopted horses were given to more than 18,000 different people.

Last month, the AP reported that the $16-million-a-year program has allowed thousands of titled wild horses and burros to be slaughtered. The investigation found that BLM employees are among those profiting from the slaughter.

In response to the first report, Wild Horse and Burro Program chief Thomas Pogacnik wrote: “Once title is issued, the animal is private property.”

Under the 1971 law, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is mandated by Congress to protect wild horses and burros on public lands. Babbitt refused to comment for this story.

BLM officials say they rely on spot checks to trace horses that remain untitled. But Larry Woodard, the former state director of New Mexico’s BLM office, called spot checks inadequate.

“One out of every five animals adopted by the bureau never being titled would indicate that the titling aspect of the adoption program has not been a subject of intense concern,” Woodard wrote in a 1993 memo.

A U.S. Justice Department memo from April 1996 indicated that the BLM is not carefully screening adopters because the agency does not want to know what happens to the animals.

“The Adopt-a-Horse program is seriously flawed. . . . BLM has an unstated policy of not looking too closely at proposed adoptions,” wrote Charles Brooks, a Justice Department attorney who had been assisting the U.S. attorney’s office in Texas with an investigation of the program. “The agency’s approach to this was its version of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ”

A March 27, 1995, internal memo from that investigation quotes BLM law enforcement agent John Brenna as saying that Lili Thomas, a BLM official, made “a tacit admission of backdating documents used in the Wild Horse and Burro Program.”

“Her additional comments were that she did not know if this was illegal or not,” Brenna wrote.

Thomas did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment. Brenna refused to comment.

In the 25 years since the law’s passage, the BLM has gathered 165,635 animals in 10 Western states deemed “excess” and given most of them to adopters for $125 each. About 40,000 horses and burros remain in the wild.

Thomas Sharp, a 43-year-old wheat and alfalfa farmer, sits in a West Texas penitentiary, the only person in the country in federal prison for selling untitled horses.

He says he couldn’t afford to feed the animals and didn’t bother to send in a form requesting title. “They got me on a signature, but they got me, that’s for sure,” he said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Hank Hockeimer of Oklahoma said he hoped Sharp’s four-month sentence would set an example.

“Our purpose for prosecuting this case was to send a message that under this program you can’t ostensibly adopt these horses and then sell them before you have title,” he said.

The AP contacted 20 adopters of untitled horses last week, but only two still had their animals. One said his horse died, another gave his away and the rest said they had sold their untitled horses, mostly at livestock auctions.

Wild horses sold at auction almost all eventually end up slaughtered, according to the operators of North American horse slaughterhouses.

George Varner Sr., who spent 20 years as a “killer buyer” for slaughterhouses, said one or two wild mustangs show up at auction barns each month in central Mississippi alone.

He said the only people willing to bid on the horses are the slaughterhouse buyers. “These horses aren’t good for anything else,” he said.

The AP’s Fred Bayles, Chris Sullivan and Drew Sullivan contributed to this report.

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




BLM states 37 wild horses have died at Nevada facility not including dead foals and others

Freedom Lost & Hell Begins (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved)

Freedom Lost & Hell Begins (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved)

Concern mounts over hidden death count

We learned today that the BLM’s public affairs officer (think public relations expert) eventually responded, on April 18th, to our inquiries from April 12, 2013, wherein we requested to know the number of dead wild horses at the Nevada short-term facility since January 1st. 

The Acting Facility Manager refused to give us a simple death count. He told us we must file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to know the number of dead wild horses at the facility from January 1, 2013 to April 12, 2013 . This appeared to be a blatant lack of government transparency.

We saw the public affairs’ officer’s email for the first time this afternoon. It was unopened and was lost amongst emails. We don’t understand why the BLM did not respond back to our last email to let us know they had eventually answered our question. Emails can go unseen unlike certified letters.

We are very concerned the BLM facilities are not keeping an accurate death count related to roundups and holding facilities. The BLM admits they are not including the unbranded foals, aborted fetuses, animals born dead nor dead newborns in their count. One must ask, “How many are really dying in holding facilities after roundups?

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Information you requested regarding deaths at PVC
From: “Emmons, Heather” <hlemmons@blm.gov>
Date: Thu, April 18, 2013 3:58 pm
To: <anne@protectmustangs.org>
Cc: James Beck <j1beck@blm.gov>

Anne,

Sorry for the delay in responding to your question. As Acting Facility Manager at the Palomino Valley Center (PVC), Jeb sought advice on your question as to what constituted a FOIA request and was originally told that it met those qualifications. Upon further evaluation, we realized it does not and apologize for the miscommunication.  Jeb is off for the next couple of days, and we wanted to get back to you as soon as possible, so I am writing to you on his behalf.

To answer your question: How many horses have died at the facility since Jan 1, 2013?  According to the Wild Horse and Burro Program System, the number of horses that have died at PVC from Jan. 1, 2013 through April 1, 2013, is 37. This number does not include stillbirths (aborted fetuses, animals born dead and newborn animals found dead) and young foals that died before they were freeze marked. Foals are freeze marked when they are weaned. This varies with the size and condition of the foals and the mares, but usually occurs sometime between three and six months of age.

Additionally, the National Wild Horse and Burro Program is currently reviewing its reporting procedures for modification.

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact me, or my colleague Debbie Collins at the National Call Center:

Heather Emmons: 775-861-6594 or hlemmons@blm.gov

Debbie Collins: 1-866-468-7826 or dacollin@blm.gov

Thanks,

Heather

Heather Emmons Jasinski 
Public Affairs Officer
Bureau of Land Management 

1340 Financial Blvd. 

Reno, NV 89502
775.861.6594 | hlemmons@blm.gov

Links of interest:
April 12th request for mortality rate, refusal and told to file a FOIA: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4114