Wild horse overpopulation is fake news

Americans are outraged and want a real head count

San Francisco, CA. (February 19, 2017)—According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), there is no evidence of wild horse overpopulation on public land. Deadly roundups continue based on sloppy Bureau of Land Management (BLM) estimates and fake news. A petition to investigate the wild horse & burro count in captivity and in freedom calls for immediate head counts. (https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-investigate-the-wild-horse-burro-count-in-captivity-and-freedom ) BLM avoids head counts because it would expose the truth.

“Why spend millions to billions on roundups, population control and hoarding wild horses in government pens when a real head count of wild horses is needed first?” explains Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “The public and our elected officials deserve to know how many wild horses are left in America today. Wild horse and burro overpopulation is fake news used to fear monger Congress into giving a rotten federal agency more money to spend.”

According to a press release from National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released June 5, 2013, “The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) current practice of removing free-ranging horses from public lands promotes a high population growth rate, and maintaining them in long-term holding facilities is both economically unsustainable and incongruent with public expectations, says a new report by the National Research Council.”

Even though the NAS report states there is “no evidence” of overpopulation, those nonprofit organizations pushing dangerous Pesticide PZP need the BLM’s overpopulation myth to justify forcibly injecting wild mares with slaughterhouse pig ovaries for “birth control”. What they don’t tell the public is that Pesticide PZP wrecks havoc with the immune system, destroys natural selection, cruelly makes wild horses feel very sick, sterilizes after multiple use and some wild horses die.

The BLM continually requests funding for roundups and removals thus creating a fiscal crisis stockpiling wild horses who belong in the wild. Now the lives of these wild horses are at risk. In September 2016, the BLM’s own Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board voted to kill all the wild horses and burros warehoused in holding facilities at tax-payer expense. The public was furious. The BLM reacted to public outrage and Novak’s petition with more than 219,000 signatures on her No-Kill 45,000 wild horses and burros in holding petition (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/907/592/301/demand-nokill-45000-wild-horses-burros-in-holding/) by making statements they wouldn’t kill them. Can the public trust that the BLM and their allies won’t try to find some way to kill them in the near future?

The informed public will not tolerate killing, slaughtering or drugging America’s last wild horses with Pesticide PZP that they call a “vaccine”. The petition to defund the roundups and slaughter of America’s wild horses and burros now has more than 104,000 signatures and is growing every day. (https://www.change.org/p/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups).

“Will the BLM find a way to get rid of our last wild horses on public land?” asks Novak. “In the 90’s a huge ring of BLM employees were caught selling wild horses they adopted to slaughter. The crime against wild horses was exposed by investigate journalist Martha Mendoza, writing for the Associated Press. Who is going to catch BLM today?”

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



12 thoughts on “Wild horse overpopulation is fake news

  1. Disgusting….the BLM is in the hands of the “ranchers”…it is always about money not wildlife….we need to take a stand against the government and their round-ups.

  2. It is indeed extremely reprehensible how the wild horses and burro have been so unjustly targeted and set up for failure in the wild, thus defying the true and core intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. The wild horses and burros were meant to live freely in nature not become victimized wards of a corrupt bureaucracy catering to greedy and selfish, blind-tradition-bound people! We can change this! We must!!!

  3. Please help these wild horses and stop the fraudulent BLM and their inhumane treatment of these beautiful and innocent animals.

  4. We need to rein in the BLM’s lawlessness and enforce the protection of wild horses and burros. The horses are a native species that need to be protected. That is what a majority of American citizens want, not the desecration of our wilderness by cattle and mining interests.

  5. Anyone eating steaks & burgers, etc., can thank themselves, too, for this “hogging” of all the land by “cattle” ranchers and all this persecution, rounding up, abusing, torturing, murdering of the wild horses. Go vegan, stay vegan, put the heartless & greedy out of business…many of them can produce plant foods for people instead. If not, they can somehow make a living without making hell for animals.

  6. Leave the wild horses alone. If anything they should be given protection not roundups. The BLM is a disgrace.

  7. Horses are beautiful. Protect the wild horses. BLM should not be rounding up and imprisoning these wild beauties. The horses deserve to be protected. BLM should be fined for their illegal behavior.

  8. God intended that the Mustangs and Burros live free and in the wild. Since when did BLM become God ?? They should not be allowed to determine the fate of these beautiful animals. The ( BLM ) has shown that they can’t handle the near fact of even doing a head count of these Mustangs and Burros. Also the roundups. How many more of these animals need to die because of their sloppy ways of cruel and abusivie ways they have done to these magnificent animals?? Let them be !

  9. I tried to share thru and the petition to define the roundups but nothing went thru to the people I chose except the words Refund the wild horse
    Now everyone is confused. Bad link for petition?

  10. The Numbers Game of the BLM and the False Concept of
    Overpopulation
    Robert C. Bauer
    Biologist
    The Bureau of Land Management has continually asserted that there is overpopulation, in this nation’s wild horses and wild burros. Recently the BLM statistics state a population in excess of 69,000. Additionally, it was stated that there would be at least a 15% to 20% annual population growth rate of these wild horses and that in 6 years, by the year 2020, that number will have grown to be about 145,000 wild horses and burros in the wild. Its claims also stated that contraceptive efforts had failed, and that the range lands could only sustain about 26,677 wild horses and or burros. The undying claims of the BLM are that it is, in its efforts, out to help maintain a thriving natural ecological balance. This is the motivation to justify its roundups of thousands of wild horses that it says are destroying the rangelands of the west. As a biologist, there is a scientific response to these allegations that the public needs to take into consideration before swallowing these claims of the BLM.
    There are numerous factors that govern population growth in the wild for wild horses and burros, or lack of population growth. 1st year mortality rates annually range between 14% and 50%. Beyond this, adult mortality annually ranges between 5% and 25%. What this means is, that in any given year, equine mortality on the range lands would be anywhere between 19% and 75% of the total population of wild horses. This mortality occurs naturally, due to predators of the wild horses and burros, which do indeed exist, along with environmental factors, which effect ungulates and ruminants alike. In addition, sex ratios were found to average around 55% female and 45% male. This must be considered as obviously only females can put a foal on the ground. Additionally, not all foals are female, and only those that are females can begin to reproduce, but only after the 2nd year. Added to this are considerations of delayed implantation, spontaneous abortion, along with selective breeding by the band stallions, whereby perhaps only one mare, if any at all, are bred, under harsh range conditions. This is something that the BLM statistics do not reflect, but have conveniently neglected in its population growth claims. It then must be stated that added to this natural inhibition are those artificial adjustments added by the BLM that only serve to encourage the extinction of these wild ones. The use of the PZP contraceptive is one, which has been found to inhibit reproduction in those mares that were treated, for up to 2 years, carrying with it other physiological side effects, including the weakening of equine immune system. This latter effect can serve to increase mortality, in reference to wild equine, considering how aggressively PZP has been used.
    After Bureau of Land Management roundups, sex ratios are adjusted to roughly 47% female to 53% male. This manmade decrease in female density, along with the use of PZP by the BLM, have devastating effects on wild horse and burro populations. They encourage annual reproductive rates that are far less than natural, yet with mortality percentages still having their effect. The result is an acceleration of equine population decline to even more diminishing numbers of wild horses and burros on the rangelands of the west. To further complicate population growth are the countless illegal killings of the wild horses, motivated by age old prejudices, most of which go uncaught. Furthermore, the aggressive removals of wild horses continue. All of these variables serve not only to disprove the astronomical population growth rates of the BLM but also overall numbers in the wild.
    The false allegations, by the BLM, that state that the numbers of wild horses on the range, could increase from 40,605 to 145,000 by the year 2020, a six year period, can easily be illustrated by a similar scenario. This occurred in the 2009/2010 Calico Mt. round ups, that occurred in northwestern Nevada. In this situation, according to the BLM, at the end of the 2004/2005 gather there were 575 horses total existing in the five HMAs making up what would be called the Calico Mt complex. That population of 575, according to the BLM, in just a 4 year period, had grown to 3055 horses. Of those 3055 horses and burros the BLM intended to gather 2,476 – 2,787 horses, then releasing up to 264. The sex ratio after the 2004/2005 gather, however, was reported to be only 47% female and 53% male, which means only 47% of those horses, 270 females, would be able to contribute to a population growth. Added to this, the PZP contraceptive had been administered to 239 mares of those 270. Second, as stated earlier, it has been found that the minimum adult on the range annual mortality to be approximately 5%. This factor also was not included in the BLM’s calculations which further reduced the possibility of this meager wild horse population of 575 in reaching 3055 horses in just a 4 year period. Indeed, the number of horses that were rounded up, were only 1,992, at which point no other horses could be found. Yet calculating a population growth from 575 horses to even 1,992 horses in a 4 year period, including just a 5% annual mortality, 47% of the population being mares being able to put a foal on the ground, and eliminating 239 of that 47% for the first 2 years because of PZP, it would require a 125% annual reproductive rate to offset these variables to reach that number. Such reproductive rates do not occur in nature, which leads one to question or theorize exactly how those horses got out there!! To state that 40,605 wild horses could increase to 145,000 horses in just a 6 year period, while factoring in natural mortality rates along with all other natural factors, would require astronomical reproductive rates to offset those variables. Such reproductive rates do not and never will occur in nature. Indeed, using the BLM’s own population statistics, factoring in nature’s mortality, sex ratios, aggressive use of PZP, while subtracting wild horses that have been rounded up, the numbers of wild horses and or burros remaining in the wild are in the low teens, if that. Our wild horses and burros, existing in the wild, are close to extinction!!
    In spite of the BLM’s assertions, that it is striving to maintain a thriving natural ecological balance, its methods and the manner in which they are being carried out, are anything but natural, nor do they bring about any balance. Indeed, it is by these very methods, that the BLM uses, that the wild horses and burros, along with other aspects on the range are being thrown out of balance. Nature, through its own mechanisms, has been maintaining what the BLM have termed, a thriving natural ecological balance, for thousands of years, without the artificial methods of mankind. Indeed, it is mankind’s incessant belief that he must manage nature, which has thrown nature continually and consistently out of balance. This makes the Wild Horse and Burro Program of the BLM completely unnecessary. This program, however, is the very avenue by which the wild horses and burros will be raped from their legally designated lands, and nature itself destroyed.
    This brings up a vital question to the reader. With such factors as these existing, that govern wild horse and burros populations, along with the unnatural efforts of the BLM, that further degrade these same numbers, what are the true motivations of the BLM for distorting the numbers of wild horses and destroying these vital natural resources to true ecological balance? The answer lies partly in livestock, mining, and energy interests. The deception gets deeper when one realizes that in order for the BLM to acquire continued and increasing appropriations from congress, it has to justify the appropriations that it has already been getting. Appropriations mean not only a continued Wild Horse and Burro Program, but a lot of money to be made, not just for BLM employees but contractors that the BLM employs in the roundups. This translates to a situation where the BLM has to somehow convince the public and congress, by whatever means possible, that the wild horses and burros are breeding like rabbits, and that the numbers are way out of control. Here comes the deceit and distortion of numbers. Somehow the public, for the most part, swallows what the government is saying, hook line and sinker, without seeking the scientific truth, a truth which is for the most part grade school science. For example, the BLM could say that the appropriate management level of wild horses in a certain area is only 600 wild horses. In truth there may be only 300 wild horses there, but the BLM, to justify removal, continued appropriations, and appeasement of the livestock industry, will claim 900 horses existing in the area. It will in turn say we need to round up 300 horses to bring the numbers back to its appropriate management level of 600, (see article entitled “The Unnatural Concept of the Appropriate Management Level”). It will roundup 300 horses, zero out the area to make it available for the livestock industry, and still claim that there are 600 wild horses existing in that area. This is a simple illustration but it is a tactic of the BLM. This further translates to a governmental conspiracy by the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, against wild horse and burro populations.
    In conclusion, the wild horses and burros are a vital component to ecological balance out on the range lands of the west, the benefits of which are innumerable as opposed to cattle. The numbers of these beautiful animals must be dictated, however, by nature itself and not man, through its own mechanisms. Only in this manner will wild horse numbers be in balance with all other forms of wildlife, including those of the predators of the wild horses. The wild horses are just this, wild, and in the wild, no matter how harsh or how mild the conditions may be, is where their beauty and their benefits exist and can be experienced. The range lands that were once filled with vast numbers of wild horses, and other forms of wildlife, are now quickly dying due to the artificial efforts of our government. The rangelands, however, can easily sustain not only the wild horses and burros existing out there now, but also every one of those in holding facilities, which now number well over 40,000. The truth is that every one of those wild horses and burros in holding facilities, if released back to the areas from which they were taken, along with those in the wild, would bring balance back to the rangelands.
    The people of this nation speak conveniently of the United States as a country that loves and stands for freedom. The very icons of this freedom, however, are found in nature, through its varied forms of wildlife and plant life. It is a freedom that seeks to shake off the yoke of slavery that mankind consistently seeks to burden it with, through management, and artificial adjustments. The beauty of this freedom in nature, however, is only seen and experienced when nature is allowed, to determine its own way, unmanaged. This principle applies to all forms of wildlife. The beauty that wild horses express as symbols of freedom, can only be experienced as the true natives of this nation that they are, unmanaged and untouched, there existence only governed by nature’s own mechanisms. Much more, if they are allowed to exist untouched, they will help rejuvenate our western rangelands.

    Robert C. Bauer
    Biologist
    rcbauer7@gmail.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.