#BREAKING: Protect Mustangs calls for nationwide protests against killing and sterilizing wild horses and burros

© 2014 Anne Novak, all rights reserved.

© 2014 Anne Novak, all rights reserved.

Protect Mustangs, a 501c3 nonprofit organization calls for protests against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BoLM) Wild Horse Advisory Board’s decision today to euthanize all the allegedly “unadoptable” wild horses in long-term holding. They also voted to push more wild horses through advertised adoption events to strike them out quicker! Under former Secretary Salazar, the BoLM has irresponsibly rounded up more wild horses than they could ever adopt out at once. Is it because Salazar is a fifth generation rancher paying back a promise to the Cattlemen’s lobby? Since then the federal agency has been hoarding America’s wild horses in captivity at huge tax-payer expense without correcting the failed adoption program. Now they want to kill the mustangs they call “unadoptable” and sterilize all the wild horses living in freedom on the range. Protect Mustangs is calling for the Bureau of Land Management to #PutThemBack on the 1971 herd areas in the West and stop sterilization. More than one-third of the herd areas have been zeroed out.

“We will fight this outrageous plan to kill and sterilize America’s icons of freedom and we will win,” states Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs. “The public is not going to tolerate this. The Bureau of Land Management is a rogue agency and their advisory board is made up of people favoring the livestock industry except for one person. The bogus board of mustang haters needs to be dismantled and recreated with wild horse and burro experts–not cattlemen with a huge conflict of interest. It’s time to put America’s wild horses and burros back on public land where they belong.”

image

Who are the wild horses in long-term holding? Are they mostly 3-Strike mustangs from the BoLM’s failed adoption program with rotten customer service? Others are over 10 years old and should have been left out on the range to live their lives out in peace.

Check back here for updates and donate to Protect Mustangs for legal fees to fight with the law by clicking here www.PayPal.me/ProtectMustangs  or go here to donate on the crowd-funding site: https://www.gofundme.com/FightwithLaw

The fight is on!

 

Update on Cleo April 2012: We found an adopter for Cleo but the BoLM had already shipped her out. When we told the Nevada BLM that the adopter was willing to go to long-term holding (Midwest) to get her they said that was impossible. They said they would only sell 100 horses at a time out of long term holding. The adopter could only take Cleo. The BLM said it was impossible.

 

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




Fear mongering pushes to kill and sterilize America’s wild horses and burros

PM Oct 2014 PVC Mirror

Beware of fear mongering and stand strong for wild horses to remain wild and free as the 1971 law protects them to be. YOU are needed by the wild horses to stay grounded and fight for them.The PESTICIDE PZP PUSHERS have created a big mess by pushing fertility control on wild horses in the West. They falsely claim Americans want fertility control when the truth is Americans want our wild horses protected on public land so they can be wild and free. Free is not forcibly drugged with Pesticide PZP made from slaughterhouse pig ovaries or any other form of fertility control.

Wild and free needs to be free as nature intended.

We all agreed on stopping the roundups but the PZP PUSHERS took that one step further to push their PZP management goal. They hired salaried employees to manipulate the public. Before long people were signing online letters and petitions without reading the whole thing–especially where it called for “humane management” the buzz phrase for Pesticide PZP. Even Robert Redford seems to have been fooled into asking for “humane management” because of the way the PZP PUSHERS twisted the information claiming it’s just “birth control” and not telling people about the dangers found here: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=6922

Pushing for Pesticide PZP as fertility control went along with the Bureau of Land Management’s (BoLM) and Cattlemen’s lobby’s overpopulation LIE. Pushing for fertility control was Pandora’s box and down a slippery slope. Now the Bureau of Land Management has jumped on the false claim that the public wants “fertility control” and so they are calling for experiments to find new ways to quickly sterilize America’s wild horses as a result. The Cattlemen’s have issued a statement against mare sterilization for their Pro-Kill agenda and you can read it here: https://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/315053204/Cattleman-Statement-Against-Mare-Sterilization-Exp Isn’t it time we pull back and fight for America’s wild horses to be protected so they can live in freedom not buy into an overpopulation myth to sterilize, kill or slaughter them.

Please sign and share these petitions:

Moratorium to Stop the Roundups: https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-urgent-grant-a-10-year-moratorium-on-wild-horse-roundups-for-recovery-and-studies

Stop sterilizations and Slaughter of 100,000 wild horses: https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-congress-president-stop-sterilization-slaughter-of-100-000-wild-horses-burros

Defund the Roundups: https://www.change.org/p/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

Send a handwritten letter to your confessional representative and your 2 senators and include the top page of these 3 petitions. Ask them to protect them from being wrongfully treated as pests. Tell them people want to adopt wild horses but are discouraged because the Bureau of Land Management’s adoption program is a failure due to poor marketing and rotten customer service. Therefore the wild horses should not be punished for lazy government employees. Ask your elected officials to intervene on your behalf to stop halt all roundups and all fertility control–including experiments because there is no independent accurate census of wild horses and burros in the wild. Tell them to stop spending taxpayer funds to pull native wild horses off public land for commercial livestock grazing and welfare ranching. Let them know that all the wild horses and burros should be put back onto public land in herd areas that have little to no wild equids left and to stop killing predators to save taxpayers one billion dollars over the next 20 years. That is the truth.


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.




BoLM Utah Press Release about their proposed wild horse and burro research

574px-Blm.svg

 Protect Mustangs is against cruel research on wild horses and burros. Population ecology can be done through noninvasive observation of the herds without harassing the wild horses and burros with roundups and radio collars. The BoLM is either too lazy to do this or just enjoys torturing our icons of freedom to “experiment” on them. Wild horses and burros need to be left alone, period.

Here is one research proposal surely there are others: http://on.doi.gov/2aF2iCb

The following is from a BoLM press release:

Salt Lake City, Utah—Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Utah Wild Horse and Burro Program will be working collaboratively with scientists at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Fort Collins Science Center to conduct several wild horse and burro research projects. The research is being done partly in response to the 2013 National Academies of Science (NAS) report that recommended science-based management of free-roaming equids within the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.
The NAS report recommended acquiring population ecology information on wild burros to better understand their demographic parameters and improve their management, since there is remarkably little published literature on wild burros. Two research proposals include the Sinbad wild burro Herd Management Area (HMA) managed by the Price Field Office. The first study, which has been approved, would test population survey techniques for burros and identify and develop new techniques that can be applied across wild burro ranges of western rangelands. The second proposed study would study the demography of free-roaming burros to provide data for population modeling, to improve management of wild burros, and to contribute to a better understanding of the ecology of wild burros.
The NAS report also recommended research be done on wild horse demography and ecology, and highlighted the utility of statistical models for improved management. Studies to support this approach are being proposed for the Frisco HMA, managed by Cedar City Field Office, and the Conger HMA, managed by Fillmore Field Office. Specific questions approved in the research for the Conger HMA include quantifying the impacts of sterilizing a portion of male horses in the population and how treatment impacts their behavior and ecology.
Research on both wild horse and wild burro HMAs may include looking at the fertility, fecundity (reproductive rate), recruitment rate, age-specific survival and mortality, habitat selection, movements, habitat range; and their behavior and ecology at the scale of both the individual and population levels. We expect these studies to support and contribute to the management of wild horses and burros.
Price, Cedar City, and Fillmore Field Offices have begun initiating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis of the research proposals. The public review and scoping period for these proposals are anticipated to begin early in the fall of 2015.

To learn more about the program, visit the BLM National Wild Horse and Burro website at www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov. 

Follow us on Twitter @BLMUtah

The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s mission is to manage and conserve the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations under our mandate of multiple-use and sustained yield. In fiscal year 2014, the BLM generated $5.2 billion in receipts from public lands.
–BLM–Utah State Office   440 West 200 South, Suite 500      Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

 

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




BLM Fakes Population Growth to Wipe Out America’s Wild Horses

The feds’ mustang population “data” is a fraud 

By Marybeth Devlin

While pretending to rely on the assumption that herds grow 20% a year, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) posts numbers up to 8 times higher than that to justify roundups, which are pre-scheduled on a rotation-basis, seeming to target particular herds. For instance, the Agency recently claimed that the famous Kiger herd in Oregon grew from 21 horses to 156 horses in just four years — an increase of 643%, which equates to a yearly average increase of 160%, which is 8 times higher than the 20% BLM supposedly uses. [1] Such growth is biologically impossible. Kiger is not an isolated example, although it is the worst found so far. Here are some other phony figures on population-growth recently claimed by BLM to make it appear that gathers were necessary:

Blawn Wash (UT)
297.4 % increase in 3 years, averaging 99.1 % per year

Fish Creek (NV)
80% increase in one year

Green Mountain (WY)
281% increase in four years, averaging 70.3% per year

Stewart Creek (WY)
311% increase in four years, averaging 77.8% per year
But herd-growth is unlikely to reach even 20 percent a year. It is important to understand that the birth-rate is not the same as–and should not be equated to–the population growth-rate. Here’s why: Horses die. An independent study reviewed BLM roundup-records for a representative sample of four herd management areas composed of 5,859 wild horses (Gregg, LeBlanc, and Johnston, 2014). While the researchers found an overall birth-rate of just under 20 percent, they also found that half of foals perish in their first year of life. Thus, the effective foal-to-yearling survival-rate is just 10 percent. Further, adult wild horses also perish. They succumb to illness, injury, and predation. Their death-rate must be taken into consideration as well. But BLM ignores mortality–foal and adult–in its population-estimates. Given the 50% foal mortality-rate, and the 5% or higher average annual death-rate of adult wild horses, herd-growth could not increase 20% a year, and a herd-population could not double in 4 years–refuting yet another BLM myth.

Stealthily inserting bogus birth-rates into the data, wrongly conflating birth-rates with population growth-rates, and failing to factor in mortality-rates–that is how BLM creates the false impression of a population-explosion. But “cooking the books” is not the only way BLM falsifies the population-picture. Another ruse BLM employs is restricting maximum herd-size below minimum-viable population (MVP) size. Then, whenever a herd is made to appear–via fictitious figures–to exceed the arbitrary management level, BLM screams “excess!” and declares an immediate need for mass-removals and sterilizations. It should be noted that more than 70 percent of the herds are “managed” below MVP.

BLM also fails to consider another factor limiting herd-growth–stochastic events–which are random catastrophes such as wildfires or contagious diseases that suddenly wipe out mass-numbers of herd-members. Stochastic events can result in no-growth or even negative growth.

Now BLM is distributing grant-money to universities and researchers to study more ways of dealing with the phantom overpopulation. All manner of sicko experiments are being carried out on the wild horses, such as treating them with endocrine disruptors and sterilizing them surgically. Why? Because BLM is a corrupt agency. It invented this counterfeit crisis to create a sense of urgency, which will pressure Congress to give the Agency extra money to “solve” a non-existent problem.

TAKE ACTION: Sign and share by email the Petition to Stop the Wild Horse and Burro Roundups and Slaughter here: https://www.change.org/p/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-amp-burro-roundups

Contact your elected officials to make them aware of BLM’s fraudulent population claims to get funding for wild horse roundups and warehousing at great taxpayer expense: http://www.contactingthecongress.org

Click “Like” https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs for updates and alerts

Visit www.ProtectMustangs.org for more information and click on the donate button help fight the injustice! You can make a difference.

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

(Photo by BLM. Roundup paid for with your tax dollars.)
Addendum:

[1] Using simple division to calculate the average increase is how most people would “do the math”–dividing the percentage increase (643%) by the number of years (4). Expressing the average that way is readily understandable. However, another way of calculating it is what is called the “compound annual growth rate” (CAGR). Per that method, herd-growth can be likened to compound interest that you earn on a savings account; except of course that horses do die, which complicates the computations. But for now, let’s assume that horses never die, because that’s the assumption that BLM makes.

Using the free, online CAGR tool linked below, you would enter Kiger’s beginning population–21–and its alleged ending population–156–and the number of years that had passed–4. Then press the “Calculate CAGR” button, and the tool will compute the compound annual growth rate. For the Kiger herd, the CAGR is 65%, which is “only” 3.25 times higher–instead of 8 times higher–than 20%.

Here is the tool to compute CAGR:

http://www.miniwebtool.com/cagr-calculator/?present_value=100&future_value=200&num=4

Here are the other herds cited and their CAGRs. Fish Creek stays the same because its growth is just for one year.

Blawn Wash (UT)
38 = Population-estimate 2012
151 = Population-estimate 2014, including new foals

297.4 % = Percentage increase in three years
99.1 % = Simple average annual growth-rate
58.4 % = Compound annual growth-rate (CAGR)

Fish Creek (NV)
256 = Population-estimate 2013
461 = Population-estimate 2014, before foaling season (January)
80.1% = Percentage increase in one year

Green Mountain (WY)
258 = Population-estimate post-gather at the end of 2011
982 = Population-estimate in 2015 — including that year’s foals*

281.0 % = Percentage increase in four years
70.3 % = Simple average annual growth-rate
39.7 % = Compound annual growth-rate (CAGR)

Stewart Creek
124 = Population-estimate post-gather at the end of 2011
509 = Population-estimate in 2015 — including that year’s foals*

311.0 % = Percentage increase in four years
77.8 % = Simple average annual growth-rate
42.3 % = Compound annual growth-rate (CAGR)
* BLM’s population-modeling criteria said foals were not included in the AML. Evidently, they were.

Further Insight into Calculating Population-Growth

At the link below, you will find a discussion posted by the University of Oregon, providing a comparison between the simple average and the compound annual growth-rate methodologies for calculating annual percentage population-growth.

As will be readily apparent, the simple average approach is “straight-line” and … simple. Forgive yet another pun, but the average person can easily understand it and “do the math.”

The compound annual method, on the other hand, is extraordinarily complicated to compute, which is why the online tool is almost a necessity.

What is important is that both are legitimate ways of describing the data.

http://pages.uoregon.edu/rgp/PPPM613/class8a.htm

It should be kept in mind that population-growth estimates must consider births and deaths, not just births. That’s one reason why the Gregg et al. study was so important — it established, per BLM’s own documentation, a slightly-less than 20-percent birth-rate and a 50-percent foal mortality-rate. So, a wild-horse herd growth-rate of, for example, 65%, would have to mean a birth-rate that was much higher than 65% to offset foal deaths (50%) and adult deaths (5%).

 





Get ready! #Rally4Mustangs on Flag Day June 14th, International

Mustang flag with stars by Robin Warren, Youth Campaign Director © Protect Mustangs

Mustang flag with stars by Robin Warren for © Protect Mustangs

Inaugural Flag Day Rally 

The SF Rally is outside Senator Feinstein’s Office Building in SF from 11-12, June 14th (Flag Day is not an official federal holiday) 1 Post St, San Francisco, CA 94104. Meet at 10:30 with your signs. Come early to park or take BART. The station is Montgomery. Handmade signs are the best. Bring the kids!

The Carson City rally, from 4pm to 7 pm on Friday June 14th, is in front of the Legislative building, across the street from Comma Coffee house on 395/ Carson Street ~ Address: 401 S. Carson St, Carson City, NV 89701. 

Many cities are participating. See rally info, organize, start a rally and post it on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/433778203386782/433944553370147/?notif_t=event_mall_comment

The press release calling for a moratorium on roundups and national rallies to Save the Mustangs is here: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4479

Sign and share the Petition to Defund the Wild Horse and Burro Roundups: http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

Tweet:  Get ready! #Rally4Mustangs on Flag Day July 14th International http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4539 #WildHorses #Animals #Fracking

 

Barbie Hardrock joins Protect Mustangs' Oakland protest through the web (Photo © Rocquette)

Barbie Hardrock joins Protect Mustangs’ Oakland protest through the web (Photo © Rocquette)

 

Adopt these two and save them! (Photo © Taylor James)

Adopt these two and save them! (Photo © Taylor James)

 

Robin Warren, Youth Campaign Director for Protect Mustangs with her mother Denise Delucia at the Sacramento Rally to Stop the Roundups. (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved.)

Robin Warren, Youth Campaign Director for Protect Mustangs with her mother Denise Delucia at the Sacramento Rally to Stop the Roundups. (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved.)

 

OBAMA ~ Mustang poster © Lise Stampfli 2009

OBAMA ~ Mustang poster © Lise Stampfli 2009

 

 

Photo © Cynthia Smalley

 

PM No More Roundups By Cat

 

Protect native wild horses! © Protect Mustangs.org

Protect native wild horses! © Protect Mustangs.org

 

PM-Hotshot-7-Owyhee

 

Burros in Holding © Carl Mrozek

 

Stop the Roundups

 

Stop the Roundups rally organized by Protect Mustangs & Native Wild Horse Protection. (Photo © Respect 4 Horses.)

Stop the Roundups rally organized by Protect Mustangs & Native Wild Horse Protection. (Photo © Respect 4 Horses.)

 

Terri Farley speaks at the Rally to Stop the Roundups (Photo © Anne Novak.)

Terri Farley speaks at the Rally to Stop the Roundups (Photo © Anne Novak.)

 

Huff Post: Fertility drugs, nature better than horse roundups

Meet Ellie (#6457). She's a gorgeous 4 yr old Palomino mare from the Calico Mts. She is at the Palomino Valley Center near Reno. (Photo courtesy BLM)

Meet Ellie (#6457). She’s a gorgeous 4 yr old Palomino mare from the Calico Mts. She is at the Palomino Valley Center near Reno. (Photo courtesy BLM)

SCOTT SONNER | June 5, 2013 06:32 PM EST | AP


RENO, Nev. — A scathing independent scientific review of wild horse roundups in the West concludes the U.S. government would be better off investing in widespread fertility control of the mustangs and let nature cull any excess herds instead of spending millions to house them in overflowing holding pens.

A 14-member panel assembled by the National Science Academy’s National Research Council, at the request of the Bureau of Land Management, concluded BLM’s removal of nearly 100,000 horses from the Western range over the past decade is probably having the opposite effect of its intention to ease ecological damage and reduce overpopulated herds.

By stepping in prematurely when food and water supplies remain adequate, and with most natural predators long gone, the land management agency is producing artificial conditions that ultimately serve to perpetuate population growth, the committee said Wednesday in a 451-page report recommending more emphasis on the use of contraceptives and other methods of fertility control.

The research panel sympathized with BLM’s struggle to find middle ground between horse advocates and ranchers who see the animals as unwelcome competitors for forage. It noted there’s “little if any public support” for allowing harm to come to either the horses or the rangeland itself.

The report says the current method may work in the short term, but results in continually high population growth, exacerbating the long-term problem.

The American Wild Horse Preservation Fund, a national coalition of more than 50 advocacy groups, said the report makes a strong case for an immediate halt to the roundups that livestock ranchers say are necessary to protect the range and provide their sheep and cattle with a fair share of forage.

“This is a turning point for the decades-long fight to protect America’s mustangs,” said Neda DeMayo, president of the coalition’s Return to Freedom.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is among the livestock groups that have voiced support in the past for aggressive, increased use of fertility control but remain adamantly opposed to curtailing roundups. Horse advocates themselves are not united behind the idea of stepping up use of contraception on the range.

“We are grateful that the National Academy of Science recommends stopping cruel roundups, but we challenge their decision to control alleged overpopulation like a domestic herd with humans deciding who survives and breeds,” said Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs in San Francisco.

The conflict has raged for decades but has intensified in recent years for cash-strapped federal land managers with skyrocketing bills for food and corrals and no room for incoming animals.

“The business as usual practices are not going to be effective without additional resources,” said Guy Palmer, a pathologist from Washington State University who chaired the research committee.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said the report should serve as a wakeup call to bring changes he and others in Congress have urged for years.

“These unsustainable practices are a waste of taxpayer money and jeopardize the health and safety of wild horses across the West,” he said.

BLM officials said they welcomed the recommendations to help in their effort to make the program more cost-effective. Spokesman Tom Gorey said the agency “needs and wants to do a better job” managing horses, but said those advocating an end to all roundups are misguided.

“It appears that our critics want to use the report as a propaganda tool to stop gathers,” which the BLM are required to do by law, Gorey said.

“Do the American people and does Congress support changing the law so that BLM would carry out a laissez-faire management policy that would subject horses and burros to mass starvation or dehydration by letting Mother Nature work her will?” he asked in an email to The Associated Press.

Panel members said they found little scientific basis for establishing what BLM considers to be appropriate, ecologically based caps on horse numbers and even less basis for estimating the overall population itself.

“It seems that the national statistics are the product of hundreds of subjective, probably independent, judgments and assumptions by range managers and administrators,” the report said.

BLM’s current population estimate likely is anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent short of the true level, the report said.

The number of animals at holding facilities surpassed the estimated number on the range in 10 Western states earlier this year for the first time since President Richard Nixon signed the Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

The agency averaged removing 8,000 horses from the range annually from 2002 to 2011. Last year, it spent 60 percent of its wild horse budget on holding facilities alone, more than $40 million, the committee said.

Palmer said the public traditionally adopted about 3,000 of the horses annually but that has fallen off in recent years.

“The goal would be to manage horses better on the range so that any numbers that would be taken off would be matched with the adoption demand, which is not the current case.”

Cross-posted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130605/us-wild-horses-independent-review/?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=politics

Montreal Gazette: Independent panel: Wild horse roundups don’t work; use fertility drugs, let nature cull herds

Wild horse mares in holding (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Wild horse mares in holding (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

as seen in the Montreal Gazette, June 5, 2013

BY SCOTT SONNER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RENO, Nev. – A scathing independent scientific review of wild horse roundups in the U.S. West concludes the government would be better off investing in widespread fertility control of the mustangs and let nature cull any excess herds instead of spending millions to house them in overflowing holding pens.

A 14-member panel assembled by the National Science Academy’s National Research Council, at the request of the Bureau of Land Management, concluded BLM’s removal of nearly 100,000 horses from the Western range over the past decade is probably having the opposite effect of its intention to ease ecological damage and reduce overpopulated herds.

By stepping in prematurely when food and water supplies remain adequate, and with most natural predators long gone, the land management agency is producing artificial conditions that ultimately serve to perpetuate population growth, the committee said Wednesday in a 451-page report recommending more emphasis on the use of contraceptives and other methods of fertility control.

The research panel sympathized with BLM’s struggle to find middle ground between horse advocates and ranchers who see the animals as unwelcome competitors for forage. It noted there’s “little if any public support” for allowing harm to come to either the horses or the rangeland itself.

The report says the current method may work in the short term, but results in continually high population growth, exacerbating the long-term problem.

The American Wild Horse Preservation Fund, a national coalition of more than 50 advocacy groups, said the report makes a strong case for an immediate halt to the roundups that livestock ranchers say are necessary to protect the range and provide their sheep and cattle with a fair share of forage.

“This is a turning point for the decades-long fight to protect America’s mustangs,” said Neda DeMayo, president of the coalition’s Return to Freedom.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is among the livestock groups that have voiced support in the past for aggressive, increased use of fertility control but remain adamantly opposed to curtailing roundups. Horse advocates themselves are not united behind the idea of stepping up use of contraception on the range.

“We are grateful that the National Academy of Science recommends stopping cruel roundups, but we challenge their decision to control alleged overpopulation like a domestic herd with humans deciding who survives and breeds,” said Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs in San Francisco.

The conflict has raged for decades but has intensified in recent years for cash-strapped federal land managers with skyrocketing bills for food and corrals and no room for incoming animals.

BLM officials said they welcomed the recommendations in their effort to make the program more cost-effective but had no immediate reaction to the criticisms.

“Our agency is committed to protecting and managing these iconic animals for current and future generations,” Deputy Director Neil Kornze said.

Compounding the problem is a horse census system and rangeland assessment practice rife with inconsistencies and poor documentation, the committee said, noting a previous NRC committee charged with the same task reached the same conclusion 30 years ago.

Panel members said they found little scientific basis for establishing what BLM considers to be appropriate, ecologically based caps on horse numbers and even less basis for estimating the overall population itself.

“It seems that the national statistics are the product of hundreds of subjective, probably independent, judgments and assumptions by range managers and administrators,” the report said.

BLM’s current population estimate likely is anywhere from 10 per cent to 50 per cent short of the true level, the report said.

The questions about the estimates come after a BLM report said the number of animals at holding facilities surpassed the estimated number on the range in 10 Western states earlier this year for the first time since President Richard Nixon signed the Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

The agency averaged removing 8,000 horses from the range annually from 2002 to 2011. Last year, it spent 60 per cent of its wild horse budget on holding facilities alone, more than $40 million, the committee said.

Palmer said the public traditionally adopted about 3,000 of the horses annually but that has fallen off in recent years.

“The goal would be to manage horses better on the range so that any numbers that would be taken off would be matched with the adoption demand, which is not the current case. The number taken off far exceeds the adoption demand.”

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/Independent+panel+Wild+horse+roundups+dont+work+fertility/8484302/story.html#ixzz2VO34SMgc

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/