#URGENT: File a complaint against Nazi-like population control experiments on America’s wild horses!

The clock is ticking. Oregon State University isn’t stopping. They are going ahead with their Nazi-like population control experiments on wild mares and a lot of them are pregnant! The experiments were encouraged by a bunch of sick pro-slaughter, pro-cattle activists that work in darkness to bring the “final solutions” to America’s underpopulated wild horses and burros. These people have no soul. They have no empathy for the suffering these horrible experiments will inflict on WILD horses . . . wild animals . . . wildlife . . . that the law was supposed to protect.

Take action right now and fill out this Animal Welfare Complaint: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalwelfare/complaint-form. Mention that the procedures used to sterilize wild horses in the experiments at Oregon State University and elsewhere are cruel. Let them know that wild horses are underpopulated and the basis for these heinous experiments is false. Underpopulated wild horses and burros in America don’t need population control or birth control.

America’s wild horses and burros need your help to live and survive on public land set aside for them in 1971–the public sanctuary that is open 24/7 at no charge. The wild ones need YOU to go to your elected officials’ home offices and push for their protection.

Please also send an email to your congressman/woman and your 2 senators. Their contact information is here: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/ Short handwritten letters have the most impact as elected officials see them representing the opinion of 1000 voters.

Ignore anyone who says birth control is a tool in the stupid toolbox. Who’s toolbox are they talking about?

Ignore the spin doctors claiming they are overpopulated. It’s a lie.

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BoLM) claim there are 67,000 wild horses and burros combined in all western states is based on no more than an inflated guess. The BoLM have no headcount and no evidence according to the National Academy of Sciences. Even if there were 67,000 wild horses and burros left in the wild that would be too few to survive serious changes in climate, disease and environmental disaster. Do you want to see our majestic symbols of freedom and the American spirit become extinct forever? No you don’t, so take action. Your voice counts.

Don’t get distracted from the facts:

America’s wild horses and burros are being wiped off public land because greedy people and corporations with no conscious want to exploit the wild ones’ territory for profit–big profit. These people who are out for big money need to find the win-win, respect the environment and learn to work with–not annihilate–the last free roaming wild horses and burros. After all, wild horses prevent wildfires that could hurt their money making projects (oil and gas wells, solar energy zones, mining, etc.) These people should realize cattle will never roam like wild horses do and therefore cannot replace the wild herds for fire prevention.

Stop BLM from EXPERIMENTING on wild mares!

Tell your friends, family, co-workers and neighbors what’s going on and tune into our website daily for updates on the fight to save America’s wild horses! www.ProtectMustangs.org There are a lot of ways you can help by using your voice right from your computer. If we all don’t do something now then hundreds of wild horses will be cruelly carved up in Nazi-like population control experiments to rid the land of wild horses. Our beloved wild ones have been wrongfully labelled “pests” in the Pesticide PZP EPA application. Also based on the overpopulation lie, thousands of wild horses could end up at slaughter soon if they are not all accounted for and placed in safe homes.

Your elected officials need to be contacted regularly by email, handwritten letters and in meetings to stop the abuse against wild horses and keep them living in real freedom. . . in the wild.

It’s time to send an email requesting an appointment to get your elected officials involved in protecting America’s iconic wild horses and burros. Yes really protect them–not forcibly drug them with Pesticide PZP or sterilize them.

Do you realize YOUR voices in government have been fed a bunch of lies based on a false premise from other elected officials, lobbyists and traitor “advocates” as well? Follow the money . . . Then move beyond that to real “solutions” to protect real freedom. Make your voice heard.

From the Team at Protect Mustangs
www.ProtectMustangs.org

a member for the Alliance for Wild Horses and Burros

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




Signatures needed to help America’s wild horses

 Dianne_Feinstein,_official_Senate_photo

We are going to a meeting at Senator Dianne Feinstein‘s office soon and need your help to get more signatures on 3 important petitions:

1.) The DEFUND the ROUNDUPS PETITION http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

2.) SAVE OUR NATIVE WILD HORSES PETITION http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/save-our-native-wild

3.) PETITION for EMERGENCY SHELTER & SHADE http://www.change.org/petitions/bring-emergency-shelter-and-shade-to-captive-wild-horses-and-burros

Please help by sharing and emailing the two petitions to your friends and family. Thank you so much for helping America’s wild horses!

( Senator Feinstein photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

No shade for captive wild horses as temperatures soar in Nevada, despite requests from the public and elected officials

PVC Thermometer 5:30 pm June 28

 

RENO, NV (June 28, 2013)–With temperatures rising in the triple digits, Nevada photographer, Taylor James visited the national wild horse “processing” facility twice today for Protect Mustangs. She took photos and pointed her video camera over the fence. No sprinklers were seen at Palomino Valley Center (PVC). Surely there were sprinklers somewhere because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced they were putting sprinklers up to appease public outcry. Why are they putting sprinklers up when the wild horses need shade?

“I witnessed wild horses at Palomino Valley who were in distress today because of the heat,” states Taylor James. “I could not see any sprinklers from my vantage point. They looked miserable without shade.”

Anne Novak, Executive Director of Protect Mustangs, has appealed directly to Secretary Jewell to intervene–to stop the suffering and create shade for the wild horses and burros at Palomino Valley Center. “What these captured wild horses need in sweltering triple digit heat is shade from the blistering sun,” says Novak.

“We have a state law that says dogs need proper shade, food and water, so why not those horses?” asks Mark Manendo, Nevada State Senator. “Why would the BLM not want to provide proper care for the horses–especially if they require adopters must prove the wild horses will have access to shade?”

Protect Mustangs is working with elected officials, advocates and concerned members of the public, to request the BLM give captive wild horses and burros shade and provide them with 24/7 onsite personnel.

Currently no one lives at the facility. No one is there daily after business hours. If there is an emergency, no one can ensure the safety of the more than 1,800 treasured wild horses and burros after normal business hours and on most weekends.

“We joined with Senator Mark Manendo on June 9th to officially request the BLM in Washington provide shade for the captured wild horses at Palomino Valley and elsewhere,” states Novak. “They have done nothing.”

“The BLM must think this sort of animal cruelty is acceptable–but it’s heinous,” adds Novak.  “How many wild horses will perish before they finally do something? Their disregard for America’s icons shows that they just don’t care.”

In the wild, native horses can migrate to more comfortable places during heat waves. In the pens they are trapped and at the mercy of those who chased them with helicopters, tore them from their families and took them from their homes on the range.

Video © Taylor James for Protect Mustangs.org

Basic animal husbandly requires access to shelter as seen at a Nevada equine facility about 8 miles up the road. The BLM ignores horse management protocol while allegedly caring for thousands of wild horses.

For information on the crisis created by the BLM to remove the majority of wild horses and burros off their native land, cruelty towards America’s icons of freedom and no evidence of overpopulation according to the National Academy of Sciences visit www.ProtectMustangs.org

“Like” us on Facebook for updates and ways to help the wild horses: https://www.facebook.com/ProtectMustangs

Read our June 9th press release requesting shade: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4501

We want to thank photographer Taylor James for driving out to Palomino Valley Center during the heat wave to document and witness the ‘no shade’ fiasco.

We send a special shout out to fellow wild horse and burro advocates who are also working to get shade for our beloved wild horses and burros: Monika Courtney, Jetara Séhart, Dr. Lester Friedlander, Patty Bumgarner, Colleen Denson, Joanne Cronan-Hamoy, Debbie Catalina, Rt. Fitch, Debbie Coffey, Carl Mrozek, Jill Willis, Craig Downer and others.

We are deeply grateful to Senator Mark Manendo for his compassionate commitment to the humane treatment of America’s wild horses and burros.

Videos from June 28, 2013 Observation at Palomino Valley Center:  Coming Soon

We will be updating this page with videos and photos so check back here to see them.

PVC 5:30 p.m. Car Therm June 28 2013 Heat Wave with No Shade

PVC No Shade Heat Wave

PVC June 28 2013 Water trough

Wild Horses & Burros and the law

Photo ©Rachel Anne Reeves all rights reserved

Photo ©Rachel Anne Reeves all rights reserved

Kathleen Hayden’s list

1. The 1971 Wild horse Act is superseded by the Wildlife Trust laws whose basis was the Magna Carta which can be seen in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

2. Changes in English common law enacted in 1641, ruled that the Magna Carta had settled the question of who owns fish and wildlife.

3. Wild horses and burros are no less “wild” animals than are the grizzly bears that roam our national parks and forests (Mountain States v. Hodel)neither the states of the federal government have the right to harm Our Heritage  Wildlife as found by Supreme court 1995 Ruling Babbit v.Sweet Home.

4. The Babbit v Sweet Home case found that The term “take” means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct. 16 U.S.C. § 1532(19).

5.  By a 6-3 vote, the Court upheld the statutory authority of the Secretary of the Interior to include “habitat modification and degradation” as conduct which constitutes “harm” under the ESA.

In addition to the statutory provisions described above,

6. Section 5 of the ESA authorizes the Secretary to purchase the lands on which the survival of the species depends. Accordingly, Sweet Home maintained that this Section 5 authority was “the Secretary’s only means of forestalling that grave result [i.e. possible extinction).

7.  As a result, based upon “the text, structure, and legislative history of the ESA the Supreme Court concluded that “the Secretary reasonably construed the intent of Congress when he defined ‘harm’ to include ‘significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife species.

8.  Pursuant to BLM’s 2001 Special Status Species Policy requirement that “sensitive” species be afforded, at a minimum, the same protections as candidate species for listing under the ESA. It called on BLM managers to “obtain and use the best available information deemed necessary to evaluate the status of special status species in areas affected by land use plans . . . This statement by BLM was from the May 2003 Proposed Nevada Test and Training Range Resource Management Plan and Final EIS    Comment 87, BLM Response, pg. E-25″The issue of a wild horse as an invasive species is moot since the 1971 WHBA gave wild free-roaming horses “special” status based on their heritage of assisting man settle the “West”.

#BREAKING NEWS: Senator Manendo wants humane treatment for captured wild horses

Senator Mark Manendo

for immediate release

Captive wild horses trapped with no shade during heat wave

RENO, Nv. (June 9, 2013)–Senator Mark Manendo, Protect Mustangs and horse lovers across the internet are very concerned for the welfare of the captured native wild horses at the Palomino Valley National Adoption Center during the Reno heat wave. Mustangs of all ages are trapped in pens without shade–even mares and newborn foals. An avalanche of concern is traveling across social media.

Patty Bumgarner with the Wild Horse Protection League from Dayton wrote on Facebook, “Palomino Valley BLM, 91 degrees at 11 a.m. and no shade for the horses with foals or any of the horses & burros. Supposed to be 106 today in Dayton. They’re 2 degrees hotter then us right now.”

Bumgarner’s post caught the attention of many wild horse advocates including Anne Novak, executive director of Protect Mustangs.

“It’s horrific to know this is happening,” says Novak. “The BLM is ignoring public input and continues to treat wild horses inhumanely. They don’t seem to care. Now with social media a lot of people are finding out so maybe it will snowball and change things.”

After last summer’s nearby wildfire, the BLM told Novak that no one lives on site. There are up to 2,000 wild horses in pens at the facility outside Reno. She decided to get help elsewhere.

Novak contacted Nevada State Senator Mark Manendo for help. He has an internet track record of being kind to animals and helping horses.

“We have a state law that says dogs need proper shade, food and water, so why not those horses?” asks Mark Manendo, Nevada State Senator. “Why would the BLM not want to provide proper care for the horses–especially if they require adopters must prove the wild horses will have access to shade?”

Previously the Palomino Valley National Adoption Center known as “PVC” has come under fire for several hot button issues. They have decided to cut costs by closing during 3 out of 4 Saturdays per month, making it harder for adopters to adopt wild horses and they don’t appear to be counting or reporting mustang mortalities correctly according to rendering plant records exposed by Animals Angels. During her research for 2013 mortalities, Novak discovered that young foals who die and have not been branded go unreported. With so many mares giving birth to foals at this time of year and no shade during heat waves–unreported deaths are of concern.

“We want American wild horses, especially mares and tiny foals, to be treated humanely while cared for by the federal government,” says Anne Novak. “They should be living in freedom where native horses belong so they can migrate to find shade. Now they are trapped in a pen during a heat wave with no shade–it’s cruel.”

Protect Mustangs encourages concerned Americans to contact their Congressional representative and 2 senators, asking them to intervene to stop this cruelty in all government holding facilities. This concerns all Americans because it is a federal issue.

According to the BLM’s website, “The National Wild Horse and Burro Center at Palomino Valley (PVC) is the largest BLM preparation and adoption facility in the country and serves as the primary preparation center for wild horses and burros gathered from the public lands in Nevada and other near-by states. Nevada is home to more than 50 percent of the Nation’s wild horses and burros with approximately 102 herd management areas throughout the State.”

Protect Mustangs is devoted to protecting native wild horses. Their mission is to educate the public about the indigenous wild horse, protect and research American wild horses on the range and help those who have lost their freedom.

# # #

Media Contacts:

Anne Novak, 415.531.8454 Anne@ProtectMustangs.org

Kerry Becklund, 510.502.1913 Kerry@ProtectMustangs.org

Photos, video and interviews available upon request

Links of interest:

Senator Manendo calls for wild horse sanctuaries: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/jan/10/lv-senator-calls-sanctuaries-wild-horses-nevada/#axzz2VlV8EAv2

How many foals are dying after roundups: http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4246

BLM’s email revealing they are not counting the unbranded dead amongst the 37 dead mustangs at the Nevada facility http://protectmustangs.org/?p=4220

Washington Post: Independent panel: Wild horse roundups don’t work; use fertility drugs, let nature cull herdshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/independent-panel-to-recommend-changes-in-blm-wild-horse-program/2013/06/05/b65ba772-cdb3-11e2-8573-3baeea6a2647_story.html

Information on native wild horses: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562

Wild-horse advocates: Rallies held in 50 states to drum up opposition to roundups, slaughter http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/80561cc4e8a64b43ae909f7d09a0473e/NV–Wild-Horses-Rallies

Animals Angels investigative report: http://www.animalsangels.org/the-issues/horse-slaughter/foia-requests/497-blm-nevada-mortality-records-a-nevada-rendering-animals-angels-foia-request-reveals-discrepancies.html

ProPublica: All the missing horses: What happened to the wild horses Tom Davis bought from the gov’t?http://www.propublica.org/article/missing-what-happened-to-wild-horses-tom-davis-bought-from-the-govt

Palomino Valley Center: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/prog/wh_b/palomino_valley_national.html

Protect Mustangs in the news: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=218

Protect Mustangs’ press releases: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=12

Nevada State Senator, Mark Manendo, comments to Protect Mustangs on the Sheldon wild horse and burro crisis

“According to Nevada’s Legislative Counsel Bureau, the wild horses and burros living in the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge appear to be managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service under the authority of the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act and other applicable federal law,” explains Mark Manendo, Nevada State Senator.  “As such, the horses and burros are not feral horses or burros (domesticated horses or burros which have become wild) under NRS 569.008, and are therefore not under the jurisdiction of Nevada’s Department of Agriculture pursuant to NRS 569.010. Because there is no state jurisdiction, it would be questionable for the State of Nevada to try to assert any control or management over those horses and burros.”

“if people contact their Congress person and their two US Senators and let them know how you feel on this important issue that would be extremely helpful,” says Manendo.

It’s only getting worse

Here is a video message about the American wild horse crisis in February 2010. The numbers are bigger now with 53K wild horses in holding and perhaps 15K left on the range.

Thank you Arlene Gawne and team for bringing this YouTube message to the public.

In 2009, 2010 and 2011 we all tried to help The President understand the need to save the mustangs. Sadly he appears to want The New Energy Frontier above and beyond anything else.

If you don’t like what’s going on then contact your representatives and senators because they are your voice in government. Congress funds the rotten Wild Horse and Burro Program under the Bureau of Land Management.

Request a Congressional investigation, forensic accounting and a moratorium on roundups as well as fertility control until the truth comes out that there are hardly any wild horses left out on America’s public land.

This year the EPA passed a fertility control pesticide for use on America’s wild horses and burros. Our indigenous horse has been formally labelled a “pest” by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. We want the erroneous classification reversed. Pests and invasive species are weeded out and disposed of . . .  Why did the EPA sell out?

(Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved)

Stop the roundups and the extermination!

Take action to protect mustangs

Helicopter Chasing Wild Horses-Calico (Photo © Cat Kindsfather)

“Send a handwritten letter to your senators and representatives demanding they stop funding roundups and all kinds of mustang and burro removals”, suggests Anne Novak, Executive Director of Protect Mustangs. “Ask them for an independent scientific head count before giving wild horses any more sketchy contraceptives. We don’t know how many mustangs are out there but we know the Bureau of Land Management’s numbers are inflated to justify receiving funding from Congress for their broken program. $78 million American tax dollars are given to BLM annually so they can rip wild horses from their families and their freedom. That’s $780,000,000. in just ten years to remove wild horses from public land set aside for them with the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act. Write your politicians who are in office to represent you and ask for the change you want.”

Water wars threatens wild horses

 For immediate release

Water for wildlife in Nevada (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Assemblyman sponsors A.B. 329 yet received money from Federal Wild Horse and Burro Control Services

RENO (February 19, 2012)—Controversy surrounds Nevada Assemblyman, now running for Senator and longtime rancher Pete Goicoechea due to his sponsorship of A.B. 329.  The bill would redefine wildlife for purposes of access to water to mean any free-living creature that walks, slithers, flies over, or crawls on Nevada soil—except for wild horses and burros.  Advocates believe the bill could zero out American wild horses and burros in Nevada, where most of them currently live.

Wild horse preservation group, Protect Mustangs, questions Assemblyman Goicoecha’s motives in sponsoring this bill, given that he has received $674,591 through Federal contract funds between 2000 and 2009 for “Wild Horse and Burro Control Services”. Goicoechea’s son J.J. is the president of the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association. Is Mr. Goicoechea representing the Nevadans who elected him or special interests?

“We are concerned native wild horses would be wiped out if A.B. 329 is passed,” explains Kerry Becklund, director of outreach for Protect Mustangs. “Indigenous wild horses belong to all of America and must not be removed or killed because special interest groups lobby to prevent them from drinking water in Nevada.”

A.B. 329 reads:

Section 1.  Chapter 532 of NRS is hereby amended by adding thereto a new section to read as follows:

 As used in this title, unless the context otherwise requires, “wildlife” means any wild mammal, wild bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, mollusk or crustacean found naturally in a wild state, whether indigenous to Nevada or not and whether raised in captivity or not. The term does not include any wild horse or burro.

Recently at the January 2012 Legislative Committee on Public Lands Hearing, wild horse photographer Cat Kindsfather represented Protect Mustangs, and testified that based on modern science, wild horses are an indigenous species that deserve access to water in Nevada, along with other wildlife.

According to scientific findings in 2010, Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. and Patricia M. Fazio, Ph.D updated their research Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife proving wild horses are indigenous.

The preservation group seeks transparency and answers.  Why is a Nevada Assemblyman who was contracted and paid by the federal government for “Wild Horse and Burro Control Services” sponsoring A.B. 329 to deny the native species the right to drink water in the State, and essentially the right to exist in the State, and what services did Goicoechea provide to the Federal program?

“Attacking wild horses and burros in ‘water wars’ goes against the American public’s wishes,” states Anne Novak, executive director for Protect Mustangs.  “Besides healing the land, they are living symbols of American freedom who must be protected and preserved.”

# # #

Media Contacts:

Anne Novak, 415-531-8454  Anne@ProtectMustangs.org

Kerry Becklund, 510-502-1913  Kerry@ProtectMustangs.org

Contact Protect Mustangs for interviews, photos or video

Links of interest:

A.B. 329: http://leg.state.nv.us/Session/76th2011/Bills/AB/AB329.pdf

Draft letter to Nevada State Engineer from Wildlife Commission against wild horses and burros drinking water: http://bit.ly/yaCNg3

Pete Goicoechea is running for Senator: http://bit.ly/zpKLAX

J.J. Goicoechea, President of Nevada Cattlemen’s Association & rancher complains wild horses: http://bit.ly/zraapE

Science proves wild horses are native: http://protectmustangs.org/?page_id=562

Contracts for Wild Horse and Burro Control Services (FY 2000-2009) http://bit.ly/xVlVm5

Opposition to A.B. 329 (Video at 2011 hearing) http://bit.ly/zlCiU3

Protect Mustangs’ website: http://www.ProtectMustangs.org

 

Protect Mustangs is a Bay Area-based preservation group whose mission is to educate the public about the American wild horse, protect and research wild horses on the range and help those who have lost their freedom.