Fact: Wild horses are present on just 17% of BLM rangelands, where they remain vastly outnumbered by livestock.
THESE ARE PUBLIC LANDS MAINTAINED BY TAXPAYER DOLLARS.
We have the right to have a say in how these wild horses and burros are treated.
[PLEASE, PLEASE NOTE: THERE IS A SLIM CHANCE WE CAN STOP THE BLM FROM CONTINUING TO CARRY OUT THIS HORRIFIC PRACTICE.
Please send your comments to the BLM by end of day June 12.
If mailed they must be postmarked by June 12:
BLM Burns District Office
28910 Hwy 20, Hines, OR 97738
Here is the email address: blm_or_bu_spaystudy@blm.gov]
Please comment today and use your own words. The BLM counts form letters no matter how many are submitted as only 1 comment. Tell the BLM you want to use Alternative A the No Action Alternative, and that you are opposed to spaying wild mares.]
MANY WILL FIND THE VIDEO BELOW DISTURBING, TO SAY THE LEAST, BUT SOME THINGS ARE TOO BARBARIC, TOO HORRIFYING FOR WORDS. ONE MUST SEE IT TO BELIEVE SUCH CRUELTY EXISTS.
THIS IS WHAT AMERICA'S 'BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT' (BLM) HAS DONE TO OVER 700 WILD HORSE AND WILD BURRO MARES AND WANTS TO DO TO MOST OF THEM.
WHILE THE BLM-PRODUCED VIDEO IS HEAVILY EDITED SO THE MARE'S FACE AND BACKSIDE ARE NOT SHOWN, HER FLINCHING, HER STRUGGLE TO GET FREE AND HER AGONY ARE APPARENT AS HER RESPIRATION AND AGITATION INCREASES.
TRY TO IMAGINE THE PAIN SHE ENDURED AS THIS IS DONE WITHOUT ANESTHESIA AND WITHOUT CAUTERIZATION OR STITCHES.
SHE IS LEFT TO BLEED AND SOME BLEED TO DEATH.
HAD SHE NOT BEEN IN A SQUEEZE CHUTE AND SUPPORTED BY BARS BENEATH HER ABDOMEN, SHE WOULD HAVE COLLAPSED FROM THE TRAUMA.
WE'RE TOLD THE TOTAL TIME FOR THIS NIGHTMARISH PROCEDURE TAKES 15 MINUTES, BUT WE AREN'T GIVEN A TIME FRAME OR SHOWN THE INJURIES MANY MARES SUSTAIN WHILE BEING LOADED INTO THESE CHUTES OR THE PAINFUL DEATH OF SOME FROM HEMORRHAGING OR INFECTION AFTERWORD.
"We were not taught the procedure in vet school. It’s best left to the large animal surgical specialists in veterinary hospitals and referral clinics.
Spaying a mare is a more complicated medical procedure than gelding, involving entering the abdominal cavity. Although there is more than one way to spay a mare, each resulting in the removal of the ovaries, the procedure tends to be painful and there can be scary complications, such as bleeding from the ovarian artery, which can be difficult to control." -- Dr. Anna O'Brien
THERE ARE ONLY ABOUT 80,000 WILD HORSES AND BURROS LEFT IN AMERICA. THEY SAY THIS IS TOO MANY TO GRAZE ON 26.9 MILLION ACRES OF PUBLIC LANDS IN 10 WESTERN STATES.
OF THE 167 MILLION ACRES OF PUBLIC RANGE LAND, LAND ON WHICH AMERICAN RANCHERS GRAZE CATTLE, SHEEP AND DOMESTIC HORSE HERDS, BLM HAS RESTRICTED WILD HERDS MORE EACH YEAR
.
Please send your comments to the BLM by end of day June 12.
If mailed they must be postmarked by June 12:
BLM Burns District Office
28910 Hwy 20, Hines, OR 97738
Here is the email address: blm_or_bu_spaystudy@blm.gov]
Please comment today and use your own words. The BLM counts form letters no matter how many are submitted as only 1 comment. Tell the BLM you want to use Alternative A the No Action Alternative, and that you are opposed to spaying wild mares.]
MANY WILL FIND THE VIDEO BELOW DISTURBING, TO SAY THE LEAST, BUT SOME THINGS ARE TOO BARBARIC, TOO HORRIFYING FOR WORDS. ONE MUST SEE IT TO BELIEVE SUCH CRUELTY EXISTS.
THIS IS WHAT AMERICA'S 'BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT' (BLM) HAS DONE TO OVER 700 WILD HORSE AND WILD BURRO MARES AND WANTS TO DO TO MOST OF THEM.
WHILE THE BLM-PRODUCED VIDEO IS HEAVILY EDITED SO THE MARE'S FACE AND BACKSIDE ARE NOT SHOWN, HER FLINCHING, HER STRUGGLE TO GET FREE AND HER AGONY ARE APPARENT AS HER RESPIRATION AND AGITATION INCREASES.
TRY TO IMAGINE THE PAIN SHE ENDURED AS THIS IS DONE WITHOUT ANESTHESIA AND WITHOUT CAUTERIZATION OR STITCHES.
SHE IS LEFT TO BLEED AND SOME BLEED TO DEATH.
HAD SHE NOT BEEN IN A SQUEEZE CHUTE AND SUPPORTED BY BARS BENEATH HER ABDOMEN, SHE WOULD HAVE COLLAPSED FROM THE TRAUMA.
WE'RE TOLD THE TOTAL TIME FOR THIS NIGHTMARISH PROCEDURE TAKES 15 MINUTES, BUT WE AREN'T GIVEN A TIME FRAME OR SHOWN THE INJURIES MANY MARES SUSTAIN WHILE BEING LOADED INTO THESE CHUTES OR THE PAINFUL DEATH OF SOME FROM HEMORRHAGING OR INFECTION AFTERWORD.
"We were not taught the procedure in vet school. It’s best left to the large animal surgical specialists in veterinary hospitals and referral clinics.
Spaying a mare is a more complicated medical procedure than gelding, involving entering the abdominal cavity. Although there is more than one way to spay a mare, each resulting in the removal of the ovaries, the procedure tends to be painful and there can be scary complications, such as bleeding from the ovarian artery, which can be difficult to control." -- Dr. Anna O'Brien
THERE ARE ONLY ABOUT 80,000 WILD HORSES AND BURROS LEFT IN AMERICA. THEY SAY THIS IS TOO MANY TO GRAZE ON 26.9 MILLION ACRES OF PUBLIC LANDS IN 10 WESTERN STATES.
OF THE 167 MILLION ACRES OF PUBLIC RANGE LAND, LAND ON WHICH AMERICAN RANCHERS GRAZE CATTLE, SHEEP AND DOMESTIC HORSE HERDS, BLM HAS RESTRICTED WILD HERDS MORE EACH YEAR
.
THE RANCHERS COMPLAIN THAT THE WILD HERDS RUIN THE GRASS SUPPLY AND USE UP THE SCANT WATERING HOLES.
AS YOU WILL SEE BELOW, IT'S CATTLE THAT ARE RUINING RANGE LANDS.
THE BLM HAS CAPTURED OVER 50,000 OF THE REMAINING 80,000 MUSTANGS AND KEEPS THEM IN FEED PENS WHERE MANY MORE DIE.
THEY HAZE THE HERDS BY HELICOPTER SEVERAL TIMES A YEAR, DRIVING THEM AT A GALLOP ACROSS MILES OF DESERT RANGES, KILLING SOME, ESPECIALLY FOALS, BY EXHAUSTION, TRAUMA AND DEHYDRATION.
AS YOU WILL SEE BELOW, IT'S CATTLE THAT ARE RUINING RANGE LANDS.
THE BLM HAS CAPTURED OVER 50,000 OF THE REMAINING 80,000 MUSTANGS AND KEEPS THEM IN FEED PENS WHERE MANY MORE DIE.
THEY HAZE THE HERDS BY HELICOPTER SEVERAL TIMES A YEAR, DRIVING THEM AT A GALLOP ACROSS MILES OF DESERT RANGES, KILLING SOME, ESPECIALLY FOALS, BY EXHAUSTION, TRAUMA AND DEHYDRATION.
BLM'S WILD HORSE STERILIZATION PROGRAM IS BARBARIC AND COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.
THIS "STANDING SPAY" IS DONE AT A COST OF ABOUT $300 PER MARE AND PREVENTS THE BIRTH OF ONE FOAL A YEAR.
THE BLM COULD STERILIZE THE MALES IN THESE HERDS FOR LESS THAN $10 AT BIRTH USING BANDING AND LESS THAN $100 AT A LATER TIME BY "CUTTING" (CASTRATION).
BANDING AND CUTTING IN THE FIELD ARE THE TWO PROCEDURES RANCHERS THEMSELVES USE, BUT THE BLM REFUSES THIS OPTION.
STERILIZING A SINGLE MALE WOULD PREVENT DOZENS OF BIRTHS PER YEAR, DEPENDING ON THE NUMBER OF MARES IN EACH HERD.
THERE ARE MORE MALES THAN FEMALES AT CURRENT TIME BUT THE BLM WON'T FOCUS ON THE MALES.
BLM'S STERILIZATION OF MARES HAS BEEN HALTED BY PUBLIC AND VETERINARIANS OUTCRY SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY, BUT THEY KEEP TRYING TO GET APPROVAL AND KEEP "EXPERIMENTING".
LETTER TO BLM BY A VETERINARIAN SHOWS THE CRUELTY OF THIS.
"The three surgical procedures for permanent sterilization of mares described in the mare sterilization research project, ovariectomy via colopotomy, tubal ligation and hysteroscopically-guided laser ablation of the oviduct papilla all require certain pre-operative and post-operative considerations for aseptic surgical protocol and pain management. Pre-operative bloodwork and a thorough examination are always performed on the relatively few domestic mares which are spayed. Other options other than surgery are always considered first due to the risk involved with any of these procedures. Aseptic surgical protocol and pain management is the standard of care for each and every surgery or the performing veterinarian would undoubtedly be sued by the owner and reprimanded by the state veterinary board. Wild mares will not have their surgeries performed in a sterile surgical suite. Their surgery will be performed in a non-sterile chute or standing in stocks at the local BLM facility without benefit of routine standard of care. Unlike domestic mares who are easily handled, the very handling of these wild mares presents additional pre-operative stressors, which cannot be mitigated. BLM does not possess the statutory authority to treat America’s wild free roaming mares as research test subjects to perform surgeries which are not the standard of care for domestic mares.
Case in point, is a photograph of Dr. Leon Pielstick as he was beginning to perform a surgery attired in bibs used predominately for working cattle and performing the surgery with a non-sterile plastic sleeve that is used to pregnancy check cattle. This is not acceptable for a domestic mare, why wild mares?
[This] is gross negligence and inhumane on the part of the Department of Interior and the veterinarians who performed the surgery in less than aseptic conditions. This type of trial and error butchery is a violation of the least feasible management clause of the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
In private practice, colopotomy is considered an inferior procedure with likelihood of post-surgical infections and complications (i.e., colic) especially during these unsterile conditions. Post-operative care usually lasts several days to often weeks and mares are monitored and in most cases are monitored in box stalls or cross ties, which cannot be accomplished with wild mares. Post- operative bleeding is a situation which cannot be easily remedied even in domestic mares.
In recent conversations with Littleton Equine Medical Center veterinarians Scott Toppin, DVM, DABVP and Kelly Tisher DVM the following comments were made to me.
Dr. Toppin stated he had serious concerns about the dangerous and inhumane conditions under which these surgeries would be performed. He also stated concerns about the sterility of the procedure and pre and post-operative pain control.
Dr. Tisher shared that their practice equine surgeon, Dustin V. Devine DVM, MS DACVS, performs approximately six to twelve of these surgeries with a laparoscope annually.
Littleton Equine is the leading equine veterinary private practice in Colorado.
Mass experimental surgeries performed under these conditions outlined in the proposal, amounts to negligence and abuse. I believe experiments such as this proposal are unethical, inhumane and unwarranted. Any veterinarian(s) who would perform these experiments is in violation of the oath taken as a graduating veterinarian, “above all else, do no harm”. If a veterinarian in private practice performed these procedures in the manner described in this document they would most certainly be reported to and disciplined by the regulatory board of that state. Discipline would likely mean suspension of that veterinarian’s license to practice in that state. All horses should be judged the same when it concerns care.
Elective, unethical treatment should not be performed on either domestic horses or wild horses. BLM gives the impression that all wild horse areas are overpopulated, when in fact, most wild horse areas do not have a genetically sustainable population.
Once again, BLM is exceeding the statutory authority granted by Congress in the management of our wild horses. Since the inception of the WHBA, BLM has practiced a management for extinction policy. It is ever so clear in the “experimental research policy” BLM is now proposing.
Sincerely, Donald E. Moore, D.V.M 1787 K 6/10 Road, Fruita, CO 81521"
BLOCKED BY COURTS AGAIN AND AGAIN.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman on November 2, 2018 issued a preliminary injunction that blocked a Bureau of Land Management experiment to sterilize mares from the Warm Springs Management Area, at a horse corral facility in Hines, about two miles southwest of Burns, in the eastern Oregon high desert.
The Colorado State University veterinary school, after bidding to participate in the mare spaying experiment in August 2018, had already withdrawn from it, amid a storm of opposition.
The plaintiffs alleged that the proposed horse spaying experiments would “involve performing an outdated surgical procedure called ovariectomy via colpotomy,” described by the plaintiffs as “a blind surgery in which a veterinarian inserts his arm into a mare’s abdominal cavity through an incision in the vaginal wall, an incision is made through the wall of the vagina and then through the peritoneum to access the ovaries, the veterinarian manually (and BLINDLY) locates the ovaries, then twists, severs and removes them using a rod-like tool with a chain on the end.
"Not meant for field application.”
The National Academy of Sciences advised, “episioplasty (suturing to close the vulva) and stall restriction for 2-7 days are recommended to reduce the chance of evisceration.”
“Monitoring for 24-48 hours for signs of hypovolemic shock due to internal bleeding is also recommended. The procedure is not without risk,” the National Academy of Sciences cautioned.
THE BLM DOES NEITHER OF THESE.
“I do not recommend an ovariectomy procedure called a colpotomy,” Peter Knox, DVM, of Nampa, Idaho, said. “Even when performed by very experienced surgeons, it has an increased risk of accidental injury to other organs, bleeding and post-surgical colic.”
“The safest ovariectomy procedure is done laparoscopically, much like a human gall bladder surgery,” Knox advised. “It takes only about an hour with the horse standing in restraints under heavy sedation,” or about four times as long, as Knox would do it by the flank spay method, as the colpotomy procedure recommended by the Bureau of Land Management.
OVER-POPULATION IS A LIE!
Over 70% of the wild horse herds that remain in this country have below the number of 150 breeding aged adults necessary to remain genetically viable, let alone some ridiculous overpopulation.
The BLM is looking for a permanent quick fix, a sterilization, an extinction of wild horses.
If they can get away with sterilizing our wild herds, in 20 years we will not have any wild horses left, especially if they get away with rounding up and removing 20,000 to 30,000 wild horses from our public lands each year.
One of the wild mares being held right now had twins, which is an extremely rare event, and she and her twins were going to go to Skydog Sanctuary for some extra care. However, the BLM then informed Skydog Sanctuary that this mare was in the spay study so she could not be allowed to be adopted. The fact that before the EA has even been commented on by the public and the Decision Record has been issued that the BLM is already planning on this study going forward and already designated which mares will be used in a study that has not even been approved yet is extremely disturbing and possibly a violation of NEPA.
THE LIE OF OVER-GRAZING AND OVER-POPULATION
BLM Grazing in States with Wild Horses
State
|
% of BLM rangelands occupied by wild horses & burros
| ||
|---|---|---|---|
Arizona
| 11.5 million | 1.5 million | 13 |
California
| 7 million | 2 million | 28 |
Colorado
| 7.8 million | 365,000 | 5 |
Idaho
| 11.5 million | 383,000 | .03 |
Montana
| 8.2 million* | 27,094 | .003 |
Nevada
| 43 million | 14 million | 33 |
New Mexico
| 13 million | 24,500 | .001 |
Oregon
| 14 million | 2.7 million | 19 |
Utah
| 22 million | 2.1 million | 10 |
Wyoming
| 17.4 million | 3.6 million | 21 |
*includes Dakotas
AS YOU CAN SEE, THE CLAIM BY BLM THAT RANCHERS ARE NOT GRAZING HUGE NUMBERS OF LIVESTOCK ON PUBLIC LANDS IS A LIE, AS IS THEIR CLAIM THAT THE WILD HERDS WOULD STARVE WITHOUT BEING CULLED.Livestock currently grazes on over 260 million acres of Federal land, 167 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and 95 million acres administered by the Forest Service.
WILD HORSES AND BURROS ARE CONFINED TO UNDER 30 MILLION ACRES. HOW CAN THE BLM JUSTIFY THIS?
Horses Versus Cattle: The Truth Behind Grazing Rights
-- A horse drinks approximately 8-14 gallons a day, depending upon the heat and level of exercise. Cattle, on the other hand, need on average approximately 20 gallons of water per day, and may actually consume up to 50 gallons of water per day.
-- Cattle eat consistently for approximately 12 hours a day, and can eat up to 130 pounds of grass and forage per day. Because they will eat almost anything in front of them, they are ideal to clear high grasses that grow out in the wild. Unfortunately, this also clears all of the natural forage for any other wildlife that might live there.
Overall, cattle move very little, but must eat a lot, meaning that they completely consume all of the natural plants and grasses in a small area.
Horses on the other hand, are very picky and roam more when they eat. Horses will refuse to eat a number of different plants, instead feasting on the grasses that are available. A typical 1,000 pound horses will eat approximately 20-25 pounds of grass per day.
That’s 130 pounds of food for cattle versus 25 pounds per horse.
-- Private cattle ranchers are knowingly overgrazing their herds on federal lands. The BLM is allowing the cattle to overgraze and continue to allow the increase of the number of cattle while, at the same time, continue to lower grazing fees.
Some ranchers have grazed their herds on public lands for years without paying a penny.
The BLM has been charged with this failure to collect grazing fees many times.
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE FAILURE OF THE BLM STATES THAT... "Public lands ranchers are being subsidized by taxpayers and this is unfair, inefficient, and leads to undue environmental damages."
RANCHERS WANT THE WILD HERDS STERILIZED AND/OR REMOVED.
THE BLM HEARS AND OBEYS.
Most large animal veterinarians agree that the surgical environment [FOR MARE STERILIZATION] needs to be completely sterile and recovery time is at least a month – this is NOT a suitable procedure to do in the field, on wild mares. The risk of infection and death is far too high. Some of the mares may die from shock.
There is only one example of spaying wild mares in the field. This was at the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, where 10% of the mares (30) died. And some of the mares were released into the wild and not tracked to see if they died, so the death rate was probably much higher than 10%.
Why would the BLM use unproven, dangerous and cruel methods of sterilization instead of using safe, relatively unintrusive, proven methods of birth control to control the population of the wild horses in White Mountain?
The BLM is planning 5 more studies of spaying wild mares with USGS. They are planning even more studies using other methods of sterilization on other herds, including chemical sterilization and gelding. This needs to stop. This is BLM’s end game for our wild horses – sterilizing the herds, and ending up with no more wild horses.
In the wild, the ratio of stallions to mares ends up being about 50-50. One of the BLM’s unproven brilliant ideas is that the population will grow less if there are less mares than stallions. In my experience, all it does is create more turmoil, as the stallions spend more time battling other stallions and defending or winning the much fewer number of mares. The mares were also given PZP-22, a two year birth control drug. Again, despite this being a small herd and easy to find and approach, the BLM did not follow up and administer birth control every one or two years to keep the population in check.
2015, and the BLM [was] intent on appeasing the Rock Springs Grazing Association, because a majority of the land in the Herd Management Area is a checkerboard of public and private land, and the Grazing Association, who has the majority of private land and leases on public land in the area want all the horses gone, and/or sterilized.
The BLM did a flyover count of the White Mountain Herd in April 2015 and the “statistician Contractor working under the direction of USGS” came up with 268 adult wild horses in White Mountain. Notice that that is an increase of only 59 horses since 2011. The PZP-22, even though it was not reapplied, did work.
BLM PUTS RADIO COLLARS ON SOME, SOMETHING THAT CAN GET HUNG ON BRUSH AND CHOKE A HORSE TO DEATH.
How about NOT using tracking devices on these wild horses and actually getting out into the field to observe and study them? This is how they can collect useful data. The herd is pretty colorful, and the individual horses are for the most part easy to identify. Photographer Rachel Reeves from Colorado has been observing and visually tracking and photographing the horses since 2010. The horses can be easily approached close enough to identify them. They would need a couple of interns to do the observation. They do not need radio collars.
It is possible to keep the horses rounded up in their families – I have seen it done in only one place, the Pryor Mountains of Montana in 2009. The Catoors brought in each family band separately and kept them in separate pens. They can do it, but it is just too much trouble for them. So do bait trapping instead. This is a small herd with known water sources – it can be done, and it would be less stressful for the horses. Why subject them to the trauma and fear of a helicopter roundup if it is not necessary? It does take longer, yes that is true. But it is much easier to keep the families together.
Government Caught Illegally Selling Wild Horses to Slaughter as Agency Launches Massive Roundup Campaign.
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR UNDER OBAMA, KEN SALAZAR, BUSTED.
SALAZAR HIMSELF WAS NEVER CHARGED!
The news report, published by ProPublica and based in part on information provided by BLM whistleblowers, revealed that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), had sold 1,700 captured mustangs to a livestock hauler named Tom Davis of La Jara, Colorado. The BLM approved the sales to Davis -- a known kill buyer who purchases horses and ships them for slaughter in Mexico -- under the guise that Davis would sell the horses “for use in movies” in Mexico. According to the article, Davis purchased horses for as little as $10 each and “would take males or females, so long as they were big.” It is well known that kill buyers sell horses by the pound to slaughter plants.
The article notes that BLM began shipping “truckloads and truckloads” of horses to Davis after his neighbor and business associate, Ken Salazar, became Interior Secretary in 2009. Salazar is a fifth-generation rancher. Ranchers throughout the West lobby for the removal of mustangs from public lands to make room for cheap, taxpayer-subsidized livestock grazing. The livestock industry has also been a vocal advocate for slaughtering wild horses.
“The BLM turned a blind eye to the intentions of a known kill buyer in selling thousands of federally-protected wild horses for slaughter in Mexico,” said Suzanne Roy, director of AWHPC, whose coalition includes more than 50 horse advocacy, conservation, public interest and historic preservation organizations. “This unconscionable and illegal treatment of these American icons deserves immediate investigation and action. “
““In light of this devastating article, we call for an immediate halt to the roundup, removal and sale of mustangs by the government."
Wild horses & burros being removed for Richfield Tar Sands plan.
In addition to the 'welfare ranchers', here is another major cause of our wild ones being captured & removed & sterilized … please become aware of the Richfield tar sands plan.
The Richfield tar sands has already effected our wild ones and continues to do so as of TODAY with the BLM proposal to rid the White Mountain and Little Colorado of more/all of the wild ones and the same with the Sinbad wild burro HMA (comments due Monday).
The Richfield tar sands plan has been in progress since about 2010 and if you look at the list below you will see that most of these HMAs (plus West Douglas HA) have been heavily captured/removed in recent years.
The document goes so far as to say, “the management of wild horse and burro herds is not compatible within those portions of commercial tar sands lease areas”. How much clearer can it be. They want the wild ones GONE.
(Proof: http://www.riversimulator.org/Resources/BLM/OSTSdeis/OSTSfinal.pdf
TABLE 3.1.3-1 Wild Horse Herd Management Areas within the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Study Area (page 3-167)
INITIALLY KILLED SO AMERICAN INDIANS HAD NO MOUNTS.
Wild horses have long been the victims of U.S. government aggression by intentional slaughter.
In the 1830s the Choctaw Indian Pony was ordered destroyed to separate the Native Americans from their war mounts.
They were the preferred war pony for Native Americans during the Indian/settler wars because of their agility and speed. Some settlers hid a few so that today we have almost 300 surviving Choctaw ponies roaming free on private reserves.
We are now seeing a replay of the 1830s, but now it’s a different story: cattle, oil, gas, mineral rights, solar, and wind farms have made wild horses and the BLM a fatal mix.
Within two weeks of his confirmation in 2009, Ken Salazar began shipping truckloads of horses to Tom Davis, Salazar’s neighbor and business associate. Salazar is a fifth-generation rancher; ranchers throughout the western U.S. lobby for the removal of mustangs from public lands to make room for their cheap, taxpayer-subsidized livestock grazing. The livestock industry has been a very vocal advocate for slaughtering wild horses.
There are about 800,000 livestock operators and cattle producers in the United States. Of those, fewer than 21,000 benefit from the Forest Service and BLM grazing programs in the West. We don’t need these federal land leeches who promote slaughtering wild horses and burros that belong on the land more rightfully than cattle or sheep. The wild horses and burros should rightfully be protected, not slaughtered.
This to me is just another range war, but instead of the cattle vs. sheep wars over government grazing lands in the 1880s, now we have cattle and sheep ranchers against the horse — an animal that has no protection against the rim-rocking of the powerful cattle lobby and no ability to fight back against a worthless BLM that itself is no better than a domestic terrorist.
Tom Davis and other large BLM buyers pay $10 a head for horses captured by the BLM. They sell these horses to kill buyers who pay around $500 a horse. Tom Davis bought 1,794 horses from the BLM and paid them $10 each or a total of $17,940. He sold them immediately to kill buyers, generating $897,000 and a profit of $879,060 through a fraud scheme to acquire slaughter horses that by contract he was not allowed to resell to kill buyers. Yet he did.
There have been no horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. since 2007, when Congress barred funding for U.S. Department of Agriculture horse meat inspectors. Since then horse slaughter has been outsourced.
A 2011 report by the General Accountability Office found the export of horses for slaughter to Mexico shot up 660 percent after the ban.
In Eagle Pass, as at other crossings, slaughter horses are checked by USDA veterinarians. A USDA spokeswoman refused to make veterinarians available for interviews, but confirmed that vets sometimes see wild horses bearing the BLM brand in slaughter export pens.
Brand documents leave almost 1,000 of Davis’s wild horses unaccounted for. That means they should still be within 75 miles of his residence -- if he has complied with state law.
Asked if this was the case, Davis first said the horses were still on 160 acres of land he leases from the state of Colorado. Then he said some had been shipped out of state without brand inspections, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
"Since when is anything in this country done legal?" Davis said in a phone interview.
BLM WOULD KILL THEM IF NOT FOR PUBLIC OUTCRY.
To explore other options for reducing the number of horses in holding, top BLM officials gathered for weekly closed-door meetings from July to October 2008. According to meeting minutes obtained by the Conquistador Equine Rescue & Advocacy Program, they considered selling thousands of animals for slaughter and even large-scale euthanasia, but concluded such actions would enrage animal-welfare activists to the point they might "threaten the safety of our facilities and our employees."
U.S. Horses Sent To Canada Slaughterhouses Suffer Abuse
Maryland-based advocacy group Animals' Angels (AA) has spent the last two years investigating the horse slaughter pipeline to Canada. The group found blind, sick, emaciated and disabled horses with sores and infections packed into trucks, which drove them for up to 20 hours to their final destinations. Some were discovered dead on arrival.
After horses were purchased, investigators found that almost every single kill buyer "demonstrated a complete lack of concern for the well-being and the welfare" of horses in their care. "Horses are routinely kept in overcrowded, filthy conditions without shelter...and wounded or ill horses are often left to die alone."
In March 2013, Oklahoma legalized the slaughter of horses for meat exports (a practice which had banned in that state since 1963), but processing plants there are still awaiting authorization by the federal government to begin operations.
THE BLM HATES WILD HORSES AND BURROS, FACE IT.
THEY ALSO HATE WHISTLEBLOWERS.
BLOWING WHISTLE ON RANGE VIOLATIONS UNWELCOME IN BLM
BLM Fires 21-Year Veteran Whistleblower Rather than Curtailing Illegal Grazing
Posted on May 29, 2019
Washington, DC – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has removed a highly-respected range management veteran who repeatedly reported illegal grazing in the Ely, Nevada, area. In a challenge filed today, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) charges that this discharge was illegal retaliation in violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act.
During 2018, Craig Hoover, a 21-year BLM veteran, reported numerous violations, including grazing trespass in areas outside of permits and in excess of permit limits, and stolen fencing materials. BLM’s Ely Field Office took no enforcement action but instead fired Mr. Hoover.
SEE THIS ARTICLE ON"WELFARE RANCHERS".
In the eleven western states approximately 254 million acres of federal public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are grazed by domestic livestock.
To keep that in perspective BLM manages only 26.9 million acres for wild horses (and within the areas managed for wild horses livestock is given more than 80% of available forage). G
DOMESTIC grazing also occurs on many wildlife refuges and within National Parks.
THOSE IN THE BLM APPEAR TO BE WHORES TO RANCHERS, MINING COMPANIES, OIL COMPANIES AND ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO ERADICATE THE NON-GAME WILD ANIMALS OF AMERICA.
THEY TAKE THE SAME APPROACH TO BUFFALO, WOLVES, MOUNTAIN LIONS, EVEN PRAIRIE DOGS AND OWLS, ANY ANIMAL NOT CONSIDERED A GAME ANIMAL, WHICH RANCHERS ALSO MAKE BIG MONEY FROM BY ARRANGING "CONTROLLED HUNTS".
IF WILD MUSTANGS WERE PLACED IN THE WILD GAME CATEGORY, BOTH RANCHERS AND THE BLM WOULD SUDDENLY LOVE THEM.
THESE ANIMALS, LIKE ALL ANIMALS, CANNOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES, CAN'T TELL US WHAT ALL THEY HAVE SUFFERED UNDER THE BLM.
IF YOU WANT TO BE A VOICE FOR CHANGE FOR THEM, DO ALL YOU CAN TO STOP THE BLM FROM COMPLETELY ERADICATING THE WILD HERDS.
PLEASE HELP THEM.
//WW
THOSE IN THE BLM APPEAR TO BE WHORES TO RANCHERS, MINING COMPANIES, OIL COMPANIES AND ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO ERADICATE THE NON-GAME WILD ANIMALS OF AMERICA.
THEY TAKE THE SAME APPROACH TO BUFFALO, WOLVES, MOUNTAIN LIONS, EVEN PRAIRIE DOGS AND OWLS, ANY ANIMAL NOT CONSIDERED A GAME ANIMAL, WHICH RANCHERS ALSO MAKE BIG MONEY FROM BY ARRANGING "CONTROLLED HUNTS".
IF WILD MUSTANGS WERE PLACED IN THE WILD GAME CATEGORY, BOTH RANCHERS AND THE BLM WOULD SUDDENLY LOVE THEM.
THESE ANIMALS, LIKE ALL ANIMALS, CANNOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES, CAN'T TELL US WHAT ALL THEY HAVE SUFFERED UNDER THE BLM.
IF YOU WANT TO BE A VOICE FOR CHANGE FOR THEM, DO ALL YOU CAN TO STOP THE BLM FROM COMPLETELY ERADICATING THE WILD HERDS.
PLEASE HELP THEM.
//WW
No comments:
Post a Comment