An Act Of Congress "Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses
and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; (and) that they contribute to the diversity
of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people ..." (Public Law 92-195, December 15, 1971)
If you want the wild horses to remain in the west and want the gathers to stop...Please send
in your comments. Thank You.
BLM faces new lawsuit to stop proposed wild horse roundup
A buckskin mustang captured during the Calico Mountain roundup.
Kurt Golgart for the BLM
The shocking cruelty with which 1900 wild mustangs have been forcibly removed from their native habitat in Nevada's Calico
Mountains by the BLM is the inspiration for a pending lawsuit to be filed against the agency by In Defense of Animals (IDA), a California-based international animal protection organization.
IDA announced today that it has retained the national law firm of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney to sue to "stop the BLM's planned roundup of nearly 500 wild horses living in the Eagle Herd Management Area in Eastern Nevada." According to IDA, the scheduled roundup "would leave just 100 horses behind to roam over 670,000
acres of public land."
In a letter to the Department of Justice, the lawsuit's lead counsel William J. Spriggs contends that "the Bureau of Land
Management's proposed plan fails to comply with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, rendering the action arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion."
The IDA lawsuit will attempt to protect the Eagle Herd horses from the inhumane fate that has befallen the wild horses
who have lost their freedom during the Calico Mountains Complex roundup in northwestern Nevada:
"To-date, over 30 horses have died as a result of the Calico roundup and 20 or more pregnant mares have spontaneously
aborted. Deaths include a colt with a heart defect who collapsed and died while being chased by helicopter, a colt who
was run so hard, fast and far that his hooves were severely damaged and partially sloughed off, a mare who crashed into a
gate and broke her neck, and numerous horses who colicked and suffered painful deaths."
Attorney Spriggs explains that "our legal actions aim to halt the inherent cruelty of the BLM's wild horse roundups, which
traumatize, injure and kill horses, subvert the will of Congress and are entirely illegal."
IDA points out that "wild horses comprise a minute fraction (0.5 percent) of grazing animals on public lands, where they
are outnumbered by cattle at least 200 to 1."
The Bureau of Land Management has ended the massive roundup of wild horses in the Calico Complex. This remote and
starkly beautiful area in northwestern Nevada was home to one of the largest wild, free-roaming herds of wild horses in the
United States. 39 horses are reported dead as a result of the winter roundup. This does not include the 25-30 mares that have
aborted their late term foals in the feedlot style facility outside Fallon, Nevada. The death toll is expected to rise as
BLM begins preparing and processing the horses next week (freeze-branding, gelding of stallions, etc.). However, the public
may not know what happens from here on out, as BLM has decided not to provide veterinary reports on the cause of death in
the new Fallon facility, according to BLM manager, John Neil.
Despite a public statement by Don Glenn (December 7 at the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Meeting in Reno)
in which he said that the public is welcome to view the roundups at any time (hence no need for a humane observer), the public
was allowed only limited access to watch the Calico roundup. Viewing was limited to Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays by appointment
only. Only 10 observers were allowed on any one day. Even on the days the public was allowed to attend, viewers
were required to leave between 1 and 2 in the afternoon, even though the Cattoor contract crew and helicopters continued to
round up wild horses. Close access was denied for the last two weeks of the operation and injuries could not be detected or
documented. BLM has referred to the visitors as “anti-gather advocates”. The contractors admitted that 30 wild
horses captured on January 31 were left overnight in a crowded capture corral without water due to muddy conditions which
prevented trucks from accessing the capture sight.
Now BLM sights are set on the wild horses of the Eagle Complex in the mountains of eastern Nevada. The area is larger than
the state of Rhode Island, yet the number of mustangs allowable according to BLM is 100. At the same time, the number of privately-owned
welfare cattle allowed is over 2,700
This is why it's so urgent that there be a moratorium and that the lawsuit wins. Our wild horses and burros are being
wiped out.
McGavin Peak, start Jan. 24, 2010, end Jan. 29, 2010, and the number of horses to gather
and the number of horses to remove; Both are 20 and cancel themselves out.
Next; Colorado, West Douglas, BLM, Horses, 2/21/10 to 2/28/10 with 60 horses to capture and 60
horses to remove = 0 left
Arizona, Cibola-Trigo, BLM, Burros, 3/4/10 to 3/10/10 with 90 burros to capture
and 90 burros to remove = 0 left
Arizona, Alamo, BLM, Burros, 3/11/10 to 3/14/10 with 35 burros to capture
and 35 to remove = 0 left
Arizona, Black Mtn., BLM, Burros, 3/15/10 to 3/20/10 with 100 burros to capture
and 100 to remove = 0 left
New Mexico, Bordo, BLM, Horses, 6/1/10 to 6/10/10 with 147 horses to capture
and 147 to remove = 0 left
Nevada, Moria, BLM, Horses, 7/20/10 to 7/22/10 with 72 horses to capture
and 72 to remove = 0 left
Utah, Winter Ridge, BLM, Horses, 7/18/10 to 7/24/10 with 200 horses to capture
and 200 to remove = 0 left
Utah, Hill Creek, BLM, Horses, 7/25/10 to 7/31/10 with 250 horses to capture
and 250 to remove = 0 left
New Mexico, Forest Service, Horses, Capture as adopted, 200 horses to capture
and 200 to remove = 0 left
California, Devil's Garden, Forest Service, Horses, 8/18/10 to 8/24/10 with
200 horses to capture and 200 to remove = 0 left
CA, Twin Peaks, BLM, Burros, 8/3/10 to 9/4/10 This is the LAST
viable sized burro herd in Cal. They say they will capture 158 and remove 135, they had all removed before
and I will bet they will, = 23 left
Oregon, Murderers Creek, For. Serv., Horses, 9/22/10 to 9/28/10 with 100
horse to capture and 100 to remove = 0 left
Wherever man has left his footprint in the long ascent from barbarism to civilization we will
find the hoofprint of the horse beside it. ~JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
U2 sings about horses..
Animal imagery can be powerful, it can be fun; it can be completely unrelated to a song. But there's no doubt that U2
loves animals. They frequently feature them in videos and make references to them in songs and they love horses.
Speaking of horses, Bono must have had them on the mind in the early '90s, because Achtung Baby
and Zooropa contain no less than three separate songs with references to these beautiful four-legged
creatures.
"Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?" is the fifth track on Achtung
Baby; it is a dark song about lost love and regret. The singer sings about his empty heart, which has been left behind
by his love. The chorus of the song is steeped in irony. The singer, somewhat bitterly, recalls the words his lover has left
him with: "Who's gonna ride your wild horses?" The lover has a "gypsy heart" that needs to roam, but it hurts people, namely
the singer, in the process. But the simple fact is that no one can ride your wild horses except you, even if that hurts the
ones you love and the ones who love you.
In 1971, an unprecedented public outcry moved Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Free-Roaming
Horse and Burro Act, granting federal protection to America's wild horses and burros as “living symbols of the historic
and pioneer spirit of the West […] that […] contribute to the diversity
of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.”
NetPosse.com Idaho Alert - TX - Missing AQHA Black
Reining Stallion - Van Zandt County - June 3, 2008
Colonel's
Might "DOC" - Missing in bad divorce. Suspect husband is hiding him in the se Smith/ne Cherokee counties area. Doc belonged
to wife prior to marriage, and she is afraid she will never see him again.
This horse is on medication for ulcers
and will become sick without them. Husband could contact local vet to treat ulcer or even to geld him, so please post in all
local vet offices, feed/tack stores, etc.
Please keep an eye out for this stallion, and email Claudette and let her
know you have her support!
reply:
stolenhorse@netposse.com Home of Idaho Alerts for Missing Horses --Join NetPosse - Never underestimate the power of one! Purchase
microchips and farm security signs at SHI --Proceeds help continue SHII's educational and victim support programs.
NetPosse.com Stolen Horse Alerts for Stolen/Missing
Horses and more ...
A stolen horse could be a long distance in a short
time period. Please pass this to your associations, list groups, council members, friends and ask them to do the same.
If you put information on your website please link the info to NetPosse.com. SHI will be updating information and has the
only flyer ready to print and post for those who want to help. The Internet is great for spreading the
word but success stories show that most horse are found from a flyer. Thank you very much for your generosity in helping these
victims. -- Debi Metcalfe , President--Stolen Horse International.
Please watch the below film, there have been many stories told from the back of a horse, this film tells one from the
heart of one. Please help save the american mustang...before it's too late.
Spirit: Stallion of The Cimarron
Wild horses aren't free
Failure to enforce a 1971 law endangers the mustangs it was supposed to protect.
By Deanne Stillman June 2, 2008
It's not news that America is a cowboy nation, but it may surprise many that we are destroying
the horse we rode in on.
Since the early 1970s, mustangs -- wild horses -- have been protected under the Wild Free-Roaming
Horses and Burro Act, spearheaded by Velma Johnston, a.k.a. Wild Horse Annie. In 1950, she saw blood spilling out of a truck
on a Nevada highway, followed it, and then witnessed injured and dying mustangs being offloaded at a slaughterhouse. She led
a battle to stop the cruel roundups, resulting in the passage of federal protection signed into law by President Nixon in
1971.
Under that law, horses are to be "considered in areas where presently found as an integral part of the system
of public lands." Their management falls to agencies inside the Department of the Interior, primarily the Bureau of Land Management,
which culls the herds based on the land's grazing capacity and what's required to sustain the wild horse population. But the
government also balances the needs of horses against other uses of the range -- and that means corporate cattle ranching.
Today, instead of being protected, mustangs are in danger of being "managed" out of existence.
At the beginning of
the 20th century, there were about 2 million mustangs in the wilderness; according to the government, there are about 23,000
on public lands in the Western states now, and more than half are in Nevada. Wild horse advocates, however, say the number
is much lower. Because the animals have been "zeroed out" from at least 100 of their 300 official herd areas (contrary to
the 1971 law's provisions), they may be on the brink of no return.
Many cattle ranchers have long regarded wild horses
as "pests" that steal food from their herds. The livestock lobby has tried to dismantle the wild horse and burro law through
four U.S. administrations, and it has the political clout to push policy toward a mustang-free America.
In 1990, the
Government Accounting Office looked at the situation: "Wild horses are vastly outnumbered on range lands by livestock. ...
Wild horse removals have taken place in some areas not being damaged by widespread overgrazing." Since then, cattle have
continued to flourish on the range. Today, at least 3 million cattle graze on the same public lands where mustangs make their
living.
One of the stockmen's victories has been a rollback in the 1971 law. When mustangs and burros are culled from
wild herds, they are warehoused by the government and offered for adoption. In 2005, the rules were changed. Now, if horses
aren't adopted on the third try, they "strike out," becoming eligible for sale to the lowest bidder along with mustangs more
than 10 years old (not old for a horse). This means an eventual ticket to the slaughterhouse.
This policy is aggravated
by federal grazing studies that, because of a lack of funding, are often out of date in terms of horse populations and favor
the livestock lobby's version of "appropriate management levels."
"AMLs are frequently inaccurate and not determined
in accordance with the law," says Patricia Fazio, an environmental historian who has monitored the mustang situation for more
than two decades. "Where oh where has scientific management and substantive public input for federal lands gone?"
Wild
horse populations also endure other stresses, such as unscheduled "gathers" during drought. (No other animal is rounded up
under such conditions, and the horses aren't returned to the range after being given a drink.) And none of this is helped
by media that parrot the view that the mustang is an invasive species.
In fact, mustangs are native to this continent,
linked by DNA to horses of the Pleistocene. They evolved in the North American West, crossed the Bering land bridge to Asia
and Europe, and then died out on their native turf in the Ice Age. They returned with the conquistadors in the 16th century,
and for the next 300 years, roaming free or put to work as trailblazers, Indian ponies or cowboy transportation, they were
an essential part of the West.
By the end of the 19th century, mustangs, along with the rest of the Wild West, were
heading toward anachronism. A hydra-headed horseflesh industry arose. Mustangers ripped into the herds, trapping horses and
selling them for chicken feed, or dinner in France, or service in foreign wars. So many were taken from 1920 to 1935 that
the era is known in some circles as "the great removal."
Today, the roundups continue under cover of what is left
of the law. Mustang posses are tax subsidized (although lone operators with guns hunt horses illegally as well). Federal contractors
hunt "humanely" by helicopter. During the last eight years, about 75,000 wild horses have been taken from the land. There
are now more wild horses in government custody than on the range.
Eighteen years after the first GAO investigation
of the wild horse and burro program, a new one is underway. Perhaps it will uncover the absurdity of protecting wild horses
and burros by reducing herds in unwarranted numbers, allowing them to languish in government corrals and making it ever easier
to send them to slaughter.
In the meantime, our heritage is being stripped from the land, with roundups scheduled
through the year. Now is the time for an immediate moratorium on wild horse removals, at least until population studies are
brought up to date.
"We need the tonic of wildness," Nixon said, quoting Thoreau when he signed Wild Horse Annie's
legislation. "Wild horses merit protection as a matter of ecological right, as anyone knows who has stood awed at the indomitable
spirit and sheer energy of a mustang running free."
Deanne Stillman's latest book, "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild
Horse in the American West," will be published June 9 by Houghton Mifflin.
Eight Bells for Eight Belles
A petition urging Churchill Downs to honor Fox Hill Farms' deceased filly Eight Belles by ringing eight bells:
Bob Richter: 'Horse slaughter on the border' tells a difficult story
Web Posted: 09/28/2007 06:02 PM CDT
The front page of Sunday's Express-News is dominated by a disturbing report and a horrendous photograph of something that
I'd guess most of us never have seen, nor want to see.
Lisa Sandberg's story, “Horse slaughter on the border,” illustrated by Jerry Lara's graphic photos of horses
being hacked to death in a Mexican "killing box" and then strung up to bleed to death, dramatizes the usually untold story
of what happens to Black Beauty when she gets old or can't run.
It's a vile situation that was set up when a federal court ordered the closures this year of the last three U.S. slaughterhouses
for horses: two in Texas, one in Illinois. While hailed by animal rights groups, the ruling didn't end the butchering; it
just moved the process across the border, to Mexico and Canada.
After you've read the piece and seen the photographs, you might be wondering what purpose is served by writing about a
process that occurs, albeit under the radar, daily in U.S. meatpacking houses where barnyard animals are butchered and processed
to become main courses on U.S. dinner tables.
There's a distinction, Express-News Managing Editor Brett Thacker contends:
"Yes, we slaughter cows, pigs and chickens by the millions every year in this country, but the practice of butchering and
eating horses induces a certain cringe factor. Thanks to their special place in American lore, horses have earned a status
similar to dogs and cats as companion animals, not beasts to be killed for consumption.
"The fact that it's socially unacceptable is a big reason the government shut down the slaughterhouses in Texas and Illinois.
Now, some entrepreneurial sorts have found a way around the ban and are making a few dollars by trucking the horses across
our borders. By shedding a light on the practice with this story, maybe Congress will follow through and close this export
loophole."
That justification notwithstanding, Lara's photos taken inside a Ciudad Juarez slaughterhouse were particularly lurid.
Several were published with Sandberg's story, making it easier for her to describe the process. About 30 more photos, shot
the same day, are here on MySA.com.
Lara, whose long body of work here at the Express-News includes scores of sensitive, artistic photographs, said officials
were "very accommodating" to his wants and "took pride in the facility," but he was troubled by the Juarez shoot.
"As kids growing up in the U.S., we are bombarded with images in movies, paintings and photographs of the majestic horse.
Seeing it reduced to a step in the food chain was trying. Seeing the animal stabbed, at times repeatedly, was tough."
Pam DelaBar is a bona fide local animal lover – a trained animal abuse investigator, horsewoman and president of
the World Cat Congress. She disagreed with the closure of the Texas slaughterhouses where, she says, horses were killed humanely
and the meat was shipped to places where it is legal and desirable to eat, including zoos.
"This is the fallout, this is the other side of that legislation," DelaBar said, "that horses won't be humanely slaughtered,
or they'll be starved to death."
Animal welfare advocates who lobbied to outlaw horse slaughter in this country now are lobbying Congress to outlaw the
shipment of horses across the border for slaughter. As Sandberg wrote: “No one disputes that slaughter-bound horses
have it far worse today than they did before .....”
While editors here expect an outcry, “Horse slaughter on the border” is an important story, and the newspaper
is justified in publishing it. However, my gut tells me that even if Congress bans shipment of U.S. horses across international
boundaries, the law won't work any better than current U.S. law does in stopping immigrants from illegally crossing our borders.
What do you think?
Bob Richter is the Express-News public editor. His opinions are his own. Contact him at (210) 250-3264 or brichter@express-news.net.
Read his blog at MySA.com, keyword: publiceditor.
H.R.249 Title: To restore the prohibition on the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and
burros. Sponsor: Rep Rahall, Nick J., II [WV-3] (introduced 1/5/2007) Cosponsors (17) Related Bills:H.RES.331 Latest Major Action: 4/26/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Received in the Senate and Read twice and
referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. House Reports: 110-93
Please go to the BLM Mustang page to see how you can help.
