What the BLM does not want to tell you about their Horse and Burro roundup!

By: Debbie Coffey © 2010 

“What the BLM DOESN’T TELL YOU, is that it fences off the wild horses from access to the sources of natural water and good forage.  The BLM has been inappropriately favoring cattle by allowing the use of our public land for grazing for over 4 million head of privately owned livestock (while at the same time reducing land and sources of water and forage for wild horses).  Isn’t this “stacking the deck?”_________________________

 

I read an article in the New York Times a few months ago about the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)  removing thousands of wild mustangs from our public lands.  Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, said this was done because of “out-of-control populations of wild horses” and to protect public lands.  Shelly Sawhook, President of the American Horse Defense Fund, was skeptical.  The BLM has taken over 20 million acres of federal habitat away from the wild horses and burros. 

This made me wonder about a couple of things, too.  There are 2-6 million feral pigs, each weighing 500-750 lbs., running loose in rural and urban areas in 44 states.  The feral pigs have caused $800 million in damages.  They cause 27,000 auto collisions annually, have been digging up cemeteries and landscaping, and have attacked people.  Why isn’t the BLM rounding up the “out-of-control populations” of wild pigs?

We have less than 25,000 wild horses left on public lands and they aren’t bothering anyone.  But the BLM has helicopters chasing them down in the dead of winter.

If the BLM is really protecting our public land and we don’t have enough room for the wild horses in Nevada, then why did Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev) introduce H.R. 409 on Jan. 9, 2009, for BLM “CONVEYANCE” (selling) of our public land to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway so that they could expand their parking lot?

Since Nevada has about 40 million BLM acres, how could a few thousand horses possibly “overpopulate” or ruin all of this land?      

In the current wild horse roundup at the Calico Complex in northwestern Nevada, the BLM is removing 2,700 healthy wild horses.  Salazar and the BLM said the horses are starving, or are going to starve, because there’s nothing for them to eat.  Bob Abbey, Director of the BLM, said the horses are being removed to restore ecological balance.  However, neither one mentioned that 2,500 cattle are allowed to graze in the same area the 2,700 wild horses are being taken from.  

Half of the 60 day Calico Complex roundup, unlike other BLM roundups, is NOT open to the public.  This roundup, is in the dead of winter (what’s the big rush?), and the horses are being chased by contracted helicopters (Cattoor Livestock Roundup, Inc.) across snow and ice, down rocky, steep, slippery terrain, into holding pens on private land. 

The horses are being taken to the Indian Lakes Road Facility (aka Broken Arrow Holding Facility) in Fallon, NV, which has limited public access, since it’s a privately owned facility on privately owned land.  The BLM has contracted this facility and the private contractor overseeing the facility, Troy Adams. 

Troy Adams (Broken Arrow Angus Ranch in Lincoln, CA) is a cattle rancher who has never before managed a BLM facility.  Of more concern,  Troy Adams has connections to animal cloning company Bovance.  His Broken Arrow Ranch is featured on Bovance’s website for consigning a pregnancy of a genetic copy (clone) of N Bar Primrose 2424.  Since DNA samples are taken from wild horses randomly at the roundup and at the holding facilities and since Bovance’s parent company, ViaGen, clones horses, what oversight is there by the BLM to protect the DNA of our wild horses? 

When the wild horses arrive at holding facilities, mares are separated from their foals.  Male horses are sterilized immediately.  The BLM uses freezebranding to apply permanent identifying symbols on the left side of each horse’s neck.  When wild horses are stressed, they can easily develop an upper respiratory infection called strangles.  Four horses have died since the beginning of the roundup.

The BLM has 34,000 wild horses held captive in long and short term holding facilities and has said that it doesn’t have enough money to feed so many horses, so it might require their euthanization.  How is this “protecting” the horses?  If this is BLM’s only plan, which costs taxpayers over $39 million a year, wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave our wild horses on our public land, to eat the grass that privately owned cattle are munching on?  Wouldn’t it be healthier for the horses to take their chances in the wild, rather than have the BLM kill them or, loosen the adoption rules, which could eventually allow the horses to be sent to slaughterhouses?

Ken Salazar came up with a plan to move the wild horses to staffed preserves in the Midwest and the East “to protect them” and said he plans to have “ecological tours” on the preserves.   This sounds like the Wild Animal Park at the San Diego Zoo, with tour buses driving through.        

The biggest dangers the wild horses face are the corrupt shenanigans of the BLM, which is mandated to protect them by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.  

What you may not know is that the BLM arbitrarily sets the “appropriate management level” (AML), supposedly the appropriate number of wild horses that can be supported as viable herds by the amount of water and forage on the rangelands.  What the BLM DOESN’T TELL YOU, is that it fences off the wild horses from access to the sources of natural water and good forage.  The BLM has been inappropriately favoring cattle by allowing the use of our public land for grazing for over 4 million head of privately owned livestock (while at the same time reducing land and sources of water and forage for wild horses).  Isn’t this “stacking the deck?”

And why is there such a big hurry to round up the horses in the dead of winter?  Construction is starting on the Ruby Pipeline (owned by El Paso Corp.), a multi-billion dollar corporate project (from Oregon to Colorado), which will run right through the Calico Complex.  Thanks to Ginger Kathrens, Exec. Dir. of The Cloud Foundation, biologist Katie Fite of Western Watersheds and researcher Cindy MacDonald of the American Herds blog for exposing this. 

The BLM has been selling out our wild horses.  Will they sell out the livestock next?

SOURCES:

www.thecloudfoundation.org

www.wildmustangcoalition.org

www.westernwatersheds.org

www.americanherds.blogpot.com

www.idablog.org

www.westernlands.org

www.wildhorsepreservation.com

New York Times, 1/1/2010, “Debate Grows Over Roundup of Wild Horses in Nevada” by Randal C. Archibald

New York Times, 9/8/09, “7 Preserves Envisioned to Manage Wild Horses” by Jim Robbins

www.lasvegasnow.com  11/14/07, “I-Team: Nevada’s Wild Horses Face Desperate Future” by George Knapp

www.rubypipeline.com

www.govtrack.us

www.blm.gov