tagged w/ Wild Burros
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Breaking News: Federal Judge Rules Against Wild Horses and American Public
July 15, 2011
Unedited Press Release from BLM Propaganda Central
Judge McKibben Rules in Favor of BLM Triple B Wild Horse Stampede
The Horses Lose AGAIN!!!
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Reno, Nev. — Today U.S. District Court Judge Howard McKibben issued a decision in favor of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which allows the BLM to proceed with the Triple B gather to remove excess wild horses on Saturday, July 16.
“The BLM is pleased with the decision of the court that allows us to move forward with the Triple B gather, where the wild horse population is five times over the minimum appropriate management level,” said Amy Lueders, BLM Nevada Acting State Director.
The BLM will gather and remove approximately 1,726 excess wild horses from in and around the Triple B, Maverick-Medicine and Antelope Valley herd management areas (HMA) and the Cherry Springs Wild Horse Territory located approximately 30 miles northwest of Ely and 70 miles southeast of Elko, Nev. Removal of the excess wild horses is necessary to prevent degradation of rangeland resources and to ensure sufficient forage and water is available for the wild horse population.
The estimated population for the entire gather area is 2,198. The appropriate management level (AML) for the entire area is 472-889 animals. Any horses gathered above targeted removal numbers will be released back to the range so that the remaining population is within AML.
Any gathered mares released back to the range will be vaccinated with the PZP-22 (Porcine Zona Pellucida) fertility control vaccine. Additionally, sex ratios of gathered animals to be returned to the HMAs may be adjusted to achieve an approximately 60 percent male/40 percent female ratio.
The gathered animals will be transported to the National Wild Horse and Burro Center at Palomino Valley (PVC), in Reno, Nev., Gunnison Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah, and the Delta Wild Horse Corrals in Delta City, Utah. The animals will be prepared for the BLM adoption program or for long-term holding.
The Cloud Foundation, Craig Downer and Lorna Moffat filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, June 29, 2011, and moved to enjoin the Triple B gather. Judge McKibben held a hearing Thursday morning and denied the motion to enjoin the gather.
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Breaking News: Federal Judge Rules Against Wild Horses and American Public... more
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Helicopters vs. mustangs: A roundup 'racket'?
Animal rights advocates say the methods are cruel, expensive and unnecessary
Helicopters vs. Mustangs: Cruel, expensive and unnecessary, animal activists say
More than 1,200 wild horses have been captured in the current roundup
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
The aim of roundups is to reduce the horse population to more sustainable levels.
OUTSIDE RAVENDALE, Calif. — It is horse versus helicopter here in the high desert. On one side are nearly 40,000 horses spread over 10 states, whose presence on the range is a last vestige of the Old West.
On the other is a group of crusty cowboys whose chosen method of roundup involves rotors more than wrangling, using high-tech helicopters to drive galloping mustangs into low-tech traps.
“When they get in here, they know something’s going on,” said Dave Cattoor, 68, a straight-talking roundup expert who has been herding horses since he was 12. “The chips are down.”
Over the last month, Mr. Cattoor and his feral quarry have been doing battle under the dry, horizon-to-horizon skies of northeastern California and a neighboring Nevada county, with humans the inevitable victor.
More than 1,200 horses have been captured during the current roundup, much to the chagrin of people like Simone Netherlands, an animal rights advocate who says that the roundups — part of a nationwide push to take some 12,000 horses off public lands — are cruel, expensive and unnecessary.
“They’re running at full speed for miles and miles for hours, with babies, little babies, and they don’t let up on them,” Ms. Netherlands said. “They’re stressing them out to the max.”
The Bureau of Land Management, which is overseeing the roundup, disputes that, saying that the roundups are humane and that it must reduce the wild horse population to more sustainable levels, both for their health and for that of the other animals that live in this harsh terrain.
“Some advocate groups would like us to leave the horses out there and let nature take its course,” said Bob Abbey, director of the bureau. “We don’t believe that’s a sound option.”
Dollars and dead horses
The debate over roundups dates back decades, to the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, a federal law that protected what was then a faltering wild horse population and made it illegal for cowboys like Mr. Cattoor to round up horses on their own for sport or profit.
“A cowboy really wasn’t a cowboy if you didn’t rope a wild horse,” Mr. Cattoor said. “But they stopped that. They stopped the maintenance, which costs nothing, and turned it into a multimillion-dollar deal. It’s crazy.”
Questions about the roundups have intensified in recent years as costs have mounted, both in dollars and in dead horses.
Seven horses have died in the current operation, and last winter, a roundup in Nevada resulted in over 100 horse deaths, prompting more than 50 members of Congress to ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to look for independent analysis of the bureau’s Wild Horse and Burro Program.
Late last month, the bureau did just that, asking the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a technical review of the program.
Horses that are captured are offered for adoption, but with demand for horses low and the cost of feed high, the government often ends up quartering them on large private ranches, primarily in Kansas and Oklahoma.
In 2009, about 70 percent of the entire program’s $40.6 million budget was spent holding 34,500 horses and burros, a system that the Government Accountability Office has concluded will “overwhelm the program” if not controlled.
“They are a symbol of the American West,” said Nathaniel Messer, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Missouri and a former member of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Committee. “But do we need 35,000 symbols of the American West?”
'What you call a racket'
For critics like Deniz Bolbol, the pattern of roundup, removal and stockpiling is an example of the bureau’s catering to private interests on public lands, namely by favoring livestock ranchers — who pay the government for the right to graze and who can sell their animals — over wild horses, which cannot be sold for slaughter.
“We remove wild horses from the public lands so private livestock can graze, and then we ship the wild horses to private ranchers in the Midwest where we stockpile them and pay private ranchers,” said Ms. Bolbol, a spokeswoman for the group In Defense of Animals, which has sued to stop the roundups. “This is what you call a racket.”
And while Mr. Cattoor calls Ms. Bolbol and other protesters “fanatics,” he does not think the government’s reliance on big, periodic roundups makes much sense either, saying the bureau needs more steady maintenance of the wild herds, which can double in size every four years.
Perhaps the only other thing the two sides can agree on is that the horses — whose estimated populations range from about 120 in New Mexico to more than 17,000 in Nevada — are magnificent.
Art DiGrazia, the operations chief for one of the bureau’s wild horse and burro offices in California, said that some of the mustangs on the range were descended from Army cavalry horses, which were bred for size, speed and strength and left here or given to ranchers.
“They have the intelligence and endurance to work out in this country,” said Mr. DiGrazia, a bearded New Jersey native who speaks in a hoarse whisper. “They’ll know before you know that there’s something out there going on.”
Judas horse
The method of capture is simple: horses are located from helicopters, which have been used in roundups since the mid-1970s, and pushed toward the trap site, essentially a funnel shaped by two netted walls that lead into a temporary corral.
Once the herd runs into the funnel, Mr. Cattoor lets loose a so-called Judas horse, which is trained to lead the rest into the trap, where — uncombed, unshod and often stomping and biting — they slowly settle into their new lives as kept animals.
All of which is more humane than the old days, said Mr. Cattoor, who recalls cowboys using rope and brawn to bring in a herd, often injuring horses and horsemen alike.
“You have to really put the pound on them,” he said. “You’d have to get them sore footed and tired, and there’s a lot of problems with getting them really tired. Today, at this point, this is the best we can do.”
One recent morning, Mr. Cattoor and his team conducted several successful runs — 10 horses in one, a handful in another — before a small herd of four horses, their black manes and wild tails flying, came running full-tilt across the desert. The helicopter was close on their heels, whipping up curlicues of dust in the horses’ wake.
They were headed straight for the trap, when suddenly the herd broke, with three horses escaping across a field, while a single stallion — the leader — galloped in another direction.
The pilot, perhaps 50 feet up, chose to follow the larger group, but horse sense had its way; the three headed into a patch of trees, where helicopters cannot pursue. The stallion, meanwhile, disappeared up a ridge and back into the wild.
Mr. Cattoor watched it all, standing near his Judas horse with a resigned smile, as roundup opponents watched happily from a public viewing station several hundred feet away.
“These wild horse advocates love it when the horse beats the helicopter,” Mr. Cattoor said. “And they do sometimes win.”
This story, headlined " Horse Advocates Pull for Underdog in Roundups," first appeared in The New York Times.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39023276/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/100906_NYThorseschopper.grid-6x2.jpgHelicopters vs. mustangs: A roundup 'racket'?
Animal rights advocates... more
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July 3, 2010
CNN to Air Hour-Long Special on Animal Rights
By Nathan Runkle
CroppedJaneVelez.jpg
Jane Velez-Mitchell - a fierce force for animals - will dedicate an unprecedented full hour to animal rights this Monday on "Issues." The special, titled "Jane's Fight for Animal Rights" will air on CNN's Headline News Network on July 5th at 7 p.m. Eastern time.
Jane will be speaking with representatives from many major animal protection groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States, In Defense of Animals, Sea Shepherd, Farm Sanctuary and Mercy For Animals. The episode will feature MFA's Willet Dairy and Conklin Dairy Farms investigations, including interviews with Nathan Runkle and an MFA undercover investigator.
Topics to be covered include:
* The Gulf oil spill and its impact on animals
* The Ohio ballot initiative and nationwide movement to give farmed animals basic legal protections
* The fight against a monkey-breeding facility in Puerto Rico
* Nevada's wild horse round-up
Jane will also welcome special guests, Bob Barker, Pierce Brosnan and Jorja Fox of CSI.
Enthusiastic viewer response in the past has enabled Jane to continue her animal rights coverage, and we all want fantastic ratings on this upcoming special. So, please tune in this Monday and ask all of your friends and family to do the same!
If you TiVo or DVR the show and watch it within three days, the ratings still count! Your viewer comments also count, so click here to leave a comment right after the show, or even before the show to thank Jane for fighting the fight for animals.July 3, 2010
CNN to Air Hour-Long Special on Animal Rights
By Nathan Runkle... more
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The Calico Hills wild horse roundup has been characterized by the Bureau of Land Management as a "huge success". But, wild horse advocates say it was a disaster, and one that grows worse every day.
The roundup ended months ago, but the horses are still paying the price -- many with their lives.
The case for the Calico wild horse roundup continues to deteriorate months after the government spent nearly $2 million to capture every mustang it could find in the rugged and remote terrain adjacent to Nevada's Black Rock Desert.
From the beginning, the BLM claimed the gather was for the good of the horses and the good of the range, but it doesn't appear either of those justifications were on the up and up.
First, there weren't nearly as many mustangs on the range as BLM predicted. The roundup of about 1,900 mustangs fell short of the target by about 700. Second, the vast majority of the horses gathered were in good shape -- not starving or emaciated.
BLM manager Gene Seidlitz said his agency was trying to avert a disaster down the road when food might be more scarce. As it turned out, the roundup itself was a disaster for the herds.
Horse advocates tried to stop the operation by arguing in court that chasing horses across miles of rocky terrain in the dead of winter was dangerous. BLM replied that it was safer than normal since snow on the rocks would cushion the damage to hoofs.
As of April 15, 2010, a total of 79 of the horses captured from Calico have died -- some as a result of injuries suffered during the capture, such as a foal which literally ran its hoofs off. The rest because they could not adjust to eating the rich hay fed to them at a new holding facility in Fallon. In addition, at least 40 mares suffered miscarriages during or after the roundup.
The total number of horses that have died is more than four times what BLM projected, ranking as one of the deadliest operations in the history of the program.
"That's unfortunate, but the percentage that died due to the gather itself is still a low percentage," said Seidlitz.
Wild horse advocates don't see it that way. They are outraged over the deaths, even more so now that an outbreak of a disease known as pigeon fever has been noticed among the horses penned up in Fallon.
Another recent development puts the Calico roundup in a different light. Horse advocates were suspicious of the reasons for the roundup, as if 2,000 horses could not live on half a million acres. The suspicions were heightened when BLM memos showed the horses were not having a major impact on the range just a year before the gather was approved, which is when BLM quadrupled the amount of cattle grazing allowed on the same range.
A massive pipeline project, the Ruby Pipeline slated for the same range, was suspected as a possible reason for the roundup. On its website, BLM states categorically that the pipeline has nothing to do with the horses. Now horse advocates have obtained documents from February 2009 which show pipeline backers intended to work with BLM to "minimize wild horses and burros along the pipeline right of way," adding that BLM horse experts were consulted about this plan.
Two weeks ago, a Washington D.C. law firm filed a suit in federal court on behalf of the group In Defense of Animal, asking that the remaining 1,800 horses being held in Fallon be returned to the open range on the grounds that warehousing the mustangs for the rest of their lives is not only costly, but illegal. We will keep you updated as that suit works its way through the courts.
VIDEO: http://www.8newsnow.com/global/story.asp?s=12326485#The Calico Hills wild horse roundup has been characterized by the Bureau of Land... more
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But firearms must be allowed by state where park is located
updated 5:47 p.m. PT, Fri., Feb. 19, 2010
WASHINGTON - Loaded guns will be allowed in Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and other national parks under a new law that takes effect Monday.
The law lets licensed gun owners bring firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges as long as they are allowed by state law. It comes over the objections of gun-control advocates who fear it will lead to increased violence in national parks.
The national parks law takes effect in a climate that favors advocates of gun rights. The debate shifted dramatically in 2008, when the Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., and declared that individuals have a constitutional right to possess firearms for self-defense and other purposes.
Gun owners have rushed in record numbers to get concealed weapons permits, saying they worry President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress may impose stricter gun laws. The National Rifle Association lobbied hard to allow guns in parks and has spent millions to challenge its opponents.
Now gun-control advocates are on the defensive, seeking to preserve some gun restrictions in the face of aggressive assertions of gun rights.
As of Monday, guns will be allowed in all but about 20 of the park service’s 392 locations, including some of its most iconic parks: Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite and Rocky Mountain National Park. Guns will not be allowed in visitor centers or rangers’ offices, because firearms are banned in federal buildings, but they could be carried into private lodges or concession stands, depending on state laws.
'A paranoid society'
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said national parks are now among the safest places in America, but that could change under the new law. Current rules severely restrict guns in the national parks, generally requiring them to be locked or stored.
“It really is sad that we’ve become such a paranoid society that people want to take guns pretty much everywhere — including national parks,” he said Friday.
“When you are at a campfire and people are getting loud and boisterous next to you, you used to have to worry about them quieting down. Now you have to worry about when they will start shooting,” Helmke said.
Bill Wade, president of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, called the new law a sad chapter in the history of the park system.
“People go to national parks to get away from things that they face in their everyday living, where they live and work. Now I think that social dynamic is really going to change,” he said.
Bryan Faehner, associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association, said the law would place an unfair burden on park service employees, who will have to wade though a variety of state and local laws to determine whether visitors are breaking the law.
Officials said visitors who want to bring a gun to a national park need to understand and comply with state gun laws. More than 30 national parks span more than one state, so visitors need to know where they are in those parks and which state law applies, the park service said.
Supporter: Concerns overblown
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association scoffed at the idea that parks would become more dangerous, saying people have been assaulted and even murdered in national parks.
“This common-sense measure will enhance the self-defense rights of law-abiding Americans and also ensure uniformity of firearm laws within a state,” said Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.
The National Park Service said there were 3,760 reported major crimes, including five homicides and 37 rapes, in 2008, the most recent year for which data was available. The agency does not note which crimes involve firearms. Crime is down across the system’s parks, according to park service spokesman David Barna.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who led congressional efforts to change the law, said concerns about increased violence were overblown.
“I don’t expect anything major to come from this other than to restore the Second Amendment rights taken away by bureaucrats,” Coburn said
The park service has prepared for months for the new law. “We will administer this law as we do all others — fairly and consistently,” National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis said in a statement.
National parks hosted about 275 million visitors in 2008, the agency said.But firearms must be allowed by state where park is located
updated 5:47 p.m. PT,... more
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https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1379
Please Send An E-mail To Help Wild Horses
Public Comment Ends Friday Feb. 12
Our voices are making a difference for America's wild horses, but now is the time to keep up the pressure. In the last two months, after receiving well over ten thousand public comments in opposition, the BLM has postponed two scheduled wild horse roundups in Utah's Confusion Mountains Complex and eastern Nevada's Eagle Herd Management Area.
The agency even admitted that the tremendous public opposition to the roundups influenced its decisions. Read article here.
As a result of your emails, 700 free-living mustangs have gotten a reprieve from the BLM's brutal roundups, like the helicopter stampede in the Calico Mountains Complex that has cost 39 horses their lives so far and another 20-30 pregnant mares to spontaneously abort.
Now we need you to act again to oppose the massive removal of 1,506 wild horse in the Antelope Complex located in northeastern Nevada.
This proposed removal of approximately 75 percent of the horses would leave behind only 471 horses in the vast 1.3 million acre public lands complex! It's hard to believe, but the BLM is actually claiming that the 1.3 MILLION acres, consisting of four herd management areas (HMAs), can only support 471 to 788 horses.
This Antelope Complex roundup is currently scheduled to take place this summer or fall. The BLM's Elko and Ely District Offices are seeking public input for the preparation of a preliminary environmental assessment (EA). This is our chance to oppose and highlight that the BLM's determination of the "appropriate management level" (AML) for wild horses is flawed and must be revised before proceeding with yet another ill-conceived roundup and removal of wild horses.
In Defense of Animals has secured an extension for public comment until Feb 12. So please take minute to fill out the form below and customize the email. In addition, please send this alert to at least three friends and family ... you never know who may want to help stop and reform this unnecessary and wasteful government program which destroys the lives of so many wild horses.
Links to BLM press release and letter of notice:
http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/elko_field_office/blm_information/newsroom/2010/january/blm_seeks_public_comment.html
http://budget.state.nv.us/clearinghouse/Notice/2010/E2010-117.pdf
http://www.mnn.com/sites/default/files/main_horses_0209.jpg
https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1379 - Link for email letterhttps://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=137... more
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"Look back at our struggle for freedom,
Trace our present day's strength to its source,
And you'll find that man's pathway to glory,
Is strewn with the bones of the horse."
--- Anonymous
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.”
2 million wild horses once roamed the West; fewer than 25,000 remain.
Cattle outnumber wild horses at least 200 to 1 on public lands.
The removal policy is costing over 39 million tax-dollars a year.
Now thousands of wild horses are threatened with slaughter.
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. Its grassroots efforts are supported by a coalition of over forty organizations.
The AWHPC Coalition is calling for a Congressional inquiry into the government’s wild horse management policies, and coordinating a grassroots campaign in support of:
* the review of scientific findings that contradict BLM's claims of wild horse overpopulation and negative impact on the range;
* a moratorium on round-ups until actual numbers of wild horses and burros on public lands have been independently assessed;
* Higher Appropriate Management Levels (AML) for wild horses on those rangelands designated for them;
* implementation of in-the-wild management, which would save millions of tax-dollars.
YOU CAN HELP! What you can do: http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/action.html
VIDEOS:
Viggo Mortensen speaks out for the horses http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/video.html
I-Team Special Report: "Stampede to Oblivion" http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=28259&autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=4203862&flvUri=&partnerclipid=
http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/"Look back at our struggle for freedom,
Trace our present day's strength to... more
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The Eagle Hill Management Area located in eastern Nevada and consisting of 670,000 acres of public land just isn't big enough for 595 wild horses and burros according to the latest proposal presented by the Bureau of Land Management in their preliminary environmental assessment. (EA) The intent of the BLM is to reduce the size of the wild horse herd down to 100 horses and burros which wild horse advocates argue are a dangerously low level to assure genetic viability for the future of the herd.
In addition another 50 horses will be gathered outside of the Herd Management Area.
The BLM claims "deterioration of the range," however the cattle and other livestock population will remain the same.According to the EA, no cattle or sheep would be removed. Statistically cattle population outnumber horse population on public land 200 to 1.
"Removal of wild horses would result in an increase in forage availability and quality, reducing competition between livestock and wild horses for available forage and water resources." ( BLM EA)
Wild horse adovcates claim the BLM is systematically reducing wild horse populations with the ultimate plan to completely eradicate all of the American legends of the growing West. There are currently 35,000 wild horses being held in captivity and being managed by the BLM using taxpayer dollars, yet the BLM are planning to remove another 12,000 wild horses from their natural habitats again this year.
The Calico roundup has been proceeding and the BLM plans to remove 2500 horses from northwest Nevada, Calico Complex. According to In Defense of Animals, 547 horses have been rounded up, 518 wild horses have been shipped to Fallon, 24 horses are at the gather corrals, 4 horse deaths and 1 escaped wild horse named Freedom. At the writing of this article, Freedom has been reported to have been recaptured by the BLM although no official word has yet to be announced.
"Demonstrations and rallies to stop the helicopter roundups have been prevalent from coast to coast, yet the Obama Administration has ignored the public outcry to preserve the symbols of the past. It's just deja-vu of the Bush Administration; everything Obama said we were done with," stated Margaret Ruiz-Cooper, Palm City wild horse advocate. " Talk about agendas with cattle, sheep, pipelines, minerals; the wild horses don't have a chance," Ruiz-Cooper continued. " I promise I will keep at it until someone frees these horses."
For additional information and how you can help to save the wild horses click here:
In Defense of Animals https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1367
http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID25445/images/helicopter_round_up.pngThe Eagle Hill Management Area located in eastern Nevada and consisting of 670,000... more
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