The New York Times- Horse Advocates Pull for Underdog in Roundups
Dear Friends,
This was an article in the National section of The New York Times. There is a lot left out as to what really goes on during the round ups. Getting press for our beautiful mustangs is good regardless, because we are educating the public that they are being rounded up. That in it of itself should be reason enough for people to get involved in this plight! If this article’s contents don’t satisfy you, then write to the NY Times and let them know the truth. Remember, we are the voice for these horses!
Sincerely,
Saving America’s Mustangs Foundation
By Jesse McKinley
Published: September 5, 2010
OUTSIDE RAVENDALE, Calif. — It is horse versus helicopter here in the high desert.
The New York Times
The current roundup in northeastern California and neighboring Nevada has been going on for a month.
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.”
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?”
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.”
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.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Dave Cattoor says the current method of rounding up wild horses is “the best we can do.”
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Animal advocates like Denise Constantinide think the roundups are cruel, expensive and unnecessary.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
The aim of the roundups is to reduce the horse population to more sustainable levels.
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.”
I-Team: More Roundups Planned Despite Pleas from Congress
LAS VEGAS—Government contractors have fired up their helicopters for yet another roundup of Nevada wild horses. The latest gather targets a remote area north of Ely, Nevada.
Four more roundup operations are on the schedule in our state this year. They will not only thin the herds, but wipe them out altogether.
2010 already ranks as one of the most aggressive in the history of Bureau of Land Management horse roundups, with a lot more to come. Operations which proved deadly for the herds have already scooped up thousands of mustangs from public ranges, but with no commensurate reduction in the number of private cattle allowed to stay.
The next round seems are designed to wipe out the horses altogether.
The Moriah Herd area near Ely will result in the removal of every one of the 72 horses living on thousands of acres. Two other Nevada herd management areas will be completely zeroed out of horses, and two others will see more than 90-percent of the mustangs taken away, even though federal law set aside those ranges as places where horses could roam forever.
Critics of the program say it looks as if BLM is in a race to grab every horse it can get before the program gets shut down, which is exactly what is needed according to a letter sent to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and signed by 54 members of Congress, including Nevadans Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus.
The letter harshly criticizes the roundups, calls for an immediate moratorium, and seeks an outside study of the science behind the gathers, or lack thereof, by the National Academy of Sciences.
BLM says it will cooperate with such a study, but Director Bob Abbey told Congress he has no intention of stopping the roundups.
“We signed the letter because we need to stop the roundups and the slaughter so we can study the policy. It hasn’t worked and they know it, we know it, the horses know it. We asked that they allow for a study but they won’t stop and I worry because these studies can take years,” said Rep. Titus.
Titus worries that by the time the study is complete, more herd areas could be wiped out by BLM. The roundups themselves can be deadly to horses.
“You see these pictures of them running to death and the colts and it breaks your heart,” she said.
A separate review of the horse program is already underway. The inspector general of the Interior Department is actively soliciting information from the public, including horse advocates, about all that’s wrong with its implementation—a review that can’t be seen as good news within BLM.
On another front, philanthropist Madeleine Pickens is hoping to move forward with her plans to build a sprawling horse sanctuary in northern Nevada. Pickens has already put millions of her own money into buying a large ranch near Elko and now has an agreement to buy a second property as well.
She will need the cooperation of BLM if she wants to put captured mustangs on the land so she can open an eco-tourism attraction, although BLM has said in the past it does not wants the horses to remain in Nevada, even in a sanctuary.
Director Abbey has agreed to meet with Pickens this month to talk about her plan but has made no promises.
Titus says she has already introduced legislation to force BLM to use options other than roundups, such as more adoptions, birth control, and a program to encourage ranchers to allow horses to graze on private range. But BLM continues to use roundups as the primary focus of the program.
Video from Twin Peaks Gather by Elyse Gardner of the Humane Observer
Madeleine Pickens Talks to WBKO About Horse Slaughter
Updated: 4:05 PM Aug 30, 2010
Horse Slaughter: The Front Lines
Reporter: Dale Parker
Not too long ago, there was a 15 year old girl working her first job. She was saving every penny to buy something she had long dreamed of: her first horse.
Jennifer Turner of Lynchburg, Virginia retells the story like it was yesterday.
“I was taking riding lessons at the time, and I saw the horse in a field, grazing under a tree at sunset. It was beautiful.”
Jennifer approached the owner, and could only think of one thing to say.
“How much?”
The lady replied that Jennifer didn’t want that horse. It had been abused.
So every day for six months, Jennifer went to the horse with a bucket of grain, a little hope, and a lot of determination.
“Finally, she came to me,” said Jennifer, “I was the only one she ever let ride her.”
The pride in her voice is fresh as she relives the moment in her mind.
And so began a lifelong love of horses, and more importantly, rescuing them.
Jennifer Turner currently has 5 rescued horses, ranging from 9 months old to 7 years.
When she got the 9 month old, it was in poor health.
“It had full pneumonia, worms, and was severely malnourished. It took around $2,000 to bring back to health.”
And that’s just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Turner says that people get in over their head and can’t take care of the horses they own, resulting in them selling to a “kill buyer”.
And unless they are rescued, their fate can be dim.
100,000 to 120,000 horses are slaughtered every year that don’t get rescued.
Instead, they are transported to Canada or Mexico to be processed into food.
Of course, one could ask why it isn’t a problem to slaughter cows, or other “traditional” American food providing animals.
The answer isn’t really simple.
Some horse rescue advocates see horses as being closer to a dog, which of course is “man’s best friend.”
Others would be ok with it if the horses were just not treated so inhumanely during transport and the slaughtering process itself.
And one thing they all agree on is there are some extremely inhumane conditions that many of these horses face.
There are many stories, pictures, and videos on the web documenting these cases of abuse, and if you are inclined to look these things up, be prepared to have your heart broken.
There are reports of transporters who don’t give the horses food, no matter how long the trip is, which has resulted in dead horses upon arrival at their final destination.
Mix in with that the fact that current regulations don’t oversee the horse grouping (meaning that horses of all sizes and dispositions can be mixed together), dangerous double-decker trailers can be used, inadequate floor space and ramping, USDA budgetary restraints and understaffing for inspections and numerous other unenforceable guidelines or easily falsified certificates, and you begin to see a larger issue.
And then there is the slaughtering process itself.
Many slaughterhouses use the “captive bolt” method of slaughter, which is a method designed for cows that have a much shorter neck.
Horses are guided into a small stall area where a captive bolt pistol is placed to their head and discharged either by air or blank round.
The bolt then strikes the animal and, if done correctly, stuns them so there is no pain during the process of butchering.
Due to a horse having a more “gangly”, long neck, sometimes the bolt is not effective as the animal swings its head to and fro.
Chemicals can’t be used to euthanize because that is prohibited when dealing with animals to be consumed as food.
Lisa Draharod is the event coordinator for “Another Chance for Horses”, a non-profit horse brokerage in Marlton, New Jersey, and says that the whole process is unnecessary.
“One of the big myths about stopping horse slaughter is ‘Where would all the unwanted horses go?’ The truth is only 1% of the U.S. horse population is slaughtered each year. If we cut back on horse breeding, the problem would go away by attrition,” said Draharod.
Until then, she is trying to save as many horses as she can.
A Chance for Horses, along with a network of other rescues including Forever Morgans, Save Your Ass Rescue, Curly Horse Rescue, New England Equine Rescue, the thoroughbred tracks that have zero tolerance policies in effect, and Voice for Horses, save on average 40 horses per week.
She says they have shipped horses all around the country to the individuals who purchased through them, and even shipped one to Germany.
When asked how anyone can get started in rescuing horses, she hesitates.
“First, you need to educate yourself,” she says. “It’s a 24 hour, 7 day a week job. There is no reward other than the satisfaction.”
She also mentioned frustration, which is something Jennifer Turner had mentioned as well. Frustration at the lack of donations, frustration at the time it takes to heal some of these horses, both physically and mentally, and frustration that so many horses are needlessly slaughtered.
“90% of horses slaughtered are in good condition. 80% are under 10 years of age. 74% are perfectly sound, no lameness or crippling issues,” says Draharod.
And when you juxtapose those kinds of numbers against a poll conducted by Madeleine Pickens which revealed that 76% of Americans are against horse slaughter, you have to ask why this is still an issue at all.
“It’s alarming how many people don’t care,” says Pickens. “The funny thing about human nature is that the general public tends to shut down when confronted with the graphic video and pictures.”
Pickens, along with her husband Boone, has been instrumental in getting the message out and getting reform accomplished, her work leading to the closing of the last horse slaughterhouse in the U.S.
But that doesn’t stop kill buyers from shipping across the border, so it must still be profitable.
To get a sense of the money involved, I asked Pickens for some numbers.
And the example she gave was very interesting.
She had gotten a chance to view some tax records from one of the last slaughterhouses to operate in America.
Total taxes paid for the year of 2004?
$4.
“If you had a company that only had to pay $4 in taxes, your company must not be doing very well, wouldn’t you think?”
I had to agree, until she followed it up with the fact that they took in $12 million in horses, then shipped them overseas to another branch of their company which in turn sold the horses for $60 million.
The math is obvious.
Still, there is progress being made.
H.R. 6598, which is a bill co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), has recently been re-introduced after failing to be passed into law previously.
It would “amend(s) the federal criminal code to impose a fine and/or prison term of up to three years for possessing, shipping, transporting, purchasing, selling, delivering, or receiving: (1) any horse (i.e., member of the family Equidae) with the intent that it be slaughtered for human consumption; or (2) any horse flesh or carcass with the intent that it be used for human consumption.”
Also, Madeleine Pickens has purchased land in Nevada to be the site of a wild horse sanctuary, preventing many from roundups that would lead them to a food processing plant.
She hopes it becomes a tourist destination just like our National Parks, where people can witness their beauty.
Pickens urges people to get involved.
“Go to my website and sign up. Send letters. Join the Pony Express. We are going to deliver your letters while riding horses in person to Washington, ” says Pickens.
Just researching this article, I ran across numerous places that give information on the horse slaughter issue and ways to help and participate in horse rescue.
There are many, many people of all religious and political backgrounds involved on the front lines of this issue.
People like Jennifer Turner.
It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon back in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Through a window Turner is watching “Gotta Lotta Soul”, a rescued horse who happens to be the 4th Great Grandson of Secretariat, the legendary racehorse who won a Triple Crown while setting records in two of the races.
He seems to be enjoying himself in the drizzle, shaking his head and fanning his tail, living up to his name.
“It’s on a day like this that I wish I didn’t have horses at all!”, she laughs, referring to the need to go out into the rain to feed.
Through the phone I hear a big smile, and I suspect that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Anne Novak
Anne@TheCloudFoundation.org
Tel: 415-531-8454
Judge Denies BLM Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit to Preserve World Famous Wild Horse Herd
Court Declares Challenge to BLM Mismanagement to be “Ripe for Review”
Washington D.C. (August 27, 2010)— On August 25th United States District Judge, James S. Gwin, granted a legal request by The Cloud Foundation, Front Range Equine Rescue and photographer/author Carol Walker, to file a Second Amended Complaint against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) actions in the mismanagement of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horses. The ruling allows addition of the United States Forest Service (USFS) to the suit. The Custer National Forest is presently moving forward with building a restrictive boundary fence to prevent the wild horses from accessing crucial current and historical summer grazing lands. Judge Gwin ruled that the Plaintiffs’ claim against the fence is not moot as the fence could be removed or further fence building activities stopped should subsequent legal decisions rule in the Plaintiffs’ favor. Judge Gwin ordered the BLM and USFS to answer the Second Amended Complaint within 30 days.
“BLM’s tactic of completing removals of wild horses and burros from the range in whirlwind fashion and avoiding legal challenges to its underlying management of these animals did not work in this case,” explained Valerie J. Stanley. Attorneys Valerie J. Stanley and Bruce A. Wagman represent the Plaintiffs in this action.
In his decision, Judge Gwin wrote that “[the] government is also incorrect that the Plaintiffs’ claim challenging the 1987 Custer National Forest Plan is time-barred” and found the Cloud Foundation’s legal challenge to BLM’s use of a Categorical Exclusion that BLM uses to avoid analyzing the environmental impacts of the processing of wild horses and burros removed from the range to be “ripe for review because it is a purely legal question fit for judicial review.”
The ruling represents a significant step forward in the Cloud Foundation, Front Range Equine Rescue and Carol Walker’s legal attempts to protect the beloved and historically significant Pryor wild horses. Commonly known as “Cloud’s herd”, the horses are descendents of the horses of the Spanish Conquistadors, the Lewis and Clark expedition and Crow War Ponies.
“We will never give up fighting to preserve this unique herd,” explains Cloud Foundation Director and Emmy award-winning producer, Ginger Kathrens, who has been documenting the Pryor Wild Horses for over 16 years. “They have a right to live free on lands we know they have continuously roamed for centuries. Attempting to fence them out of their home is unconscionable.”
Kathrens journey with the wild stallion she named Cloud began when he was just hours old. It represents the only on-going documentation of a wild animal from birth in our hemisphere.
Thanks Wayne Pacelle, HSUS, and Huffington Post for Getting With the Pony Express
A HUGE THANK YOU to Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States and the Huffington Post for posting about our Pony Express Delivery to Washington, DC! We really appreciate this!!
I also want to thank other animal organizations that have added us to their websites and blogs, including PETA and ASPCA!! Way to go everyone on uniting on this great cause for our beautiful wild mustangs!
xo Madeleine Pickens
Speak Up for Wild Horses; Send a Letter via Pony Express
Posted: August 26, 2010 01:46 PM
Over the past few weeks, tens of thousands of you have contacted the federal Bureau of Land Management, encouraging the agency to impose an immediate moratorium on the senseless wild horse gathers being conducted on our public lands. BLM seems resolved to continue toward its goal of removing 12,000 horses from the range before next fall—roundup levels to match those of the Bush Administration.
The round up of these horses—on top of the roundups that have left more than 30,000 horses in BLM short-term and long-term holding facilities—will produce suffering for horses, swamp the adoption program, and result in the stockpiling of more animals, digging a deeper financial hole for the agency and ultimately for American taxpayers. This sort of mismanagement is all the more glaring since BLM has the know-how to implement a far more aggressive contraception program, keeping horses on the range, but slowly bringing under control the reproduction of the already diminished herds.
To draw attention to the BLM’s stubborn refusal to turn around this program, Madeleine Pickens, the founder of Saving America’s Mustangs and a strong ally of The Humane Society of the United States, has launched the Pony Express campaign. Between now and Sept. 1, Madeleine is asking advocates to sign a letter urging President Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and BLM Director Robert Abbey to stop rounding up wild horses and warehousing them in costly federal holding facilities.
Then, with the help of her adopted wild mustang “Pony Express,” Madeleine will personally deliver these letters to Washington, D.C. She’s aiming to bring along 20,000 letters; please help her meet this goal by adding your voice.
Also, if you haven’t already done so, before Sept. 3 be sure to submit comments on the BLM’s new policy proposal for wild horse management, which the agency will use to develop a long-term plan. We’ve made it easy for you to tell the BLM to make good on the change it has promised in the past—to steer the program in a new, sustainable, more humane direction using effective, cost-beneficial methods such as fertility control to stabilize and manage wild horse populations.
This post originally appeared on Pacelle’s blog, A Humane Nation.
Congratulations to June Jones and the SMU Mustangs! Here’s to wishing you a successful season and we will be rooting for you! - Saving America’s Mustangs
Join Madeleine’s Pony Express Today!
Fact: The Bureau of Land Management is currently rounding up your horses; horses that belong to the American people. Fact: Low-flying helicopters contracted by the BLM taunt and scare these wild mustangs into tiny pens, where they are trucked off to more permanent holding facilities. Fact: American taxpayers are paying nearly $40 million this year for the government roundups and the care of thousands of horses in cramped, federal holding pens. Fact: Next year, it could be upwards of $80 million if nothing changes. Fact: Madeleine Pickens has a solution to develop a wild horse eco-sanctuary with her own funds for the horses that have been rounded up.
If you are a proud American and you want to protect our American mustangs to ensure future generations will be able to visit and see them roaming in their natural habitat, before they are rounded up to extinction, then please join us in the Pony Express!!
Madeleine Pickens is personally delivering your letters to Washington, via the Pony Express (atop a beautiful American mustang). Goal is 20,000 letters by September 1st. Please take a minute to email a letter showing that you care about protecting our national treasures.
Two-Week-Old Wild Horse Shot and Killed Before California Roundup
Dear Friends,
Please take some time to read up on this disturbing story of a two-week old foal being brutally shot to death near where the latest wild horse roundup by the Bureau of Land Management in California at Twin Peaks is taking place. Please note the photos below are actual photos and are very alarming.
Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens
Sacramento, CA (August 13, 2010)—The body of a wild horse foal was found near the site of the Twin Peaks roundup Wednesday by Craig Downer, wildlife ecologist and Cloud Foundation Board member, and Christy Davis, wild horse advocate. Davis, an experienced horse woman, examined the foal for any broken bones. What she found was an apparent rope burn on a rear leg as well as a gunshot wound.
“It seems as though the foal was shot in the gut,” Davis states. “It looked as though the foal was abused, lassoed around the hind legs and dragged.”
The foal, approximately 2 weeks old, was killed prior to the start of the controversial Twin Peaks Herd Management Area roundup in Northern California. When Davis told BLM officials about finding the gunshot foal, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee, Carman Prisco, told Davis she must be confused and the dead animal was an antelope. Photos taken by Downer confirmed that this is indeed a wild horse foal.
Photographs taken at the capture site, set on sharp lava rock, reveal blood stains within the trap.
Mustang advocates ask BLM law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation into the abuse and death of the federally protected wild horse—killed before independent contractor, Cattoor Livestock, began rounding up wild horses with helicopters.
Field reports from those on the ground noted a severely injured white stallion that suffered head trauma supposedly from fighting with other stallions in tightly packed transport vehicles. Even though the injury was serious, the BLM contractor was quoted as saying a vet “might need” to be called. The whereabouts of that stallion are currently unknown. Another stallion was off loaded into a pen with eight mules that attacked him, causing traumatic injuries. This incident was also brought to the attention of the BLM by public observers.
Advocates were told yesterday that there were no injuries, yet when they went to look at the horses in holding, the area was blocked off. They were told that they could not access the area because the “injured horses” needed to rest.
Injuries are not uncommon in roundups and underscore the need for public access, says Ginger Kathrens, Director of the Cloud Foundation and EMMY Award-winning producer.
“Access is absolutely essential and is granted by the Constitution,” says Kathrens. “The ‘acceptable’ suffering of these horses is simply not acceptable to the caring public.”
Laura Leigh, Cloud Foundation Herd Watch coordinator, agrees.
“If this is what we see when the BLM actually allows us in, what happens when they black out their actions to the press and public?” asks Leigh, plaintiff for the Owyhee round-up that ended July 20 in Nevada, “The time for real Congressional intervention is long overdue.”
The recent round-up in Tuscarora, Nevada—also run by Cattoor Livestock—resulted in the deaths of thirty-six wild horses.
Write a Letter to Prevent Convicted Horse Killer From Being Paroled
Dear Horse Supporters and Friends,
Please take a minute to read up on this case of extreme animal abuse. Convicted horse killer and Cattle Rancher, Jason Meduna, will come up for Parole this month. We have two more weeks to write letters to the Nebraska Parole Board to prevent the parole from happening. Please write a letter on behalf of the 145 counts of animal cruelty he was punished with.
Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens
HOUSTON -(SFTHH) Nebraska’s Parole Board has informed sources that convicted wild horse killer, Jason Meduna, will come up for review during the month of August with no disclosed date. The review is not public although public comment is welcomed.
Meduna becomes eligible for parole on October 20th, 2011. The public is welcome to submit written comment to the Parole Board as all comments are kept on file and utilized in the board’s final decision. Meduna, nor his attorney, are privy to the comments.
If you would like to comment on the man who was convicted on 145 counts of cruel neglect of an animal resulting in death or injury please write to:
Board of Parole
Correctional Service Building
P.O. Box 94754
Lincoln, NE 68509-4754Full Story
The Life of Cigar- America’s Horse
Dear Friends,
For those of you who have asked why I am so passionate about horses, here is the reason:
Before there was Saving America’s Mustangs, I bred and raced horses with my late husband, Allen Paulson. Cigar was a world-champion thoroughbred horse that we shared together. Cigar was our baby! We bred many champions and we were blessed with much success.
However, years into our breeding and racing career, I found out horrifying news; that most of the horses that either retire from their careers or aren’t successful in racing go to slaughter. These are champion, thoroughbredhorses that have an untimely fate if not adopted or donated to a living museum/horse park after they are done racing. There was nothing wrong with these horses at all! This information made me feel so ashamed, because I never knew in so many years of racing that this was happening. So many Americans were probably in the dark like me, and unaware of the nasty side of this business. We bred so many champion horses, but I often look back and think of what happened to the ones who weren’t near Cigar’s racing level. Chances are very good that 80-90% of horses like that have gone to slaughter.
It was so embarrassing for me when I finally found out, because I never thought living in a civilized country like the United States of America that there would be such inhumane and barbaric treatment of animals!
So, now that I’m equipped with the knowledge, I am doing everything in my power to make sure we speak up for animals. That’s why I have fought so hard for the R.O.A.M Act to be passed and so dedicated to protecting all animals, but especially horses from slaughter. We are now the voices of the horses.
I founded Saving America’s Mustangs in 2008 and for the past two years I have worked so hard to come up with a solution for our wild horses. I am developing a wild horse eco sanctuary for horses that cannot be adopted, the horses in the government holding pens, and any other horses that need to be able to go back to roaming freely, like they are naturally used to.
Cigar is one of the lucky ones. He now calls the Kentucky Horse Park home and has a great setup there. I love going to visit him. He truly still looks as beautiful as the day he was born. He had great lines and we always knew he was going to be a special horse. I’m still very proud of him.
The Bureau of Land Management is continuing its round-up of wild horses in Nevada and other western states. Various animal rights groups have sued to stop the round-up because of the deaths and injuries. Other critics insist the round-up is designed to open up more range land for ranchers and not to protect the horses.
Guests discussing the issue include: wild horse advocate and Saving America’s Mustangs Founder, Madeleine Pickens, Chief Investigative Reporter from KLAS I-Team, George Knapp and Sr Public Affairs Specialist, BLM, Tom Gorey.
I-Team: Horse Sanctuary Closer to Reality
Madeleine Pickens’ Inside Southern California Interview with Bruce W. Cook
This episode will be available on Time Warner’s San Diego OnDemand until October 7th in San Diego, channel 144, San Diego North Carlsbad, channel 1, and Desert Cities, channel 111.
It will also be airing on TWCSD Local Origination Channel 19 on August 11, 16, and 18 at 9pm
And August 14 and 21 at 9am
Video Footage of the Mustangs Being Stampeded by Helicopters
Dear Friends and Supporters,
I thought you would like to see Video footage of the Tuscarora Roundup by horse advocate, Laura Leigh. You can see the real condition of the range and what stampeding horses by helicopters looks like.
Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens
Mustangs Sent Over the Edge?
Plenty of Water at Nevada Roundup – And Dead Horses Too!
August 4, 2010
By Steven Long, Photos by Katie Fite and Cattoor Livestock Roundups
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A federal helicopter chase contractor has acknowledged there was plenty of water in an Elko County, Nevada wild horse area, contradicting what government lawyers told a U.S. District Judge last month.
She said that many of the horses in a large herd management area just didn’t know it was there and were kept in pastures far away.
In an exclusive interview with Horseback Magazine, Sue Cattoor of Cattoor Livestock Roundups, Inc. said the Owyhee River, the border of their most recent wild horse stampede dubbed the “Tuscarora Gather,” has enough water for vacationers to camp and fish, plus multiple trails leading down to water’s edge giving access to thirsty animals including horses.
A disturbing photo of a dead Palomino Wild Horse surfaced on the Internet and in news reports last week. The picture, taken by Western Watershed Project Biodiversity Director Katie Fite shows the horse lying in rocks below a cliff. Wild horse activists say the photo demonstrates the cruelty of a government program wasting millions of dollars that is out of control. Many of them believe that a Cattoor helicopter drove the horse over a cliff.
That is not true.
But a firestorm of outrage has swept across the desert sands of Nevada and the nation at what many believe is a government agency that has turned rogue. U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, (D) La has proposed that her colleagues consider removing the Wild Horse and Burro Program from federal Bureau of Land Management control.
And fifty-four members of Congress have petitioned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to end the capture of wild horses on land controlled by the BLM. They have asked the National Academy of Science to investigate the agency’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. More than 150 horses and foals died in the wake of a mid-winter roundup in Nevada’s Calico Mountains. The congressmen say that 21 horses have died at BLM’s hand thus far during and after the Tuscarora stampedes.
Reno federal Judge Larry Hicks imposed a temporary injunction that had stopped the agency from capturing horses after one day in which 12 horses died after being run eight miles in more than 100 degree July Nevada desert heat. He lifted the temporary restraining order after being told by government lawyers an emergency existed because horses needed to be captured since they faced the prospect of dying of thirst because there was no water in the desert.
In fact, the BLM trucked water into the area rather than driving them, as they are clearly capable of doing, to a freely flowing river with abundant water. But she says the bulk of the horses involved in the roundup were in three pastures away from the river.
Cattoor acknowledged that the Owyhee River has running water, and during the roundup an Idaho group was camping on its banks – and even fishing.
“They were just a little ways up from where the horses trail down to the river. It‘s almost like a miniature Grand Canyon. This particular spot of where the trail goes down in the canyon is where the horses go to water,” Cattoor said.
Cattoor also said that there are other trails leading to the river that would have been available to the horses, but “the horses aren’t using those trails. They are only using this one. A lot of those horses didn’t know that trail was there because a lot of the horses we captured in this HMA were young horses.”
Typically, foals follow their mothers to water, so in all likelihood, the young horses whose habitat is near the river had been exposed to the abundant water in the waterway and the riparian area on either side, despite Cattoor’s comments to the contrary.
But some horses came to the river for the first time, she acknowledges. How did these lost horses get there? Were they driven there by a Cattoor helicopter, activists are certain to ask.
“After they were down in there, they did not know how to come out,” Cattoor said.
A wide trail leads down a gently sloping river bank to the river shown in a photograph on the Cattoor website http://www.wildhorseroundups.com. Sue Cattoor says the photo is deceptive and the trail is very steep.
Cattoor says that there has been ample water in recent years to sustain horses in the area.
“I find it odd that with all the months of planning by the BLM that occurs before a round-up there was no mention of lack of water for the horses in any of their documentation and then after the lawsuit was filed, it suddenly became an emergency,” said Vicki Tobin, co-founder of the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance.
“The BLM has authority to round-up horses in an emergency situation so if the horses were in such dire straits, they should have dealt with the situation long before the lawsuit was filed.”
Like many in the West steeped in a ranching tradition, Sue Cattoor believes the wild horse are livestock, not wild animals. That tradition views livestock as a commodity, nothing more. Something to be bought and sold. Ranchers have a very pronounced vision of how animals should be viewed, and Cattoor is no different.
“If they are wildlife, then why don’t they issue a license for them to be hunted?” she asks.
Cattoor said campers along the river mentioned that the wild horses were in the area when they first got there, however, there were no campers around during recent visits by others to confirm what the federal contractor says.
Visitors say they found evidence that there were traps set up along the river bottom. Cattoor counters that what they believe were the remnants of BLM pens were actually the abandoned campsites of the Idaho campers who had traveled to fish the river.
There are no witnesses to refute the allegation that horses could have been driven by a roaring helicopter into the area whose rugged features include jagged rocks and towering river banks. The horses also could have injured themselves on the sharp outcrops trying to escape something they feared and had never seen before.
“They climbed up on that ledge looking for a way out and didn‘t know how to get back out of it,” Cattoor said.
In a lengthy note on the company website Sue Cattoor explains her firm’s position in minute detail. The note is also accompanied by a photo of a broad well traveled trail leading to a flowing river filled with plenty of water. Another photo of the river shows steep cliffs. Cattoor denied Horseback Magazine permission to use the photos.
Sue Cattoor acknowledges the horses were injured trying to negotiate the rough terrain.
“They were moving around in those rocks, trying to go up and down to survive and would have gotten the injury in the rocks. Those horses were trying to find a way down”
She said the pocket of possible stragglers from the helicopter chase were discovered after the helicopter pilot and her husband flew over to speak with the campers they had seen along the river.
“When they flew over to talk to these campers, they discovered these horses on the opposite side of the river from where the trail was. They herded those horses that were up there back down to the river because those horses had ledged up there and they did not know how to get back down.”
But after the herd was driven down river, the two severely injured horses remained, Cattoor said. One was the Palomino horse later photographed dead by Fite.
The photo of the still living but injured Palomino horse was taken from the Cattoor helicopter and the wound appears to be to the bone. The photo was supplied to Horseback Magazine by Sue Cattoor.
Cattoor says the horse had vision problems and was old.
“There were two horses. One, the horses that she (Fite) took the picture of, and a foal that was caught in the crevasse of the rocks with broken legs that they had to go back and euthanize,” Cattoor said.
Former Horseback Magazine veterinary columnist Dr. Angela Chenault viewed the blown up photo and said the injury was possibly survivable, but “its not likely to have a good outcome on a feral horse. Aftercare is critical and even stalling this horse will be a problem mentally.”
The horse found by Fite was not driven over the cliff to its death by Dave Cattoor, it was shot by him from the helicopter with a high powered rifle.
“It happens on occasion because when we are out gathering horses, if we see something that has a pre-existing injury or if something is extremely old and needs to be put down, they will euthanize it in the field,” Cattoor said.
Dr. Chenault said the injury was not fresh.
“It’s difficult to say how old by the picture but I would say it is over 24 hours by the way the muscles look,” she said.
Activists will likely continue to believe the worst of the Cattoors and their company. And Sue Cattoor will continue to attempt to spin the image of a company that is compassionately capturing horses, even if some die in the process.
The helicopter contractor said that despite the judge’s ruling that observers be allowed to view the roundups, her company will not allow observers on horseback despite a long standing Horseback Magazine request to the BLM to do so.
“If they are on horseback they are going to interfere with the operation,” she said. “We never allow our wranglers to be on horseback when the helicopter is driving horses to the trap. We can’t have somebody there that might turn the horses back and cause problems.”
Cattoor said she would have no objection to observers who hiked in to the roundup area if they were accompanied by a BLM public relations person. In past “gathers” armed guards have prevented observers and the press from freely walking into the roundup area.
Despite encouragement from Cattoor for Horseback to observe a roundup, BLM has barred press and public in the trap area because recent ones have been located on private property. The agency claims landowners object to media and other observers on their land. However, when the BLM leases property for a site, it falls under federal control much like a post office building does when it is leased by the federal General Services Administration for public use. The landowner relinquishes control of his property to the control of the federal government.
Cattoor Livestock Roundups will not allow the media to fly as passengers in their helicopter citing prohibitions from their insurance company.
“I have no problem with the press coming out and watching if they want to, as long as they are absolutely not interfering with the gather and causing stress for the horses,” she said.
Cattoor also was critical during the interview of media reports of the numbers of horses which died “because of helicopter gathers.”
On the Calico roundup seven horses died in the field out of a total of more than 150 horses and unborn foals who met their deaths in captivity, including two foals who shed their hooves after being stampeded over rocky terrain in the dead of winter by a roaring helicopter.
“In this roundup we didn’t lose any on the actual HMA (herd management area). Others died for lack of water or too much water, or were destroyed for humane reasons,” Cattoor said.
“They are trying to stop roundups saying the helicopter gathers are cruel and inhumane and that’s not a fact,” she said. “The losses from Calico was because those horses were in very bad shape when they were captured because there wasn’t enough food out there.”
Photographs of the captured Calico horses by naturalist Craig Downer and wild horse litigant Laura Leigh show fat healthy horses even in the BLM hospital area.
And 54 members of Congress clearly want to knock Sue Cattoor and her company out of a job, temporarily at least.
And litigation continues in the courts to stop what the BLM benignly calls “gathers.”
Congressman Rahall and 53 Other House Members Try to Halt Gathers
Congressmen Seek to Halt BLM Gathers
by: Pat Raia
August 04 2010, Article # 16772
A bipartisan group of congressmen have asked Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to halt controversial gather operations in Nevada and postpone all pending wild horse gathers until an independent study of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) mustang management operations takes place. The BLM is a division within the Department of Interior, and the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 places mustang and burro management under BLM jurisdiction.
In a July 30 letter U.S. Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, and 53 other House members called on Salazar specifically to stop the mustang gather from the Tuscarora Complex in Elko County, Nev., during which 17 horses died due to dehydration or roundup-related injuries.
In the letter the Congressmen labeled the BLM’s mustang management policies as “deeply flawed” and requested a halt to all gathers “until the agency demonstrates that it has addressed the failings of the current program and can ensure the safety and well-being of the animals you are charged with protecting.”
The letter also called for an independent study of the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro program by the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit group that advises government agencies on scientific issues. The study would determine the most accurate, science-based methods for estimating wild horse and burro populations and recommend practical, effective non-lethal, publicly acceptable management alternatives to current BLM policies.
BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said, “We are committed to the protection and conservation of wild horses and the lands on which they roam. We are reviewing the letter.”
Jerry Finch, president and founder of Habitat for Horses, said wild horse advocates have long called for congressional attention to mustang management issues. “This positive action has been a long time coming,” he said. “Since the appointment of Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar the BLM has been hell bent on zeroing out standing herds and reducing remaining ones to unsustainable numbers. There is just no logic or science to it.”
Be a Good American- Get on Board the Pony Express TODAY!
Dear Friends, Supporters, and Future Supporters,
We have heard you voice your complaints about the roundups.
We have listened to you share so many of your personal stories about your own adopted mustangs.
We have all sent thousands of letters via fax, email, and USPS to our Government officials. Even to the point of their phone lines being unplugged and emails shut down due to the high volume of wild horse supporters on this issue.
We are doing all of these things daily, but there still has been NO change.
It’s time for the PONY EXPRESS!!!
I will personally hand-deliver each and every letter that you email, via the Pony Express (one of our beautiful mustangs), to Washington DC.
I set a goal of 20,000 individual letters to take with me.
Everyone is invited to get onboard with us! If you are a proud American, International supporter, animal activist, or just anyone who would like to tell President Obama, Secretary Salazar, and Bob Abbey (BLM) that we aren’t going to sit by waiting until these roundups are over are encouraged to write. This is a very important issue to hundreds of thousands of people that have pleaded with our government to stop gathering our wild horses. This way, they cannot unplug their phones, make their website impossible to send a comment to, or delete emails. These are GOING to get to Washington. I promise you that! For the millions of people who are unaware of the roundup process by our own government, here it is:The Bureau of Land Management, a branch of the Department of the Interior, has scheduled the removal of America’s wild horses and are attempting to change the grazing rights to be mainly cattle on the BLM managed land, which leave our American wild horses homeless. 100 years ago there were 2 million horses. Now, because of these roundups, there are maybe 20,000-30,000 left. The BLM contracts low-flying helicopters to taunt and scare the mustangs, separating them from their families, and eventually coerced into tiny pens. The mustangs are then taken off to holding facilities where they no longer have room to roam anymore. They will be moved to a short-term holding facility for up to three years if not adopted out or sold to a buyer that intends on using the wild horses for slaughter.
There are over 11,000 in just short-term holding currently. The pens are very confining and the horses are literally butt to butt, which makes exercise, eating, and drinking very difficult. Taxpayers are currently spending nearly $40 million per year on these roundups and the holding pens. If current removal and holding practices continue, annual funding for the total wild horse and burro program would rise to approximately $85 million by 2012, and an estimated additional 20,000 horses in holding pens.
Madeleine Pickens (Founder of Saving America’s Mustangs) has an alternative that will cut these costs at a tremendous savings to Americans by creating an eco-sanctuary for the wild horses. She is buying the land and developing the sanctuary with her own funds. She will start with the horses currently in short-term holding. This will be a place where Americans and their families can come see their horses roaming free as they are naturally used to. They can stay (in tee pees or lodges) on the land; learn about Native American culture and the wild horse centuries ago. It will be an experience that will be cherished long after the visitors leave.
Deadline for letters: September 1, 2010
This gives us less than ONE MONTHto get20,000 letters in-hand to bring to our Nation’s Capital. We just want you to stand up for your American right- to keep your wild horses, wild. We have made this even simpler, all you have to do is click the blue button below, sign your name to the pre-written letter and click “submit.” Your letter will be sent to the U.S. government, as well as a copy directly to our Saving America’s Mustangs office. We will printout the letters, put them in envelopes, and hand-deliver to Washington. Every letter counts! This task takes seconds and will potentially save thousands of wild horses that belong to the American people.
You can find all of this information on our website.Please forward this to all of your contacts so that we can make this Pony Express as huge as HUMANLY possible. (Or HUMANELY possible on behalf of our majestic, wild horses)
Or you can mail your letters to:
Madeleine’s Pony Express
2683 Via De La Valle, G 313
Del Mar, CA 92014
Can we do this? Will you do this?
Very Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens
Please Click the button below to Get on Board the Pony Express!!!
Nevada Magazine: Madeleine Pickens Race to Save the Mustangs
Madeleine Pickens
Champion Thoroughbred Owner is Caught Up in the Race to Save America’s Wild Mustangs.
By REBECCA PONTON | Nevada Magazine July/August 2010
Photo: Michael Partenio
It all began with a John Wayne movie.
While she herself has an exotic background—born in Kirkuk, Iraq to a British father and a Lebanese mother, Madeleine Pickens grew up in various locales around the world—it was America’s Wild West heritage that captured her imagination. After going to the then-British Bahamas in 1966, she arrived in the United States in 1969 on a green card, later becoming an American citizen and eventually a resident of Dallas.
When asked what attracted her to America, she is effusive. “Oh, gosh! Watching all the American movies—John Wayne and cowboys—oh, it was so exciting! I mean, what a sexy history you guys have—and I’m part of it now!” she says gleefully.
“Remember the show Bonanza [and] the Ponderosa?” she continues, caught up in the nostalgia. “I used to watch that show, and I hated it when it came to an end, and then you had to wait until the next week. I absolutely loved it. I used to envy [actress] Linda Evans, having all those brothers, living that life on the range. It was so, so beautiful. I was certainly going to run off with John Wayne; there was no question. All that was so dreamy,” she says, laughing at the memory.
Wild, Wild Horses
It’s that romanticism, coupled with a sense of moral responsibility, which has led Pickens where she is today. Along with her husband, T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman who has embraced alternative energy, she is co-founder of the nonprofit Saving America’s Mustangs (savingamericasmustangs.org), the goal of which is to establish a permanent home for wild horses and burros.
Pickens’ love affair with animals began early. “We had Labradors growing up. My father loved dogs. He used to go hunting, much to my [dismay]. Every Friday night, the guns would come out, and the dogs would get so excited, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t excited to play with me anymore. They knew their big weekend was here.”
Pickens went on to become a successful racehorse owner and breeder, but it is America’s wild mustangs that have become her focus. “I came here, and I never saw the wild animals, and I didn’t know much about [the situation],” she says, referring to the more than 30,000 wild horses and burros that are being kept in short- and long-term holding areas, many of them for years and in less-than-ideal conditions.
“I was devastated when I found out, but also delighted that I had the opportunity to jump in and fix it and then find a way to bring pleasure to the American public,” says Pickens, who envisions the creation of a horse eco-sanctuary as an opportunity to recapture the Wild West on a grand scale—“like a Yellowstone.”
“People can come [and] bring their families…to a living museum where they can see these horses roam, have documentaries, have campgrounds where the kids can come. [School children] all go to Washington at some point in their lives [to see] the monuments. They can go to Nevada [where half of the country’s wild horses are found] and visit Mustang Monument and see all of this and be educated—classes and campfires and teachers. I’m very, very excited about it all. I’ve had a lot of interest from all different [sectors] of the United States, which shows that people love this [idea].”
Grassroots Campaign
To see her dream become reality, Pickens has had to deal with government bureaucracy and has learned the wheels of change turn very slowly, which she attributes to something she jokingly refers to as the “NIH theory”—Not Invented Here.
“When you bring something new to the table—and for 40 years they’ve been doing it one way—it’s difficult for people to switch gears. I think sometimes you can be too close to an issue, and it’s tougher to see how you can fix things,” she says, referring to the Bureau of Land Management, which is currently responsible for overseeing the welfare of wild horses and burros.
To help create awareness of her plan, which involves persuading legislators to pass a law converting the 1 million acres of land necessary to accommodate the animals from cattle-grazing to horse-grazing, Pickens’ Saving America’s Mustangs foundation has staged several pregame and halftime tributes held at college football games. The foundation also has created a 25-member advisory board, which includes a number of well-known Texans. Among them are T. Boone Pickens, Chairman June Jones, Jerry Jones, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Mark Cuban, and others.
The key difference in her plan, Pickens stresses, is the stipend paid by the government will not go into private hands (as it does now); it will stay with the foundation. She emphasizes the foundation cannot use the money for anything other than taking care of the land, so that the horses are provided for.
During the course of her campaign, she has discovered the power of the grassroots movement. At the time of this writing (late 2009), supporters of Pickens’ vision had submitted nearly 12,000 signatures to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the BLM. She urges those who are interested to go to her website (madeleinepickens.com), where they can sign up for alerts. “The wonderful thing about the Internet is that you [can] educate and inform the public about issues they didn’t know existed,” she says. “Let’s face it, I didn’t know about these issues [before].”
‘Outrageous History’
Pickens recalls the first time, from the view of a helicopter, that she saw horses running wild. “It was just one of those life-changing days where you say, ‘This is what I want to do. This is what I want to bring back and share with people.’ We can’t let these animals be gathered and thrown into a world of sadness and horror and slaughter. That’s got to end. It’s too beautiful a part of life.”
Not only does Pickens want to provide a sanctuary for the mustangs, but she would like to see them accorded the same respect as the bald eagle. Curious about the bald eagle’s status, she recently had the opportunity to see hundreds of them on Stuart Island in Canada and only then did she realize their beauty and majesty. “It was great,” she says, “but it certainly didn’t impress me as much as if I saw thousands of wild mustangs thundering by, their manes flowing in the wind. How can you not think of them [as a national symbol]?”
“I think it’s a very sexy heritage,” Pickens continues. “In [this] great country, that’s how the West was formed—people came out on wagon trains. When I’m flying across the country and traveling and looking at some of the land those people had to cross, you say, ‘How on earth did they do it?’ There were Indians, there were cowboys; I find the whole thing beautiful. What an outrageous history this country has! It’s beautiful, so I think it’s a shame we’ve forgotten our history.”
When asked if she would like saving the wild horses to be her legacy, Pickens replies, “It’s part of my life. Some people care very much about a legacy. I only care that I took care of my footprint. I’m sure that I’ll launch some other projects because I actually enjoy fixing things.”
Pickens says she found her John Wayne in husband Boone. Just don’t expect them to ride off into the sunset anytime soon. “We have a moral responsibility in life. Everybody has a footprint. Not just a carbon footprint, but the footprint of life,” Pickens says with conviction. “I feel I’ve got so much more to do.”
A Special Tribute to 1st Lt. Nathan M. Krissoff, USMC
Dr. Bill and Christine Krissoff, parents of Nathan, are local residents of Rancho Santa Fe and Del Mar Country Club salutes them. We are proud to call them our neighbors.
A Slick in the Night (Truth About the Mustangs)
July 29, 2010
A Slick In The Night
by Valerie James-Patton
We keep hearing the upsetting stories from our wild horse advocates living in Nevada near the BLM wild horse holding facilities about wild horses being hauled in the middle of the night and disappearing. We hear it often.
We’ve been told by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), that’s to prevent the horses from getting overheated during the high temperatures in the hot summer months, but that doesn’t fly when we hear of it happening during the cold winter months.
When numbers from BLM reports don’t add up, and large numbers of horses are missing from the charts, all those stories of night-time hauls come to mind.
Sure, it’s an old document from the past, telling how BLM escaped a grand jury trial over BLM’s decades long horse theft program, which was concluded to be so vast and wide spread throughout the BLM Wild Horse and Burro program that no one could be held accountable, but has anything changed? Or has BLM just gotten better at covering the trail of disappearing wild horses?
In a condensed version from 3 pages of testimony from the PEER report by a BLM informant in the horse theft program, he explains that, 50 head out of 65 horses would be reported at a location, the excess 15 horses would be transported to satellite ranches which are actually holding pens. The ranch receives money to hold the horses for a certain time until they’re picked up again. They may be hot-branded with different brands, or transported as “slicks”, meaning they have no brand at all. Most of them over a time period will go to the killers. Sometimes the horses are transported during working hours, but “most of the time it’s been at night, after the count’s been jimmied around. You strictly drive down to a certain location, open a gate and dump those horses in with a bunch of other horses. The BLM guy goes home around 4:30 and guys would load up the stolen horses, take them to satellite ranches and be back by the next morning for business as usual.”
Double-booking or black-booking is when more than one horse is branded with the same brand, and one set of legitimate paperwork is filled out to go with one horse, and depending on how many horses are wearing that same brand, a fake set of paperwork is made for them. “They are sold as legitimate horses, and sold within a week to sale barns or… The odds of you ever being checked are 100 to 1, and I’ve never seen a title on a wild horse.”
When asked if this was a pretty good organization, the informant replied that it’s very well set up, and “nobody that participates in it isn’t well known, and it can’t be done without the BLM guy standing right there.”
He further explained that “You can’t enforce a common practice that’s been going on for years and years. You can’t stop everybody that’s in it. You catch one guy, so there’s 50 more out there doing the same thing.”
The informant justified and summed up the operation by saying, “It’s not actually stealing in our way of looking at it. It’s just a way of life, you know. It’s been a common practice for numbers and numbers of years. There’s never been any paperwork ever required. If we wanted to trade horses, move horses, you know, it’s just a way of life. You’ve got ranchers out there that are paying the permit fees on grazing, and then they have a bunch of wild horses move in, they’re losing money because they’re paying for that grass. These wild horses come in and are eating up the grass, so sure they’re pissed off. It’s our job to disburse those horses, you know, so we do our best to get rid of as many as we can. I don’t really consider it stealing”.
But we do. And we currently have a large number of horses missing.
Flash forward to June/July 2010:
As we explained in our EWA press release, (7-27-2010), it appears we have at least 2,282 horses missing from the BLM wild horse holding facilities, and no rocket science is needed to add and subtract the numbers in the BLM population facility reports and compare those to horses removed from the range along with the reported deaths, adoptions and sales of the wild horses.
Even though there are questions on BLM’s math skills, it’s important to remember we’re not just questioning calculations on paper, but we’re questioning the lives of horses that have disappeared. There’s a huge problem taking place in BLM’s wild horse facilities and the horses removed from the range than just what paper work reveals, and much more than what BLM is willing to tell.
One can only wonder if they became “slicks” quietly hauled away in the night.
Even a rocket scientist adding the numbers up would not be able to give us an answer to that question.
Equine Welfare Alliance is an umbrella organization representing over 115 organizations and hundreds of individuals across the United States and several countries worldwide. SOURCE
Senator Landrieu- A Champion for Our Wild Horses
Thank you so much to Senator Mary Landrieu for writing this very informed and inspirational call to action for our beautiful wild horses. She is truly a leader in this cause and hopefully will be our champion in Congress for legislation and the suspension of these roundups!!
-Saving America’s Mustangs Foundation
Wild horses symbolize US freedom
By Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) - 07/28/10
The image of hundreds of wild horses freely roaming the open terrain in the American West is reminiscent of times past and our country’s trailblazing heritage. However, on July 10, the 200 wild horses galloping frantically across a breathtaking Nevada plain, with dust swirling around their sweaty bodies, were running in fear. With dry summer heat reaching 95 degrees, these horses were forced to run for miles over rough volcanic rock in an attempt to escape the government’s low-flying helicopter in pursuit. It is foaling season and many of the mares and foals were weak from their recent pregnancy or from giving birth.
The offending helicopter was part of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) effort to round-up and relocate 1,200 of our nation’s wild mustangs from this area. It is just one of dozens of planned roundups to permanently remove and relocate thousands of our wild horses.
The BLM states that the wild horse population is expanding rapidly, and it needs to relocate these animals to prevent the exhaustion of the region’s resources. The BLM has been stating this for more than a decade now, but has yet to implement a sound management plan. In 1971, when the National Wild Horse and Burro Program was created, there were 54 million acres for wild horse and burros. Now, only 27 acres remain. And in every year since the BLM was entrusted with this program, populations have exceeded the agency’s appropriate management level by thousands of animals, reaching over 60,000 at one point. Enough is enough. It is time to find a more effective management plan for these horses that does not result in the careless death of so many.
As a result of the July 10 and July 11 roundups, 13 mustangs died. Although horse advocates fought for a suspension of the roundups, their efforts were overruled and they continued the next weekend. The death toll now stands at 17.
The bloody tale of the recent roundups in Nevada is not unique. Last winter, during the 40-day BLM Calico Hills Roundup, the government captured 1,800 horses and about 80 died, some during the roundup and others at the holding facilities. Additionally, dozens of pregnant mares suffered miscarriages.
A report issued in April 2010 by the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign found 43 percent of the deaths that resulted from the winter Calico roundup were due to diet and metabolic failure that was brought on by stress and trauma.
Currently, more than 32,000 horses have already been removed from the ranges and are being forced into overcrowded and inhumane holding facilities. Not only is this not a safe or desirable solution for the animals, but also it is costing the American taxpayers more than $30 million a year. There are an estimated 37,000 mustangs and burros that live in our Western states. We now have nearly that amount in custody, and the BLM plans to remove an additional 12,000 wild horses from the ranges at a cost of millions to the American taxpayer.
The actions of the BLM are contrary to The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971’s original intent to manage the wild horses and burros in their natural state and to protect them from capture and harassment. I have repeatedly called for an end to these roundups until a more humane and cost-effective solution has been put in place. The Obama administration should be ashamed that this is happening under its watch.
Congress took an important step forward last year when the Interior Appropriations Bill, at my request, directed the BLM to develop a new comprehensive long-term plan for wild horse populations by September 30. I was joined by Congressmen Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) in writing to Director Bob Abbey of the BLM urging a moratorium on the roundups that have caused so many horses unnecessary pain and suffering. We are making long-overdue progress, but more must be done.
The wild mustangs are living symbols of our country’s history and pioneering spirit. Anyone who has had the privilege of watching a wild herd graze freely and calmly understands what majestic animals these wild mustangs truly are. It is hard to fathom that hundreds of our wild horses have died at the hands of the federal agency entrusted to protect them. I will continue to urge the BLM to stop the inhumane roundups and work to find a better legislative solution. Letting the death toll of America’s mustangs continue to rise is simply not an option.
Sen. Landrieu is the senior senator from Louisiana.
GET ON BOARD MADELEINE’S PONY EXPRESS- Deadline September 1st
Dear Friends, Supporters, and Future Supporters,
We have heard you voice your complaints about the roundups.
We have listened to you share so many of your personal stories about your own adopted mustangs.
We have all sent thousands of letters via fax, email, and mail to our Government. Even calling phone lines that have since been unplugged, because of the high volume of calls from supporters.
We are doing all of these things daily, but there still has been NOchange.
It’s time for the PONY EXPRESS!!!
I will personally hand deliver each and every letter that you write, via the Pony Express (one of our beautiful mustangs), to Washington DC. I am setting a goal of 20,000 individual letters to take with me. Americans, International supporters, animal activists, anyone who would like to tell President Obama, Secretary Salazar, and Bob Abbey that we aren’t going to sit by waiting until these roundups are over is encouraged to write. This is a very important issue to hundreds of thousands of people that have pleaded with our government to stop gathering our wild horses. This way they cannot unplug their phones, make their website impossible to send a comment to, or delete emails. These are GOING to get to Washington. I promise you that!
For the millions of people who are unaware of the roundup process, here it is: The Bureau of Land Management, a branch of the Department of the Interior, has scheduled the removal of America’s wild horses and are attempting to change the grazing rights to be cattle only on the BLM managed land, which leave our wild horses homeless. 100 years ago there were 2 million horses. Now, because of these roundups, there are only 30,000 left. They contract low-flying helicopters to taunt and scare the mustangs, separating them from their families, and eventually coerced into tiny pens. The mustangs are then taken off to holding facilities where they no longer have room to roam anymore. They will be moved to a short-term holding facility for up to three years if not adopted out or sold to a buyer that intends on using the wild horse for slaughter.
Deadline: September 1, 2010
This gives us ONE month to get 20,000 letters in hand to bring to our Nation’s Capital. You can find more information about the BLM and the roundups in the News and Events Section on this website. Please click the button below. By clicking that button, you will send your letter to our government, but also a copy directly to our Saving America’s Mustangs office; where we will print them, put them in envelopes, and hand-deliver to Washington. Every letter counts! Please forward this link to all of your contacts so that we can make this Pony Express as huge as HUMANLY possible. (Or HUMANELY possible on behalf of our majestic, wild horses)
Very Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens
Please Click this button to Get on Board the Pony Express!!!
Please Act Today: MAIL a Letter to the BLM by August 3rd! Click for Details
Please Act Today! One Week to Send a Letter To
Help Create Change for Wild Horses & Burros
Obama Administration Asks For Public Comments on Reforming Wild Horse Program and Refuses To Accept Public Comments Via Email - Please Mail Your Letter Today! Every Letter Counts!
Despite the Obama Administration’s claims that it wants to encourage greater public participation in government, this Administration is creating obstacles for Americans to submit comments on the Wild Horse & Burro program. The Department of Interior released its “Wild Horse & Burro Strategy Development Document” which outlines the Obama Administration’s direction for the program.
Instead of making it easier for Americans to submit comments, President Obama’s Interior Secretary has actually eliminated the public’s ability to submit comments via the traditional e-mail and fax methods – we are forced to submit comments in one of two ways: (1) U.S. postal service or (2) online with SPECIFIC directions below. We have received numerous complaints that people using the online software have had their comments deleted and lost.
Therefore, we urge you to mail a letter today to the BLM. Also, be sure to sign any local organizations you may represent. Please forward this to other likeminded individuals that would like to send a letter before the August 3rd deadline as well. The address to mail the letter is:
Wild Horse & Burro Strategy
BLM Washington Office
1849 C Street NW, Rm. 5665
Washington DC 20240
Public comments must be received No later than August 3, 2010 – so please be sure to print the letter, sign and mail it today! Don’t delay – please don’t let the Interior Department’s attempt to thwart public participation in this important comment period succeed.
What you can do if you would like to send the BLM a letter of your own:
Here are a few points to make:
The BLM must place an immediate moratorium on removing horses from the range except in emergency situations (i.e. severe droughts and other natural catastrophes)
It’s time for the BLM to initiate an aggressive sterilization program using immunocontraception [link] to stabilize and manage wild horse herds in a humane, effective, cost-beneficial manner.
The BLM must honor its previous commitment to care for these animals and work with organizations and agencies to develop humane, sustainable programs for managing these animals on the range and in holding centers.
Viable populations of wild horses and burros should be allowed to roam free on our public lands, and if need be, managed using humane, long-term, cost-beneficial methods, such as immunocontraception.
How to submit your comments:
The BLM is only accepting comments via a form on its website. It will take a few steps to submit your comments, but it is essential that your voice be heard. Follow these steps:
2. Click on this text (in blue) near the top center of the page: “Click Here to Submit Comments.”
3. A new page will open.
Type your comments in the text box (you can ignore the Selected Content and Comment Title sections).
When you’re finished, click “Add Comment”
4. The page will appear again.
The text box will be blank, but the “Comments” section at the bottom will show the number “1” under “Comment id.”
Click the “Next” button on the bottom right.
5. Fill in your personal information and click “Next.“6. Review your submission, and click “Submit” at the bottom right. A “Submission Successful” page will appear.
You can also use this prewritten letter as a template. Just copy and paste the text below into a Word Document:
Wild Horse & Burro Strategy Document
BLM Washington Office
1849 C Street NW, Rm. 5665
Washington DC 20240
July , 2010
To whom it may concern:
Following are my comments on the Department of Interior’s “Wild Horse & Burro Strategy Development Document.” As per the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) announcement on June 14, 2010 in Denver, Colorado, these comments are being submitted via the BLM’s Washington office. The Denver meeting was touted as a means to open public dialogue on the BLM’s management of the Wild Horse and Burro Program, yet since that meeting there has been no response to the overwhelming public opposition to the Bureau’s actions. If the BLM is sincere in its desire to work with the public, a moratorium on roundups must be effectuated in order to develop a sustainable program that manages horses and burros on the range.
I am disappointed with the Obama Administration’s policy of pursuing the same ill-conceived Bush-Administration policies that remove wild horses from our public lands at an unprecedented pace. Despite Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s admission that this policy is unsustainable, the Administration is in the process of removing 6,000 additional wild horses and burros before the end of October 2010. This Administration has conducted little to no management of wild horses and burros on the range and has consistently rounded up, removed and warehoused horses at the expense of taxpayers and wild horses. As a result, for the first time in history, there are more wild horses warehoused in government holding facilities than free on the range. Below are my comments on the Strategy Document.
TOPIC: Treasured Herds
Every herd is treasured; I oppose how the BLM is interpreting the term because it involves manipulation and micromanagement. Congress already determined that every herd is treasured.
TOPIC: Preserves
- I urge an immediate moratorium on roundups to prevent creating need for more preserves.
- Preserves must not replace on-the-range management and should only be used to phase out long- and short-term holding.
- I support using the authority the BLM always had to re-establish horses in zeroed-out HAs and HMAs.
- I support commitment to not killing horses deemed “excess” and “unadoptable.”
- Preserves should only be located in western states.
- Preserves must strive to maintain the social integrity of wild horse herds, allowing horses to live in more natural conditions instead of the current imposition of domestic conditions on horses who are still designated as “wild” under the law.
- Support private-public partnerships, but BLM must immediately pursue Soldier Meadows, Winecup Gamble, Madeleine Pickens and similar proposal now on the table to reduce long- and short-term holding.
TOPIC: Sustainable Herds
- The concept of sustainable herds is based on the arbitrary AML system which is based on unfair allocation practices and incomplete, faulty range data by BLM’s own admission.
- I urge an immediate moratorium on roundups until a sustainable, solid plan is established.
- Only if proven necessary, I support fertility control with caveats.
- I oppose castration and spaying of horses and non-reproducing herds on the range.
- I oppose utilizing sex ratios to manage herds.
- I support increasing available forage through livestock allotment conversion to wild horses.
TOPIC: Adoptions
- I oppose reducing adoption requirements.
- Adoption programs should not be modified to accommodate financial incentives.
- I support exceptions can be made for international adoption only with bonafide humane association with authority to guarantee well being of horses.
- I oppose BLM’s double standard of care requirements for adopters and short-term facilities.
TOPIC: Animal Welfare
- BLM must have complete transparency; I strongly object to the lack of transparency and support equal opportunity for all to participate - not only those invited by the BML, but for all public members to participate in internal BLM meetings, public observations and be given access to information.
- Interested members of the public must be allowed at all aspects of range monitoring, aerial counts, roundups and all holding facilities - must not be limited to specific individuals or organizations – must be representational and fair.
TOPIC: Science and Research
- Currently the BLM does not have the science or research needed to manage this program; BLM acknowledges it’s lacking in this area.
- All gathering of information/data (i.e. census, etc) must be done with independent public observers or utilizing video technology to provide documentation to the public.
- A National Academy of Science (NAS) report must make a fresh and comprehensive review of the foundation of the BLM’s program – beginning with the scientific/legal basis for the establishment of Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs), the utilization of on-the-range management options, the environmental assessment process, operations of BLM as a whole and by field office, etc.
This Strategy Document is based on a flawed foundation given that the Salazar initiative does not represent the fundamental reform that is needed. While I agree with portions of the initiative, it is premature to forward to Congress. Actions speak louder than words. BLM talks about change, but actions suggest business as usual:
o 6,000 horses scheduled for roundup and removal before the end of October. Deepening the fiscal black hole.
o Proposals on the table offering a new direction and cost-effective solutions. Bob Abbey invites proposals from the public then ignores them.
o National office talks reform; field offices continue business as usual policies.
I urge the BLM to immediately place a moratorium on roundups and schedule public hearings to create a program that protects and manages horses on the range, rather than warehousing them in government holding facilities.
After you’ve printed, signed and mailed your letter, please click here to TAKE ACTION with telling President Obama to suspend the summer roundups!
George Knapp’s Article: They Execute Horses, Don’t They?
They execute horses, don’t they?
by GEORGE KNAPP
Las Vegas City Life Magazine
It would not be much of a surprise if the Bureau of Land Management decides to hold its next wild-horse roundup out at the super-secret Area 51 military facility, maybe down in the underground bunkers where they keep the corpses of extraterrestrials. The way it looks, BLM has decided to turn the mustangs into a black program, a classified, off-limits, shadowy mystery, something no one in the government can talk about and no one in the civilian world can access.
An exaggeration? Not by much. In previous years, horse roundups could be viewed by just about anyone so long as the observers didn’t interfere. After all, the mustangs belong to the American public, the ranges where they live are public property, and the millions of dollars spent each year to capture and corral the animals are all taxpayer dollars. So why wouldn’t the public have a right to see what’s going on?
Because BLM doesn’t want you to, that’s why.
Over the past few years, BLM has tightened the screws on its roundups, making it more difficult for both the press and the general public to keep an eye on what unfolds during these inherently violent operations. Apparently, the feds are tired of being eviscerated for their actions. Every time one of their hired wranglers is shown kicking a young colt, and every time a band of horses nearly collapses after being driven in terror by roaring helicopter blades over miles of rough terrain, BLM gets pummeled by an angry, horse-loving public. Who needs that?
BLM tried out its new strategy during the disastrous Calico Hills roundup last winter. The bureau went ahead with the operation even though horse experts warned it was a bad idea to drive horses for miles and miles over snow-covered volcanic rocks and in the coldest time of the year. BLM went forward anyway, and to keep prying eyes to a minimum, it found the only private land inside a half-million acre ocean of public range. That’s the spot that became Roundup HQ. By putting most of the central operations on private property, BLM had total control of who was allowed to enter, and when. It made a point of inviting lots of cattle-friendly, pro-hunter emissaries to join the festivities, along with a small assortment of mainstream journalists and a few horse advocates. But still, BLM called the shots and put limits on which days would be available for observers.
The fact that the Calico roundup turned into the bloodiest in memory is not lost on BLM. Most of the 100-plus horses that died didn’t keel over at the gather site. Rather, they died slower deaths at a holding facility BLM had authorized near Fallon. And, wouldn’t you know it, that facility was also constructed on private land, which means BLM (through the land owner/contractor) can control access to the horses 24/7, which is exactly what it has done. Before they were barred, horse advocates subsequently found dozens of mustangs with horrible wounds, inadequate food and water, and hooves that fell off from being run too hard. After a smattering of those stories hit the media, BLM decided it had enough. The Fallon corral is now completely off limits to everyone except BLM.
The privatization of the wild horse program has reached its zenith with the roundup now underway in Northern Nevada. BLM announced at the beginning that it planned to close off public access to the public lands where the horses live. This was done “for the good of the horses,” of course, and has nothing to do with BLM wanting to limit the bad press it gets every time one of its roundups results in the agonizing deaths of beautiful mustangs.
BLM can perhaps teach its fellow three-letter agency, the CIA, a thing or two about subterfuge. The current roundup in Northern Nevada is sort of a natural evolution of BLM’s spycraft tendencies. The bureau announced a few weeks ago that public lands in the vicinity of the Owyhee range would be off limits while the roundup was underway. BLM even declared air space over Owyhee would be closed to all traffic. Whether or not the bureau even has the authority to pull something like this is a question that needs to be answered in court one of these days, but shutting out the public from public lands with only the vaguest justification is pretty serious stuff. The last time I checked, BLM employees work for the taxpayers. The contractor who will be paid roughly a million dollars for the roundup is also working for the American taxpayer, but we’re not supposed to be able to see what they do? What the heck is the big secret out there in the high desert?
My own suspicion is that BLM doesn’t want to see video of any dead horses on the evening news. See, there were no dead horses on the Owyhee range, not until BLM started driving them like a bat out of hell across the desert. Once the horses started dying, BLM went to court and declared that the routine roundup, which had been in the planning stages for more than a year, is now an emergency rescue. Without BLM’s quick action, 75 percent of the horses would die horrible deaths, the agency claimed. But whatever emergency exists is there because of BLM’s own incompetence. Plus, it seems to spend more of its time trying to outwit horse advocates than taking care of the land.
The final move is a doozie. After horse advocates went back to federal court last week and got a judge to order BLM to allow for outside observers, BLM pulled yet another fast one. The entire Owyhee gather operation was again put onto private land, and BLM then lifted the ban on visitors to the public range. How magnanimous. Except the horse people who tried to find the private ranch were not only given the runaround but were repeatedly warned that if they crossed onto the private property, they would be arrested. Sheriff’s deputies followed them wherever they roamed. This is heavy-handed, totally unnecessary bullshit, exactly what BLM has been doing over the past several years.
The public pays for those roundups, it pays BLM salaries, and it pays for the management of the public ranges. We have every right to be out there to watch what BLM is doing with our money and with the horses. Whether you care about wild horses or not, those are your dollars being spent.
Of the 600-plus horses captured this week, BLM admits 21 have died so far. Of course, we don’t know what the real numbers are. We’ll just have to take BLM’s word for it.
George Knapp is a Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter for KLAS-TV Channel 8. You can reach him at gknapp@klastv.com
VIDEO: Thom Hartmann Radio Show Interview July 22nd
Dear Friends,
Here is the video of Jerry Reynoldson and I chatting live with Thom Hartmann, July 22nd, on his radio show.
xo, Madeleine
ELKO COUNTY, Nev.—A wild horse roundup in northern Nevada has ended, for now. Phase one of the Tuscarora Gather captured 636 horses, but 21 mustangs died during the operation, mostly from a combination of stress, heat, and dehydration.
Now, the Bureau of Land Management is ready to start phase two of the roundup, unless wild horse advocates once again head to federal court.
BLM now says this was an emergency rescue, not a routine roundup, though there was no emergency, and no dead horses, until the roundup started. Critics ask why couldn’t this wait for a month or so, until the horses could be watered and the temperatures weren’t so hot?
One reason is the BLM’s contractor, Sue Cattour, who is being paid more than $1 million, is already booked up later in the year. Also, a delayed gather might be easier on the horses, but could interfere with deer hunting season.
Either way, BLM is ready to spring into action again, though horse advocates might try to stop it.
In the high desert of Elko County, water is precious, but not that hard to find. The Chimney Reservoir located in one of the two herd areas next on BLM’s list was spotted by wild horse advocates Laura Leigh and Elyse Gardner as they flew over the range with the I-Team.
Will BLM argue there isn’t enough water here for wild horses, as it did in the Owyhee area? A roundup there caused 21 mustangs to die, so far.
During a hearing in federal court, Nevada wild horse boss Alan Shepard testified that water in Owyhee was limited, that none of it was fenced off from the horses, and that there were no cows on the range, statements which could cause problems later.
For instance, the sprawling desert ranch reservoir is in Owyhee. But, BLM says, while it is on public land, the water is privately owned. That’s why there are fences around it, though the fence has a few gates for access.
Horse advocates say the main reason horses can’t get to water out here is the BLM has allowed ranchers to fence off many of the water sources on public land.
The overall message is, there is water, just not for horses.
Prior to the flight, we mapped out a course with pilot Matt Jahnke to make sure we would be flying over Rock Creek and Little Humboldt, the next targets on the roundup list. Once in the air, it became clear there is a lot of water and greenery in these herd areas. The landscape is punctuated by small creeks and ponds.
There are barren areas as well, and if someone wanted to paint a bleak picture, it would be easy enough to edit out the good stuff. Photos released by BLM of dried up water sources in Owyhee are authentic, but hardly accurate since they don’t paint the total picture.
Laura Leigh scouted Owyhee prior to the roundup, saw plenty of water, lots of fences, and, not surprisingly, cows everywhere.
“We didn’t see any horses. We saw a lot of cows,” she said.
And that’s what we saw from the air—lots of cows. Everywhere there was water, there were cows. We also saw bands of horses, running across pastures, kicking up clouds of dust on desert trails. It’s hard to tell from the air, but they didn’t look like the were dying.
The BLM says the public range can support around 4,000 cattle but only 400 or so horses. The Bureau vehemently denies it is removing horses to benefit cows, but the fact is, the two do compete for resources. BLM will allow the cows to remain in the herd areas, but the horses must go.
“We saw multiples of cows and water. I saw horses today, but not a quarter as many as cows. You see cows hanging around almost every water source,” said Elyse Gardner.
Critics have good reason to doubt BLM’s recent characterization of the Owyhee Gather as an emergency resource. The roundup was original scheduled for last year, but BLM surveyed the land and horses and found both in good shape, such good shape that they re-authorized cattle grazing and then put off the gather for a year.
In a film produced by BLM, the agency acknowledged some water holes in Owyhee would run dry by this June. If the water holes would be dry in June, why does BLM wait until the heat of mid-July to start its roundup, critics ask?
BLM news releases never characterized the gather as an emergency. There were no dead horses at all, not until contractor Sue Cattour started running the mustangs over many miles and saw them die in her corral. Only then did it become an emergency. If it really has been monitoring horses and the land, how did BLM not know what would happen?
“If it’s an emergency gather as they’re claiming, where they are going from zero dead to 75-percent of the herd dead in three days, that’s another indication something is not right here,” said Leigh.
Horse advocates point to a massive gold mine right next to the herd areas. It uses millions of gallons of water every day, suggesting there is enough water that BLM could drill a well and supply the horses, at least through the rough spell, and then remove them later when it is safer.
Cattour doesn’t like that idea. She says the horse advocates are to blame for recent deaths because they delayed the roundup for a few days by going to court. Cattour thinks the press and public should back off the BLM and let it do its job without so much scrutiny.
Rare Performance with S.A.M. Advisory Board Member, Henry Kapono 7/24
We are pleased to announce that our good friend and Saving America’s Mustangs Advisory Board Member, Henry Kapono, is playing a rare acoustic performance this Saturday, July 24th. Tune into the CW Network at 8pm to watch.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to see a truly amazing performer.
Madeleine Pickens will be on the Thom Hartmann National Radio Show Today, July 22
Dear Friends and Supporters,
I’ll be streaming live with Thom Hartmann today at 11am Pacific Standard Time. Please listen to this national broadcast as I’ll discuss the roundups, my sanctuary plan, and how the American people can help solve this issue.
NATIONAL
4DTV Digital Satellite G0891-G0895
Nationwide
Sirius Satellite Radio 146
Nationwide MF 12-1P & 1A-3A
Repeat 2P-5P
XM Satellite Radio 167
Nationwide MF 3P-6P
Plus 3A-6A
Washington Post Article: Tuscarora Roundup of Wild Horses in Need of Water Resumes
Nevada roundup of wild horses in need of water resumes
By Martin Griffith
Monday, July 19, 2010; A13
RENO, NEV.—Federal land managers have removed about 250 more wild horses from a Nevada range after a judge allowed a controversial roundup of the animals to resume.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Doran Sanchez said the roundup in northern Elko County resumed shortly after U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks rescinded a temporary restraining order on Friday.
The judge took the action at the request of the agency, which said that more than 500 horses could die of dehydration within a week if the roundup didn’t continue.
Horse advocates had sought to halt the roundup, saying it was inhumane to herd the animals by helicopter to trapping sites in the hot summer weather.
The BLM suspended the roundup the previous weekend when seven horses died of dehydration and water intoxication after being herded on the first day of the roundup.
The BLM reported four more deaths Saturday, bringing to 17 the number that have died since the roundup began. The agency has blamed 13 of the deaths on a lack of water on the range and not the roundup. Three other horses were put down because of physical deformities, Sanchez said, and another because of a broken leg.
BLM officials said most of the 246 horses gathered Friday and Saturday were being treated for dehydration and water starvation, as were 228 horses collected last weekend.
But officials said they were encouraged because other mustangs rounded up Saturday appeared to be in better condition as a result of more than 30,000 gallons of water that has been hauled to the roundup area by the agency.
“We’re surmising it’s a direct result that they’re starting to use water we’re putting out for them,” Sanchez said. “But we anticipate there are 300 more animals out there in potential serious situations resulting from a lack of water.”
In his ruling, Hicks also ordered the BLM to provide reasonable access to the roundup to horse advocate and author Laura Leigh of Minden, who sought the temporary restraining order to halt the operation.
But the agency denied Leigh and other activists access to the roundup Saturday by staging it on private property, said Anne Novak of the horse advocacy group Cloud Foundation, based in Colorado.
“Obviously, the BLM wants to prevent the public from seeing the baby horses and older horses killed as a result of the roundup,” she said. “This censorship needs to stop.”
Sanchez said that the trapping sites are on private property and that the landowner doesn’t want the public on his property.
“They can’t trespass on there, so we identified a couple of observation areas so they can kind of see what’s going on, but they can’t get to the trap sites or holding areas,” Sanchez said.
The 574 horses that have been collected are among up to 1,200 mustangs the BLM intends to remove from the range in the area. The BLM plans to make them available for adoption or send them to long-term holding facilities in the Midwest.
BLM officials say the roundups are necessary because the mustang population is growing so rapidly that the animals are running out of food and harming the range and native wildlife. Activists say the agency is removing the horses to make room for livestock grazing and energy interests.
BLM managers estimate that 38,000 mustangs and burros roam 10 Western states, and half are in Nevada. The agency is in the process of removing about 12,000 animals to reduce the number to what it considers an appropriate management level. —Associated Press
Powerful New Video Trailer- Disappointment Valley- A Modern Day Western
Please watch this video by Director, James Kleinert and repost this link to all your friends and contacts!! Well-known horse advocates from all around took the time to speak in the video. This is groundbreaking for the plight of the mustangs. Surely the start to something huge for the American people and their national treasures!!
Article: Plaintiff in Lawsuit Shunned by the BLM- Told She’s Not Welcome
Plaintiff in Lawsuit Shunned by BLM – Told She’s Not Welcome
By Vicki Tobin, Special to Horseback Magazine
July 18, 2010
Published with permission of Horseback Magazine
CHICAGO, - Despite Judge Hick’s order on Friday, July 16, equine advocate, Laura Leigh, was denied access to the trap site for the Owyhee round up, one of three herd areas comprising the Tuscarora round-up. When questioned, the authorities responded that she was not on the list.
Reno federal Judge Larry Hicks entered an order stating; “As to Leigh’s First Amendment challenge to the closure of public lands during the gather, the court shall grant Leigh’s temporary restraining order. Leigh argues that a blanket closure of 27,000 acres of public land on which the Tuscarora Gather is going to take place is a prior restraint on her First Amendment rights because she will be unable to observe and report on the health of the horses and the BLM’s management of the gather. The court agrees [and]… finds that the blanket closure … is unconstitutional”.
The BLM can, however, draft a “more reasonable closure.”
“The court’s order in no way [a]ffects the BLM’s closure of the airspace above the 27,000 acres of public land. The court finds the closure of airspace to be constitutional and necessary.”
Ms. Leigh also noted and photographed water holes that are fenced off by livestock ranchers, denying access to the horses. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) claims the horses are being removed because of lack of water. Only horses are being removed and not other wildlife or livestock.
This is not the first time the BLM has ignored a judge or the intent of the law of the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act. As reported by American Herds, the BLM is moving forward with a round-up despite federal judge, Rosemary Collyer’s ruling that the BLM overstepped their authority by issuing a zero number of horses as the management level for the West Douglas herd in Colorado. During the Calico law suit, Judge Friedman indicated that holding horses off the range is likely illegal. The BLM moved forward with the Calico round-up that resulted in over 150 deaths and over 1,800 horses that have lost their freedom on the ranges granted to them by law.
Wildlife ecologists and researchers estimate there are at best, 20,000 horses that remain free roaming. Advocates continue to ask if the ranges cannot sustain 20,000 horses how they can sustain millions of privately owned livestock. A complaint was recently filed by The Center for Biological Diversity and several other groups asking that the tax payer subsidized livestock be removed from public lands. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) reports have shown the damage to our public lands is a result of over grazing of livestock, not horses.
Laura Leigh possesses press credentials for Horseback Magazine and is also representing Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA), Grass Roots Horse, Herd Watch, a Cloud Foundation program and author RT Fitch that provides a daily blog of wild horse and burro information and information on efforts to end the slaughter of American horses.
Field updates are being communicated through RT Fitch and EWA.
VIDEO: KUSI News - San Diego Interview with Madeleine Pickens and Sandra Maas
This morning I was on Sandra Maas and Dan Plante’s show, KUSI’s Good Morning San Diego. Please continue to write letters to your state officials, President Obama, Secretary Salazar. I really appreciate your continued support for America’s mustangs!
Thank you,
Madeleine
*NEW* Press Release Sent Out by the BLM Today, July 14th.
Dear Friends,
This just in from the BLM!
The BLM has realized that we’re not going to stand by and see our beautiful horses and foals just die from these roundups. This past weekend, on July 10th, in the blazing heat of the desert, the BLM went along with their planned roundup of 1,100 wild mustangs, days after foaling season. They have just submitted this press release this afternoon regarding the 10 horses that have died of dehydration and heat exhaustion. They have finally made the decision to haul in gallons of water for these horses. This comes after they originally acknowledged that water sources were scarce and expressed concern about the welfare of the horses if left on the range. What would have been wrong with just postponing the gather when they recognized there was a shortage of water? Either way, there will no doubt be more deaths if they resume this gather in a few days. Remember, they also said that the horses were in very good condition, 4 to 5’s. This is just pure nonsense when you look at what is happening. The BLM is dramatically altering these horses’ day to day routines and the mares and foals are not strong enough to be put in these stressful conditions. These roundups need to be suspended and if they are not, it will result in more needless deaths. These horses belong to the American people, not the BLM. It is obvious that the BLM still does not listen to the wishes of the American people. These roundups are all happening behind closed doors. The American people, humane observers, and wild horse advocates
have been denied access to these gathers under the guise of conducting them on private lands. How long will the government continue to ignore the wishes or millions of people who want to preserve and protect these wild horses. As long as there is no transparency, we will be blinded.
It’s still amazing to me that after yesterday’s press release, the millions of viewers watching about the roundups, and thousands of people sending letters to President Obama and Secretary Salazar that we still are not being heard by the government.
We cannot be ignored any longer! We ALL need to write more letters and step up the efforts to push for a summer moratorium on gathers. We already got the ball rolling by creating a letter to President Obama and Secretary Salazar. Send that, send others, get the word out, tell everyone you know. This will be stopped, but we need YOUR help! How many more wild horses have to die before we get this right?
We are the voice of the wild horses, let’s be LOUD!!!!
Sincerely,
Madeleine
BLM Nevada News
NEVADA STATE OFFICE No. 2010-025
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT For immediate release: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Contact: Heather Emmons, 775-861-6594, heather_emmons@blm.gov; JoLynn Worley, 775-861-6515, jolynn_worley@blm.gov
BLM Takes Emergency Actions to Provide Water to Wild Horses
Reno , Nev. — Due to escalating drought conditions, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has implemented emergency actions to provide water to wild horses within the Tuscarora gather area, which encompasses the Owyhee, Rock Creek, and Little Humboldt Herd Management Areas (HMAs) located in northern Elko County , Nev.
The BLM gather contractor conducted an aerial flyover of the Owyhee HMA at 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, July 13, and located two large groups of wild horses: the Dry Creek group consisting of approximately 125 wild horses; and the Star Ridge group consisting of approximately 400 animals.
The Star Ridge group is located around a dry reservoir and making no attempt to move to the nearest water source located approximately 10 miles away at the South Fork Owyhee River . The animals are considered at risk of dying from complications of water starvation/dehydration. While some of the Dry Creek group has recently watered, the BLM remains concerned and will continue to monitor the group.
“BLM Nevada considers this an emergency situation,” said Ron Wenker, BLM Nevada State Director. “Yesterday afternoon the BLM implemented a short-term emergency strategy to provide the animals water during the next four to five days in an effort to stabilize their health condition.”
The BLM installed six water troughs with a combined capacity of 3,000 gallons near and around a reservoir located about two to three miles from where the Star Ridge group is located, and used a water tanker to fill the troughs. If the wild horses do not independently travel to this water, the BLM will assess having the gather contractor use his helicopter to gently and slowly guide the animals toward the water with the hope that they will drink.
“A large number of these excess wild horses could die if they are not gathered,”
added Wenker. “Therefore, BLM Nevada’s goal is to gather these animals within four to five days after stabilizing their immediate water starved condition.”
The BLM cannot sustain this level of support to provide water to the animals
over the long-term because of the limited road access and the poor condition of
roads in this area. This drought condition scenario was considered and analyzed
by the BLM in the environmental assessment prepared for the gather.
The BLM also has organized a review team consisting of BLM and independent
experts to analyze the on-the-ground conditions of wild horses and the public
rangelands. Team members include Mike Mottice, BLM Oregon/Washington Associate
State Director (Team Leader); Tom Pogacnik, BLM California Deputy State
Director, Natural Resources; Dr. Boyd Spratling DVM & BLM’s National Wild Horse
Advisory Board; Eric Reid, Wild Horse/Burro Specialist, Fillmore , Utah ; Dr.
Klell Ekins, Equine DVM; and Robin Lohnes, American Horse Protection Association
& BLM National Wild Horse Advisory Board.
BLM Nevada has been coordinating closely with Review Team members regarding the
current drought conditions and related impacts on the wild horses. The Team
currently is in Nevada and will be assessing overall gather operations. The
Team will develop a report and provide recommendations to the BLM Director as to
if and/or when planned gather operations should be resumed, and under what
conditions.
The BLM continues to provide food, water and veterinary care for the 216 wild
horses in the on-site temporary holding corrals. No wild horses died on Tuesday
and the health conditions of the animals appear to be stabilizing. Given the
overall improvement of the condition of the animals that were gathered last
Saturday, the BLM today shipped three truckloads with 88 mares and 41 foals
(129) to the Palomino Valley Center (PVC) regional adoption facility, located 20
miles north of Sparks , Nev.
The BLM initiated gather operations on Saturday, July 10, and gathered 228
excess wild horses. To date, eleven horses have died from complications related
to water starvation/dehydration or subsequent water intoxication. Based on
necropsies of the dead horses by the on-site veterinarian, the BLM has
determined the mortalities were a direct result of a lack of water in the
immediate areas occupied by the horses. One horse was euthanized shortly after
being gathered due to a fractured leg that occurred in the temporary holding
corrals.
As more information becomes available it will be posted at the website:
http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/elko_field_office/blm_programs/wild_horse_and_burro/owyhee_rock_creek.html.
For further comments and questions, the public may call 1-866-468-7826.
-BLM-
Upcoming Interview on KUSI Good Morning San Diego on Friday
Dear Friends and Supporters,
I will be on the KUSI News Good Morning San Diego show again this Friday, July 16th at 7:20am. Please watch as I’ll discuss my plan for sanctuary, what legislation we need, and about suspending the BLM summer roundups!
Thanks!!
Madeleine
Past interview with KUSI:
VIDEO: Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell - CNN HLN- Horse Roundups Because of Pipeline?
Dear Friends,
I was a guest on Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell on July 13th. HLN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell investigates a report claiming that horses are being rounded up as part of a pipeline project. We are the voices of the horses, let’s be LOUD!!!
Please click on the image above to watch the video.
First major wild horse roundup of summer proves deadly; critics claim Department of Interior’s public access restrictions censor truth about government wild horse program
Madeleine Pickens and wild horse coalition call for suspension of all summer roundups, full transparency in agency operations
(July 13, 2010) Philanthropist and businesswoman Madeleine Pickens was joined today by the million-member ASPCA, the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, and many other organizations expressing their outrage over the deaths of at least seven mustangs in a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) roundup conducted Saturday in the Owyhee Complex in northeastern Nevada. The wild horses died of dehydration-related causes—including brain swelling, colic and acute water intoxication – as a result of being stampeded by helicopters for up to eight miles in 90+ degree desert heat.
In a sign on letter addressed to President Obama and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Mrs. Pickens and the groups also harshly criticized the agency for cracking down on public access to observe and videotape roundup operations. The advocates released footage of a BLM representative stating publicly that public video of a prior roundup caused the agency to have “a really hard time trying to explain what’s happening.”
“The BLM simply does not want the American people to see what its wrongheaded policies are doing to our mustangs,” said Mrs. Pickens. “The horrific deaths of Owyhee horses recall the tragedy earlier this year in Nevada’s Calico Complex, where over 100 wild horses lost their lives and dozens of mares spontaneously aborted their late term foals in another deadly roundup.”
“We are calling on the President and Secretary Salazar to immediately instruct the BLM to suspend all summer roundups to avoid a repeat of the tragedy at Owyhee,” Mrs. Pickens continued. “The entire wild horse program must be fundamentally reformed. America’s mustangs are still waiting for change.”
Over the next four months, the BLM intends to capture and remove 6,000 wild horse and burros from six Western states. At least half of these roundups are scheduled to take place in desert environments in the hot summer months. Public access to observe the roundup operations will be severely limited to a handful of staged opportunities, with broader access given to small number of handpicked “experts.”
The crackdown on public observation comes in the wake of public outrage and international media coverage of the Calico roundup, which ended in February. The controversy was fueled by release of photographs and video showing of wild horses, including young foals, heavily pregnant mares and older horses, being forcefully driven by helicopter out of the mountains of Nevada and into BLM trap pens.
“The BLM’s crackdown on public observation of roundup activities is unacceptable, and makes a mockery of President Obama’s stated commitment to open government and transparency in government operations,” added Suzanne Roy, Campaign Director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, whose grassroots efforts are endorsed by a coalition of more than 40 horse advocacy, animal welfare, conservation and historic preservation organizations.
The BLM wild horse program has been harshly criticized for its lack of fiscal sustainability. The agency now stockpiles more wild horses in government holding pens and pastures (36,000+) than are left on the range (less than 33,000). The cost to taxpayers for this program is expected to exceed $70 million next fiscal year.
Wild horses comprise a small fraction of grazing animals on public lands, where they are outnumbered by livestock nearly 50 to 1.
# # #
Send President Obama this pre-written letter to show your support!
Deadly Summer Roundup- 7 Horses Die from Dehydration in the BLM Tuscarora Gather
Dear Friends,
As you all know, despite pleas and even a lawsuit from Laura Leigh, Project Manager of Herd Watch, trying to prevent the scheduled Tuscarora Roundup in Elko County, Nevada, the BLM still conducted the gather as scheduled. The gather started Saturday, July 10th and was scheduled to remove over 1,100 wild horses from the Elko County area. The gather started at 6:30 a.m. and by 9 a.m., the BLM contractor had gathered 228 wild horses. This is just too many horses, too fast, especially in the heat! Subsequently, since Saturday, we have now lost 7 horses due to dehydration and complications related to water intoxication during the removal process and/or at the holding facilities. It has rehashed memories of last winter’s gather in the Calico Hills, where we lost 100 innocent horses, as well as dozens of pregnant mares, in one of the bloodiest mustang operations to date. This is unacceptable and we cannot let this keep happening! Luckily, the BLM has issued a press release this afternoon (7/12/10) that it is temporarily suspending the Tuscarora wild horse gather. This has been deadliest roundup of the year.We are hoping that with your help, we can stop this gather and others from resuming.
Respectfully,
Madeleine Pickens
BLM Nevada News
NEVADA STATE OFFICE No. 2010-024
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
For immediate release: Monday, July 12, 2010
Contact: Heather Emmons, 775-861-6594, heather_emmons@blm.gov
Reno, Nev.—The Bureau of Land Management announced today that it is temporarily suspending the Tuscarora wild horse gather operations in Elko County, Nev., after BLM staff determined that gathered horses were dehydrated after seven gathered wild horses died from dehydration-related complications because of insufficient water in the area. The BLM also announced that the Tuscarora gather operations, aimed at removing horses from overpopulated herds, will remain on hold until an assessment has been completed to determine how to best proceed in light of the current condition of these horses.
“Our agency is committed to the humane treatment of wild horses and burros, both on and off the range,” BLM Director Bob Abbey said. “Toward that end, I am suspending further Tuscarora gather operations until the situation concerning the initial stage of the Tuscarora gather is analyzed and thoroughly understood, and the options for minimizing mortality of horses weakened by dehydration can be assessed.”
The Tuscarora wild horse gather encompasses the Owyhee, Rock Creek, and Little Humboldt Herd Management Areas (HMAs) located in northern Elko County . The BLM initiated gather operations in the northern portion of the Owyhee HMA at 6:30 a.m., Saturday, July 10. By 9 a.m., the BLM contractor had gathered 228 wild horses, consisting of one group of approximately 32 horses located within a mile of the on-site temporary holding corrals, and a second group of approximately 196 horses located about eight miles from the corrals.
On arrival it was noted the horses were “drawn up,” or lacking fill from water. They were, however, generally in good body condition with most scoring 4 to 5 on what is known as the Henneke body condition scale. The horses were provided with hay and water through the afternoon and evening. One horse was euthanized shortly after being gathered due to a fractured leg that occurred in the temporary holding corrals.
The morning of July 11, four horses were found dead in the pens and several horses were exhibiting signs of colic and brain swelling which was subsequently attributed to water starvation/dehydration and subsequent water intoxication. Gather operations were stopped at that point, and BLM staff, specialists, the gather contractor and the on-site U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian began treating the horses. So far, seven horses have died from complications related to water starvation/dehydration or subsequent water intoxication. It was determined this was a direct result of a lack of water in the immediate areas occupied by the horses. The BLM brought in extra water, tank trucks and troughs to the temporary holding site to ensure that all gathered animals have ample water available. Electrolytes were provided in each pen and affected animals were examined and treated as indicated by the veterinarian on site.
The private contractor conducted an aerial flyover of the immediate area Sunday morning, July 11, and located two large bands of wild horses. One band, approximately 100 to 150 horses, is staying close to a nearly dried-up water hole. The second band, approximately 150 to 200 horses, is located approximately eight to 10 miles from the nearest water source. Both of these bands are presently at risk of mortality from dehydration if they do not reach other water sources. The BLM is unable to bring water into this area because the area where these bands are located is not readily accessible by road. The BLM will carefully monitor the two bands of horses during the next few days to determine whether they are independently moving to other water sources or can be encouraged to reach such waters on their own. The BLM will also continue to provide food, water and veterinary care for the animals in the on-site temporary holding corrals.
As more information becomes available it will be posted at the website: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/elko_field_office/blm_programs/wild_horse_and_burro/owyhee_rock_creek.html. For further comments and questions, the public may call 1-866-468-7826.
Great News for 174 Wild Horses- From the Emergency Rescue Auction on July 10th
Dear Friends,
Great news for horse lovers and advocates all around! 174 horses were saved from slaughter at the auction on July 10, 2010. Horse activists purchased 172 of the horses, while private owners purchased 2 horses for personal use.
Thanks so much to Jill Starr of Lifesavers Horse Rescue who broke a record at the auction. This emergency rescue has united horse supporters like they’ve never been before and has put a fire behind this cause. This proves that Americans really do care about their horses and are taking a stand to say that these auctions and round ups are unacceptable and we will find a way to save every horse that we can.
Totals from 7.10.10:
Jill Starr 172
Ole Olsen 0
Private owners 2
We’re so thrilled to see the response that this emergency rescue has drawn. Please join us in our fight to Save America’s Mustangs and get back a piece of our national heritage!
Respectfully,
Madeleine Pickens
Source: Huffington Post
RENO, Nev. — With the financial backing of a California winery owner, activists on Saturday purchased almost all 174 horses up for sale at a state-sanctioned auction in Nevada to keep the horses from going to the slaughterhouse.
Stephanie Hoefener of the Lancaster, Calif.-based Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased 172 horses for $31,415. The other two horses were acquired by private individuals for their personal use, she said.
“We’re excited so many people came together to save the horses,” Hoefener said. “This is amazing, and we all feel joyful.”
The horses were rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management last month near the Nevada-Utah line and turned over to the Nevada Department of Agriculture for disposal.
Agriculture department officials acknowledge the estray horses could have wound up at slaughterhouses because they did not have the federal protections afforded to wild-roaming horses.
The horses are believed to be strays or descendants of horses abandoned by private owners over the years in Pilot Valley north of West Wendover.
“For advocacy groups to step up to the plate and make a financial commitment like this to save the horses, we think this is a wonderful thing,” Nevada Department of Agriculture spokesman Ed Foster said.
Jill Starr, president of Lifesavers, said the purchase of the horses at the Fallon auction was made possible by the financial backing of Ellie Phipps Price, owner of Sand Hill Durell Vineyards in Sonoma, Calif. Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, also contributedfinanciallyy.
Starr said high bidders of such horses usually are representatives of slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. The meat of the horses is processed for sale in Europe and Asia, where it fetches as much as $25 a pound, she added.
“We showed the BLM and the Nevada Department of Agriculture that we will not let them throw our wild horses away like yesterday’s news,” Starr said. “They are important to every American and hold high value as part of our country’s history.”
BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said her agency didn’t consider the 174 horses as federally protected mustangs because they came from a valley with more than 200 landowners.
“We look at the long-term history of what is going on out there in Pilot Valley,” she said. “Who knows what horses were released over time.”
The BLM has launched an effort to remove thousands of wild horses from the range across the West, saying the roundups are necessary because the mustang population is growing so rapidly that the animals are running out of food and damaging the range.
Activists have sued over the roundups, contending the agency is removing the mustangs to make room for livestock grazing and other interests.
CNN- Issues With Jane Velez Mitchell “Fight for Animal Rights!”
CNN- Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell did a full-hour special on Animal Rights Monday, July 5th
Here is the transcript of the segment from the Animal Rights Special Report on the wild horse issue with the round ups, BLM, and plans for the Eco Sanctuary.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight: outrage after dozens of horses allegedly die in a U.S. government roundup. Critics say 77 wild horses and counting have died along with 39 little foals that were allegedly miscarried. The federal government is under fire tonight for allegedly mistreating thousands of beautiful majestic wild horses in an aggressive roundup.
The government sends low-flying helicopters to chase the horses into corrals and then takes them from the plains of the American west to federal holding pens. The government claims it`s to save the horses from starvation. Critics claim the real motive is to clear the land for cattle grazing. Critics also say the horses are brutally traumatized.
As we speak tonight, more than 36,000 wild horses are stuck in U.S. government holding pens; that number given to ISSUES not by the protesters but by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. When we asked them why these wild animals were being forcibly removed from their natural habitat, in response they sent us a link to their, quote, “myths and facts” web page where they deny the claim about the cattle ranchers.
Now, today in Washington, D.C., just hours ago, there was a huge protest at the White House against these roundups. Among the tens of thousands of opponents are celebrities like Grammy award-winning singer Sheryl Crow and country music legend Willie Nelson.
Cheryl and Willie are just two of the big names behind this movement, and another star joins me tonight, award-winning actress Wendy Malick. Wendy is a wild horse advocate and we all remember her as a super- sassy, sexy, age-obsessed ex-model in the hilarious sitcom “Just Shoot Me”; plus, we also have Ginger Kathrens, volunteer executive director of the Cloud Foundation; as well as Madeleine Pickens, philanthropist and founder of SaveAmericasMustangs.org.
We begin with Lisa Bloom, CNN legal analyst. Lisa, why so much outrage?
LISA BLOOM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Jane, these are beautiful wild animals, as you say. What is the excuse for saving them? Saving them from starvation? Really? Because the horses seem to be very healthy. The ones who have died from the helicopters chasing them until they ran themselves to death tend to be pregnant mares and young foals.
These animals are reproducing. They are healthy. And the real reason, as you say, is that we`re clearing the—the ground, the land, to provide more land resources for cattle ranching.
In other words, this is yet another sad consequence of the meat industry. We already know it`s the number-one contributor to climate change. It`s a terribly cruel industry. It`s damaging to human health. And now it`s killing wildlife. This has got to stop.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I just want to say if Interior Secretary Salazar wants to come on our show and tell his side of the story, he`s invited. He has an open invitation anytime. But as we say, we called the government and what we got was “check out our Web site”.
Critics claim dozens of horses have died during these roundups. A roundup lasting more than a month reportedly took place in the Calico Mountains (ph) north of Reno, Nevada. Critics say more than 70 horses died and 40 female horses aborted their late-term foals.
Look at that chopper, how low it is, chasing those horses.
Two foals allegedly had their hooves separated from the bone after choppers ran them for miles over rocky ground. Secretary Salazar, again, has an open invitation to appear on this program, but we have been asking the government why and what they say is, “Save from starvation”.
Critics say in the roundups, the horses are traumatized and terrorized. Wendy Malick, why did you decide to get involved in this movement?
WENDY MALICK, ACTRESS & WILD HORSE ADVOCATE: Well, I am a horse owner. I have two horses in California and about a year and a half ago, Deanne Stillman sent me her book “Mustang” and told me about the roundups, which I was unaware of. And I think that once people are made aware of what`s going on with the Department of the Interior, they will be as horrified as I was.
When you look around at these magnificent animals, you realize they`re not on the verge of starvation. They are healthy, viable herds and they`re the last of our American icons that symbolize what this country was founded on. They were the ones we road in on, the ones who helped us settle this land, fight our wars. They deserve a place on our public lands.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Madeleine Pickens, you are a philanthropist. You have spent upwards of $1 million trying to create a special sanctuary for these horses. You are willing to spend millions more. What exactly are you proposing to the government?
MADELEINE PICKENS, FOUNDER, SAVINGAMERICASMUSTANGS.ORG: There`s an issue right now. The government has gathered so many horses that they don`t have enough room for them. And they have them stuffed in these short-term holding pens. They`re butt-to-butt. There`s no trees, no shade. And they need a place to go. And the government has not come up with a solution.
So I said, let me create an eco sanctuary. I will buy the land. And we will take the horses there and we will create an eco sanctuary so that you—parents can take their families there. Schools, girl scouts.
Let`s take back our American heritage. This is our history. This is John Wayne`s world. I mean, it was—what a fabulous era that we`ve had and we`re abandoning it. We`re letting it go.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And now this major development to tell you about. Since our government apparently is not listening, the fantastic animal rights group “In Defense of Animals” is suing, they say the wild horse roundups constructed by the Bureau of Land Management are illegal. But what if “In Defense of Animals” isn`t victorious? These majestic animals will be forced to live in zoo-like conditions. I urge you to get involved. We`ll keep you posted.
(video of the July 5th report coming soon)
Jane Velez Mitchell on the Deadly Roundups (aired March 2010)
Transcript provided by animalliberationfront.com
ATS Two-Part Interview with George Knapp on the Conspiracy with the Dept.of the Interior
ATS (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/) News, Mark Allin, interviews Emmy-award winning reporter, George Knapp in Las Vegas on the shocking conspiracy and expose titled, Sex, Drugs, Mustangs, Corruption and BP that uncovers the wild mustang corruption (behind the scenes) with the Department of the Interior.
“Congress got more letters about wild horses and the need for this legislation than any other issue, other than the Vietnam War”-George Knapp on the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971
Letter of Support to Congressman Jones for his Bill in Protecting the Wild Horses
The Honorable Walter B. Jones, Jr.
House of Representatives
2333 Rayburn House office Building
Washington, D.C, 20515
Dear Congressman Jones:
I write to express my ardent support for your recently introduced legislation, HR 5482, the Corolla Wild Horse Protection Act, a bill to protect the wild horses at the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge.
As reported by national news sources in recent days and weeks, the horses at the Refuge are immensely popular with the American people; and everyone who visits that beautiful area looks forward to enjoying their presence. It is so important that we recognize all nature of species when we formulate conservation policy for our national refuges and other public lands. Unfortunately, that is not always the case and I applaud the fact that you acknowledge these horses and their right to share the Refuge.
I am involved in my own efforts to protect and preserve the wild horses of the Western United States through my organization, Saving America’s Mustangs. If I can be of further assistance, or if you wish to learn more about the work I am doing, please do not hesitate to contact me. I wish you well in all your future endeavors.
Issues with Jane Valez-Mitchell - Monday, July 5th for Jane’s Fight for Animal Rights on CNN
Video of Madeleine Pickens on Bloomberg Television - 6/29
June 29 (Bloomberg) — Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens, talks about her efforts to create a sanctuary for wild horses in the U.S. Pickens talks with Matt Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)
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The BLM Has Another Gather Scheduled for July
Dear Friends,
The following information came available June 24th by the BLM. A gather is scheduled for July, and another one in August. They will gather about 3,500 wild horses. We must find a way to stop these scheduled gathers and prevent these horses from going into holding pens.
Original Press Release sent by the BLM is below.
Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens
BLM Nevada News
ELKO DISTRICT OFFICE NO. 2010-33
FOR RELEASE: June 24, 2010
CONTACT: Heather Emmons, (775) 861-6594, heather_emmons@blm.gov
BLM Tuscarora Wild Horse Gather to Begin July 9
Elko, Nev. – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Elko District, Tuscarora Field Office, is scheduled to begin the Tuscarora wild horse gather on July 9, and it will last about three weeks. The BLM will remove about 1,137-1,197 wild horses located on the Owyhee, Rock Creek and Little Humboldt Herd Management Areas (HMAs), and including about 425 wild horses located outside the Rock Creek HMA, northwest of Elko, Nev., in Elko County.
The BLM estimates there are about 1,550 wild horses in the gather area and any horses gathered above targeted removal numbers will be released back to the HMAs so that the remaining population is within the appropriate management level range of 337-561. The mares released back to the range would be vaccinated with PZP-22 (Porcine Zona Pellucida) fertility control vaccine. The gather, removal and fertility control are intended to slow population growth, maintain population size within the appropriate management levels and extend the time before another gather to remove excess wild horses would be needed. Additionally, adjustment of sex ratios of the gathered animals to be returned to the HMAs may be made to 60 percent male/40 percent female ratios. The Tuscarora Field Office issued the Decision Record for the Final Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Owyhee, Rock Creek and Little Humboldt Herd Management Areas Gather Plan on June 7.
The BLM will announce public observation days for the gather and will regularly provide updates and information on its website at: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/elko_field_office.html
“The current wild horse population in these HMAs is more than three times what the range can sustain,” said Field Manager David Overcast. “We need to gather and remove the excess wild horses to achieve a thriving natural ecological balance on the land and address the horse populations that have moved outside the HMA boundaries. By keeping the wild horse population within the appropriate management levels, we can prevent further deterioration of Lahontan cutthroat trout streams, riparian zones, wildlife habitat, wilderness values and other important resources in these HMAs.”
The forage and water supplies have become very limited due to extreme drought conditions in the HMAs. Climate data from the National Weather Service shows that precipitation for the current water year (beginning Oct. 1, 2009) is about 30 percent below the thirty-year average. Additionally, the HMAs also have been severely impacted by catastrophic wildfires in 2001 and 2006.
The BLM will use helicopters to gather the wild horses and will transport the animals by motorized vehicles. The use of helicopters, which is authorized by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, has proven to be a safe, effective, and practical means for gathering excess wild horses from the public lands, and large scale geographic areas such as the Tuscarora gather area. Horses removed from the range will be offered for adoption to qualified individuals. Unadopted horses will be placed in long-term pastures where they will be humanely cared for and treated, and will retain their “wild” status and protection under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. The BLM does not sell or send any horses to slaughter.
The gather and impacts are described and analyzed in the Owyhee, Rock Creek and Little Humboldt Herd Management Areas Gather Plan Final EA. The EA, a video about the gather and other gather-related information are posted on the BLM website at: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/elko_field_office.html.
For more information, please call Tuscarora Field Manager David Overcast, 775-753-0320.
—BLM—
Recap After the BLM Advisory Board Meeting in Denver
On June 14, 2010, our voices were heard! Myself, along with dozens of wild horse advocates and supporters banded together to give our horses a voice of their own. I was proud to be among the company of so many distinguished individuals who really care as much as I do about finding a safe alternative to the wild horse and burro round ups scheduled since 2009 until the end of 2010. The BLM (Bureau of Land Management), along with the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board mediated a public workshop where anyone could attend and offer comments on their proposal their Wild Horse and Burro Strategy Development Document. BLM’s J. Michael Harty mediated the discussion and it was he who initially came up with this workshop format.
There was a considerable turnout which shows how devoted Americans are to their horses! These horses are a part of our heritage and should remain free to roam the lands as they did years ago.
Karen Sussman, President of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs & Burros
Dr. Cassandra Nunez, International Society for the Protection of Mustangs & Burros
Neda DeMayo, Return to Freedom (proposed Solider Meadows plan)
Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer CEO of the Cloud Foundation
Deniz Bolbol, In Defense of Animals
Willis Lamm, Alliance of Wild Horses
Carol Walker, Equine Photographer & Author of Wild Hoofbeats
Katie Fite, M.S. Western Watersheds Project Biodiversity Director
Craig C. Downer, Wildlife Ecologist
Valerie Stanley, Attorney
Suzanne Roy, American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
Andrea Lococo, Animal Welfare Institute
Laura Leigh, Herd Watch Project Manager
Each person had their turn to speak about various issues personal to them. Each issue was discussed passionately and was addressed by the Advisory Board, who hopefully is taking each idea into consideration. Is has been since brought to our attention by the BLM that they will partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to give an aerial census of Northern Nevada and Southern Oregon. Unfortunately, Laura Leigh, the Herd Watch Project Manager for the Cloud Foundation was declined her request to participate in the aerial census.
It has been estimated that these round ups scheduled by the BLM are costing taxpayers around $40 million per year. The costs are for the holding pens and the round up removal process using helicopters and select cattle ranchers paid to carry out the process. This is something that could be remedied, if they discontinued the round ups and I’m able to create a sanctuary, as I’ve proposed several times, for these approximate 33,000 wild horses in holding pens.
They have heard our ideas and our plans, but it will still be a struggle to have something stick to the wall and get put into action, but we will prevail! The best thing any of you can do is to click the Take Action link on our homepage and send a letter to your congressman and our government officials and tell them you want them to listen and that you support preserving the American West’s natural icon: the wild horse.
Warm Regards,
Madeleine
Take Action for Saving America’s Mustangs. With your help, we can give these horses a say.
I was interviewed for the February issue of Country Lifestyle magazine. The article is now available electronically online to be read and passed around to supporters who might not have had a chance to read the article last February.
Canada Bans Horse Slaughtering for Human Consumption
Bravo, Canada!!
On June 16, 2010, Ottawa New Democrat Agriculture critic, Alex Atamanenko (BC Southern Interior) passed the C-544 Bill which amends the Health of Animals Act and the Meat Inspection Act (which allows for the slaughter of horses for human consumption).
He tabled the bill citing that the widely used anti-inflammatory drug Phenylbutazone (Bute) or commonly referred to as “horse aspirin” is injected into most horses, but is a carcinogen to humans if consumed.
The US House of Representatives has banned horse slaughter for human consumption in 2006 by passing the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, but has not banned the export of horses to Canada and Mexico where they could be slaughtered for that very purpose.
Also, Europe is pressuring Canada now to introduce a new “Equine Passport” system to track the horses’ medical history that they receive from them. Since many of the horses they have been slaughtering have been purchased from the United States, where it’s illegal to slaughter horses for human consumption and there are no regulations of what the horses get injected with.
Hopefully all countries will ban the slaughtering of horses completely.
To contact the office of Alex Atamanenko for more information on this bill, please call: 613.996.8036
To support our American wild horses, click the Take Action link on www.savingamericasmustangs.org’s homepage.
Pickens Will Attend National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Workshop in Denver
On Monday, June 14th, I will be attending the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Public Workshop in Denver, CO. The workshop will give a chance for the public to discuss Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar’s wild horse initiative, which he and the BLM Director, Bob Abbey announced last October.
Below I have written comments on each of the sections of their initiatives that I will be discussing in the public forum on Monday. For those of you who can not attend this public workshop, please take the time to read the excerpts from the wild horse initiative (in blue) and our comments regarding each section (in black).
- MP
COMMENTS FROM SAVING AMERICA’S MUSTANGS ON THE BLM STRATEGIC POLICY DOCUMENT
5.1. Sustainable Herds (From BLM.gov)
A key element of the BLM’s vision is the need to balance annual herd growth rates with the number of horses or burros that can be successfully adopted each year. Over time, slowing population growth would lead to fewer animals requiring removal from the range, fewer animals in short-term corrals or long-term pastures, and decreased costs for their humane care. The BLM has the ability to manage for two key wild horse and burro population factors which influence the total number of wild horses and burros. The BLM can manage the size of the breeding population and the reproductive (growth) rate of the population. Fewer gathers to remove excess horses or burros would be needed if population growth rates can be reduced.
Sustainable Herds
Saving America’s Mustangs tends to agree that the use of fertility control measures may play a role in regulating the number of horses on the range and in the wild. However, we also caution that too much can be read into this approach as a means to solve all the issues that we think need to be addressed to correct deficiencies in the program.
Under Objective 1, item 5, we would agree that establishing non-reproducing populations in Herd Areas or on other public lands has merit. (See our comments on “Preserves.”
Under Objective 2, we would agree that making additional forage available for wild horse and burro use is critical to establishing and maintaining preserves for wild horses and burros (see our comments in section on “Preserves.”
Under Objective 3, we tend to believe that the entire gather program needs to be reviewed and major changes made that incorporate better science in the overall process.
5.2. Preserves (From BLM.gov)
The BLM envisions the establishment of both federal and partner-owned preserves — places where the forage is rich — where unadopted wild horses can roam as freely as possible. The preserves could possibly be located in the productive grasslands and plains of America’s Midwest, where wild horses once flourished. Preserves are an important element in attaining a sustainable Wild Horse and Burro Program.
The BLM’s long-term goal is to eventually limit gathers to the number of horses (or burros) that can be adopted or sold. By matching the number of animals removed with the number that can be adopted in a given year, the need for preserves to humanely care for unadopted animals will be reduced over time.
Partnerships, including partner-owned preserves, are one way the BLM hopes to engage Americans in the protection and management of these iconic animals and reduce costs.
Preserves
Saving America’s Mustangs has submitted a detailed plan to the Department of the Interior and the BLM that would establish the first wild horse ecotourism center in the United States. This proposal has many elements that address specific points in this section of the Strategic Document so we will list the criteria we believe important in a successful preserve.
Our wild horse sanctuary would include:
Purchased by using private dollars rather than taxpayer money
The land would be placed in a foundation
Any stipend provided by the federal government would go through the foundation and be returned in the form of improvements or operations of the sanctuary in its entirety.
The sanctuary would be located in Nevada or another Western state where the wild horses would roam on ranges in their current natural habitat; not on grasslands in the Midwest. They will do better in the west and the visiting public will have a better experience.
Unlike all current long term holding facilities, the sanctuary would be open to the general public and include a full range of amenities.
One of the amenities included in the Pickens Foundation proposal would be a youth science learning center. This would provide opportunities for youth of all ages to attend day or extended time camps/seminars to learn the history of the West and that of the wild horses.
Under Objective 2 the document talks about stabilizing long-term contracts. The BLM needs to understand that long-term holding may not always be a legally accepted means of holding horses. It is also a process by which we have placed several millions of dollars in the hands of private contractors rather than have those monies being returned to the resource or the horses.
Objective 3 seeks to use taxpayer dollars to purchase land to create “preserves.” In the current financial climate, it is going to be very difficult to fund nearly 100 million dollars to purchase non-federal lands and this should be on the very bottom of the list of options to be only pursued after leveraging private dollars where possible and using existing federal lands when they are available and it is feasible.
Objective 4 provides the framework to pursue discussions to locate preserves or sanctuaries on private lands. Missing from this section is language that would allow the BLM to enter into discussions with private partners to use a combination of private and public lands and we would strongly encourage such language to be added.
Objectives 5 and 6 talk about using other agencies’ federal lands or USDA conservation programs. We would only note that former experiences with the Forest Service and US Fish and Wildlife suggest they would not be interested.
Objective 7 suggests preserves on HAs or HMAs that currently have no horses on them. We have argued for some time now that BLM needs to look at the 21 million plus acres that have been taken away from wild horse use as a means to bring horses back and expand Appropriate Management Levels.
Objective 8 provides the framework for discussions of collaborative partnerships. We think this should be the primary focus for the BLM. For too long we have spent an excessive amount of money caring for horses in circumstances that were not cost-effective or that beneficial for the horses.
Objective 8, item 3, calls for at least one preserve that would be available to the public to mange and communicate and share the animals with the local community and tourists. That description fits the Pickens Foundation Plan model perfectly and we strongly suggest pursuing that option will allow an emerging partnership that will save the taxpayer money, provide a natural experience for the public and the wild horses and be a huge public relations win for the BLM
5.3. Treasured Herds (From BLM.gov)
The Pryor Mountain, Little Bookcliffs and Kiger Mountain wild horses are just a few of the herds that already hold a special place in our hearts. By highlighting treasured herds with special designations, the BLM envisions opportunities for ecotourism and partnerships and volunteers dedicated to protecting and managing all of the wild horses and burros that call these areas home.
The Marietta Burro Range near Hawthorne, Nevada is the nation’s first burro range. It was designated in 1991.
5.3 Treasured Herds.
Saving America’s Mustangs supports portions of the objectives included in this section but has some concerns about inadvertent and unintended consequences.
Designating treasured herds may serve to highlight certain herds that are well known or have been part of a national media story and therefore singled out for special attention. While we encourage the promotion of the American wild horse across the board, directly resources or establishing favored status for certain herds should in no way lessen the importance of the thousands of horses that are out of the public eye. We believe that all the wild horses are equal in their significance in the role they have played in our history and should be seen as treated as such.
By promoting certain herds, the overall benefits outweigh any special treatment and resources allocated and do not come out of funds that would otherwise be intended for overall management of ALL the horses; we agree with the concept of establishing “treasured herds.”
We are especially encouraged by the language that encourages participation by Tribes to bring “treasured herds” to their reservations, providing that funding is made available to assist them with marketing these herds and providing economic opportunities for the Tribes in their local communities.
5.4. Place Excess Animals into Private Care (From BLM.gov)
More excess wild horses are in need of a good home than ever before — but changing demographics and a number of other factors have made many Americans less willing to accept the challenge of taming and caring for a wild horse. Despite these barriers, the BLM remains dedicated to finding as many good homes for the wild horses and burros that must be removed from the range as we possibly can. To do that, expanding the use of the tools which have been successful and adding a wider range of tools to keep pace with a rapidly changing adoption market will be needed. Through the successful placement of excess horses or burros into private care, the number of animals which must be humanely cared for in short-term corrals or long-term pastures will decrease and the costs for their care will be reduced.
Prison training programs and partnerships with organizations like the Mustang Heritage Foundation and the National Wild Horse Association demonstrate there is a demand for horses with some training. Expanding these types of partnerships is one way the BLM can offer more trained animals for adoption.
5.4 Place Excess Animals into Private Care
Saving America’s Mustangs feels that as long as there are excess horses, adoptions will be necessary and should be carried out as efficiently as possible, expanding on some of the more dynamic approaches that have been developed in recent years.
Under Objective 1, we would agree that the internet provides unlimited potential. Using wild horses in public service should be something we look at and try to expand through whatever means we can, including new legislative authority if necessary.
Under Objective 2, we believe that gentling and training are absolutely essential to a successful adoption program.
5.5. Communications (From BLM.gov)
American society has undergone substantial changes in the last 100 years. Instant messaging, Twitter, YouTube, cable news networks — social media and the World Wide Web are here to stay. The days of typewriters and carbon paper (or pen and ink) have come and gone. With these changes has come the need for the BLM’s communications capability to grow and expand, change and adapt.
Communications
Saving America’s Mustangs in especially encouraged by the language included in this section and eager to assist in helping to develop some of the goals and objectives contained herein.
We must begin, however, by pointing out that our communication with the BLM and officials at the Department of the Interior has been somewhat disappointing. Over the past two years, we have engaged in countless trips and meetings with officials from both DOI and the BLM and to date have had little success in getting real answers to the plans we have submitted in writing and presented orally. We understand that proposals don’t command immediate consensus or agreement, but we feel that a more forthright approach would lead to better communication and possible solutions that come from thinking “outside the box.” That said, we have not hesitated to continue to engage in activities that we think promote the wild horse and educates the public and policymakers about our wild horses.
In objective 2, item 1, you discuss the need to “engage willing partners through various forums and utilize a wide range of media tools/venue to tell the story of America’s wild horses and burros.”
In 2009 Saving America’s Mustangs began to purchase wild horses that had gone through the Xtreme Mustang Makeover competitions with the intent to take them to various venues to educate the American public about the wild horses. Last year, many of those horses performed at half-time ceremonies of major football games, including the Hawaii Bowl in Honolulu on Christmas Eve, one of the most watched events of the closing of the football season each year. Recently, Boone and I hosted a dinner at the National Museum for American Indians at the Mall in D.C. That event was attended by over 400 people, including 70 Members of Congress. We have a total of 7 wild horses now and all of them were there for the public to see for over two hours and for all the attendees at the dinner party to interact with before the dinner.
In 2010 these mustangs will participate in the opening ceremonies of the World Equestrian Cup in Lexington, Kentucky. Countless college football games, a number of professional games and other sporting events, as well as major parades, clinics for children, and other events that we deem appropriate to promote the American wild horse will be planned.
Throughout these events we have not solicited support from the BLM, nor have we heard from them about actively participating in these activities. For the record, we believe that these kind of promotional activities fit very well under Objective 2, Item 1 and Objective 3, Action.
5.6. Animal Welfare (From BLM.gov)
For nearly 40 years, the BLM has protected the health and welfare of wild horses and burros to ensure their humane treatment under the federal legislation that established the Wild Horse and Burro Program. Balancing herd numbers with the land’s capacity, handling procedures, facilities, and post-adoption compliance checks were all designed toward this end. The BLM uses the best, most humane methods for capturing and handling wild horses and burros. These methods are based on decades of experience and consultation with animal behavior and veterinary experts. The BLM will continue to look for improvements in safety, efficiency and humane treatment.
Animal Welfare
Saving America’s Mustangs would only comment under the animal welfare section that the methods involved in gathering wild horses have been called into question by many wild horse advocate groups and animal rights organizations. We would agree that it is an area that the BLM needs to focus heavily on to ensure that there are adequate controls in place to provide ample safety and protections for the horses and transparency so that the public can be fully involved and aware of what is taking place with gathers before, during, and after they are conducted.
5.7. Science and Research (From BLM.gov)
The BLM’s 2003 Strategic Research Plan identifies research priorities for the Wild Horse and Burro Program. Included are: health and handling, fertility control, population estimation and modeling, genetic conservation, habitat assessment and setting population goals. The components of fertility control and population estimation have been implemented and research is being conducted. Genetic diversity of wild horse and burro herds is also being evaluated. Other research programs are being implemented as needed.
How many horses are there? Counting horses from a moving aircraft several hundred feet above the ground isn’t easy. Add tree cover, rugged terrain, and poor weather, and the job becomes even more difficult. To address this challenge, the BLM is working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to research and implement population estimation techniques based on the best available science
Science and Research
Saving America’s Mustangs has called into question the methodology relied on by the BLM in conducting a census of the wild horse herds and we remain convinced that there are fewer wild horses remaining on the range than suggested by BLM’s official count. We hope that new techniques that may be available and subject to public review might be enacted to count wild horses.
We have also raised issues about genetic diversity and the ability of wild horse herds to withstand the long-term adverse effects of random sampling that lack the appropriate science to make determinations about genetic diversity among horses left on the range. Moreover, the dwindling number of horses, in a raw numerical sense, causes us to wonder if the genetics are not being dramatically altered in the absence of sound science.
We also question the science that has gone into making determinations about the quality and quantity of forage on HMAs where horses are being removed. We were advised at the Calico roundup that the majority of wild horses being brought in were in good condition and the range not suffering from a lack of forage at that time, but that the BLM was looking six months down the road at the possibilities that the range may have significantly deteriorated by then. More than adequate rainfall, if it occurred, would render range conditions in better or excellent conditions. We have been advised by cattlemen in Northern Nevada that the range has never been in better condition. Too many speculative observations lead to serious questions about the validity of some conclusions being relied on to make determinations about the need to gather horses. We hope that this review will lead in the direction of real science being applied that can stand up to outside scrutiny to the issue of gathering our wild horses.
Under Objective 2, we strongly support the idea of letting the NAS review earlier reports and offer recommendations about the best science for wild horse and burro management.
Objective 3 refers to the science being used to conduct range land health. We would simply offer again that the current approach to making determinations about range land health may not be steeped in the best available science and that currently, at least to our knowledge, there is no outside scientific review being performed to verify the results of BLM’s in house assessments.
Madeleine Pickens Joins the Panel Discussion at the 2010 Sovereignty Symposium
On June 2, 2010, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion called, “The Year of the Horse” at the 2010 Sovereignty Symposium in Oklahoma City, OK. I was invited as a guest of Supreme Court Justice, Steve Taylor and was pleased to speak with such esteemed colleagues. The panel was moderated by The Honorable Tom Colbert, Supreme Court Justice of Oklahoma. Other panelists included: Gregory E. Pyle, Chief of Choctaw Nation in Durant, Oklahoma, Kelly Haney from Seminole, Oklahoma, and Bryant Rickman, Chairman of the Southwest Spanish Mustang Association.
Each panelist brought insightful, unique information on horses and how significant the animal has been on their personal experiences in today’s modern age. I spoke about the need to save wild mustangs and my desire to create a sanctuary to preserve their well-being. By pointing out the historical impact the horse has had on Native American culture and existence, I solicited the support from the tribes and encouraged them to stand behind the cause. I made it clear that l will continue my efforts to ensure the mustangs carry on in their natural environment and will work to make certain they are honored and treated as the living examples of our American heritage that they truly are.
The Sovereignty Symposium was established to fill a need for a national forum on Indian law. For over twenty years, Justice Yvonne Kauger as well as many other key Justices of the Supreme Court have worked to provide a forum in which ideas concerning common legal issues can be exchanged in a scholarly, non-adversarial environment. Participants and Speakers mingle with leaders of 39 Sovereign Nations under one roof and discuss not only law, but also culture and art.
The theme of the event this year was “AS LONG AS THE GRASS GROWS AND THE RIVERS FLOW.” Special guest speaker Senator Tom Cole spoke about the significance of the Native American culture, its uniqueness, and the need to continue to encourage education about this important part of America’s history.
For nearly 20 years, Chickasaw artist, Outstanding Oklahoman, and Honored Oklahoma Capital Muralist, Mike Larsen has designed the posters and t-shirts for the Symposium. As another honor, this year, Mike incorporated the Horse in his design.
I was truly honored to be a part of such a wonderful event.
Also, for those of you who were unable to attend this event, here is a copy of my speech:
Good morning
During these challenging times it is always good to look back at the trail we have follow to get where we are and take stock of what we did along the way.
The people of the great Indian Tribes of this great Nation have given much in the name of progress; given in many ways, including the loss of much of the cultural richness and symbols that characterized the great tribes and warriors of the Indian Nation.
As many of you know, I have been deeply engaged in an attempt to preserve what I believe to be a significant part of your cultural heritage, the wild horse. For without the horse, none of the conquering, the progress, the new frontiers, would ever have happened had it not been for the magnificent creature we call the horse.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were 2 million horses roaming the plains, the west and the southwest. It staggers the mind to think that we could have gone from 2 million horses to around 30,000 in just over 100 years. But I guess we should not be too surprised, since we eliminated over 20 million buffalo from the Great Plains in a much shorter time. And in the early part of the 20th century, it was the gray wolf’s turn to face extinction.
As a society, we have placed the wild horses in a competition with other species that generate revenue and the horse has always come on the losing end. The horse lived for thousands of years in harmony with the other native creatures and all of them fared well. There is no need to create such a competition that results in dire consequences when there are hundreds of millions of acres of public land in the western states.
I say to you all here today, we could have and should have done better where these species are concerned. And now the government and some from the private sector spend millions and millions to bring back the wolf and the buffalo. But they can never be returned to their native lands and their true way of life, once the habitat has been take away and the customs changed in irreversible ways.
I ask you to join me in saving our wild horses and so in a way that restores the honor and dignity of the horse and the native peoples who first rode them on the plains, into the west and into history. Bring them back to your reservations so that your children can witness a part of the great tradition of your way of life.
Isn’t it ironic that over 22,000 wild horses now stand at private ranches in Oklahoma and Kansas and the government pays a daily stipend for them to stand there where the public cannot see them, where there is no honor or glory in their existence, until the day they pass on? Why not on the vast lands of the Indian reservation if that is the chosen course? And there are now over 14,000 standing in short term facilities, many of them owned by ranchers and other in the private sector and the government is paying them upwards of $6.00 per day per horse for their upkeep. But there is so much more you can offer to the preservation of this vital part of your history.
Bring the wild horses to your reservation and create gentling and training programs. Become certified trainers and receive money for each horse you train and adopt. If you have good public access, make your horse available to the public to come and view. I can assure you that there are thousands of people out there waiting for a place to go and see a wild horse. I hear from them on my website every day. Set up your own marketing efforts online, relying on your young people that understand technology and provide jobs for member of your tribes through your efforts to take and market the wild horses.
I know there are tribes that have been approached about supporting slaughter for our wild horses. I would say to those people, why take the quick buck today while the ranchers have the long term benefits of contracts that span years and years? And to be quite honest, slaughtering our wild horses has no dignity, yields no spiritual rewards, leaves no place in history for the magnificent creatures that gave us our freedom.
There is an opportunity for all of us to take part in saving our wild horses and in doing so, educate our youth, be part of a plan to take care of a species while it is still with us rather than watch it go extinct, and restore a way of life for your people.
Please join me in this effort and I will work with you on plans to find ways to integrate the horse back into your lives and back to the places where the roamed for hundreds of years. But we must act quickly and decisively. The BLM plans to roundup thousands of wild horses yet this year. At some point, they will dramatically alter the genetic viability of the wild horses remaining on the ranch, if that hasn’t happened already.
Let your Senator or Congressional Representative know that you want to see the wild horses continue to live in the wild and be a part of the solution where the excess wild horses are concerned.
Thank you.
“May we never forget one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind - The American Mustang”
Click on the image above to view a trailer of the event.
On May 20th, Boone and I hosted a Tribute to the Native American & Horse Nation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the Native American in Washington, DC to draw attention to the plight of our wild horses and point out the historical connection between the Indian Nation and the wild horses. The dinner was attended by over 400 people, including 70 Members of Congress, and it presented the perfect opportunity to remind them and other attendees that there are pending bills in Congress that are languishing as our wild horses are being gathered.
Last year I testified in the House of Representatives on HR 1018, the ROAM act. That bill was passed by the House and referred to the Senate where a companion bill, S.1579, sits in the Senate Energy Committee waiting to be acted upon. Representative Conyers introduced a bill, HR 503, to prevent the transport and slaughter of horses and that bill also awaits action. The Senate Companion bill to HR 503 is S. 727. Right now HR 503 sits in the House awaiting action and S. 727 sits in the Senate Energy Committee awaiting action. It is time for Congress to hear the pleas of millions of Americans that are calling for action on these bills and provide additional protections for our wild horses while there is still time before they are threatened with extinction.
It was an unforgettable evening to celebrate America’s heritage by honoring the American Mustang, the Native American & our Military. The United States Navy band greeted our presidential level guests and we presented five retired Military Working Dogs that served our country. Their presence and the applause was heartwarming. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, from the Lakota Nation offered a traditional Lakota blessing before dinner and “Justice,” one of my beautiful mustangs bowed his head after hearing the prayer. It was a very emotional experience and the tears were flowing. Grammy nominee and eight-time Native American Music Awards winner, Jana Mashonee, American Idol alum Katharine McPhee and opera singer Josh Page provided wonderful entertainment throughout the evening. Also present during the National Anthem was Challenger, the American Bald Eagle.
I invite you all to view the trailer of the event by clicking on the image above. On my website, www.savingamericasmustangs.org, is a full video of the highlights of this spectacular celebration of our American heritage.
Please remember to write or call your Congressman or Senator and ask them to act on these bills immediately
Madeleine & T. Boone Pickens Host a Mustangs Benefit in Washington, D.C.
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens Hosts Mustangs Benefit and Birthday Party
As many of the country’s elected officials were hammering out the final details of a financial reform bill on the House floor on Thursday night, Madeleine and T. Boone Pickens hosted more than 350 guests at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian for an evening that was planned as a “celebration of America’s heritage.”
Part of celebrating that heritage was honoring the horse, most notably the American mustang, which played a central role in America’s history and is the focus of Madeleine Pickens’ foundation, Saving America’s Mustangs. Four mustangs took center stage during the cocktail hour, held outside on the museum’s stone entrance patio. The guests, including members of Congress and TV personalities, took full advantage of their access to the horses and many of them spent time interacting with the trainers and posing for photos. In line with the heritage theme, Ridgewells Catering passed American comfort food hors d’oeuvres like macaroni and cheese bites, chicken pot pie fritters, and grilled shrimp on sweet potato cakes.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m. guests were ushered into the museum’s dramatic Potomac Atrium (the room features a 120-foot domed ceiling). The evening began on a strong patriotic note with the U.S. Navy Band accompanying military and Native American color guards for the Presentation of the Colors. Grammy nominee and eight-time Native American Music Awards winner Jana Mashonee sang the national anthem while Atmosphere Lighting blanketed the atrium walls with projections of the American flag.
After a short video tribute to the American mustang, Madeleine Pickens offered her thanks and welcomed Chief Arvol Looking Horse, who offered a traditional Lakota blessing before the seated three-course meal began. Ridgewells’ Southwestern menu began with an appetizer trio: a sweet corn tamale on a bed of poblano corn salsa; pinto, black and green bean salad served in a corn husk; and chilled butternut squash soup. The main course was a bison tenderloin with red wine, pancetta, and rosemary served with a sweet potato puree and root vegetables.
During the entrée guests were treated to a performance by American Idol alum Katharine McPhee and opera singer Josh Page. While the evening began as a celebration of America’s heritage, the event also became an 82nd birthday party of sorts for T. Boone Pickens, who was presented with a towering cake designed like a traditional Native American tepee. Following a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” servers doled out chocolate-strawberry cake along with a festive glass of Blanc de Bleu Cuvee Mousseux, a pastel blue sparkling wine.
The evening wrapped up shortly after dessert at 10 p.m., and departing guests were offered a Saving America’s Mustangs gift bag that featured two Georgetown Cupcakes, a poster, chocolate, and a copy of Wild Horse Annie and the Last of the Mustangs.
The dinner kicked off with an appetizer trio of a sweet corn tamale on a bed of poblano corn salsa; a pinto, black and green bean salad served in a corn husk; and chilled butternut squash soup. Photo: Bryan Blanken, Freed Photography
For a vegetarian entree, Ridgewells served red quinoa, feta, and spinach-stuffed peppers with celery root puree and melting leeks. Photo: Bryan Blanken, Freed Photography
A tepee anchored the cocktail hour on the museum’s stone patio. Photo: Bryan Blanken, Freed Photography
The dinner for 350 guests was held inside the museum’s Potomac Atrium. Photo: Bryan Blanken, Freed Photography
Blue Star Equiculture Presents World Peace & Prayer Day
SMU Football Coach June Jones: Success in Football Benefits Everyone
April 20, 2010
By Brooks L. Powell
blpowell@smu.edu
Hear Coach Jones address the SMU Student Senate at their Tuesday, April 20 meeting.
SMU Football Coach June Jones told the SMU Student Senate a winning football program is a major benefit to the university as a whole. And he said he has proof.
“I think a lot of times, people forget what a successful football team or athletic department … does for everybody,” Jones said.
To substantiate his claim, Jones offered Senators a number of statistics Tuesday afternoon. SMU Daily Mustang has not been able to independently confirm that the figures are accurate.
According to Jones, an independent media research firm calculated that 540 million people tuned in to watch the Mustangs’ victory at the Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl on Dec. 24, 2009.
Jones said the football team’s impressive performance had an immediate impact on prospective students. From the date of the game through Jan. 9, 2010, Jones said admission applications to SMU surged 35 percent.
Responding to recent reports about the SMU athletics department’s growing budget deficits, Jones said winning, and therefore recruiting more students to attend SMU, will help stem fiscal hemorrhaging.
“[Winning] allows us to reach and make more revenue at the school,” Jones said. “This school has been operating in a big deficit obviously for a number of years, and so we’re on the verge of breaking through that, which is really really exciting.”
Jones said SMU also saw gains on the digital front. Hits on SMU’s homepage since Dec. 24, have increased 35 to 40 percent, Jones said. He boasted that on Dec. 24, the number of hits at SMU.edu numbered 87,000, easily eclipsing the 77,000 Web site hits on the date of the announcement that the Bush Library and Institute would make its home on the Hilltop.
While the players gear up for the fall, Jones said the athletic department is ramping up some new traditions. The two mustangs presented to SMU by philanthropist Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, will be christened with new names in an upcoming ceremony. Details are forthcoming. In addition, last season, players and students marched with the live mustang mascots in the “Mustang Walk” from Moody Coliseum to Ford Stadium. Jones encouraged all students to join in starting at the first home game Sept. 11, against the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Regarding next season, Jones said he’s particularly optimistic.
“We’re excited about where we’re headed,” Jones said. “We think we’re going to continue right on up the ladder—we envision a conference championship and that’s what we’re playing for.”
“It certainly will be a lot of fun to be an SMU Mustang the next four to five years,” Jones said.
Stallion & Mares Need Help! Urgent!
Dear Friends,
I received an email last night from Judy Barnes with the Spirit of the Wild Horse Foundation. Please read below and help save these magnificent animals.
Madeleine
Update: April 9th
I got another call that I’m not looking in the right location. Jet was dropped further north, about 30 miles from his former territory.
I will be searching in the new location. I will keep everybody posted.
Judy
Update: April 8th
Thank you all for your support and encouragement, I know Jet can feel it too.
The rancher called and said there were no wild mares with Jet, that all the mares were his. I offered to buy them, and again he said no wild mares. If he had wild mares he would have come around for money. He told me he released Jet on Tuesday night. I spent 5 hours yesterday and 4 hours today, before and after the sale, looking for him. I have to believe he is out there.
I went to the sale barn anyway, Jet’s picture is now hanging in the office. I met the owner, branding inspector and sheriff and everyone is on the lookout for him. One person I met actually works for this ranchers family. She is going to be my spy, she knows the stallion. She told me Jet was left in a trailer in front of the house for two days.
I can feel Jet’s energy and it is very low, his spirit is going to take some time to recover. I feel that he may be hiding out in the back country while he heals his mind, body and soul. I will be back out there on Saturday with a tour and then again on Sunday.
Thank you everyone for all the support and offers of money, when this started I felt over whelmed and didn’t know what I was going to do. But now I know I have a great support team. I love this horse and I’m not giving up on him. I know he may never be the same but he is free and that’s what is important.
Tomorrow I will be talking to the land owner and the sheriff and see what the next step is going to be. I will keep everyone updated as this progresses. Especially when Jet is sited. I attached some of my favorite pictures of Jet.
Bless you all,
Judy
Update: April 7th
This stallion and his mares were rounded up by a local rancher in San Luis, Co and they will be going to the sale barn on Thursday April 8 and most likely the slaughter house.
The rancher had told Judy Barnes with the Spirit of the Wild Horse Foundation that she could have the stallion back but is not returning her calls. She asked for the mares also, since he will not stay in a new location without his mares. Judy has purchased 30 wild horses from this guy so far in the last 3 years to release back to the wild.
This stallion is amazing, his name is Jet. Judy Barnes has been photographing his for 8 years. Judy has contacted the US Marshal, BLM and the branding inspector and nobody will do anything.
Judy is working with the land owner and the local sheriff. The negotiations have stalled and at this point the only way to get the horses back will be to buy them. If the rancher does not contact her today, she will be at the sale barn in Monte Vista, CO tomorrow, April 8 with the branding inspector and photos of the horses. The branding inspector is checking with the main office in Denver to see what else can be done. If the sheriff does anything before Judy can locate where the horses are being hidden, she’s afraid the horses will be destroyed to get rid of evidence. Judy thinks she can get the mares for a couple hundred each, and the stallion for five hundred, but she don’t know how many he has, and many of the mares are ready to foal. Its possible he has about 30 horses. Judy Barnes has requests out for donations from foundation supporters. Any help is greatly appreciated, donations are tax deductible. Spirit of the Wild Horse Foundation is a non-profit for the Preservation and Protection of Wild Horses. The foundation can accept Visa & MC or checks can be mailed to: Spirit of the Wild Horse Foundation PO Box 100 Costilla,NM 87524. She is getting a PayPal account set up for the foundation. Or contact the bank direct: Community Banks of Colorado 719-672-3338 Account name is Spirit of the Wild Horse Foundation.
Contact phone numbers: Office 719-206-2749 719-480-0262 Cell
Anyone making a donation will receive an 8x11 photograph of Jet.
—
JudyBarnesPhotography.com
Spirit of the Wild Horse Foundation
Post Office Box 100
Costilla, NM 87524
719.206.2749
Meet Tennessee Thunder
In December I brought three new mustangs home from the Mustang Makeover
Magic event in Ft. Worth. TX. Hopefully, you have enjoyed the video we
put up on the website of “Tennessee Thunder,” one of those three
wonderful wild horses. Now Tennessee Thunder has made what is probably
the first ever appearance by an American wild horse at a NASCAR Sprint
Cup Race. Tennessee Thunder is such a talented horse that I sent him
back to his original trainer for more advanced training and he was
invited to the Bristol NASCAR race. I thought you would enjoy seeing
the pictures of Tennessee Thunder at the races.
I continue to look for ways to educate the American people about our
magnificent wild horses by bringing them to public events. This year
will be a busy year in that regard with many events in the works. Watch
the website for information about these events and maybe there will be
one near you so you can enjoy these wonderful ambassadors.
Disappointment Valley to Screen At Newport Beach Film Festival
Disappointment Valley, A Modern Day Western screens Newport Beach Film Festival:
Disappointment Valley screens at 6:30 pm on April 26, Monday, at Edwards Island. Edwards Island is part of Fashion Island Mall there in Newport Beach, CA
Disappointment Valley. . . A Modern Day Western. This film examines the plight of America’s wild horses and the rapidly deteriorating condition of our wild and beautiful public lands in the majestic, haunting American west.
Through interviews with scientific experts, ranchers, historians, wild horse owners, animal rights activists, environmentalists, movie stars, uranium prospectors and many other colorful characters, the filmmaker examines the origins and effects of the recent “Burns Bill,” which gutted the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 and cleared the way for the slaughter and removal of wild horses in America. Greed and corruption take center stage, exposing how the United States’ failed energy policy and the current rape and pillage of western public lands by oil, gas, mining and corporate cattle grazing, is leading to the extinction of America’s wild horses and burros.
The film interviews such experts as, Jim Baca, former Director of the Bureau of Land Management under the Clinton Administration, Randy Udall, energy consultant, Michael Blake, (Writer of Dances With Wolves and Wild Horse Advocate), the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management, environmental attorneys, Sheryl Crow, Viggo Mortensen, Daryl Hannah and more. The film documents the struggle of an animal that has long symbolized freedom, individualism and unbridled passion in America. Documenting wild horses in their authentic, beautiful pure essence (filmed in HD), Disappointment Valley, is a profound film that will awaken and touch all who view it.
The majestic band stallion known as Traveler, named after Robert E. Lee’s Stallion, and his family are, located in beautiful Disappointment Valley, Colorado. Traveler and his snow-white mare known as Alfa, live and thrive with their family until the Bureau of Land Management conducts a massive wild horse round up, taking two thirds of the wild horse herd away, destroying the wild band’s family dynamic and genetic viability in this brutal round up and removal. Traveler is sent to wild horse prison, a short term holding facility, as is most of his family. Following wild horse advocates as they work to get Traveler returned to his homeland, the threat of being shipped to BLM long term holding facilities is high. He may face euthanasia, or worse, being shipped to Mexico for brutal slaughter.
Disappointment Valley . . . A Modern Day Western captures the pure madness of the American West. Greed and corruption take center stage, exposing how the United States failed energy policy and the current rape and pillage of western public lands by oil, gas, mining and corporate cattle grazing, is leading to the extinction of America’s wild horses and burros. The film interviews such experts as, Jim Baca, former Director of the Bureau of Land Management under the Clinton Administration, Randy Udall, energy consultant, Michael Blake, (Writer of Dances With Wolves and Wild Horse Advocate), the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management, environmental attorneys, Sheryl Crow, Viggo Mortensen, Daryl Hannah, American Indians, Cowboys and other colorful characters.
The untamed natural beauty of the last few remaining wild horses is a strong sign of hope for many people. Real-life heroes take peaceful action to save this noble symbol of American freedom and raw beauty. Go behind the scenes as these hero vigilantes work to get wild horses returned to their homelands and stop the cycle of abuse that continues to haunt America and the world. The wild horses’ plight is our own!
Disappointment Valley. . . A Modern Day Western, is a film that is impressionable, haunting and will inspire people to take action towards positive change. The film presents solutions for America’s wild horses and burros and the preservation of our public lands.
VIDEO: CNN-Headline News: Is Horse Round-Up Deadly?
“Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell”
Madeleine Pickens appeared with Wendie Malick, and Ginger Kathrens from the Cloud Foundation.
Meet Chyba - A Canine Hero & My New Love
Dear Friends,
I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of my family. Her name is Chyba and she is a beautiful German Shepherd. Chyba is a retired Military Working Dog that has served in the military for 10 years. KUSI’s Brad Perry interviewed us, on Monday at Del Mar Country Club. I spoke with Brad about the need for adopting retired service dogs returning from war. These dogs saved countless lives and they are now ready to be apart of your family. The little dachshund in the video is my other recent adoption, named Tommy. I rescued him from a puppy mill in Tennessee. Also in the video, I talked about my foundation to save the wild horses of America in hopes of protecting a piece of American history.
Chyba was a member of the 18th Military Police Brigade. She was referred to as a PNDD or Patrol-Narcotics Detector Dog. Her tasks included searching for people in buildings and open areas as well as catching a fleeing suspect. Chyba was utilized to search for drugs in local schools and at the instillation access points. This included health and welfare inspections of soldiers barracks and customs checks in the Post Office including the Stuttgart Army Airfield. In 2007, Chyba and her handler, Joshua Campbell participated in the United States Army Europe Military Working Dog Competition. Even though her handler made mistakes, Chyba picked up his slack and took first place for Narcotics Detection. We were also told she had at one time deployed to Kuwait in either 2004 or 2005. Other than Kuwait, she has spent her career in Stuttgart, Germany.
I adopted Chyba through Military Working Dog Adoptions. Their website is: www.militaryworkingdogadoptions.com. Anyone can adopt a retiring Military Working Dog. These canine heroes deserve a Forever Home with a loving family. Please visit their website and adopt your own Military Working Dog. Chyba is truly a blessing and I love her dearly.
All the best,
Madeleine Pickens
As a result of the passage of H.R. 5314 on 6 Nov 2000,civilians can adopt a retiring Military Working Dog! These wonderful animals can now have a well-deserved retirement with a loving family.
The Book is Fresh off the Press: Wild Horse Annie & The Last of the Mustangs
WILD HORSE ANNIE
& THE LAST OF THE MUSTANGS
The Life of Velma Johnston
By David Cruise and Alison Griffiths
Wonderful News!
The book, Wild Horse Annie & The Last of the Mustangs, is fresh off the press & available in stores & online.
Moving forward, the authors are excited to be working on the movie, Wild Horse Annie & The Last of the Mustangs, based on their book! ORDER NOW!
The authors will be donating a portion of the proceeds to the wild horse cause
Del Mar Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe, CA will be presenting a Book Signing in the upcoming months. Details to follow.
“Velma Johnston (Wild Horse Annie) is one of the most important people in our American history. She single-handedly saved our mustangs and with that our western heritage. This is an important book and Cruise and Griffiths have done a spectacular job of bringing home her story.”—Madeleine Pickens, Saving America’s Mustangs Foundation
In one of the year’s most stirring biographies, David Cruise and Alison Griffiths paint a vivid portrait of Velma Johnston, an intrepid Nevada secretary whose dedication to wild mustangs captured the heart of the country and led to legislation that would preserve the animals who embody the wild spirit of the American West. WILD HORSE ANNIE AND THE LAST OF THE MUSTANGS: THE LIFE OF VELMA JOHNSTON (Scribner; March 16, 2010; $26.00) is the first to tell the full story of Velma’s life.
In WILD HORSE ANNIE, veteran writers Cruise and Griffiths depict the ups and downs of an extraordinary woman’s life and mission and reveal her lasting legacy.
David Cruise and Alison Griffiths are the authors of seven bestselling books, including Fleecing the Lamb, Lords of the Line, Net Worth, On South Mountain, and The Great Adventure. They spend summers on their small farm in southwestern Ontario and winters in Brooksville, Florida ... with their horses of course.
The Old Mare Has Died - An Experience by Kay Levie
March 14 & 15, 2010
She was the only mare not in foal when the mustangs arrived a little over a year ago. You could tell she was very old so I gave her the name La Vieja, The Old One.
Her days were spent somewhat solitarily, not making friends or taking an interest in the new foals arriving almost on a weekly basis. And yet, she had a dignity about her, but also a sadness. Perhaps she knew her days were short or her spirit had been damaged from the trauma of the round up and the loss of the only home she had ever known, the hills, canyons and sage covered mesas of western Utah. While the other mares with their new babies adjusted to life in their temporary desert sanctuary, the old one seemed to decline into a depression that drained her life away and she wandered off to die alone yesterday.
The days leading up to her death evidenced her decline and I knew yesterday that the end was near. And the babies sensed it too, a new experience encompassing the ebb and flow of life. I watched as Uno, the oldest of the foal crop, approached the mare who was standing dejectedly with ears drooping. The old mare had never let the foals touch her or acknowledged them other than to chase them away from her food with ears pinned and teeth snapping. But this day, Uno was ignored as she tried to make the mare move. Then, giving up on that effort, nibbled on her gently and lovingly. Soon she was joined by Dos, the black colt with the strong Barb characteristics. Working together, they encouraged the mare to move into the shade of the trees by the water trough. The two youngsters then scampered off to find other adventures and the old mare spent the better part of the day standing in the shade.
As I went about my chores, I glanced at the mare now and then. Later in the afternoon, I saw that she was no longer under the trees. Looking around, I finally saw her several hundred feet out in the five acre paddock. She was down and not moving. With foreboding, I made my way over to her followed by all nine babies. As we approached, the mare raised her head and I back off, not wanting to frighten this still wild horse. But the babies stayed there, gently nudging her or just watching. Soon they were joined by some of the other mares and all stood around her quietly. After about an hour I saw the old mare go into her death throes, frightening the babies but they didn’t run away. I know animal lovers are often criticized for attributing anthropomorphic qualities to animals. But what I witnessed was as touching and poignant as any family group around the deathbed of a much loved member of the family.
Today, the guy with the backhoe came and buried the old mare where she lay. They said the babies kept coming over to watch and this evening I see them out there looking at the ground under which she lies and they are more subdued than is usual. There is a quietness over the whole herd, a palpable somberness. I can’t help but feel that we as humans greatly underestimate the depth at which animals feel. There is much we can learn from them if we can just take the time to stand back and observe. I grieve for the old mare but am grateful that her last days were spent in comfortable, beautiful surroundings rather than in a filthy desolate holding pen where no one cared.
Kay Levie
Updates from Americans Against Horse Slaughter
Dear Friends,
Re: Illinois HB12 - Many of you have already heard the news that IL Rep. Sacia threw in the towel and pulled HB4812 from this session’s agenda. Great work everybody! And a special thanks to the Illinois Advocates who worked so hard in effort to assure the legislation would not be overturned.
Secondly, mark your calendars! There’s another Major Protest for our Wild Horses in Washington D.C. on March 25th. We encourage all who can attend to make this trip and lend your voice to the cause. Click on the link below for more information on this important event. “MARCH FOR MUSTANGS”
Also, it is important to remember that the key to ending the slaughter and the transport to slaughter of all horses in America is passing the federal legislation. The federal law will override and end any new state legislation and will protect our wild and domestic horses from slaughter.
With that said, please rise up, join the movement to pass the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act. The ad below is the 5th ad in our public educational awareness campaign. Please cross post this on all social media websites, blogs, etc., and don’t forget to pass this on to all of your friends, family and co-workers.
Illinois Bill to Restore Horse Slaughter Withdrawn for Lack of Support
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Springfield, IL (March 12, 2010) – Yesterday State Representative Jim Sacia (R – Freeport) pulled his bill to legalize horse slaughter from the agenda for this legislative session. The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) appreciates his recognition of horse slaughter as a controversial issue and his decision to withdraw it from consideration.
This was the third time in as many years that Representative Sacia had introduced legislation aimed at overturning the state’s widely supported ban on horse slaughter. In the two previous years, the House voted against his proposal. Support for maintaining the ban remains strong with the Illinois General Assembly and the Governor.
“We are much relieved by Representative Sacia’s decision. We look forward to working together with all the members of the Illinois General Assembly on ways to improve the welfare of horses in the state.” said Chris Heyde, deputy director of Government and Legal Affairs for AWI. “We are looking at positive options and slaughter is certainly not the right step.”
For More Information:
Chris Heyde, 202-337-2332
____________________________
CHRIS HEYDE
Deputy Director
Government and Legal Affairs
ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE
900 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20003
www.awionline.org ~ www.compassionindex.org
Honolulu Police Department horses retire to green pastures of Big Isle
“Their beauty captures every eye, a gift from God for all mankind, they lend us wings so we may fly, to ride a horse is to ride the sky.”
By Katherine Nichols
Feb 18, 2010
The four-legged partners of the Honolulu Police Department’s Mounted Patrol Unit have a new home.
The seven horses that helped police officers protect the city will be transferred to Keawewai Ranch on the Big Island. Ranch owner Chandi Duke Heffner has agreed to house the horses, treat them with tender loving care, and allow representatives from HPD to visit their equine friends—Chief Lee, Cruiser, Scout, Kuhio, Trooper, Justice and Cinbad.
“We’ve been working very hard over the past several months to come up with a creative solution that will provide a suitable and healthy environment for the horses,” Mayor Mufi Hannemann said. “We are especially glad that the horses will be able to remain together and enjoy a well-deserved retirement after serving the department and the community so well for many years.”
After about nine years of service, the Mounted Patrol Unit was dismantled in July 2008 due to the high cost of caring for the animals. A plan to auction off the horses—deemed “property” by HPD—drew fire from animal lovers in Hawaii.
Julie Goodnight, who helped train the horses and police officers in the Mounted Patrol Unit, wrote on her blog that the horses and officers conducted crowd control by keeping protesters in line. They also did community service and ceremonial work, and were recognized and appreciated by the community during their tenure.
“Police horses are incredibly courageous and trusting—willing to walk into a 200-person drunken brawl—strictly on the assurance from the rider that it will be OK,” Goodnight wrote when she discovered the unit would be disbanded. She found the notion of auctioning off the animals to the highest bidder “appalling.”
Now, horse lovers can take comfort that the animals will remain together in relative comfort on Heffner’s ranch.
March for Mustangs - Thursday, March 25th - Washington, D.C.
March for Mustangs Invitation
Please come to Washington DC to attend the “March for Mustangs” on Thurs., March 25th, 2010.
We will gather and hold a press conference in Lafayette Park on the north side of the White House where we will be making a stand for the preservation and protection of America’s Wild Horses and Burros. Then we will all march to the Bureau of Land Management Office as we call for the freedom and protection of all that is wild.
When: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 1:00-3:00pm, Press conference and speakers at 1:30pm (Filmmaker/Advocate Ginger Kathrens, Author RT Fitch and many more - including special guests to be announced)
Where: Lafayette Park (north side of Whitehouse, on H Street between 15th and 17th Streets, NW). At 3:00pm protesters will march with signs to the BLM office at 1849 ‘C’ Street.
Plus Mustangs on the Hill II: On Friday morning, we’ll brief advocates regarding their meetings with their Senators and Representatives in regard to saving our mustangs. Please schedule an appointment with your Senators and Congressperson for Thursday morning or Friday.
Why: The Bureau of Land Management’s cruel and costly mismanagement is destroying a vital piece of the American West. The American public is standing up for our horses and burros - Please join us in a March for Mustangs, rally and protest.
Background: Roundups increased significantly in 2000 in the Bush years and they haven’t let up under the Obama administration. 12,000 wild horses and burros are scheduled for removal from our Western public lands this fiscal year alone. These cruel helicopter roundups come at enormous expense to our wild herds and to the American taxpayer.
Recently the roundup of 1900 mustangs took place in the Calico Mountains of Northwestern Nevada during the dead of winter, ending early in February when BLM realized the herds were far smaller than estimated. To date 60 horses have died due to this roundup and the death toll continues to climb daily. This does not include the 30 plus mares that have aborted their late-term foals in the feedlot-style corrals in Fallon, Nevada, where the horses are being held. Two foals had their hooves literally separate from the bone after the helicopters ran their families for miles over rocky and sharp volcanic ground.
Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversees the BLM, has decided there is no room left for our mustangs on their legally designated lands in the West and has proposed purchasing private land and shipping wild horses (gelded stallions and mares) East to the first of seven “preserves” which many people call SalaZoos. The plan as it stands only adds to the financial train wreck that the Wild Horse and Burro Program has become.
So, rather than spending over $50 million this fiscal year to remove our wild horses and burros from the range plus $42 million to buy land in the East, let’s protect them on their Western lands. The intent of Congress’ 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horses and Burros Act was not to warehouse our mustangs but to allow them to live in freedom in self-sustaining numbers on Western rangelands designated primarily for their survival. Drastic change is needed in the management of wild horses and burros if they are to survive, as wild animals, into the future. Wild horses benefit the land as they evolved in North America and they represent our living history in the West.
Add to the millions spent for round ups is the annual loss of $123 million running a taxpayer subsidized grazing program, often referred to as “welfare ranching”. The fees charged to livestock permittees is currently the lowest allowed by law—$1.35 per cow/calf pair per month. This rate would need to be over $9.00 in order for the program to break even. If cows were removed on legally designed wild horse herd areas and horses allowed to stay, we’d save even more—including our valued mustangs. Holding the 1900 Calico horses alone in a feedlot style facility amounts to a staggering cost of over $10,000 per day!
But change is on the way for our wild horses and burros! Some 25 protests have been mounted from coast-to-coast including Chicago, LA, NYC, Denver, Las Vegas, Reno, and Sacramento since late December. Thousands of people have braved the cold and come out with their families to hold banners and signs demanding that President Obama react to the hideous mistreatment of our spectacular wild horses and respond to the incredible waste of taxpayer dollars on a broken program that only lines the pockets of powerbrokers and cattle barons. Now is the time to say enough is enough. Open the gates and return our wild horses to their rightful ranges.
Please take action for our wild herds. An immediate moratorium on all roundups is needed! This must be followed by hearings and investigations on BLM mismanagement; accurate and independent assessments of just how many wild horses we have left and the real range conditions. Then we need to develop a sustainable plan for our wild herds on our Western public lands and restore their protections set forth in the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Moving our wild horses in non-reproducing, broken families to the East is not the answer.
Join us on Thursday, March 25th, for a Mustangs March on Washington and take action today to save these incredible animals who are currently being managed to extinction.
Take Action: Call President Obama 202-456-1111, Call your Senators 202-224-3121
In my dreams thundering across the plains, race immense herds of mustangs, running like the wind-free in every sense of the word in all their glory. “In riding a horse, we borrow freedom.” –Helen Thompson.
Every single day mustangs (wild horses) are being rounded up and put in holding pens like discarded waste. Families are torn apart, mothers and babies put in separate pens. Their fate is uncertain; to be slaughtered for Europe’s elite diners (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gAX5snG7-4**Warning – Contains Graphic Material**) or to live in some holding pen the rest of their lives is not what most Americans believe they deserve. These horses have been grazing these lands for over 200 years, and in fact, horses are an integral part of American heritage and culture as even Congress declared in 1971 with the passage of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
What the opposition and people like Sue Cattoor, Bob Abbey, Ken Salazar can’t see or feel is the true beauty these precious, magnificent creatures exude-their spirit is one with Mother Earth and all that She has to offer the mustang. Those that cannot see the treasure that is the mustang with all its beautiful colors, spirit, freedom, joy, fierce loyalty and love of family have grown dull toward this world in which we live; they have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. “Every once in a while something will come along and shock us right out of our dullness and resignation.” That’s what the mustangs and watching “The Stallion and the Foal” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JKKWF0ZUGk)
have done for me.
Thanks to photographers like Pam Nickoles, Carol Walker, and cinematographer Ginger Kathrens, I got to experience the mustang like I never have before. I didn’t even know they existed wild on the plains of 10 states. There used to be 2 million mustangs in 1900 throughout 16 states. They are now extinct in 6 states. If YOU do not act and do not let the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), President Obama, senators and congressmen know of the value these animals have, they too will go the way of the buffalo and the wolf. We cannot let that happen to them – to the horses that took us to battle when our nation was young and brought the pioneers to the west. I cannot let that happen.
“Just as we have lost our wonder at the world around us, we have forgotten what a treasure the human heart is. All of the happiness we have ever known and all of the happiness we hope to find is unreachable without a heart.”—John Eldredge.
The wild horses are protected by The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (Public Law 92-195), which states that Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.
“Less than one percent of humans who live in America have ever seen wild horses running free. I have spoken with many of the few who have and each has said the view they made will never be forgotten. As remarkable as a distant sight of wild horses can be it remains the tip of a glorious iceberg. The actual lives of wild horses reveal to humanity the privilege having a life on the planet earth and how vital it is to respect the privilege.” Twelve the King, -Michael Blake
“Before I purchased El Mariachi, that beautiful horse belonged to each and every one of you. All of the BLM managed Mustangs belong to you. Many people don’t even realize this, but the wild horses belong to the PUBLIC. You. Their futures are in your hands as well. If you ever have an opportunity to view a wild horse in its natural surroundings, I guarantee that you’ll be changed forever, and maybe you’ll begin to understand why many people work so hard to preserve them. Hopefully, you’ll become involved in the wild horse protection efforts yourself. There are so few wild herds remaining, it’s imperative that people act NOW. The wild horses are magical, spiritual creatures and they absolutely deserve their place on our Earth.” -Pam Nickoles
Some facts:
• The half-million acre Calico Complex herd management area is the last stronghold of the American mustang and was designated by Congress principally for the wild horses and burros. Millions of head of livestock graze at a cost of $1.35/cow-calf pair/month.
• Overall welfare livestock constitute a net loss of $123 million annually to the American tax payer.
• The scapegoating of wild horses and burros for range deterioration must stop—they comprise only a tiny fraction of animals and wildlife grazing on our public lands.
• Cows graze within a mile of water. In comparison wild horses are highly mobile, moving 5-10 miles from water and grazing on more rugged terrain.
• BLM does not adequately control cattle on the public’s land and has not sustainably balanced use of the “forage”, water and space.
• A 1000-lb cow not only eats 26 lbs. of forage daily, but they consume as much as 30 gallons of water a day and defecate in it as well.
• Private and corporate livestock outnumber wild horses at least 100 to 1 on public lands.
Search your deep heart and investigate what I have just told you if this has motivated or awakened you to the dullness of your life. Pass this on and awaken your family, friends, coworker, children and grandchildren. Let’s not leave a legacy of dust to our children and grandchildren where the mustang once roamed like the buffalo…YOUR HELP IS DESPERATELY NEEDED TO SAVE THE WILD HORSES OF THE WEST! YOU ALONE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THEIR LIVES!
Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jennifer has been involved in the wild horse protection efforts for only about 3 months. She is obviously passionate about the cause and she has done some research to back up her beliefs. I hope that others will be inspired by her words, follow her lead and decide they too can make a difference in the lives of our wild horses. Thanks Jennifer. I’m honored to have been a small part of your journey of discovery into the beauty of, and the issues facing our wild ones.
Washington, DC Screening of Disappointment Valley…A Modern Day Western
Special Washington DC Screening of the new documentary on the plight of America’s wild horses and the rapidly deteriorating condition of our wild and beautiful public lands in the majestic, haunting American west.
Disappointment Valley… A Modern Day Western presented by filmmaker James Kleinert
Date/Time: Wednesday evening, March 24th from 6:00-8:00pm
Location: BusBoys and Poets, location 14th & V street (map here)
Disappointment Valley. . . A Modern Day Western. This film examines the plight of America’s wild horses and the rapidly deteriorating condition of our wild and beautiful public lands in the majestic, haunting American west.
Through interviews with scientific experts, ranchers, historians, wild horse owners, animal rights activists, environmentalists, movie stars, uranium prospectors and many other colorful characters, the filmmaker examines the origins and effects of the recent “Burns Bill,” which gutted the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 and cleared the way for the slaughter and removal of wild horses in America. Greed and corruption take center stage, exposing how the United States’ failed energy policy and the current rape and pillage of western public lands by oil, gas, mining and corporate cattle grazing, is leading to the extinction of America’s wild horses and burros.
The film interviews such experts as, Jim Baca, former Director of the Bureau of Land Management under the Clinton Administration, Randy Udall, energy consultant, Michael Blake, (Writer of Dances With Wolves and Wild Horse Advocate), the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management, environmental attorneys, Sheryl Crow, Viggo Mortensen, Daryl Hannah and more. The filmdocuments the struggle of an animal that has long symbolized freedom, individualism and unbridled passion in America. Documenting wild horses in their authentic, beautiful pure essence (filmed in HD), Disappointment Valley, is a profound film that will awaken and touch all who view it.
The majestic band stallion known as Traveler, named after Robert E. Lee’s Stallion, and his family are, located in beautiful Disappointment Valley, Colorado. Traveler and his snow-white mare known as Alfa, live and thrive with their family until the Bureau of Land Management conducts a massive wild horse round up, taking two thirds of the wild horse herd away, destroying the wild band’s family dynamic and genetic viability in this brutal round up and removal. Traveler is sent to wild horse prison, a short term holding facility, as is most of his family. Following wild horse advocates as they work to get Traveler returned to his homeland, the threat of being shipped to BLM long term holding facilities is high. He may face euthanasia, or worse, being shipped to Mexico for brutal slaughter.
Disappointment Valley . . . A Modern Day Western captures the pure madness of the American West. Greed and corruption take center stage, exposing how the United States failed energy policy and the current rape and pillage of western public lands by oil, gas, mining and corporate cattle grazing, is leading to the extinction of America’s wild horses and burros. The film interviews such experts as, Jim Baca, former Director of the Bureau of Land Management under the Clinton Administration, Randy Udall, energy consultant, Michael Blake, (Writer of Dances With Wolves and Wild Horse Advocate), the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management, environmental attorneys, Sheryl Crow, Viggo Mortensen, Daryl Hannah, American Indians, Cowboys and other colorful characters.
The untamed natural beauty of the last few remaining wild horses is a strong sign of hope for many people. Real-life heroes take peaceful action to save this noble symbol of American freedom and raw beauty. Go behind the scenes as these hero vigilantes work to get wild horses returned to their homelands and stop the cycle of abuse that continues to haunt America and the world. The wild horses’ plight is our own!
Disappointment Valley. . . A Modern Day Western, is a film that is impressionable, haunting and will inspire people to take action towards positive change. The film presents solutions for America’s wild horses and burros and the preservation of our public lands.
Copyright 2009 Moving Cloud Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Urge your Illinois Representative to vote NO on HB 4812 (Horse Slaughter)
March 2, 2010
Urge your Illinois Representative to vote NO on HB 4812
A bill to reopen cruel horse slaughter plants in IL
VOTE COULD TAKE PLACE ANY DAY – CALL NOW!
Dear Illinois Humanitarian,
Urgent calls are needed to protect equine welfare in the state of Illinois. Please contact your State House Representatives to help preserve the 2007 Illinois ban on horse slaughter which ultimately resulted in the closure of the last remaining horse slaughter plant in the United States.
To no surprise, the Illinois State House Committee on Agriculture and Conservation passed HB 4812, a bill to reopen cruel horse slaughter plants in the state. State Rep. Jim Sacia, introduced the bill to repeal the state ban, paving the way for horse slaughter to reappear in Illinois. As has been discussed and voted on many times before, the slaughter process subjects horses to extreme cruelty and an inhumane death. Supporters on both sides of the issue agree that we have a nationwide crisis right now, and something must be done to save these majestic beings from cruelty. We disagree, however, on how to handle the problem. The Animal Welfare Institute does not believe subjecting horses to the trauma of slaughter by captive bolt or being stabbed in the neck by puntilla knife is the answer.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn reiterated his desire to protect the welfare of animals this weekend, “As long as I am governor, we’re never going to pass any kind of legislation that allows cruelty toward animals, whether it be dogs, cats or any other living things.”
We are confident Illinois House and Senate representatives are strongly opposed to HB4812, and will vote NO on the bill. However, Representative Sacia has begun to employ a new tactic to garner support for the bill. Claims that the bill has no chance of passing and a vote in favor of the bill as a political nod to Rep. Sacia have started to swirl around the State Capitol. Representatives must not play political games with this bill, which holds the lives of about 100,000 horses annually. It is critical that you urge your representative to vote NO on HB 4812.
Also, please reiterate the fact that Illinois horse rescues will not accept any money as once offered by Rep. Sacia, in an attempt to appease the animal welfare community. Illinois horse rescues submitted a letter to the State House denouncing the acceptance of monies collected from slaughtering horses. Ask that your Representative to record a NO vote on the bill with or without amendments.
It is unfortunate that the Illinois General Assembly and individuals from Illinois and around the country must continue dealing with this issue year after year, but we must remain vigilant against any and all attempts to overturn the 2007 ban on horse slaughter. It is a shame that our limited resources must be used to repeatedly engage in this fight, rather than expend the resources further protecting horses.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
The Illinois House will bring take up HB 4812 at any time now. The exact date is not yet set but may appear soon. Please contact your Representatives today to register your opposition to this inhumane bill. To find House member contact information, visit www.ilga.gov/house or see below.
For your convenience, below is a list of talking points to aid in placing calls and drafting emails. Again, please take action for the horses today. They are counting on us!
Talking Points:
* Please apologize for having to call your representative on this issue yet again. The Illinois General Assembly resolved this issue back in 2007, but Rep. Sacia continues to take up everybody’s time with this unpopular bill.
* No matter what is said, please vote NO on HB 4812. Soundly defeating this bill will send a message across Illinois and the U.S. that horse slaughter and efforts to promote it are not acceptable.
* Strongly oppose HB 4812 and any amendments because horse slaughter is a cruel and unnecessary practice.
* The Illinois General Assembly banned horse slaughter by an overwhelming majority in 2007, and Rep. Sacia’s bill, HB 4812, must be rejected. There is no evidence to support Rep. Sacia’s claims that the slaughterhouse closure has led to an increase in horse abandonment or abuse. Horse slaughter itself is abuse because of the way in which horses react to the stress of slaughter plants and the multiple hits required to immobilize a horse.
* Ending horse slaughter stopped an overt form of animal cruelty and has only been good for the horses. The state ban is important.
* The animal welfare community, equine rescues and the majority of Illinois residents DO NOT support the overturning of this ban no matter what Rep. Sacia may claim.
* If Rep. Sacia actually cared about the welfare of horses he would support the federal ban on horse slaughter which would stop the export of horses from the U.S.
Please ask your representative to urge Rep. Sacia to discontinue his attempts to overturn the horse slaughter bill. Your representative should also urge Rep. Sacia to support the federal bill, Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S.727), in order to truly advance the welfare of equines in Illinois if he is truly concerned with the welfare of our horses. H.R. 503/S.727 ensures horses from Illinois and all over the U.S. will no longer be hauled to Canada or Mexico for slaughter.
Please share this “Dear Humanitarian” eAlert with all family, friends, colleagues and fellow horse enthusiasts! Also, please take a minute to visit AWI’s Compassion Index at www.awionline.org/takeaction and take action on the federal Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S. 727). For more information on horse slaughter, you may visit www.awionline.org.
Thank you for all you do on behalf of the horses!
Chris Heyde
Deputy Director
Government and Legal Affairs
Animal Welfare Institute
House Member D/R Phone # Email
Edward J. Acevedo D (217) 782-2855 eacevedoed@ilga.gov
Luis Arroyo D (217) 782-0480 repdistrict2@yahoo.com
Suzanne Bassl R (217) 782-8026 NA
Mark H. Beaubien R (217) 782-1517 strepmbeaubien@aol.com
Daniel V. Beiser D (217) 782-5996 dvbeiser@sbcglobal.net
Patricia R. Bellock R (217) 782-1448 rep@rbellock.com
Maria Antonia Berrios D (217) 782-1032 repberrios39gmail.com
Bob Biggins R (217) 782-6578 bobbiggins@comcast.net
William B. Black R (217) 782-4811 wbblack@sbcglobal.net
Mike Boland D (217) 782-3992 ilrepmikeboland@aol.com
Mike Bost R (217) 782-0387 rep.bost@hotmail.com
John E. Bradley D (217) 782-1051 repjohnbradley@mychoice.net
Dan Brady R (217) 782-1118 dan@rep-danbrady.com
Rich Brauer R (217) 782-0053 brauerri@ilga.gov
Daniel J. Burke D (217) 782-1117 burkedj@ilga.gov
William D. Burns D (217) 782-2023 repwillburns@att.net
John D. Cavaletto R (217) 782-0066 john@joncavaletto.com
Linda Chapa LaVia D (217) 558-1002 chapa-laviali@ilga.gov
Franco Coladipietro R (217) 782-8158 franco@il45.com
Sandy Cole R (217) 782-7320 representativesandycole@comcast.net
Annazette Collins D (217) 782-8077 collinsar@ilga.gov
Marlow H. Colvin D (217) 782-8272 repcolvin@sbcglobal.net
Michael G. Connelly R (217) 782-8028 Repconnelly48@gmail.com
Elizabeth Coulson R (217) 782-4194 Coulson@ilga.gov
Fred Crespo D (217) 782-0347 fred@fredcrespo.com
Tom Cross R (217) 782-1331 tom@tomcross.com
Barbara Flynn Currie R (217) 782-8121 repcurrie@sbcglobal.net
Shane Cultra R (217) 558-1039 shanecultra105@yahoo.com
John D’Amico D (217) 782-8198 johnd@ilga.gov
Monique D. Davis D (217) 782-0010 davismd@ilga.gov
William Davis D (217) 782-8197 williamd.hds.state.il.us
Anthony DeLuca D (217) 782-1719 repdeluca@sbcglobal.net
Lisa M. Dugan D (217) 782-5981 lisadugan@sbcglobal.net
Kenneth Dunkin D (217) 782-4535 kendunkin@msn.com
Jim Durkin R (217) 782-0494 jimd@ilga.gov
Roger L. Eddy R (217) 558-1040 reddyunit1@aol.com
Keith Farnham D (217) 782-8020 krfarnham@gmail.com
Sara Feigenholtz D (217) 782-8062 feigenholtz@ilga.gov
Robert F. Flider D (217) 782-8398 bobflider@repflider.com
Mary E. Flowers D (217) 782-4207 flowersme@ilga.gov
LaShawn K. Ford D (217) 782-5962 lkf@ilga.gov
Mike Fortner R (217) 782-1653 mike.fortner@sbcglobal.net
Jack D. Franks D (217) 782-1717 jack@jackfranks.org
John A Fritchey D (217) 782-2458 mystaterep@aol.com
Paul D. Froehlich D (217) 782-3725 statereppaul@sbcglobal.net
Esther Golar D (217) 782-5971 esthergolar@sbcglobal.net
Careen M. Gordon D (217) 782-5997 staterepgordon@sbcglobal.net
Jehan A. Gordon D (217) 782-3186 repjehangordon@gmail.com
Deborah L. Graham D (217) 782-6400 st.rep.graham@sbcglobal.net
Julie Hamos D (217) 782-8052 julie@staterephamos.org
Betsy Hannig D (217) 782-8071 betsyh@ilga.gov
Greg Harris D (217) 782-3835 greg@gregharris.org
Kay Hatcher R (217) 782-1486 vote4kay@att.net
Elizabeth Hernandez D (217) 782-8173 repehernandez@yahoo.com
Jay C. Hoffman D (217) 782-8018 hoffman@legis.state.il.us
Thomas Holdbrook D (217) 782-0104 NA
Constance A. Howard D (217) 782- 6476 howardca@ilga.gov
Eddie Lee Jackson, Sr. D (217) 782-5951 NA
Naomi D. Jakobsson D (217) 558-1009 naomi@naomijakobsson.com
Charles E. Jefferson D (217) 782-3167 staterepchuck67@aol.com
Kevin Joyce D (217) 782-8200 kjoyce@hds.ilga.gov
Renee Kosel R (217) 782-0424 rkosel@ilga.gov
Lou Lang D (217) 782-8400 reploulang@aol.com
Michael J. Madigan D (217) 782-5350 mmadigan@hds.ilga.gov
Sidney H. Mathias R (217) 782-1664 repmathias@hotmail.com
Frank J. Mautino D (217) 782-0140 patti76th@ivnet.com
Karen May D (217) 782-0902 karen@repkarenmay.org
Emily McAsey D (217) 782-4179 repEmily@gmail.com
Michael P. McAuliffe R (217) 782- 8182 macauliffe20@yahoo.com
Kevin A. McCarthy D (217) 782-3316 kevmac37@sbcglobal.net
Jack McGuire D (217) 782-8090 jmcguire86@sbcglobal.net
Deborah Mell D (217) 782-8117 deborahm@ilga.gov
Susana A. Mendoza D (217) 782-7752 staterepmendoza@gmail.com
David E. Miller D (217) 782- 8087 repdavidmiller@sbcglobal.net
Bill Mitchell R (217) 782-8163 repmitchell@earthlink.net
Jerry L. Mitchell R (217) 782-0535 repjmitchell@comcast.net
Donald L. Moffitt R (217) 782-8032 moffitt@grics.net
Rosemary Mulligan R (217) 782-8007 repmulligan@usa.net
Richard P. Myers R (217) 782-0416 repmyers@macomb.com
Elaine Nekritz D (217) 558-1004 enekritz@repnekritz.org
JoAnn D. Osmond R (217) 782-8151 osmondjoann@aol.com
Harry Osterman D (217) 782-8088 hjo17@aol.com
Brandon W. Phelps D (217) 782-5131 bphelps@yourclearwave.com
Sandra M. Pihos R (217) 782-8037 sandrapihos42@gmail.com
Raymond Poe R (217) 782-0044 poe@ilga.gov
Robert W. Pritchard R (217) 782-0425 bob@pritchardstaterep.com
Randy Ramey, Jr. R (217) 558-1037 staterepramey55@aol.com
Dennis M. Reboletti R (217) 782-4014 dennisreboletti@sbcglobal.net
Davis Reis R (217) 782-1018 repreitz@egyptian.net
Al Riley D (217) 558-1007 rep.riley38@sbcglobal.net
Robert Rita D (217) 558-1000 robertbobrita@aol.com
Chapin Rose R (217) 558-1006 chapin@chapinrose.net
Jim Sacia R (217) 782-8186 JimSacia@aeroinc.net
Angelo Saviano R (217) 782-3374 skip@saviano.com
Timothy L. Schmitz R (217) 782-5457 info@timschmitz.org
Darlene J. Senger R (217) 782-6507 sengerstaterep@gmail.com
Carol A. Sente D (217) 782-0499 senteforstaterep@gmail.com
Michael K. Smith D (217) 782-8152 repmikesmith@gmail.com
Keith P. Sommer R (217) 782-0221 sommer@mtco.com
Cynthia Soto D (217) 782-0150 csoto@ilga.gov
Ron Stephens R (217) 782-6401 ron@repstephens.com
Ed Sullivan, Jr. R (217) 782-3696 ILhouse51@sbcglobal.net
Andre M. Thapedi D (217) 782-1702 rep32district@gmail.com
Jill Tracy R (217) 782-8096 jilltracy@jilltracy.com
Michael W. Tryon R (217) 782-0432 Mike@miketryon.com
Arthur L. Turner D (217) 782-8116 gene@turnerforillinois.com
Patrick J. Verschoore D (217) 782-5970 pverschoore@legis.state.il.us
Ronald A. Wait R (217) 782-0548 repwait777@aol.com
Mark L. Walker D (217) 782-3739 repmarkwalker@gmail.com
Eddie Washington D (217) 558-1012 washington60th@aol.com
Jim Watson R (217) 782-1840 jimwatson@localnetco.com
Dave Winters R (217) 782-0455 repwinters@aol.com
Karen A. Yarbrough D (217) 782-8120 kyarbrough@ilga.gov
Michael J. Zalewski D (217) 782-5280 michaelz@ilga.gov
An Important Update from Madeleine Pickens
Dear Friends,
Recently, I was invited to a meeting with the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, to discuss my Foundation’s plan to create a sanctuary for thousands of our wild horses in Nevada or another western State. The Secretary was very gracious with his time, and I felt that the meeting was very productive. The Secretary indicated that he recognized that there is a serious problem with the excess wild horses that now stand in holding pens all across America and the additional thousands of wild horses being gathered this year. This is the first time in many years that a Secretary of the Interior has reached out to the private sector and acknowledged that there is a problem, and I commend Secretary Salazar for his initiative in trying to reconcile the many different proposals to resolve this issue.
I explained to the Secretary that it was wrong to continue to gather these wild horses, particularly in light of the fact that we have not addressed the issue of where to put them and also advised him that long term holding was not a good option. I emphasized the fact that these wild horses should remain in their natural environment and be presented to the American people in the setting where they have lived for hundreds if not thousands of years.
It is sad and regrettable that the approach we have taken to house over 22,000 older wild horses has been strictly limited to a long term holding arrangement that does little to protect or preserve the horses and offers little, if any, incentive to improve the lands where they are located. I explained in detail the distinction between having a non-profit foundation build and operate a sanctuary where any monies received from the federal government for care of wild horses would be mandated to be returned to the sanctuary for improvements or operational expenses in perpetuity. Simply paying ranchers or other contractors to warehouse wild horses until they die is an unacceptable method of addressing the issue of excess horses.
I also explained to the Secretary that embracing a plan like the one my Foundation put forth will result in saving of millions of dollars to the taxpaying public. Leveraging private dollars and relying on private contractors to build a state of the art wild horse facility will prove to be the prudent approach from a financial perspective.
I have said many times that we owe the wild horses much more than we have given and I conveyed that thought to Secretary Salazar. I told him that we have a moral obligation to America’s wild horses to protect and preserve them for future generations in a manner consistent with the law.
The Secretary offered to let me serve on a small committee that he is forming to address the issue of excess wild horses and to look at a full range of solutions to this problem. I have accepted his offer and look forward to representing our wild horses and all of you as we look for a solution that is good for the wild horses and for the American people.
I urge all of you to continue with your calls and letters to the Secretary of the Interior, Members of Congress, and the Obama Administration. I believe we have laid the groundwork to succeed in this effort and through your support, perhaps we will one day soon see thousands of wild horses roaming in their natural habitat, protected from abuse and inhumane treatment for the rest of their natural lives.
Thank you and best wishes,
Madeleine Pickens
URGENT! ILLINOIS HOUSE TO HOLD HEARING ON HORSE SLAUGHTER BILL
February 16, 2010
Here We Go Again:
Dear Humanitarian,
Your help is once again needed in order to preserve the 2007 Illinois ban on horse slaughter which ultimately resulted in the closure of the last remaining horse slaughter plant in the United States.
HB 4812, sponsored by Illinois State Rep. Jim Sacia, would repeal the state ban, paving the way for horse slaughter to once again rear its ugly head in Illinois. Every year since the Illinois General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill banning horse slaughter in the State, Rep. Sacia has attempted to overturn this responsible legislation and reestablish an industry well known for its widespread abuse of equines. We are at a loss to explain his support of this abusive industry or his persistence in advocating for it.
It is unfortunate that the Illinois General Assembly and individuals from Illinois and around the country must continue dealing with this issue year after year, but we must remain vigilant against any and all attempts to overturn the 2007 ban on horse slaughter. It is a shame that our limited resources must be used to repeatedly engage in this fight, rather than expend the resources further protecting horses.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
The Illinois House Agriculture & Conservation Committee will hold a hearing on February 23, 2010 2:00PM. If your representative is on the Committee, please call her/him immediately in opposition to HB 4812. To find contact information for Agriculture & Conservation Committee members, visit http://www.ilga.gov/house/committees/members.asp?committeeID=626 or see below.
If your representative is not on this Committee, please take a minute to call or email her/him in opposition to HB 4812 as soon as possible. Visit http://www.ilga.gov/house/ to find your legislator and her/his contact information. For more information on horse slaughter you may visit http://www.awionline.org.
For your convenience, below is a list of talking points to aid in placing calls and drafting emails. Again, please take action for the horses today. They are counting on us!!
Talking Points:
* Please apologize for having to call your representative on this issue yet again. The Illinois General Assembly resolved this issue back in 2007, but Rep. Sacia continues to take up everybody’s time with this unpopular bill.
* Strongly oppose HB 4812 because horse slaughter is a cruel and unnecessary practice.
* The Illinois General Assembly banned horse slaughter by an overwhelming majority in 2007, and Rep. Sacia’s bill, HB 4812, must be rejected. There is no evidence to support Rep. Sacia’s claims that the slaughterhouse closure has led to an increase in horse abandonment or abuse. Horse slaughter itself is abuse.
* Ending horse slaughter stopped an overt form of animal cruelty and has only been good for the horses. The state ban is important.
* The animal welfare community, equine rescues and the majority of Illinois residents DO NOT support the overturning of this ban no matter what Rep. Sacia may claim.
* If Rep. Sacia actually cared about the welfare of horses he would support the federal ban on horse slaughter which would stop the export of horses from the U.S.
Please ask your representative to urge Rep. Sacia to discontinue his attempts to overturn the horse slaughter bill. Your representative should also urge Rep. Sacia to support the federal bill, Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S.727), in order to truly advance the welfare of equines in Illinois if he is truly concerned with the welfare of our horses. H.R. 503/S.727 ensures horses from Illinois and all over the U.S. will no longer be hauled to Canada or Mexico for slaughter.
Please forward this “Dear Humanitarian” eAlert to all family, friends, colleagues and fellow horse enthusiasts! Also, please take a minute to visit AWI’s Compassion Index (www.awionline.org/takeaction) and take action on the federal Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S. 727).
Thank you for all you do on behalf of the horses!
Chris Heyde
Deputy Director
Government and Legal Affairs
Animal Welfare Institute
House Agriculture & Conservation Committee
Representative Brandon W. Phelps (D), Chairman – (217) 782-5131
Representative Patrick J. Verschoore (D), Vice-chair – (217) 782-5970
Representative Jim Sacia (R), (217) 782-8186 (bill sponsor)
Representative John D. Cavaletto (R), (217) 782-0066
Representative Shane Cultra (R), (217) 558-1039
Representative Lisa M. Dugan (D), (217) 782-5981
Representative Robert F. Flider (D), (217) 782-8398
Representative Mary E. Flowers (D), (217) 782-4207
Representative Julie Hamos (D), (217) 782-8052
Representative Donald L. Moffitt (R), (217) 782-8032
Representative Richard P. Myers (R), (217) 782-0416
Representative David Reis (R), (217) 782-2087
Representative Dan Reitz (D), (217) 782-1018
Please Send An E-mail To Help Wild Horses Public Comment Ends Friday February 12th
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.CLICK HERE TO HELP SAVE THE WILD HORSES. 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.
They Defend Animal Cruelty: Don’t Let Them Win – A letter from Wayne Pacelle
Dear Friend,
I’ve written before about the phony Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).
In its early years, CCF made money as a front group for Big Tobacco, the alcohol industry, and other corporations working against public health. In recent years, CCF has expanded its business model to represent factory farmers, seal clubbers, cockfighters, and puppy millers.
The so-called Center for Consumer Freedom wants to stop us from protecting animals. Will you let them? Please donate today The Humane Society of the United States is now CCF’s number one target. A couple weeks ago, CCF assailed our humanitarian relief mission in Haiti, despite the remarkable work of our people on the ground. Now, these animal cruelty apologists say they will step up their attacks on us this week.
Will you make a special gift today and show CCF that those who care about animals won’t back down?
The shills at CCF have one thing right: The HSUS is indeed the largest, toughest, and most effective animal protection organization, and we have the power, like no other group does, to effect major changes for animals. Just listen to how our opponents talk about us:
“HSUS is clearly the nine-million-pound gorilla. They are powerful, sophisticated and rich and they are good at what they do. They are good at building the agenda, good at framing issues, they know how to talk about issues, which is why they are effective.” —Wes Jamison, Meatingplace.com
“Fifteen years ago we were confronted by about 150 animal rights organizations, subject to infighting and competition. Today, the movement is defined by the Humane Society of the U.S.” —Steve Kopperud, Cattle Network
“With the passage of California’s Proposition 2, more people have come to realize the evolving threat of the power, influence, and growing wealth of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Ballot initiatives and legislation similar to Prop. 2 will soon be introduced in more states. HSUS’s massive budget, unwarranted positive public reputation, and deep-pocketed Hollywood friends will only become a greater threat to industry in a post-Proposition 2 business environment. It is crucial that a key broad cross-section of agriculture leaders start managing this nationwide threat now, before it is too late or too expensive to match HSUS dollar for dollar.” —Rick Berman, CCF
If you don’t recognize the name of Rick Berman, let me provide a proper introduction. He’s the type of individual—I know you’ve heard of them before—who will literally do anything for money. Back in the days when the tobacco lobby was still denying that smoking caused lung cancer, men like Rick Berman attacked doctors and other anti-smoking advocates who had the courage to speak the truth. For his ultimately unsuccessful efforts, Rick Berman grabbed a first fistful of cash (about $600,000 for starting the precursor to CCF), and learned he could build a business by attacking “do-gooders” and acting as hit man.
Right now, Berman is making the circuit of businesses and organizations that profit from the status quo in the treatment of animals, promising them they can dry up public support for our work and pledging to step up assaults against The HSUS beginning this week.
He will not slow us down. But here is something he will do. Beginning now and for the first time in his public life, Rick Berman is going to start helping animals. We’re going to see to it—you and I.
In response to CCF’s new mudslinging campaign, I’m asking you to join with me, in raising $200,000—$100,000 to help feed and care for animals at the network of five animal care centers The HSUS owns and operates and $100,000 to add to our campaign to take on factory farming. Please make a special gift today to support our animal care work and our campaigns against factory farms.
Here’s why I’ve chosen these two programs. We provide permanent homes to 1,572 animals and treat another 14,000-plus injured animals each year—the largest such sanctuary system in the United States (and that’s just one small part of our direct-care portfolio). Yet, Berman and company say we don’t do enough hands-on care, and I want to underscore how painfully wrong he is by allowing him to help us pay for the feeding and vet care of these creatures for just a few days.
And second, we want to raise additional funds to fight factory farming because it’s that type of work (whether passing California’s successful Proposition 2 or shutting down slaughterhouses violating the law with our undercover investigations) that CCF and its corporate backers really want us to stop. They’d love it if we spent all of our money on direct animal care, and never addressed the causes of large-scale, institutionalized cruelty and how animals get into a crisis situation to begin with.
As a reminder, we’ve employed this “counterpunch” strategy once before. When the extremist U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) worked to nix a $5,000 corporate gift to The HSUS for our emergency grants to help pets affected by the foreclosure crisis, we asked you to show the USSA that its activism against The HSUS would backfire. We tried to raise more than USSA’s campaign cost us—and we’d apply half of the money for our pet foreclosure fund and our other efforts to protect pets, and the other half for the programs that drive the USSA crazy, such as our anti-bear baiting or anti-canned or captive hunts campaigns. It worked. We raised $170,000, and sent the group a message that whenever they attack, we’ll engage in a form of political jujitsu and flip the fundraising equation on them.
Today, in our new counterpunch campaign, I’ll start with a personal donation of $1,000. I hope you’ll make a contribution today and show Rick Berman and the shadowy corporate interests that line his pockets that any time they attack The HSUS, our supporters will rise to the occasion to make sure our critical work to protect animals not only continues, but is enhanced.
When we hit our goal, I’ll notify you and explain how we’ll spend the money. Also, as we allow from time to time, the donor who raises the most in this campaign gets naming rights to one of our animals at the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch. The winner can pick, of course. But it’s my fond hope to be greeted by a wild ass (actually, a donkey, but allow me this embellishment this time) named “Rick Berman” next time I visit the ranch. It will be a reminder in the winter of 2010 of the good he finally did for someone other than himself.
Foal Aggressively Attacked by BLM/Cattoor Helicopter during Calico Wild Horse Round-up
February 8, 2010 R.T. Fitch
by R.T. Fitch, author of “Straight from the Horse’s Heart“
Cattor chopper hunting for our Wild Horses - Photo by Terry Fitch
Acclaimed artist and videotographer Laura Leigh has released a devastating video of a young foal aggressively and dangerously “pushed” and attacked by a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contractor’s helicopter during the much contested Calico Wild Horse round-up.
After a terrifying 15 mile chase over volcanic rock, ice and snow the small foal had difficulty keeping up with it’s family and was continually terrorized by the Cattoor’s helicopter at an alarmingly close and dangerous range.
Additional footage shows one foal limping in the BLM pens while another, which is on the ground, was reported to have died due to having it’s young “hooves run off” by the Cattoor helicopters.
This is documented evidence of the out of control and deadly behavior of the Obama administration’s Bureau of Land Management.
Please forward this video to the President, the First Lady, the Vice President and every single one of your elected representatives. Our “animal friendly” administration needs to be held fully accountable for supporting known animal abusers within it’s organization.
Warning if you understand, love and/or care about animals you will find this footage to be extremely unsettling.
Great News! BLM Defers Proposed Eagle HMA Gather
Release Date: 02/06/10
Contacts: Chris Hanefeld
(775) 289-1842
chris_hanefeld@nv.blm.gov
News Release No. Ely District Office No. 2010-00
Ely, Nevada – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has determined there is not adequate time to safely conduct the proposed Eagle Herd Management Area (HMA) gather prior to the beginning of foaling season, and therefore, will defer issuing a decision on the proposed gather until later this year after the foaling season.
BLM will conduct further environmental analysis at that time and will extend additional opportunities for public comment prior to issuing a decision to address removal of excess wild horses from the Eagle HMA. On December 28, 2009, the BLM issued a preliminary environmental assessment (EA) proposing to gather excess wild horses from the Eagle HMA during the month of February 2010. More than 9,000 public comments were submitted following a 30-day comment period.
The preliminary EA also included a proposal to gather approximately 50 wild horses that have moved outside of the Eagle and Silver King Herd Management Areas (HMA) and that are threatening the safety of motorists along U.S. Highway 93 near Pioche, Nev. The BLM is aware of at least three animals that have been hit by vehicles during the past year.
BLM is currently considering options for gathering these horses outside HMA boundaries. BLM anticipates issuing a decision in the next week addressing removal of wild horses along the highway to address the potential risks to the public and to the horses.
For more information, contact Chris Hanefeld, BLM Ely District public affairs specialist, at (775) 289-1842 or chris_hanefeld@blm.gov.
The BLM manages more land – 253 million acres – than any other Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The Bureau, with a budget of about $1 billion, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s multiple-use mission is to sustain the health and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Bureau accomplishes this by managing such activities as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, mineral development, and energy production, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on public lands.
–BLM–
The Bureau of Land Management’s Eagle Lake Field Office is seeking public input on a proposed gather and removal of an overpopulation of wild horses and burros from the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area (HMA), northeast of Susanville, Calif. The gather, involving an estimated 1,800 wild horses and 180 burros, is tentatively planned for August and September 2010.
A 30-day public scoping period begins February 5 and ends March 5, 2010. The public is asked to identify issues to be addressed in an environmental assessment (EA) to be prepared as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The EA and proposed decision will be released about May 1 for public review and comment.
The purpose of the gather is to return the population of horses and burros to its appropriate management level (AML), or population range, established through the Eagle Lake Resource Management Plan, developed with full public involvement in 2008. The AML, which determines the number of animals the range can sustain, is set at between 448-758 horses and 72-116 burros. The current population is estimated at about 2,300 horses and 250 burros, resulting in ongoing resource damage that will be analyzed in the environmental assessment.
The proposed gather would remove sufficient horses and burros to bring the population within the AML. Under the proposal, most mares left on the range would be treated with a birth control drug effective for one to two years. The wild herd would be structured with more males than females. Both actions are intended to slow the growth rate of the herds.
The proposed action would restore a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple use relationship in the area consistent with the provisions of Section 3(b) (2) of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
Comments can be sent to Eagle Lake Field Office, Attn: Twin Peaks Wild Horse Gather, 2950 Riverside Dr., Susanville, CA 96130. Comments may also be sent via email to twinpeaks@ca.blm.gov.
Press Release- Important Virginia Range Herd at risk!
Press Release- Important Virginia Range Herd at risk!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 2, 2010
The recent announcement of plans by the Nevada Department of Agriculture to remove 24-25 wild horses from the Damonte Ranch development in southeast Reno, Nevada has brought to light several issues that must be addressed.
The area in question has been used by wild horses as grazing lands for over a hundred years. The expansion of our city has slowly converted these grazing lands to residential and commercial properties thus complicating the issue of human/animal cohabitation. Who is responsible for creating the problem and for solving it?
Scrutinizing the Damonte Ranch development points us to the answers. Along with grassy lawns and greenbelts providing a food source which draws grazing animals by their very nature,development laid a web of roadways precipitating horse/human encounters dangerous to both. Protective fencing was apparently not part of the plan even though such fencing was removed to accomplish the build out.
City and County agencies were certainly aware of the need for mitigating these dangers in the planning and permitting stages of the project. Again, mitigation was not addressed .
The state of Nevada has laws that speak specifically to the issues at hand. These laws have been ignored in too many instances.
As a result of the failure to address mitigation of a known consequence of this development, the Nevada Department of Agriculture will soon place 25 horses up for bid, preferably to be purchased by a single buyer. They will be sold by the pound. An average bid of 3-4 cents per pound commonly results in transport to Mexican or Canadian slaughter facilities.
It is our position that the primary responsibility to the public and to the animals lays squarely on the lap of our City and County agencies and the Developers who are involved.
Wild horses don’t read street signs. They don’t understand that us two legged critters have claimed their land. Just like us, they must eat and drink to survive. They are the innocent ones….. we are the guilty.
Carrol Abel
President
Hidden Valley Wild Horse
Protection Fund
Country Lifestyle Magazine - The Horse Whisperer - An Article on Madeleine
Champion thoroughbred owner Madeleine Pickens is in the race to save America’s wild mustangs
Published Date: January 2010
By: Rebecca Ponton
Photos By: Michael Partenio
It all began with a John Wayne movie.
While she herself has an exotic background—born in Kirkuk, Iraq, to a British father and a Lebanese mother, Madeleine Pickens grew up in various locales around the world—it was America’s Wild West heritage that captured her imagination. After going to the then-British Bahamas in 1966, she arrived in the United States in 1969 on a green card, later becoming an American citizen and eventually a resident of Dallas.
When asked what attracted her to America, she is effusive. “Oh, gosh! Watching all the American movies—John Wayne and cowboys—oh, it was so exciting! I mean, what a sexy history you guys have—and I’m part of it now!” she says gleefully.
“Remember the show Bonanza [and] the Ponderosa?” she continues, caught up in the nostalgia. “I used to watch that show and I hated it when it came to an end and then you had wait until the next week. I absolutely loved it. I used to envy [actress] Linda Evans, having all those brothers, living that life on the range. It was so, so beautiful. I was certainly going to run off with John Wayne; there was no question. All that was so dreamy,” she says, laughing at the memory.
Wild, Wild Horses
It’s that romanticism, coupled with a sense of moral responsibility, that has led Madeleine Pickens where she is today. Along with husband, T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman who has embraced alternative energy, she is co-founder of the non-profit National Wild Horse Foundation, the goal of which is to establish a permanent home for America’s wild horses and burros.
Pickens’ love affair with animals began early. “We had Labradors growing up. My father loved dogs. He used to go hunting, much to my [dismay]. Every Friday night, the guns would come out and the dogs would get so excited, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t excited to play with me anymore. They knew their big weekend was here.”
Pickens went on to become a successful racehorse owner and breeder, but it is America’s wild mustangs that have become the focus of her mission. “I came here and I never saw the wild animals and I didn’t know much about [the situation],” she says, referring to the more than 30,000 wild horses and burros that are being kept in short- and long-term holding areas, many of them for years and in less-than-ideal conditions. “I was devastated when I found out, but also delighted that I had the opportunity to jump in and fix it and then find a way to bring pleasure to the American public,” says Pickens, who envisions the creation of a horse eco-sanctuary as an opportunity to recapture the Wild West on a grand scale—“like a Yellowstone.”
“People can come [and] bring their families … to a living museum where they can see these horses roam, have documentaries, have campgrounds where the kids can come. [School children] all go to Washington at some point in their lives [to see] the monuments. They can go to Nevada [where half of the country’s wild horses are found] and visit Mustang Monument and see all of this and be educated—classes and campfires and teachers. I’m very, very excited about it all. I’ve had a lot of interest from all different [sectors] of the United States, which shows that people love this [idea].”
Grassroots Campaign
To see her dream become reality, Pickens has had to deal with government bureaucracy and has learned the wheels of change turn very slowly, which she attributes to something she jokingly refers to as the “NIH theory”—Not Invented Here.
“When you bring something new to the table—and for 40 years they’ve been doing it one way—it’s difficult for people to switch gears. I think sometimes you can be too close to an issue and it’s tougher to see how you can fix things,” she says, referring to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is currently responsible for overseeing the welfare of the wild horses and burros.
To help create awareness of her plan, which involves persuading legislators to pass a law converting the one million acres of land necessary to accommodate the animals from cattle-grazing to horse-grazing, Picken’s Saving America’s Mustangs Foundation has staged several pre-game and halftime tributes held at college football games. The Foundation also has created a 25-member advisory board, which includes of a number of well-known Texans; among them are her husband T. Boone Pickens, Chairman June Jones, Jerry Jones, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Mark Cuban and others.
The key difference in her plan, Pickens stresses, is the stipend paid by the government will not go into private hands (as it does now); it will stay with the Foundation. She emphasizes the Foundation cannot use the money for anything other than taking care of the land, so that the horses are provided for.
During the course of her campaign, she has discovered the power of the grassroots movement. At the time of this writing, supporters of Pickens’ vision have submitted nearly 12,000 signatures to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, and the BLM. She urges those who are interested to go to her Web site (www.madeleinepickens.com), where they can sign up for alerts. “The wonderful thing about the Internet is that you start to educate and inform the public about issues they didn’t know existed,” she says. “Let’s face it, I didn’t know about these issues [before].”
‘Outrageous History’
Pickens recalls the first time, from the view of a helicopter, that she saw the horses running wild. “It was just one of those life-changing days where you say, ‘This is what I want to do. This is what I want to bring back and share with people.’ We can’t let these animals be gathered and thrown into a world of sadness and horror and slaughter. That’s got to end. It’s too beautiful a part of life.”
Not only does Pickens want to provide sanctuary for the mustangs, but she would like to see them accorded the same respect as the bald eagle. Mystified by the bald eagle’s status, she recently had the opportunity to see hundreds of them on Stuart Island in Canada and only then did she realize their beauty and majesty. “It was great,” she concedes, “but it certainly didn’t impress me as much as if I saw thousands of wild mustangs thundering by, their manes flowing in the wind. How can you not think of them [as a national symbol]?”
“I think it’s a very sexy heritage,” Pickens continues. “In [this] great country, that’s how the West was formed—people came out on wagon trains. When I’m flying across the country and traveling and looking at some of the land those people had to cross, you say, ‘How on earth did they do it?’ There were Indians, there were cowboys; I find the whole thing beautiful. What an outrageous history this country has! It’s beautiful, so I think it’s a shame we’ve forgotten our history.”
When asked if she would like saving the wild horses to be her legacy, Pickens replies, “It’s part of my life. Some people care very much about a legacy. I only care that I took care of my footprint. I’m sure that I’ll launch some other projects because I actually enjoy fixing things.”
“Everybody has a footprint. Not just a
carbon footprint, but the footprint of life.”
Pickens says she found her John Wayne in husband Boone. Just don’t expect them to ride off into the sunset anytime soon. “We have a moral responsibility in life. Everybody has a footprint. Not just a carbon footprint, but the footprint of life,” Pickens says with conviction. “I feel I’ve got so much more to do.”
Good Morning America - Wild Horses Rounded Up in American West
ABC News
Wild Horses Rounded Up in American West
Horses Lose Freedom Over Fears of Overpopulation, Starvation
By DESIREE ADIB
Jan. 30, 2010—
Gerlach, Nev., a sleepy little town an hour and a half north of Reno, turns into the third-largest city in the state once a year when a colorful crowd descends upon the nearby Burning Man Festival.
This is not the season for Burning Man, and yet Gerlach has been a very busy place in the last few weeks. Media, activists and at least one billionaire have descended on the town to witness one of the largest wild horse roundups in the nation’s history.
The goal for the government is to gather just over 11,000 wild horses nationwide before the end of the year. More than half of the horses are located in Nevada, right around Gerlach.
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) oversees the roundups for the federal government. When it comes to wild horses, the government has been clear about its goal: The horses are overpopulated and starving because there are too many of them for the land to sustain, so they need to be removed.
“The evidence is stark,” said Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. “You see horses that essentially have nothing but bones and ribs on them, horses that are simply starving out there on the range.”
The BLM says it is doing these roundups to protect the horses and to “manage” their population.
Activists are crying foul, saying the government’s census numbers on the horses are inaccurate. They argue the horses are not overpopulated or starving, and the roundups hurt the horses. They want the horses to remain wild.
Many activists claim the government is doing this to benefit cattle ranchers who are a powerful lobbying group. “They are zeroing out too many of the legal herds,” said Craig Downer, a wild horse advocate. “Their so-called appropriate management levels that have been set are not viable in the long term, so they’re setting up these horses to a crippling low number that’s not adaptable.”
The day before the scheduled media tour, the scene was quiet at Bruno’s Country Club, the little saloon, motel and restaurant that has become the unofficial headquarters of the BLM. The sun was just starting to set and Bruno’s was glowing under the purple clouds in the light.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a man in a tuxedo and a horse-head mask bicycled by the dusty parking lot. One of the local rangers didn’t even blink at the sight, saying he’s probably a “burner.”
“Burners” are a group of eccentric people who live in Gerlach year round and organize the annual festival.
Billionaire’s Wife Wants to Purchase Land for Horses
As he bicycled away, choppers appeared in the sky. A few people from the town gathered in front of the saloon as two helicopters floated closer and closer to Bruno’s and eventually just landed right there in the field in front of the gas station.
Doors opened and out popped Madeleine Pickens, the blonde and perfectly-coiffed wife of billionaire oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens.
Wearing a tan shall and Ralph Lauren cowboy boots, she pushed her 18-year-old blind dog Ollie in a baby stroller across the field and made her way to her room at Bruno’s where she would spend the night.
Following her was her entourage: two assistants, her twin sister, two horse consultants, her photographer and three helicopter pilots. Pickens arrived to watch the horse-gathering process and to take a look at the land where she hopes one day to build a horse refuge.
“They’re in holding areas right now,” she said of the horses. “So let’s take them out and put them on the range where they can roam freely as natural to them, and then allow the American public to come and visit them just as they would in any national park.”
Pickens is upset about the horse roundups and wishes they would stop, but she’s putting her energy and money into what happens to the horses after they get gathered.
“I made a proposal to the Bureau of Land Management, and I said, ‘Let me create an eco-sanctuary. I will purchase the land,’” said Pickens. “Initially, they loved it. Then they changed their mind, and there was a change in the government. But you know, really Republican or Democrat, they’ve never been good on horse issues. It’s a cattleman’s issue, and it’s a very difficult issue to fight.”
The problem is, she needs the Department of Interior to agree to her plan in order to buy the property and place the horses in Nevada, but the department so far has refused.
“I think her proposal is one that needs to be looked at in conjunction with other proposals,” Salazar said. “We are proposing the creation of three additional wild horse preserves in places that have better forage [than Nevada] to be able to deal with what is essentially an 11,000-horse problem.”
The problem is where to house these horses after they have been gathered. Tough economic times mean people are not adopting horses as often, so most of the horses end up in long-term horse-holding shelters funded by taxpayers’ money. The government calls the holding areas “preserves,” but the activists call them “concentration camps.”
The emotions run high when it comes to wild horses.
‘Let Them Go’: Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow Against Roundups
Prominent figures like the singers Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow have spoken out against the roundups, even accusing the government of leading the wild horses to eventual slaughter.
“I’m speaking for the horse here,” Nelson said. “I think he’s getting the worst deal here. There’s a lot of land out there. The horses are penned up. Let them go until we decide what to do with them. In the meantime, let’s take care of them. Don’t slaughter them.”
The slaughter of horses is illegal in the United States, but the activists claim the horses get shipped to Mexico or Canada, where it is allowed.
The day of the roundup featured a clear, blue sky. The BLM led a caravan of 12 cars carrying media representatives and horse advocates towards Solider Meadows field where cowboys had worked all morning to set up traps and locate the horses.
The drive took two hours from Gerlach on a muddy road, which caused two flat tires on the journey. When the caravan of media and BLM representatives arrived, there was an announcement that a set of helicopters operated by the contractor was on a recon mission trying to spot some mustangs in the high hills surrounding the trap site.
In Nevada, more than 600 horses have been rounded up since Dec. 29. A handful of them were standing around inside of a holding pen near the trap site. Mares, colts and male horses were divided into separate pens.
“They should be 100 pounds, maybe 200 pounds heavier than what they are,” said Alan Shepherd of BLM, pointing to the horses in the pen. “Going into the winter, we don’t want horses in this condition. We want to get the horses before they really start declining.”
After a roundup, the animals were loaded onto trucks and driven out to Fallon, Nev. to be put in a short-term holding area with the rest of the horses. On a successful day, the BLM rounds up about 50-100 horses.
After several hours of waiting, with only a couple of hours of sunlight left, the recon helicopter spotted a band. Visitors who came to watch the roundups quickly drove over to the “trap” area to sit on the side of a dusty hill and wait.
After about 45 minutes, a helicopter appeared in the distance. It got louder and louder as its rotors appeared over the edge of the hill.
The helicopter popped out from behind the slope, large, loud and close. In front of the chopper, a long band of horses galloped toward the enclosure. Despite their speed, the mustangs seemed almost quiet and slow compared to the loud buzzing of the helicopter that hovered above them.
Helicopters Round Up Horses
The horses ran in a straight, long line until they were caught.
The scene was dramatic as the cowboys on either side of the traps corralled the horses and directed them over to the loading truck. The horses whinnied and jumped on top of each other and banged against the fences.
For these mustangs, their time in the wild has come to an end.
The activists had horrified looks on their faces. One of them wanted to go down to the trap and monitor the horses’ breathing, but the BLM representative didn’t let her.
There were another two roundups, and each time the helicopter flew low over a long line of running horses and directed them from the distant hills into the traps. The plan was to continue the process until a total of 3,000 horses were rounded up from the area.
The government insists wild horses won’t ever disappear entirely because they reproduce quickly and often. The activists say all this is going to lead wild horses to extinction.
The sun was setting as Pickens jumped back into her helicopter to survey the golden, brush-covered hills below that were hiding small bands of the remaining free, wild horses—and the land she hopes one day to put them on.
The Death of the Calico Colt – An Essay by Ginger Kathrens
At least 22 horses have died and over 1300 are in holding at the Fallon Facility now. BLM is going back and changing their daily updates, you can read more here. Please read the following:
January 2010
He was wild and free, roaming the vast expanses of the rugged Calico Mountains with his mother and father and the other members of his family. This would be his first winter, a time when life slowed down for all the wild ones—the elegant pronghorn he watched on the distant horizon, the tiny pygmy rabbits that foraged in the sage brush undergrowth and darted into their dens when he tried to touch them, the fat sage grouse that were some of his favorites. When he was just days old, he heard their strange, booming sounds and saw the males strutting and displaying for a mate. When he wandered toward them, it was his father who gently guided him home. His mother softly nickered to him. She smelled of sweet sage and invited him to nurse. Then, one day while his mother and father and the others in his family were quietly foraging, conserving their energy in the growing cold, he saw his father jerk his head up. Ears forward, the stallion watched and listened and the colt did too, mimicking his father. The colt could hear a rumbling drone. In the distance, he could see something flying toward them. It was even bigger than the majestic golden eagles that soared over his home. It came closer and closer, dropping low over the sage. The drone grew into an earshattering roar. His family began to run and he followed, galloping beside his mother where he would be safe. Mile after mile the menacing, giant bird chased them. His legs ached and he wanted to rest, but he could not leave his mother. He kept running, struggling to keep up. Fear gripped the Calico colt.
Then he saw a horse in front of his father and it too began to run. Safety must be ahead. His family followed the stranger and suddenly they were trapped inside walls of steel. His father tried to jump over the wall but it was too high. There were two legged animals running at them with long sticks and something white that fluttered madly. Suddenly, he was separated from his mother when a two-legged moved between them, striking out at him with the frightening stick and the fluttering bag. He was driven into another corral. When he whinnied for his mother, she answered. He raced around the corral calling for her, but found his feet were too sore to run anymore and he stopped. He could hear his father calling and he knew the proud stallion had been separated too. The colt answered him. He could see his mother through the bars of his cage and this gave him strength and hope.
Days passed. It was cold and there was no place to get out of the wind. In his home, his mother would have led the band below a rocky outcrop that blocked the wind. The colt began to fear he would never again smell the sweet sage of her breath or taste the warm milk she offered to him. His feet, so sore, became worse. Shooting pains darted through his whole body when he tried to walk so he moved as little as possible, hobbling a few steps to eat the plants the two-leggeds had thrown on the ground for them. One frigid morning, the two leggeds came and drove him into a truck with others that were his age.
The pain was constant now and when the truck moved out, he stayed on his feet but the pain riveted him with every jolt and bump. He called for his mother, but there was no answer. Would he ever see his parents again? Hours passed and the truck moved onto smoother ground and it turned into a place where he could hear the calls of his kind. He whinnied as loud as he could, but the answering voices were unfamiliar. The two-leggeds drove the colt from the truck into a bigger cage and he struggled to keep up with the other foals. Some of them were limping too. His eyes scanned the horizon, looking for something familiar but the flat horizon looked nothing like the land of his birth. Days went by and he spent hours laying in the dirt, the pain growing. He could feel something happening to his feet. His once strong, dark hooves were beginning to separate from the bone designed to hold them fast. He laid flat and closed his eyes, imagining the home and family he feared he would never see again. The two leggeds walked toward him. He wanted to jump up and dash away but he could not. Over the next few days he grew too tired to move at all. The wind howled and as it began to snow, he closed his eyes for the last time and dreamed of his family. Then two leggeds came again and killed the Calico Colt.
In death, the lively spirit of the Calico Colt was released to roam free once more. He has returned home to his family and the land of his dreams. He is not just a statistic. Neither he nor what he symbolizes will ever be forgotten.
(Ginger Kathrens is a filmmaker, author, and founder of The Cloud Foundation,
dedicated to preserving our mustangs on public lands. The Foundation is calling for a
stop to the roundups that are robbing public lands of our legendary, native wild equids—
the very embodiment of freedom for many Americans. The Calico colt is only one of
many who have died as a result of the ongoing roundups this year alone. Find out what
you can do at www.thecloudfoundation.org)
Another BLM WIld Horse Roundup: Submit Comments Today before Jan. 27th
Removal of 550 horses in eastern Nevada set to begin next month
Just When We Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse – Government Claims More Than 670,000 Acres Can Only Support 100 to 200 Horses
Dear Friends:
Wild horses chased by helicopter during roundupWe told you this was going to be a long, hard fight – thank you for sticking with us to take action on each and every unacceptable assault by the Obama Administration on our wild horses. We are up against the deeply entrenched special interests who want wild horses removed from public lands so they can conduct business as usual. That means cheap usage of our public land for their private profits at the horses’ and taxpayers’ expense.
It’s time to get public comments in on another large removal of wild horses which is planned by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This time the BLM intends to remove over 500 of the estimated 645 horses living in or near the “Eagle Herd Management Area” in eastern Nevada outside of Ely. While 500 individuals is fewer than the 2,500 horses currently being rounded up and removed from the Calico Complex in northwest Nevada (click here for Calico update), the Eagle roundup is even more ludicrous because it is 125,000 acres larger than Calico, but the government will only allow 100 horses to remain! In Calico, by contrast, 500-900 horses will be left behind in the approximately 500,000-acre public land complex.
The proposed Eagle HMA plan puts these wild horses at great risk because the BLM is reducing the number of horses to dangerously low numbers, which could threaten the viability of the herd. Many horse advocates believe this is the BLM’s method of systematically dwindling horse population numbers down to untenable levels in order to ultimately eradicate these American living legends from public lands.
The Obama Administration is continuing the Bush Administration policy of targeting wild horses in order to serve special cattle and other industry interests. Under President Obama’s oversight, the BLM is actually accelerating the pace of wild horse removals, with 12,000 horses targeted for capture from our public lands in Fiscal Year 2010 alone. The majority of these horses will be sent to government holding facilities, where they will join the 35,000 wild horses already stockpiled at taxpayer expense.
For more information on the government’s plans, the Preliminary Environmental Assessment for this roundup is available here.
What You Can Do
Recipients
* Bob Abbey, BLM Director
* Sylvia Baca, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior
* Josh Cardin - Chief of Staff, Senator Ron Wyden
* BLM ELY Field Office
* Barack Obama - c/o Mr. Carson, Executive Office of the President
* Christopher Thompson, Chief of Staff, Senator Diane Feinstein
Thank you for Taking Action in Saving America’s Mustangs. Please send this to all of your friends and everyone in your database. TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
Kind Regards,
Madeleine Pickens
Madeleine Pickens’ Plan- Straight from the Source
January 20, 2010
This morning, I was able to hear about Madeleine Pickens’ plan straight from the source at a press conference at the New York Union League Club. Mrs. Pickens, a businesswoman and philanthropist and the wife of American financier T. Boone Pickens, is working towards building a sanctuary for the over 33,000 wild horses and burros that are currently in holding facilities by the BLM. Madeleine’s working to buy a million acres where these horses could live out their lives. The ranch would also have an eco-tourism element, so tourists could come to see the horses.
“The foundation is being created to protect and care for the wild horses and to allow citizens from around the world to come to the ranch to see thousands of free roaming wild horses. To achieve these goals, the Foundation will be active in the community promoting eco-tourism, hire within the local area, and be a good neighbor with the adjoining ranches to ensure strong fences are maintained and horses are contained to their own million acre ranch.”
Mrs. Pickens was articulate and passionate as she spoke about this controversial issue. You may read more about the plan and take action on her website SavingAmericasMustangs.org, including a FAQ section.
By: Darley Newman
Wild Horse Remain Under Seige by Government Authorities
Wild for Life Foundation (Jan 22, 2010)
The BLM reports that 118 horses taken to the Fallon facility on Wednesday. They intend to ship the remaining horses at the trap sites to Fallon on 1/22/10 and a new location in the Calico HMA will be established. BLM states that approx 30 mares from the Warm Springs HMA range in body condition from a 2.5 to 3.0, but the BLM does not mention the fact that these mares are still nursing their young. An estimated 20 to 25 horses at the facility have received treatment for vaioius injuries or lameness. Other reports are still coming in.
No wind breaks will be constructed for the general population of wild horses now penned inside the new BLM feed lot, though after much pressure from pro horse advocates, the BLM just announced they now intend to build wind breaks for sick & lame animals…
Recently free roaming Calico wild horses adversely impacted as follows: 1,195 REMOVED, 1,074 AT FEED LOT, 30 IN TRAPS, 2 SHOT AT TRAP SITES, 1 DIED DURING STAMPEDE, 1 ESCAPED- CURRENT WHEREABOUTS UNCONFIRMED, SIX DEATHS ATTRIBUTED TO FEED LOT. (Said totals per BLM) *Note that inconsistencies remain as to the true number of horses on site at the Fallon feed lot.
From The Cloud Foundation:
Two more horses were killed at the Fallon Facility in conjunction with the Calico roundup on 1/21/10. Based on the posted BLM report: The Cattoors/BLM ran the feet off a colt on Tuesday, let him stand for a day, then made him ride four hours in a trailer to Fallon where he was unloaded and then shot. At least two of his hooves had fallen off. This colt and his family may have been run by helicopter up to 14 miles on Tuesday. We don’t know how fast over rough volcanic rock and terrain this foal was run. Another mare was down in the trailer, arrived at Fallon alive and then died subsequently. No members of the public were allowed to observe on 1/21/10 and no one will be allowed to go to Fallon Facility until Tuesday, Jan. 26th.
This from In Defense of Animals:
It’s time to get public comments in on another large removal of wild horses which is planned by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This time the BLM intends to remove over 500 of the estimated 645 horses living in or near the “Eagle Herd Management Area” in eastern Nevada outside of Ely. While 500 individuals is fewer than the 2,500 horses currently being rounded up and removed from the Calico Complex in northwest Nevada (click here for Calico update), the Eagle roundup is even more ludicrous because it is 125,000 acres larger than Calico, but the government will only allow 100 horses to remain! In Calico, by contrast, 500-900 horses will be left behind in the approximately 500,000-acre public land complex.
The Obama Administration is continuing the Bush Administration policy of targeting wild horses in order to serve special cattle and other industry interests. Under President Obama’s oversight, the BLM is actually accelerating the pace of wild horse removals, with 12,000 horses targeted for capture from our public lands in Fiscal Year 2010 alone. The majority of these horses will be sent to government holding facilities, where they will join the 35,000 wild horses already stockpiled at taxpayer expense.
BLM Criticized Over Mustang Deaths in NV Roundup
January 23, 2010
By MARTIN GRIFFITH - Associated Press Writer
Wild-horse advocates are calling for an independent investigation after the deaths of nine mustangs so far in a government roundup of the animals on the range north of Reno.
Two advocacy groups - In Defense of Animals, based in San Rafael, Calif., and the Cloud Foundation in Colorado Springs, Colo. - criticized the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s handling of the roundup after two more deaths this past week.
A contractor is using two helicopters under BLM supervision to drive horses in the Calico Mountain Complex to corrals. Officials are then trucking the animals to a Fallon holding facility before placing them for adoption or sending them to long-term holding corrals in the Midwest.
BLM officials said the roundup is necessary because an over-population of mustangs is harming native wildlife and the range itself, and threatening the horses with starvation.
Horse activists maintain a colt was run so hard and long during the roundup that the hoof walls of its two hind feet came off, leaving exposed bones and nerves. The colt was euthanized Thursday at the Fallon facility.
The groups also contend a mare fell down in a trailer after being driven for miles on the range by helicopter and failed to receive any help on the four-hour drive to Fallon. The mare was still down on arrival in Fallon and died a short time later.
“These latest tragic and unnecessary deaths document beyond doubt that the BLM helicopter stampedes violate federal requirements for humane and minimally-intrusive management of wild horses,” said Dr. Elliot Katz, president of In Defense of Animals.
“(We) are calling for a full and independent investigation of these and other fatalities and injuries caused by the Calico roundup,” he added.
Katz’s group unsuccessfully sued to halt the roundup, claiming the use of helicopters to drive horses to corrals is inhumane and risks their injury and death.
BLM spokeswoman LoLynn Worley said less than 0.5 percent of wild horses gathered in such roundups die and the agency goes out of its way to minimize the risk to the animals. She disputed the groups’ accounts of the latest deaths.
Worley said the colt had no apparent health problems when it arrived in Fallon, but was placed on antibiotics a couple days later after it was observed with “acute lameness.”
“Apparently what happened is the colt’s two hind feet did develop abcesses and the pressure of that is what made the outer hoof area come off,” Worley said. “It was the veterinarian’s decision to euthanize him.”
Worley said it was speculation on the groups’ part that the mare stayed down in the trailer on the ride to Fallon.
“They stop the truck at various times to make sure animals are on their feet,” she said. “They make every effort to get horses back on their feet when they’re down.”
Worley said two horses have been euthanized and another horse died of a pre-existing condition at the roundup site.
Of six horses that have died at the Fallon facility, she said, five involved mares thought to have experienced difficulty making the transition to hay feed.
Another 20 to 25 horses at the facility are recovering after receiving treatment for various injuries or lameness.
Nearly 1,200 horses have been gathered from the Calico complex so far - about half of the mustangs the BLM plans to remove during the two-month roundup that began late December.
The government says the number of wild horses and burros on public lands in the West stands at nearly 37,000, about half of them in Nevada. It believes the number that can be supported on the range is about 26,600.
GIVE WILD HORSES THEIR LAND BACK
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s plan for managing the American mustang population repeats past failures.
By Jack Carone, The Los Angeles Times
5:35 PM PST, January 21, 2010
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s ode to the “majestic” wild horse, and his description of how the federal government must manage its population in his Jan. 14 Times Op-Ed article, comes across to the average reader as a reasonable and sympathetic approach to the problems faced by the American mustang. What Salazar doesn’t mention is that the bureaucracies now under his control—and the business interests they service—have created the problems the Interior secretary says he wants to solve.
Today, like any population that stands in the way of those who covet their land, the wild horses continue to be removed from their range land and tragically herded down the trail to oblivion. With little basis in sound science, the horse has been scapegoated for environmental degradation. Meanwhile, government audits have found that the Bureau of Land Management has been curbing wild horse populations in areas where private livestock grazing is increasing. Cattle grazing on public land—easily a much bigger cause of rang land deterioration—outnumber wild horses by at least 200 to 1.
Salazar writes that since the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was enacted in 1971—which allowed wild horses to live free on lands where they existed at the time—the Bureau of Land Management has helped wild horse populations thrive and recover. Salazar has a curious definition of “thrive” and “recover.” Since 1971, the BLM has systematically whittled away the act’s protections, with about 47,000 wild horses now kept in short- and long-term holding pens and just 31,000 left roaming free on public lands.
Salazar’s suggestion that horse adoption is part of the answer is perhaps his most outrageous one. In 1997, a BLM official told the Associated Press that roughly 90% of adopted wild horses ended up going to slaughter. While some horses are adopted and do adapt to a domestic lifestyle, tens of thousands remain in holding. The government spends more than $30 million a year to house captured horses, a useless expense considering that there is no need to find new land for the American mustang. The land designated for them in 1971 hasn’t gone anywhere; instead, wild horses have been permanently removed from nearly 20 million acres of their original herd areas. Some of these lands have been sold and made available for livestock, but they have never been reopened to the horses.
We do appreciate Salazar’s interest in “new partnerships” and “new thinking,” and we certainly look forward to working together on a viable alternative to the current management paradigm. But using progressive language is a far cry from implementing an ethically sustainable program. Indeed, a U.S. District Court judge recently said that Salazar’s proposed “plan” to relocate wild horses to holding facilities in the Midwest and east of the Mississippi River violates federal law.
Salazar encourages the public to get involved by coming out to the range and helping to care for the horses. This is a nice sentiment, but does Salazar seriously think he can address a “problem” that includes thousands of animals and hundreds of thousands of acres by getting a few environmentally inclined Americans to visit the range?
Perhaps most poisonous is the BLM’s misrepresentation of wild American horses as an invasive species. In reality, horses originated in North America between 1 million and 2 million years ago. These ancient North American horses, which are believed to have died out around the end of the last Ice Age, are biologically the same as the horses that arrived here about 10,000 years later. Native to this continent, the horses that have returned to their natural state over the past few hundred years, on our vast remote ranges, represent the current adaptation of the North American wild horse.
The BLM must halt its horse roundups until the population of wild horses and burros on public lands can be independently assessed. It ought to abandon its haphazard way of corralling and housing horses and perfect methods to progressively manage populations on the range.
A 1990 study by the U.S. General Accountability Office has already found that cattle and sheep grazing—not free-roaming wild horses—damage range and riparian areas the most. Old and failed policies must stop now so that we don’t continue to create bigger problems.
Secretary Salazar, please stop galloping in the wrong direction.
Jack Carone is chief operating officer of Return to Freedom, a wild horse sanctuary in Santa Barbara County.
Madeleine Pickens Witnesses a Wild Horse Gather & Visits a Fallon, NV Holding Facility
Dear Friends and Supporters,
On Thursday, January 14th, I joined the crew of ABC’s Good Morning America for a tour of the Calico Complex in northern Nevada and observed my first wild horse roundup. On a spectacular day in an area so picturesque it took our breath away. I watched as 51 wild horses were herded by helicopter into corrals and loaded on trucks taken away from the only life and land they have ever known. As I watched, I saw wild horses peering out the back of the trailers looking back at the peaceful and beautiful mountains they would never see again and the feeling was gut-wrenching.
The BLM briefing before the gather was full of stock lines we all have grown accustomed to: “the horses are starving up here in this wonderful country and we are doing them a favor to gather them and take them to holding areas where they will have better conditions.” Most of the wild horses we observed were in good condition and the sight of an undernourished horse was rare, and though the BLM admitted that many were in good condition now, they said they still had to gather them in case something changed later in the year.
The previous day I had a guided tour of the newly constructed wild horse holding facility in Fallon, NV. This is where all the wild horses being gathered in the Calico Complex will be held for an undetermined number of months or years. This facility stands by itself on the outskirts of Fallon with no windbreaks, overhead protection or other means for the wild horses to avoid the harshness of the winter months or the brutal heat of summer, and many of them will certainly be there during both the winter and summer.
While traveling out to the gather, we observed two trucks that passed us on the rough access road and witnessed one horse in the trailer down on its side. When we advised the BLM that we were pretty certain that a horse had fallen and could potentially be trampled, the response was, yes, it happens once in awhile. Perhaps by not loading the trucks with so many horses such incidents could be avoided. But, of course, these gathers are all about expediency.
While the BLM has all the canned answers down pat, there remains so many compelling questions about appropriate numbers of wild horses on the range, the lack of accounting of the acreage that has been taken away from the wild horses over the years, the issues of excess wild horses and where they will go and how we the taxpayers will pay to feed them. And none of the BLM answers speak to those questions in any meaningful way. The BLM presents the argument in such a way that it looks like it is just a matter of removing thousands of wild horses for the good of the horses.
Advocates across America must raise their voices in unison to let the BLM, Congress and the Obama Administration know that this is not simply a numbers game. The very survival of America’s wild horses is at stake and putting it into any other context is clouding and distorting the facts. The history of our involvement in protecting certain species in this country tells us that we don’t stop until they are totally gone. For those of you who have been on a wild horse gather, you can relate to the sense of loss and despair one feels when these wild horses are led unknowing into a trap and loaded on a trailer and taken away from their homes forever. And for those that have not seen it firsthand, we know that you share our sense of despair as this great American resource is taken off OUR public lands, never to return to the glory of life that has characterized their existence.
Help us stop this tragic approach to managing our wild horses. Write or call your Congressman and/or the Obama Administration and tell them enough is enough. There is still time to save and protect the magnificent wild horses of the West. Please get involved now for the sake of our wild horses.
Thank you,
Madeleine Pickens
HUMANE OBSERVER REPORT re NEVADA’S “CALICO” COMPLEX WILD HORSE ROUNDUP
HUMANE OBSERVER REPORT re NEVADA’S “CALICO” COMPLEX WILD HORSE ROUNDUP
10 January 2010
By now, many of you know I have been monitoring the Calico Complex roundup as a humane observer and that I was also likewise engaged last summer in the Pryor Mountains of Montana during the roundup of Cloud’s herd where the horses were driven 11 to 15 miles down the mountain. I do my best to document and share with all of you who would be here if you could what my eyes and my camera see. Craig Downer and Bob Bauer have been stalwart companions in the first weeks, and we’ve been gratified to see others coming out to stand vigil for our beloved mustangs who are losing their freedom and their home in this deeply wild and sparsely beautiful mountain range in Nevada. It is our aim to provide updated, regular reports of what we see although logistically we’ve not been able to keep you all as updated as we would like. There is a tremendous amount of driving involved – Nevada is a big place – along rugged roads in very bad Pogonip ground fog and icy cold conditions. It is sometimes so cold even my camera objects to being outdoors and won’t work properly, and I must turn it off and on again to coax it to photograph. Nevertheless, she has been a real trooper and continues to serve us all as well as she can.
First let me say these horses are beautiful, healthy wild horses. They are far more uneasy around people than Cloud’s herd, who are more accustomed to the sight of humans. The wild horses of the isolated Calico Complex and become quite nervous and swell together in unanimous, anxious whooshes of agitated movement when humans approach the pens.
At this point the beautiful stallion, Freedom, and his struggle and ultimate escape is familiar to many. While Craig and Bob were over on the side of the pens where they saw closely his attempts and ultimate flight to freedom, I was on the other side of the pens filming the “processing” of the individual horses, which is when I took the photos of Freedom standing upright, with his right front elbow stuck over the top of the fence to the jerry-rigged processing/sorting area the Cattoors set up at their portable trap sites. I’ve previously posted a picture you’ve probably seen of Freedom’s predicament, in which he got himself into in this sorting/processing alleyway by rearing up in an attempt to go up and over the fence and gate. After horses are driven in by the helicoper, they are individually put through this little processing area to be identified and evaluated for gender and age, and assessed for injuries and overall condition. Most all of the horses had a very difficult time with this area. They are afraid, claustrophobic, extremely anxious, backing up into each other and into the rear gate to the area, heads swinging down low side to side, rearing, kicking the back gate. Some just stand there frozen. Often it’s a first experience for them of being enclosed. They are afraid and very anxious.
Freedom, however, is in a class by himself. I believe Freedom to be Nevada’s Cloud. Cloud is the only horse we have ever seen turn to face the helicopter before being driven into the pen. His intelligence, courage, strength, and sheer spunk, as well as his tender affection for his family and his legendary good looks (!) constantly set him apart. Cloud has kept his head in numerous difficult situations, both on the range and in the hands of man, which is why he became a band stallion at only 5 years old. I believe Freedom has demonstrated that same true greatness of spirit embodied by his courage, presence of mind, and unflinching determination in the daunting face of his greatest natural predator: man.
I took numerous, rapid-fire photos of this incident, and as a tribute to him, to Freedom, I have decided, in response to people’s interest, to post them lest we forget what it means to these magnificent free spirits to b e f r e e.
Here is my whole sequence in chronological order, complete with timestamps: a wild horse’s terribly frightening ordeal at the hands of humans, yet this is par for the course in the day of the BLM and the roundup contractors. I am not alleging any specific abuse at the hands of man, rather, it is the general abuse inherent in this entire process of interfering with the wild horses’ right to run free in his own legally designated area. Calico Complex, consisting of five separate but adjoining wild horse herd areas — Black Rock East, Black Rock West, Warm Springs, Calico Mountain, and Granite Range — consists of 550,000 acres, easily enough room for 3,095 horses, almost 200 acres per horse. They are healthy and beautiful now in the dead of winter; they do not need BLM’s form of “help”; what a travesty. While they are drastically reducing the numbers of the wild horses, BLM has increased the number of cattle allowed to graze in the Soldier Meadows allotment. These facts need to be known.
Freedom’s story needs to be told, and told again and again, to children and grandchildren. To this end, Craig Downer and I feel privileged to share the photos we were so fortunate to take, so we are making available these photos to tell Freedom’s story. We want to do all we can to ensure that his sacrifice was not in vain. Personally, I am certain he sustained serious injuries to his chest when he hit the barbed wire fence full bore. Craig observed a deep bloody gash just above his hoof on his front right leg as he freed himself from the wire, but close study of my photographs indicates he arrived into captivity with this fresh cut. Nevertheless, I find some consolation in the fact that wild stallions sustain serious injuries every season during fights to win and keep mares. Their resilience is legendary, and with our prayers, God’s grace, and Freedom’s indomitable spirit, he will recover to start a new family and be a reigning stallion in the Black Rock Range if he can stay out of sight during this and future roundups, and stay out of the crosshairs of those few albeit deadly people who seek to rid the range of his magnificent and gloriously beautiful kind.
To put it in Freedom’s perspective: This ordeal was so serious for him, he was motivated to risk everything in order to escape the possibility of more of the same in captivity. It only lasted one minute, but his life is now forever changed. We must stop these roundups and the terrible stockpiling of these tremendously beautiful, peace-loving animals.
Photo A by Craig Downer 1/02/10 11:11:32 a.m.
Freedom’s band being driven into the trap area from Craig’s vantage point up on the mountain. Note the foal in the rear, trying to keep up. More foals than adults die from roundup injuries and subsequent complications. Additionally, many foals end up footsore and limping. We saw numerous foals limping in the Fallon holding facility on Thursday, 1/7/10 (separate reports to follow). Like human babies’ bones, their hooves are not yet hard, and they simply cannot sustain the pounding inherent in long treks keeping abreast with frightened adult horses, especially here on the hard lava rock, at any speed over a walk.
Freedom is in the front attempting to lead his band away from the helicopter threat, to safety. Sensing danger, he has slowed to a trot despite the looming pressure of the helicopter. Stallions are all about protection of the family. They are either in front, leading, or at the rear, placing themselves between the perceived threat and their family, in which case the dominant or “lead” mare assumes the responsibility for leading the band.
PHOTO B: Freedom stretched out now in a full gallop, a last-ditch effort to escape the demon helicopter on his tail. Although the helicopter sometimes hangs back over the long drive toward a trap site, at this critical juncture the pilot applies maximum pressure to make sure the horses move past their resistance all the way into the pen. This means the helicopter is very close and very low. The noise and wind are terrifying. This is a great shot by Craig capturing the release of the Judas horse, who is trained to run ahead of the wild horses straight into the pen. The wild horses, being frightened herd animals, tend to follow a strong leader.
Photo B by Craig Downer 11:11:46 a.m.
PHOTO C: Thirty seconds later, seen from my (Elyse’s) vantage point on the ground: Hard pressed, Freedom is hesitating, forced to lead his band into the trap. We can see the red-alert position of his ears, high head and arched neck. Note the wrangler hiding outside the jute-lined fence. Once the last horse (the foal) has passed, he and others likewise hiding will duck under the fence and start waving their flagwhips as they walk and run toward the horses to push them all the way up into the pen and slam the gate shut.
Photo C – 11:12:11 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
Trapped, frightened horses. Freedom is farthest right. Photo D (above) – 11:20:38 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
Freedom and band huddle together. Note that the deep gash above his right front hoof. It is a fresh wound. Photo E (above) – 11:24:09 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
Intelligent and alert, Freedom (farthest right) watches me photograph him while his band looks elsewhere. I am so very sorry, ashamed of my species… I tell him what I told Conquistador when photographing him up on Commissary Ridge while trapped in the trailer in Montana: I am so sorry; I will tell your story. I will tell the world. Photo F (above) – 11:24:09 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
PHASE II of Captivity
Stuck on the Fence, Freedom. Photo G – 1/2/2010 11:28:48 a.m – Elyse Gardner
This processing area was a narrow alleyway approximately 15 feet long within which the Cattoors would individually separate the horses to assess gender and condition. The horses were spray painted on their backs in here, also, to identify from which herd area they were taken.
As you can see below (photo H), Freedom is stuck (see right front elbow). Sue Cattoor is holding her flag whip (see the thigh-level white plastic bag, which is affixed to a whipstick approximately 3 feet long).
Freedom’s hind legs, his only traction, are struggling, and he’s slipping on the icy walkway as he thrusts to get enough lift to extricate himself. His mouth is slightly open in these photos; he is extremely stressed. Being immobilized is frightening enough to a horse, let alone a wild horse, but being immobilized in such close proximity to the greatest predators on earth would be a terrible ordeal for him. We can be sure he is highly motivated to get down off this fence.
Photo H – 11:28:51 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
Below in Photo I, two seconds later, he continues stressed. The pressure of the wrangler on the opposite side of the fence with flag whip uplifted is clearly felt. He now has some relief in that both hind legs are back solidly on the ground.
Photo I (above) – 11:28:53 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
In Photo J, below, two seconds later, he’s collecting himself. His mouth is closed. I am impressed with his self-containment at this point. He is nevertheless highly motivated to extricate himself from this terrible predicament. Note that the wrangler opposite Sue Cattoor is no longer present; he is walking around to this side of the processing alleyway.
Photo J – 11:28:59 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
This very present, collected band stallion of ten other horses driven in with him (eight mares, two six-month-old youngsters — a sizeable, very respectable band) now turns to look at his persecutor, below. He has his left front leg over the fence bar as well, giving himself some relief from hanging on the one side and definitely wanting to go over this fence and be free. I’ve seen horses escape confinement; their only interest is to get away.
Photo K – 11:29:01 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
In the photo below, Freedom struggles again to dismount off the fence. Bear in mind it’s only been about 6 seconds since the wrangler walked away from the opposite side of the fence. What I’ve termed a “rest” was really just a split second of cessation of struggle. He was struggling ongoingly to come off this fence.
Photo L 11:29:04 a.m. – Elyse Gardner
In photo M below, spray can in ungloved right hand and holding in his left hand his right-hand white glove, along with something else you’ll see in the next photos, BLM’s Nevada wild horse and burro specialist arrives on this side of the fence striding purposefully into the area. Freedom has removed his left front leg from the fence
It all began with a John Wayne movie. 
