Salazar Seeks Congressional Support for Sustainable National Program to Manage Iconic Wild Horses

http://www.doi.gov/news/09_News_Releases/100709.html

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today proposed a national solution to restore the health of America's wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them by creating a cost-efficient, sustainable management program that includes the possible creation of wild horse preserves on the productive grasslands of the Midwest and East.

"The current path of the wild horse and burro program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment, or the taxpayer," Salazar said in a letter outlining his proposals to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and eight other key members of Congress with jurisdiction over wild horse issues. Salazar said he is "proposing to develop new approaches that will require bold efforts from the Administration and from Congress to put this program on a more sustainable track, enhance the conservation for this iconic animal, and provide better value for the taxpayer."

Bob Abbey, Director of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), commended the Secretary for his initiative, saying, "The proposals we are unveiling today represent a forward-looking, responsive effort to deal with the myriad challenges facing our agency's wild horse and burro program." Abbey added, "We owe wild horses and burros on Western rangelands high-quality habitat. We owe the unadopted wild horses and burros in holding good care and treatment. And we owe the American taxpayer a well-run, cost-effective wild horse program. Today's package of proposals will achieve those ends."

The challenges to the BLM associated with maintaining robust wild horse populations in the West have been recognized by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has warned that gathering and holding costs have risen beyond sustainable levels and directed the BLM to prepare a long-term plan for the program. The Government Accountability Office also found the program to be at a "critical crossroads," affirmed the need to control off-the-range holding costs, and recommended that the BLM work with Congress to find a responsible way to manage the increasing number of unadopted horses. In response to Congressional direction, Salazar's proposals aim to achieve a "truly national solution" to a traditionally Western issue.

In four decades under the BLM's protection, wild horses that were fast disappearing from the American scene have returned to rapid growth. "As wild horses have no natural predators and herds grow quickly," Salazar said in his letter, "more than 33,000 wild horses live in 10 western states. Unfortunately, arid western lands and watersheds cannot support a population this large without significant damage to the environment."

The BLM works to achieve an ecological balance on the range by removing thousands of wild horses and burros from public rangelands each year and then offering them for adoption. Unadopted animals are cared for in short-term corrals and long-term pastures. With the sharp decline in wild horse adoptions in recent years because of the economic downturn, the Bureau now maintains nearly 32,000 wild horses and burros in holding, including more than 9,500 in expensive short-term corrals. In Fiscal Year 2008, the cost of holding and caring for these animals exceeded $27 million - or three-fourths of the FY 2008 enacted funding level of $36.2 million for the entire wild horse and burro program. In the most recent fiscal year (2009), which ended September 30, holding costs were approximately $29 million, or about 70 percent of the total 2009 enacted wild horse and burro program budget of $40.6 million.

A key element of the Secretary's plan, designed to address concerns raised by the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Government Accountability Office, would designate a new set of wild horse preserves across the nation. Citing limits on forage and water in the West because of persistent drought and wildfire, Salazar said the lands acquired by the BLM and/or its partners "would provide excellent opportunities to celebrate the historic significance of wild horses, showcase these animals to the American public, and serve as natural assets that support local tourism and economic activity." The wild horse herds placed in these preserves would be non-reproducing.

In his letter, Salazar also proposed:

* Managing the new preserves either directly by the BLM or through cooperative agreements between the BLM and private non-profit organizations or other partners to reduce the Bureau's off-the-range holding costs. This coordinated effort would harness the energy of wild horse and burro supporters, whose enthusiasm would also be tapped to promote wild horse adoptions at a time when adoption demand has softened.
* Showcasing certain herds on public lands in the West that warrant distinct recognition with Secretarial or possibly congressional designations. These would highlight the special qualities of America's wild horses while generating eco-tourism for nearby rural communities.
* Applying new strategies aimed at balancing wild horse and burro population growth rates with public adoption demand. This effort would involve slowing population growth rates of wild horses on Western public rangelands through the aggressive use of fertility control, the active management of sex ratios on the range, and perhaps even the introduction of non-reproducing herds in some of the BLM's existing Herd Management Areas in 10 Western states. The new strategies would also include placing more animals into private care by making adoptions more flexible where appropriate.

Noting that his proposals are subject to Congressional approval and appropriations, Salazar said he and Director Abbey look forward to discussing them with members of Congress "as we work together to protect and manage America's 'Living Legends.'"

A copy of the letter is online at www.doi.gov and can be found here . For background information on the national wild horse and burro program, please visit the BLM's Website at www.blm.gov.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR200910...

http://rgj.com/article/20091018/NEWS/910180347/Wild-horse-management-pla...

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20091126/NEWS/911259954/1070&ParentP...

By SANDRA CHEREB, Associated Press Writer
Wed Nov 25, 4:00 pm ET

CARSON CITY, Nev. - The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday postponed a planned roundup of thousands of wild horses in Nevada because of a lawsuit and to allow time for appeals of its decision.

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley in Reno confirmed that the roundup planned to begin Dec. 7 has been delayed until Dec. 28.

In Defense of Animals, a California-based animal protection group, filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking to halt the roundup. The suit said wild horses are an integral part of the natural ecosystem and should remain on rangeland throughout much of the West rather than be herded into long-term holding pens.

The suit also argued that the use of helicopters in massive roundups is illegal because they "traumatize, injure and kill" some of the animals.

"We welcome this moratorium on the capture and inhumane treatment of the Calico horses," said William Spriggs, an attorney representing plaintiffs in the suit, which include Craig Downer, a renowned wildlife ecologist.

"We are confident that the court will agree that America's wild horses are protected by law from BLM's plan to indiscriminately chase and stampede them into corrals for indeterminate warehousing away from their established habitat," Spriggs said.

BLM still plans to round up about 2,700 animals from the Calico Complex Herd Management Area near the Black Rock Desert north of Reno, Worley said, adding that the agency will issue its formal decision Tuesday.

The agency received more than 8,000 comments concerning the plan, she said, and the three-week delay will allow time for the court case and any appeals of the formal decision to be filed.

"We are giving that process a little bit of time to play out," she said. Ultimately, the BLM wants to reduce the herd size to between 600 and 900.

Springs said Justice Department lawyers agreed to the delay by late Tuesday. Motions seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against the roundup were filed Wednesday, he said.

Mustang advocates say the roundup violates the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which Congress passed in 1971 to protect wild horses and burros as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West."

The BLM estimates 36,600 mustangs live on public lands around the West, about half in Nevada. It wants to reduce the population to what it considers an "appropriate management level" of 26,600.

In 2008, the BLM said it would have to consider euthanizing wild horses because of escalating numbers and costs of caring for them in long-term holding facilities. But earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the agency instead would pursue shipping horses to pastures and holding corrals in the Midwest and East.

The agency estimates there are now about as many animals in long-term holding corrals as exist in the wild.

http://rgj.com/article/20091205/NEWS/91205005&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%...

SPARKS (AP) - Dozens of wild horse advocates plan to go before a federal advisory panel here on Monday to try to persuade public land managers to change their plan to relocate thousands of free-roaming mustangs from the West to preserves elsewhere.

They plan to press the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board for alternatives to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's plan to move about 25,000 mustangs to preserves and pastures in the Midwest and East. They insist the plan is based on faulty government data that exaggerates the damage the horses do to the range, as well as the extent to which they are suffering from a lack of forage.

Horse defenders have stepped up their efforts in recent weeks, suing to block a proposed roundup of 2,700 horses in northern Nevada and lining up the support of celebrities such as Sheryl Crow, Lily Tomlin, Bill Maher and Ed Harris.

Crow took her concerns directly to Salazar in a telephone call this past week.

"One of the first things he said was something must be done because the horses are starving. We (advocates) don't believe it," Crow said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Part of the problem is the information he's getting is skewed," she said. "My main concern is that the horse numbers not be dwindled down to the point where they can become extinct. I think he's very concerned about it as well."

Salazar made no commitment on ending the roundups, but he pledged efforts to have a horse advocate appointed to the national advisory board, which has been less than supportive of the cause in the past, she said.

"I'll still be pulling and working for an end to roundups," said Crow, who has adopted a mustang herself.

Ginger Kathrens, executive director of the horse advocacy group Cloud Foundation based in Colorado Springs, Colo., said advocates believe the BLM's figure of 37,000 horses in the wild is grossly inflated.

Kathrens said their own analysis indicates there may be only 15,000 horses on the range, and she fears herds will no longer be healthy and genetically viable if too many horses are removed.
She's calling for an independent audit to determine the actual number of mustangs both in the wild and in holding facilities.

"I don't think there's anywhere near the horses they're saying," said Kathrens, an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.

BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last year found his agency was undercounting mustangs.

"There's no evidence for the (advocates') position. It's mere speculation," Gorey said. "We're certainly open to refining our counting techniques, but there's no indication an outside audit is needed."

Gorey said his agency removes horses before they become starving as part of its "pro-active management on the range."

"The fact that there would be horses not in emaciated conditions is not surprising," he said. "We're not going to manage them in a way so they can get to that point."

BLM officials said they plan to remove 11,500 wild horses and burros from the range throughout the West over each of the next three years because booming numbers of the animals are damaging the range.

The agency has set a target "appropriate management level" of 26,600 of the animals in the wild, about 10,000 below the current level. An additional 32,000 of them are cared for in government-funded holding facilities.

Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire Texas energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, questioned the wisdom of gathering more horses at a time when holding facilities are full. She opposes relocating them far from their natural habitat.

"This proposed gather schedule threatens the very survival of the remaining horse herds in the Western United States and must be stopped," she said.

Critics argue that the real motivation for ongoing roundups of the mustangs - and Salazar's proposal to ship thousands to preserves in the Midwest and East - is pressure from ranchers who don't like the horses competing with their cattle for food.

Salazar has said his plan unveiled last month would avoid the slaughter of some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control to halt the soaring costs of maintaining them.

The animals are managed by the BLM and protected under a 1971 law enacted by Congress. Soaring numbers of horses and costs to manage them - expected to jump from $36 million last year to at least $85 million by 2012 - have prompted Salazar to propose a new approach.

Clarence Basso sent a message using the contact form at
http://www.blackrockfriends.org/friends/contact.

Re: Will Roger Peterson's "Feral Horses...," Black Rock/High Rock News, Fall/Winter 2009

Two misconceptions form the basis of Mr. Peterson's discourse: (1) horses are not a native species and (2) wild horses are feral.

Horses are native to North America, having evolved over the past 60 million years, some living in close proximity to Pyramid Lake as recently as 25,000 years ago (see Nevada State Museums Anthropological Papers No. 21, 1988). For unexplained reasons, fossil records of the native horse are missing for the time frame 8000-10,000 BP. Possible explanations for the disappearance of these fossil records include reductions in herd sizes due to drought conditions, disease or over exploitation by native populations. In any event, the horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadores in the
sixteenth century were re-introduced to a land that fit them and vice versa.

The fact that the horses are native excludes the feral argument; by nature and now by law, they are a wildlife species.

Whether the wild horses should be harvested as a means of population control is a more subjective matter. Perhaps the answer may be found in the sagas of the American bison and bighorn sheep (both of which, by the way, are not native species but are now protected), or in studies of the history of the wolf in Yellowstone National Park and the failed program of coyote trapping in Nevada in the 1950s. The diversity of wildlife that some individuals want in the extended environment is not necessarily what Nature intends.

Clarence D. Basso

The early American horse was game for the earliest humans and was hunted to extinction about 7,000 BC, just after the end of the last glacial period. It was about the size of a German Shepard. It is a stretch to equate them with horses that were later imported by Europeans. To suggest that this larger, different species was "reintroduced" and that the land "fit them" is a bit disingenuous. If the fit was so good, the earlier species would not have failed.

Whether they are wild or feral, the next issue is whether their numbers are in balance. It seems that the value we place on animals is directly proportional to our subjective, human needs. Would you also support the "reintroduction" of bison back to their pre-European numbers in the millions? Would you ban the sale of their meat? There is no one correct answer.

http://bit.ly/8Bgnir

Editorial: Wild horse advocates aren't doing the animals any favors

December 9, 2009

If the Bureau of Land Management's numbers are correct, wild horse advocates are doing their charges no favors by delaying the BLM's plans to round up thousands of horses across the West in the coming months.

Left on the public range to fend for themselves, those horses quickly could run out of the forage they depend on for food, and, yes, many will die from starvation. So will other wildlife that can't compete with the horses for the already scarce resources.

And the BLM, accused of wildly overestimating the number of wild horses on the ranges and mistreating those it rounds up, will be blamed for that, too.

This battle, which has been going on for decades, is one that the BLM needs to win but cannot.

# o o

It's not a fair fight, of course.

The opponents of the roundups have the power of mythology on their side -- the romanticism of the free spirits racing across the West, a throwback to the days before man put up fences (although supporters of reducing the numbers of wild horses insist that most are simply horses that were once tame but either escaped their owners or were set free by those who didn't want them any more).

The BLM has ranchers (vilified for ruining the public lands with their cattle) on its side. It has hunters. It has rural residents.

But the opponents have Hollywood stars on their side. They have folks who love the idea of wild horses, even if they know little about the reality. They have children on their side. They have the Nevada quarter.

Also on the advocates' side is many years of the federal government's own ineffective and absurdly expensive efforts to control the wild horse population in Nevada and throughout the West.

The BLM's current estimate is that there are 37,000 wild horses and burros on public lands in the West, about half of them in Nevada. (Opponents of the roundup believe it's more like 15,000.) However, nearly that many, 34,000, are kept in government-run corrals and pastures. Already this year, the BLM has spent $50 million to manage the wild horses in the West; last year, it was $36 million. As the numbers increase, so do the costs.

Finally, the advocates have pictures on their side -- pictures of horses desperate to escape the terror of helicopters chasing them into pens and pictures of cowboys roping them and leading them into captivity.

Given all of that ammunition on the advocates' side, it's surprising that anyone spoke in favor of the roundups at the hearing held by the BLM's National Horse and Burro Advisory Board in Reno this week. Who wants to dash the dreams of children, after all? Who wants to destroy the "symbol of Nevada"?

Yet, it does no good to pretend there are no problems with giving the horses free rein throughout the West. Nor does it do any good to demonize anyone who argues that the horses need to be controlled, for their own good if for no other reason.

It's long past time to put an end to these disputes, which accomplish little beyond making the plight of the horses worse -- whether they're on the range or in government corrals. It's time to temper the romanticism with a little reality. It's time for a policy that may not make everyone happy (that's probably impossible under the circumstances) but will protect the horses from their own fecundity.

Leaving them to starve to death on the range is not the way to honor them.

Release Date: 12/07/09
Jeff Fontana, (530) 252-5332
News Release No. CA-N-10-16
http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/info/newsroom/2009/december/NC1016_horsedeat...

BLM Investigating Possible Shooting Deaths of Wild Horses in Northern Washoe County, Nevada

Investigators from the U. S. Bureau of Land Management are looking into the suspected shooting deaths of up to six wild horses on public land along the Nevada-California border about 45 miles northeast of Susanville, Calif.

The carcasses of six mustangs were discovered Saturday, December 5, by a helicopter pilot working on a wild horse gather operation in the BLM's Buckhorn Herd Management Area in Washoe County, Nev. BLM staff members who went to the scene said five carcasses were found in one area, and another was found about a half-mile away.

Officials said several of the animals had evidence of gunshot wounds. They estimated the animals had been dead for about two weeks.

BLM special agents are continuing to investigate. They asked anyone with information to contact the BLM in Cedarville, California, at (530) 279-6101.

Wild horses are protected by a federal law, the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which prohibits anyone from harassing, capturing or killing the animals. Violations are punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, up to a year in prison, or both.

http://www.nevadamagazine.com/index.php/issues/read/wild_horses/

Wild Horses

Mustangs in Nevada have long been at the center of unprecedented controversy. And with their population rising above the Bureau of Land Management's sanctioned number, the debate carries on.

By CHARLIE JOHNSTON | January/February 2009

As I climb into Willis Lamm's Ford pickup I briefly glance back at the mustangs. With my excitement ebbing, the gravity of the previous few hours sinks in. I was temporarily a part of that band-an awkward two-legged outsider nonetheless-permitted to walk among one of the West's proudest symbols. Early last fall, Lamm, president of Least Resistance Training Concepts, and Bonnie Matton, president of the Wild Horse Preservation League, took me to the Virginia Range east of Dayton to introduce me to some of their closest friends, Nevada's wild horses.

Anyone who has read a Nevada publication in the last couple decades knows that wild horses, and the issues surrounding them and their range, remain among the most controversial topics in the state. Although the controversy has evolved into an emotional, convoluted collection of opposing viewpoints, everything relates to two main issues: the horses' sharing of land and resources with free-ranging livestock and the methods with which state and federal government manage the mustang population. Those issues are closely related to the niche wild horses fill on the range, where they fall in the spectrum of animals sharing the habitat, and the debate over whether they should be considered a feral (introduced) or reintroduced species.

According to Jay Kirkpatrick, director of the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Montana, ancestors of modern horses started evolving in North America about four million years ago. The most recent ancestor to exist on the continent, Equus lambei, went extinct about 12,000 years ago. Kirkpatrick goes on to say DNA analysis shows that this extinct species is the genetic equivalent of the modern horse that was reintroduced into North America in the 1500s by Spanish explorers, and that modern horses, E. caballus, could have evolved nowhere else but North America. Kirkpatrick's findings point to wild horses deserving consideration as indigenous, not feral-as common belief for more than a century suggests-animals.

By 1900, there were as many as 2 million wild horses in North America. During the following decades, that number fell sharply as the horses were increasingly captured and domesticated for private and military use and slaughtered for consumption. During the 1950s, activists such as Velma Johnston, better known as Wild Horse Annie, pressured government to pass a bill prohibiting the use of aircraft or motorized vehicles to hunt wild horses, and in 1959 the Wild Horse Annie Act went into law. The decree only stoked the flames of public outcry, and The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was implemented. In its declaration of policy, Congress said, "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." Under the law, mustang populations around the country were protected from capture, branding, harassment, and death. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service (most herd areas are under BLM jurisdiction) were charged with implementing the act and managing herds on public land with an emphasis on maintaining a "natural ecological balance." Counts conducted following the passage of the act set the number of animals that the BLM and Forest Service were responsible for maintaining.

According to Susie Stokke, Wild Horse and Burro Lead for the BLM, there are about 18,800 mustangs in 102 BLM Herd Management Areas (HMAs) across Nevada. That number does not include close to 1,000 wild horses on state-owned and private lands. She says the ideal number-to maintain the aforementioned balance-is about 12,600. "We have been trying to get to the proper number (of animals) for the last decade," Stokke says, and according to BLM studies and counts, that can only be accomplished if the surplus animals are removed from the range. Currently, roundups are the primary method with which the BLM attempts to control population. "We want healthy animals and healthy range lands," Stokke says. She is well aware that the BLM's wild-horse program elicits strong emotions. "People are very passionate about the horses," she says. "We're very passionate about them, too. I love them."

A dozen Nevada roundups in 2008 removed 3,837 horses according to BLM Deputy State Director Michael Holbert. The number of animals captured each year during roundups in 2006 and 2007 were between 3,000 and 4,000 as well. Once the horses are gathered, they are transported to holding facilities, such as the Palomino Valley National Wild Horse and Burro Center, about 20 miles north of Sparks, and are prepared for adoption. But they are not being adopted in large enough numbers.

Stokke cites the nation's struggling economy as one of the biggest factors contributing to a steadily declining rate of adoption. This means that the horses are held in facilities like Palomino Valley for much longer than intended, a situation that cost the BLM about three quarters of its $37 million budget in 2008 and prevented the agency from having enough funding to properly manage other parts of the wild horse program, according to Stokke.

Advocacy groups, such as The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, argue that the range can support even more horses than it currently does, making adoptions and holding facilities like Palomino Valley unnecessary. The groups claim that the BLM gives preferential treatment to livestock-such as cattle and sheep for which ranchers lease grazing privileges-on public lands around the state, resulting in an inaccurate assessment of the appropriate sustainable numbers for wild horses. Furthermore, according to Lamm, the horses can graze in areas where cattle and sheep cannot survive, and wild horses are not responsible for overgrazing. In Paula Morin's book, Honest Horses: Wild Horses in the Great Basin, Bob Brown, a retired wild horse specialist for the BLM's Ely Field Office, argues to the contrary. He says that when horses graze they bite small plants low enough to remove the roots, making it so the plants have no chance to regenerate. "If horses were left unchecked, they would be the last to survive out there," he says. Independent studies support the arguments of both sides, contributing to this fundamental discrepancy that has yet to find a compromise.

In 2004 the controversial Burns Amendment was enacted to provide an alternative to long-term holding. The amendment changed the language of the 1971 legislation to allow for the open sale of horses that have not been adopted after three tries. This is an attempt to defray some of the costs-each horse held at Palomino Valley costs the BLM $4 to $5 per day according to JD Parsons, assistant facility manager-and alleviate pressure on holding facilities. Activists strongly oppose the amendment on the grounds that horses put up for sale stand a greater chance of being slaughtered, as horse meat is regularly consumed and considered a delicacy in countries such as Belgium, France, and Japan and still used to feed zoo animals and exotic pets worldwide.

Stokke emphasizes that the BLM does not want any of the horses it sells under the amendment to be slaughtered, but that it is a possibility if the horses are sold without limitations. She adds that even though the law mandates that horses that are not adopted after three tries can be euthanized, killing these horses remains an exceedingly unlikely option. "I know of no BLM employee who would want to be in the position of having to put down a healthy horse," she says. Failing increases in adoption rates, the best option for the BLM seems to be more funding. "The BLM needs about $60 million to operate this program in 2009," she says. Congress has proposed a budget between $35 and $36 million. Stokke points to rising costs of hay for adoption facilities and fuel for transporting the horses as the main reasons the agency needs a larger budget.

Some people, such as Ely rancher Hank Vogler, say they have seen starving mustangs and are open to humane slaughter. "The horses are the ones that suffer," he says. "Starvation is a terrible, agonizing death. It's a travesty." Vogler adds that restrictions on humane slaughter in the U.S. (the last three horse meat abattoirs were ordered closed in 2007 according to an Associated Press article) encourage some people to ship horses to Mexico, where he says slaughter practices are downright gruesome. In a video on The Humane Society's Web site, a horse is repeatedly stabbed in the neck until its spinal column is broken.

Brown contends that slaughter in the U.S. is a more humane option. "The animals (sheep and cattle) go down instantly, there's no chance for them to feel anything," he says. In the U.S., slaughterhouses use what is called a captive bolt gun which thrusts a heavy steel rod into the forehead of animals, leading to a quicker, less painful death. In September 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption. The bill, however, was not taken up by the Senate.

The amount of mustangs on the range can vary greatly year to year, adding further challenges to effective population control. Statistics concerning wild-horse reproduction and survival rates vary greatly depending on their source. Regardless, there is no refuting that if unchecked, wild-horse populations have the potential to climb even farther above the number set by the Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act. In a 1982 National Academy of Science report cited by the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, wild-horse populations throughout the West experience annual increases of less than 10 percent, while the 1971 study conducted on behalf of the BLM suggests an annual increase of about 20 percent. A 2004 essay from the USDA National Wildlife Research Center titled, "Evaluation of Three Contraceptive Approaches for Population Control in Wild Horses," puts the rate between 15 and 20 percent. A difference of five to 10 percent might seem small, but when dealing with tens of thousands of animals over many years, it can equate to huge discrepancies.

A 1992 article in RANGE magazine points to an episode in Southern Nevada on the Nellis Air Force Range in which a herd of 1,000 horses increased to 10,000 in "little more than a decade." The article, "Wild Horses: No Home on the Range?" describes the sickening condition of many of the removed horses that suffered from extreme dehydration and starvation. "Down at Nellis there were colts that were just dried as prunes, not one but dozens of them," says Dave Cattoor, a contractor for the BLM who worked on the roundup. "Their little mouths were caked with mud. We had to rinse the mud out before you could feed them," he says. This population explosion represents an annual increase of more than 25 percent.

With adoptions dwindling and the strong sentiment opposed to any kind of slaughter, many see fertility control as a viable and acceptable means to prevent such extreme situations as that which occurred at Nellis. The USDA essay regarding birth control aimed to find contraceptives that were safe, potentially reversible, effective for several years, and had minimal affect on reproductive or harem maintenance behavior. The study concluded that the two tested vaccines prevented pregnancy in all of the 27 mares tested, while the other contraceptive prevented pregnancy in 10 out of 15. The study also found that none of the contraceptives had adverse effects on the health or behavior of the horses. According to the essay, further research is needed to evaluate the longevity of the birth-control measures, and only one of them is currently approved for use.

A continuing barrier to this method of population control, according to Stokke, is the cost and logistics of administering contraceptives that, for all intents and purposes, are not proven beyond one-year effectiveness. The horses still must be gathered, and the time and potential risk involved in administering birth control is far greater than that for regular roundups.

Stokke says that the BLM wouldn't be able to treat enough animals for the contraceptives to help control the population. "We have to catch the horses, bring them in, and apply it," Stokke says. "We turn them back out and won't catch them again for four or five years, so there is currently no practical means of remotely applying fertility control to thousands of horses across millions of acres."

The question of whether there is a viable solution remains. Although there are situations in which the conflicting factions work together-advocates that protest BLM roundups also help by promoting adoptions, and the ranchers pay close attention to the range so that it can sustain both their livestock and wild horses-certain key issues remain uncompromised on. Are there too many horses on the range? Is it worse to slaughter mustangs or risk their starvation when and if their numbers grow too unwieldy for the range to support? Is birth control for wild animals a realistic answer to population control?

But, for all of their differences, practically everyone involved with Nevada's wild horses shares a common goal: to ensure the wellbeing of these magnificent animals. The horses have no control; their fates lie in the hands of these people and the hope that they can continue to work together on behalf of the animals they all care for so deeply.

As we left the band of Virginia Range horses, I thought about the future of these animals and wondered if such compromises were possible. My reflection was interrupted when the lead mare cautiously approached me. After a moment of eye contact I surmised that it was safe to raise my hand toward her face. She gave it a few sniffs and allowed me to lightly stroke her nose. Lamm and Matton were astonished; apparently she doesn't let just anyone pet her. I like to think she knew I was there for a good reason.

Water Shortages

In the Virginia Range east of Dayton, water is sparse in late summer and early fall. With more and more water being used to hydrate the ever-growing suburban areas around Reno and Carson City, domestic cattle and wild horses in the area are faced with increasing challenges to their survival. That is where people like Willis Lamm and Dell Brandt come in. The two volunteer countless hours to provide watering troughs for animals in the region. Lamm makes it clear that they provide water only, not food. While the horses use the troughs just as they would a natural spring, feeding them would create a dangerous dependence on humans. "Feeding these animals would be a death sentence," he says.

Adoption

"We don't see sick horses coming in off the range," says JD Parsons, assistant facility manager at the Palomino Valley National Wild Horse and Burro Center. "These animals are much hardier than domestic horses." The mustangs taken to adoption facilities such as Palomino Valley are prepared for adoption by BLM staff and volunteers. In addition to giving the animals all the necessary vaccines, the facility occasionally offers a $100 price cut from the regular $125 adoption fee. Parsons adds that another advantage to adopting mustangs is that with the proper attention, they take to training very well. "They're basically a clean slate," he says.

If the only thing keeping you from adopting a mustang is the challenge of training it, a prison horse adoption might be for you. Prisoners at the Warm Springs Correctional Center in Carson City work with mustangs for 120 days before the horses are put up for adoption. The adoptions can be successful-the last one, in October 2008, found a home for every horse. The next adoption is set for February 21.

CONTACTS

Palomino Valley National Wild Horse and Burro Center
http://wildhorseandburro.blm.gov
775-475-2222

Nevada Department of Corrections, Warm Springs Correctional Center
http://doc.nv.gov/wscc
775-861-6469

Bureau of Land Management
Nevada State Office
1340 Financial Blvd., Reno
http://blm.gov/nv
775-861-6400

The American Wild Horse
Preservation Campaign
P.O. Box 926, Lompoc, CA 93438
http://wildhorsepreservation.com
877-853-4696

Wild Horse Preservation League
P.O. Box 1858, Dayton, NV 89403
http://wildhorsepl.org
775-220-6806

Least Resistance Training Concepts
http://whmentors.org

The Humane Society of The United States
2100 L St., NW, Washington, D.C.
hnttp://hsus.org
202-452-1100

State of Nevada Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses
885 Eastlake Blvd., Carson City
http://wildhorse.nv.gov
775-849-3625

WORTH A READ

Honest Horses: Wild Horses in the Great Basin, by Paula Morin. University of Nevada Press, unpress.nevada.edu, 775-784-6579. 408 pages. Visit "Battle-Born Books" for a review.

They're destroying state's high desert
http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009912140304

Nevada is one of the most environmentally sensitive states in our great country and deserves better than to be turned into a horse corral.

There are feral horses dying today in the Black Rock Wilderness. The sad part is that for every horse that dies probably 10 native wildlife animals die because the horses have eaten the food they need to survive the winter.

In the mid 1970s, over 500 horses starved to death not far from my home in Gerlach. Unknown numbers of deer, antelope, sage hen and other native wildlife species died because of unmanaged feral horses that year. There are no horses in Yellowstone, Yosemite National Parks because they would destroy the parks like they are destroying Nevada's high desert and it native wildlife.

You are probably thinking, this guy doesn't like horses! Not true. I have never owned a cow, but I have owned over 20 horses in my 65 years. The difference is I managed mine.

Remember this! When the horses and Nevada's native wildlife start starving, Sheryl Crow and her Hollywood crew will jump on their private jets and go back to their warm and fuzzy mansions!

Tony Diebold

Gerlach

Managing Feral Horses, Mustangs & Burros In The West
On Thursday December 10, SCI's litigation team filed for intervener status in the D.C. District Court to join the  Bureau of Land Management in defending its decision to capture 2400 excess feral horses from the Calico Mountains Complex in Nevada. There are approximately four times as many horses on the complex as the recommended carrying capacity and these excess horses have been causing constant ecological harm to native game species such as mule deer, antelope and Sage-grouse. Horse protectionist groups are opposing this scientifically and ecologically necessary translocation. SCI will announce more in a future "In the Crosshairs."

I've learned that some of the earlier horse species were actually similar in size to modern horses. I just want to correct that assertion. I also learned that the ecology is very different in Nevada now that when those earlier horses were here, so it's not the same ecosystem to which horses were introduced as it was for the ones that went extinct.

Judge allows wild horse roundup in Nevada
Dec 23, 5:49 PM (ET)
By MATTHEW DALY
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091223/D9CP9SP80.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration said Wednesday it is going forward with a contentious plan to round up about 2,500 wild horses in Nevada.

A spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said herds in the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada are overpopulated and need to be reduced to protect the horses and the rangelands that support them.

"The current population in the five Calico herd management areas is three times what the range can handle, so this gather will ensure high-quality habitat for the wild horse and burros and other wildlife while protecting the public rangeland from overuse," said spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff.

She called the dispute over the roundup "yet another clarion call to develop and implement a long-term solution to the challenges we face concerning wild horses and burros on our public lands."

The Interior Department announcement came after a federal judge on Wednesday denied a request to block the roundup, saying opponents had failed to demonstrate that removal of the horses would violate federal law.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said the agency is obligated under a 1971 law to carefully manage wild horse herds to prevent overpopulation.

The mustang roundup planned for Monday would be one of the largest in Nevada in recent years. Officials plan to use helicopters to force the horses into holding pens before placing them for adoption or sending them to long-term holding corrals in the Midwest.

The roundup is part of the land management agency's overall strategy to remove more than 10,000 mustangs from public lands across the West and ship them to greener pastures in the Midwest and East. The Bureau of Land Management estimates about half of the nearly 37,000 wild mustangs live in Nevada, with others concentrated in Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

Another 32,000 horses and burros are cared for in corrals and pastures in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Mustang advocates had sued to block the roundup, saying that use of the helicopters is inhumane because some of the animals are traumatized, injured or killed. Opponents also contend that the bureau is grossly inflating horse numbers to justify their removal from the range.

The lawsuit says wild horses are an integral part of the natural ecosystem and should remain on rangeland throughout the West rather than be herded into long-term holding pens.

A state wildlife agency sided with federal land managers, arguing in court papers last week that the mustangs have "severely degraded" the range and adversely affect Bighorn sheep and other wildlife that compete for scarce water resources in the drought-plagued region.

Friedman sided with roundup opponents in one aspect of his 25-page ruling. He said federal officials likely were violating federal law by stockpiling tens of thousands of horses in long-term holding facilities in the Midwest. The judge invited both sides to offer more legal arguments on the issue but said Congress ultimately may have to get involved.

Since the bureau has no money to euthanize the horses and no authority to hold them in a long-term facility, "it would face an inescapable conundrum" in conducting the roundup, Friedman said. The dispute is best solved by Congress, he added.

William Spriggs, a lawyer who argued against the roundup on behalf of California-based In Defense of Animals, said he was disappointed that Friedman allowed the roundup to go forward, but added: "I'm elated the judge at least bought one of our arguments."

Spriggs said President Barack Obama should issue a "holiday reprieve" for the mustangs and block the Nevada roundup until the legality of the long-term holding facilities is decided.

"The BLM's policy of stockpiling tens of thousands of horses in the Midwest - off their rightful Western ranges - is contrary to law, the intent of Congress and the will of the American people," Spriggs said.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20091220/OPED04/912200329/1098/OPED

December 20, 2009

Hot Topic: Fresh approaches are needed for managing wild horses

I'm forced to take issue with the RGJ's editorial headline "Wild horse advocates aren't doing the horses any favors." The lead phrase, "If the Bureau of Land Management's numbers are correct," does characterize this issue precisely. Beyond that the editorial completely missed the mark.

I've been involved with wild horse issues for nearly 20 years. I have worked on projects with BLM and with many of the wild horse groups. Both sides in this "dispute" present viable arguments. However, lasting solutions are not likely to be found so long as significant decisions are made based on estimates and assumptions.

Much of BLM's program has been reduced to guesswork. The agency has neither the funding or the personnel required to conduct what many consider to be proper range assessments: to accurately determine animal populations and range resources. Funds that should have gone to placing animals in private care have been diverted to rounding up horses. The end result is an unsustainable and unaffordable management strategy that even the courts are starting to recognize as being problematic. It would be simple to just blame BLM. However the present dilemma has been shaped greatly by congressional budgets and executive branch land-use priorities.

It's neither accurate nor fair for the RGJ to take the traditional "cheap shot" at wild horse advocates. Mainstream groups devote a huge amount of time and resources towards range improvement projects, getting horses placed and developing alternatives to expensive "trap and toss" horse management. The suggestion that advocates simply want to see horses infinitely multiply on our ranges demonstrates a lack of understanding as to what this "dispute" actually involves.

When one reads the lawsuits filed against BLM, the arguments are not about whether BLM has the authority to remove excess wild horses. The arguments address "irreparable harm" issues. History has shown that "traditional" management strategies have not materially improved range conditions, and they have produced significant long-term costs.

Wild horse advocates are calling for a moratorium to force an honest discussion regarding the present path to chaos and to bring some semblance of practicality back to wild horse management. There are practical alternatives being presented from all across the spectrum that get lost behind the shopworn and irrelevant "trap, don't trap" argument.

These fresh approaches include such concepts as reserve design, development of alternative habitats that may be more appropriate to manage, resource-based management to allow better utilization of public ranges by all grazing animals, temporary immunocontraception, seasonal movement of horses between adjacent ranges to more evenly distribute grazing pressure, and range quality-based private management contracts. Such alternatives will likely require more science and intellect than are being applied presently, but would demonstrably reduce BLM's overall costs and could produce a positive impact on range conditions while still preserving viable horse herds.

It's time to quit calling names and deal with facts and science. The RGJ should be leading the call in this regard, not entrenching ill will.

Willis Lamm lives in Stagecoach.

http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009912270414

December 27, 2009
Ranchers, activists at odds over mustang roundup
By Frank X. Mullen Jr.
fmullen@rgj.com

Bob Depauli, whose family has been ranching in Nevada for four generations, remembers a wild horse he saw in the Nevada desert one drought-parched year in the late 1970s.

"The herds were really poor that year, starved," he said. "I saw (a dead mustang) whose two hind legs had quit working and it had use of only its forelegs. It had walked in circles and dug a hole in the ground with its hindquarters."

It dug its own grave.

Depauli runs cattle on federal allotments, including one about 30 miles north of Gerlach in the area where the federal government plans Monday to start rounding up 2,500 wild horses of the more than 3,000 in the area.

The government said the roundup is necessary to check overpopulation. Opponents said the land mangers exaggerate the number of mustangs and the damage they do to the range, and that gathering horses using helicopters traumatizes, injures or kills the animals.

About 32,000 wild horses are in government holding pens waiting for adoptions that, for most, will never come. Range managers plan to remove another 10,000 from ranges in Nevada and elsewhere in the West next year.

The government, Depauli and others see the wild horse gathers as necessary to ensure the health of the rangeland, water supplies and native species. Opponents say the horses are a symbol of America and are being swept aside for the benefit of cattlemen like Depauli.

"I'm basing my position on years of experience," said Depauli, who runs about 300 head a year. "I'm in business to stay in business, not to overgraze. I move my cattle around. Horses stay in the same areas 24, seven, 365 days a year. Right now, we've got four to five times the number of wild horses that the land can support. Cattle are manageable. We need to manage the horses, too.

"Overpopulation of horses impacts everything: cows, wildlife, the horses themselves, everything. If this continues, we'll all be in a mess."

Depauli's son, Robert, who works in his father's cattle operation and hopes to have his own ranch someday, said the arguments against managing the wild horse population are based on emotion and the romance of the wild herds, rather than the reality of range damage.

"There's opposition to the gathers all over the country, all over the world," Robert Depauli said. "What do these people know about conditions in Northern Nevada? How can they have even have an opinion on something they know nothing about?"

The last wild horse?

In Defense of Animals, based in San Rafael, Calif., and wildlife biologist Craig Downer of Nevada filed the lawsuit last month to halt the roundup. Equine advocates contend the agency is grossly inflating horse numbers, a charge the BLM denies.

"There are millions of cows and thousands of horses," said Terri Farley, a Reno author who joined the lawsuit against the BLM roundup. "So tell me, who is eating the grass?"

Farley, who said she has observed range studies and researched the issue for years, said the BLM "needs to look at its science on this." She said the gathers, coupled with birth-control methods used on horses that remain on the range, will eventually "zero out" the ranges, leaving no wild horses at all.

"(The BLM) says they are doing it for the good of the horses," she said. "I lean towards the conclusion they are doing it for the good of the cattlemen.

"People may remember when they saw their first wild horse, but will they know when they've seen their last? I think the last wild horse may already have been born."

She said the argument that activists are fighting the government gathers on the basis of romance alone -- the iconic image of herds running free -- is easy to make, but not accurate.

"It can be a persuasive argument because it fits in with the idea of crazy cat ladies and things like that, but that's why I've made it a point to educate myself," Farley said. "... I'm not buying the BLM's numbers. It's as though they are being eliminated on a whim. If it's about range damage, then look at that. If it's about a different political issue, then we need to look at that."

Alan Shepherd, BLM wild horse program leader in Reno, said the agency would like to release more horses to adoption, but in the meantime, they are stockpiled and the gathers continue.

"We receive a lot of criticism for what we do," he said. "We feel that the way we manage the animals and the way we have to gather is the most humane method possible."

He noted the Nevada Division of Wildlife, hunting groups, conservation organizations and wilderness advocates have endorsed the need for roundups.

"We want to have healthy horses and a healthy range," Shepherd said. "We can't have that if the range is overpopulated. There are other users out there. We can't let one resource determine what happens to every other resource."

He said the horses affect sage grouse, trout, songbirds and every other species.

Reserves proposed

Craig Downer, the ecologist who initiated the lawsuit against the latest roundup, envisions self-contained reserves both in and around the originally established federal herd areas. With such reserves, he has said, "drastic roundups could be avoided, or at least greatly minimized."

Downer wrote that the reserves be habitats of sufficient size for each to support a long-term viable wild horse or burro population of around 1,000 interbreeding individuals.

"Within each such natural sanctuary, the wild equids will be respectfully treated as the "principal" presence, not relegated to mere token numbers and deprived of basic resources in order to accommodate a monopoly of livestock and/or big game, as is currently the case," he wrote.

Rancher Jim Kudrna, who voluntarily kept cattle off his grazing allotments in the Calico area to minimize range effects, said overpopulation is a severe problem in Northern Nevada.

"I think we all love to see horses on the range. It is thrilling and a source of enjoyment for all who observe them," he said. "The real issue out here, however, is the management of the water resources."

He said in the Calico area where the roundups are scheduled, the horse population has exploded and wildlife numbers have dwindled.

"The horses simply outcompete all of the other wildlife for the region's limited water resources and cause damage to the water sources," he said.

Kudrna said the mustangs' large, flat hooves compact the ground around the area's seeps and springs to the point that the water stops flowing.

"I know the horse-only folks say that cattle do the same; they are simply incorrect," he said. "Cattle have pointed hooves, the same as the predominant wildlife such as deer, antelope and sheep."

He said "we have actually observed seeps and springs which were not functioning be reopened by cattle hooves" puncturing the compaction layer around the springs.

Kudrna said horse overpopulation must be controlled and the damaged to water sources repaired, so the wildlife populations can recover.

"We believe the citizens of Nevada care about all the wildlife and would prefer to see a harmonious balance," he said.

Wild horse facts

# In 1971 Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which declared the animals to be "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West." It is the "policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death ..." and that they are "... an integral part of the natural system of the public lands."
# The Bureau of Land Management maintains and manages wild horses or burros in "herd management areas." Regulations require that herds of wild horses and burros be considered comparably with other resource values within the area.
BLM management
# In 2000, the population of wild horses and burros managed by Nevada was more than 25,000 head, about 85 percent higher than the estimated appropriate management level (AML) of about 13,500 head.
# This year, the BLM estimates there are 37,000 wild horses in the nation, about 20,000 in Nevada. Activists say the agency grossly inflates the numbers of wild horses to justify roundups that benefit cattlemen. Nevada's management target is about 12,600 animals.
# Usually using helicopters to herd the animals, the BLM has gathered an average of about 10,000 horses per year nationally. Gathers have occurred in all 10 Western states, with about half of those animals gathered in Nevada.
# The Calico gather, set to begin Monday, targets 2,500 of an estimated 3,100 horses in the area. Ranchers said the area has grazing permits for about 2,000 cattle.
# Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the coming mustang roundups in October, part of a plan he said would avoid the need to kill any wild horses. Interior Department officials warned last year that slaughtering some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control might be necessary to combat rising costs of maintaining them.
# Salazar said the current program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment or taxpayers. The BLM wild horse program cost about $50 million this year and is expected to rise to at least $85 million by 2012 if the program isn't changed.
Adoptions decline
# The BLM has granted adoptions of more than 225,000 wild horses and burros since the program began in 1973.
# Adoption demand/success has declined over the past decade. In the 1990s, adoptions numbered about 10,500 horses and burros per year. Nationwide, citizens have adopted about 3,500 wild horses and burros this year.
On the Web
# www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov
# http://nvwildhorses.ning.com/

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100103/OPED04/1030329/1098/OPED/Bob-Abbey--...

www.rgj.com
January 3, 2010
Bob Abbey: The BLM shares wild-horse advocates' goal

A small, but vocal, group of wild horse advocates has sparked some very emotional responses to the Bureau of Land Management's plan to remove excess wild horses from overpopulated herds on drought-stricken public rangelands. Often lost in the rhetoric is the fact that we essentially share the same goal, preserving healthy wild horse herds on healthy Western rangelands as a legacy for the American people.

So why not, as our critics have proposed, stop the roundups and leave the wild horses and burros alone?

Simply put, the range could not withstand the resulting impacts. Wild horse and burro herds, which have virtually no natural predators, grow at a rate of about 20 percent a year, which means herds can double in size every four years. Currently, the free-roaming population of 37,000 horses and burros on Western rangelands exceeds by more than 10,000 the number that the BLM has determined can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources.

Congress envisioned horse overpopulation issues and thus mandated the removal of excess wild horses and burros from the range in the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. The act requires the interior secretary to determine whether and where overpopulated herds exist and, on making that finding, to immediately remove excess animals from the range so as to achieve appropriate management levels.

That is why we are gathering excess wild horses in the Calico Complex in Northern Nevada over the next few weeks. In Calico and across the West, wild horses are removed not to make room for more cattle grazing but to ensure or restore ecological balance. Keep in mind that wild horses and cattle are not the only animals that depend on the range. The BLM manages rangeland habitat for a variety of wildlife, including elk, deer, sage-grouse and migratory birds; the agency also protects threatened and endangered species.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and I have proposed a forward-looking plan that would benefit the horses, the public rangelands and the American taxpayer. It includes humanely caring for excess horses in new preserves, especially on the productive grasslands of the Midwest and East, while applying fertility control to slow growth rates of wild horse herds remaining on Western public rangelands. (Details are at www.blm.gov.)

By moving in this direction, we will promote the health and well-being of America's wild horses and burros, protect public rangelands and provide Americans with a well-run, cost-effective program. But to get there, we will need to continue removing excess wild horses from the public rangelands in areas where the land can no longer support them.

Robert Abbey is director of the Bureau of Land Management. He served as the BLM's Nevada state director from 1997 to 2005.

America's Pro-Horse Coalition Supports BLM, Salazar Efforts To Rein In Feral Horse Population

CHEYENNE, WY-- The United Organizations of the Horse (UOH) applauds the efforts of federal officials to control the overpopulation of wild horses on public lands, and urges the enactment of responsible policies for the management and disposition of excess horses. The UOH, a nationwide coalition working in the best interests of horses and horse owners, and for the rejuvenation of the equine industry, is the largest organization of its kind in the U.S. Its members and supporters are petitioning Congress to support the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in its mission to manage public lands, not supervise a "welfare state" for excess feral horses held captive and warehoused in private feedlots and holding facilities off of public lands at enormous taxpayer expense.

"The BLM's primary directive is to manage the land, to establish and maintain a sustainable balance of resources on public lands, including wild horses, native wildlife, grazing, fisheries, forests, energy development, and recreation," said Sue Wallis, UOH Executive Director. "It should not be using its taxpayer resources to support excess animals of any species."

The BLM currently pays for the care of some 32,000 wild horses in short- and long-term holding facilities, at a taxpayer cost of $29 million in fiscal 2009-more than 70 percent of the agency's total budget for the Wild Horse and Burro Program. Although the agency strives to place horses in the hands of qualified owners, the demand for adoptions has plummeted in the current economic downturn, and has never come close to the annual natural increase of the herds.

Left unchecked, feral horse herds will roughly double their population every four years. Although the BLM estimates the current free-roaming horse population at 37,000, recent evidence from the General Accounting Office proves that the herds have been under-counted. In addition, the BLM routinely gathers significantly more horses than expected during scheduled roundups at any of its 108 Herd Management Areas.

The UOH unwaveringly supports the presence of properly-managed wild horses on public lands. However, the unchecked growth of feral herds has severely upset the environmental balance on public, private and tribal lands. Paired with the mounting numbers of unwanted domestic horses, many turned out to fend for themselves and dying of starvation on public and tribal lands, equine overpopulation has reached crisis proportions in the U.S.

Besides removing the excess horses to reassert a proper balance on the ranges, the UOH advocates the BLM adhere to responsible management practices such as: Holding wild horses in captivity for a maximum of 90 days. If they cannot be sold, adopted or otherwise permanently disposed of within that time they should be sold without restriction to the highest bidder. All revenue should be rolled back into the Wild Horse and Burro Program to better manage the wild herds and the resource base. Restore humane and regulated equine processing facilities, to provide federal, state, and local agencies; tribal groups and the general public an option for humane disposal of unwanted excess horses, without needless taxpayer expense or needless suffering for horses otherwise likely to face starvation or abandonment.

The United Organizations of the Horse, a mutual benefit organization, is committed to the well-being and humane treatment of horses, and the viability of the equine industry in the United States of America. Its companion non-profit group, the United Horsemen's Front, is a charitable and educational non-profit 501c3 organization.

For more information, visit:

http://www.UnitedOrgsoftheHorse.org

http://www.UnitedHorsemensFront.org

Activists decry wild-horse roundups
Updated 12/29/2009 1:22 AM
By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-12-28-horses_N.htm?...

Federal officials have begun rounding up at least 2,500 wild horses from Nevada rangeland, triggering protests from animal advocates who say the trapping endangers these symbols of the American West and condemns them to lives in captivity.

The protesters are organizing demonstrations around the country Wednesday to pressure the Obama administration to impose a moratorium on roundups by the Bureau of Land Management. They want to halt the practice of sending captured horses to Midwestern pastures and holding pens, where some are adopted but most remain for the rest of their lives.

"We are very, very disappointed this is happening under the Obama administration," said Suzanne Roy, program director at In Defense of Animals, a group that has sued in federal court to halt the roundups. "This will devastate the herd and have a devastating impact on the horses left behind."

The BLM contends the roundups are necessary because there are more wild horses than Western lands can support. Allowing the herds to grow unchecked will lead to starvation and suffering by the horses while destroying grazing land used by cattle ranchers, said Tom Gorey, spokesman for the BLM in Washington.

"Herd sizes double about every four years," Gorey said. "To put a moratorium on gathers (roundups) would be untenable."

Helicopter wrangling

The BLM and contracted horse wranglers used two helicopters Monday as they began trapping wild horses that have roamed on more than 850 square miles of rangeland in northwestern Nevada.

Heather Emmons, spokeswoman for the BLM in Nevada, said 20 or more horses were captured by midday and the roundup would continue for as long as two months, until at least 2,500 horses are taken off the range.

The helicopters skim the ground to chase horses into pens, where they are trapped and trucked to holding facilities at Fallon, Nev., for evaluation, veterinary treatment and branding, Emmons said. She said the agency intends to leave 800 to 900 horses from this herd on the range.

Older horses will be sent to permanent holding facilities in the Midwest while younger ones go to short-term facilities and will be put up for adoption. Rates of adoption have been falling, and Gorey said the agency expects about 3,500 horses to be adopted in the next year.

More than 34,000 wild horses and burros are kept by the federal government in corrals and pastures, primarily in Oklahoma and Kansas. The government estimates that 33,000 wild horses roam on BLM-managed rangelands in 10 Western states, half or more of them in Nevada.

About 30 protesters gathered Sunday at a conservation area near Las Vegas, demonstrating against the roundup. In Defense of Animals said it was organizing a demonstration Wednesday outside the San Francisco office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in the hope of spurring political support for their call to halt the roundups. Other protests were planned in Chicago, Boulder, Colo., and elsewhere, said Makendra Silverman, associate director of the Cloud Foundation, a Colorado-based group that tries to protect mustangs.

'Situation is unpatriotic'

The fight over taking wild horses off federal land has intensified in the past two years since the BLM under the Bush administration proposed, then backed away from, a plan to euthanize unadoptable wild horses in captivity.

Under the Obama administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposed buying land to create national preserves and sanctuaries in the East and Midwest as permanent homes for mustangs. Horse advocates have opposed Salazar's plan as a dressed-up version of the status quo combined with aggressive roundups they say would threaten the future of wild horse herds.

"The situation is unpatriotic," said Deanne Stillman, author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West. "What represents freedom more than wild horses? We are a country born in hoof sparks. ... I do think most Americans are not happy about this stripping away of our heritage."

Celebrities including singers Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow and former Playboy models Shane and Sia Barbi have tried to call attention to the issue.

"We must act now before the BLM has managed these magnificent animals into extinction," Nelson said.

Advocates say that trapping in winter threatens the horses' health because of cold temperatures and rugged terrain, and that the actions separate foals from mothers.

Emmons of the BLM said winter trapping is better because the animals are at lower elevations and can be captured in shorter distances with less stress.

ForTheWildOnes wrote: 1/1/2010 6:45:22 PM

Call for a moratorium now on all wild horse/burro roundups by BLM until Congress works with we, the people, to re-protect our wild horses/burros on their legal Western lands. We need an improved version of the original 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Burros Act before our herds are managed to extinction. Here's why:

1) Our wild herds are NOT overpopulated, are NOT destroying the rangelands, are NOT in "excess" & are NOT starving as BLM claims. Compare 30-36K (independent sources say 15K) horses left on public lands to 1-4 million cattle, 950K elk, 780K pronghorn antelope, 70K bighorn sheep, tens of thousands of mule deer, etc., on the public lands. (Note, per BLM, a cow & calf are counted as ONE & a horse & foal are counted as TWO.) Or, compare BLM's yearly 8.6M AUM's of forage allocated to cattle & only 397K AUM's of forage allocated to the wild horses/burros, a mere 4.6%. So, what is really overpopulated? What is really destroying the rangelands? The numbers don't lie.

2) BLM's Don Glenn recently said a wild horse needs 150 acres of semi-arid Western lands to graze/year. The original legal herd areas of 53M acres would support 353K horses; the BLM's illegal reduction to 32M acres presently would still support 213K horses. So, how can 30-36K be overpopulated?

3) BLM has already zeroed out over 100 herds. Was this even legal? Now, if only 30-36K horses remain in the wild & BLM plans to remove 10-12K/year for the next 3 years, that leaves zero on the range. If there's only 15K on the range, they'll be gone in just over a year. If that's not managing to extinction, I don't know what is. America, please wake up here!

4) Wild horses do NOT reproduce 20-27%/year & their population does NOT double every 4-5 years as BLM claims. The National Academy of Sciences' researched number is 10-15%/year. Independent calculations using BLM's own numbers confirm 13.8%/year average. BLM is over-estimating numbers to fast track removal of as many horses/burros as possible. Why? For the cattle (& yet, only 2-3% of total U.S. production!), big game & energy industries on public lands.

5) DOI is fast tracking energy development on OUR public lands. Getting rid of OUR wild herds FIRST makes it easy for industry to take over OUR lands without the NEPA requirements of extensive EIS's dealing with our wild herds. In the EIS's, they would have to legally address the significant impacts to our "protected" wild herds & would be required to fairly mitigate those impacts financially & environmentally. This is what DOI & the energy industries want to avoid to save time & potentially millions of dollars at our public lands', wild herds' & taxpayers' expense.

6) BLM is charged by law to manage the public lands for "thriving natural ecological balance". Cattle are not natural or native to our Western lands, but our wild herds are. There's scientific evidence to prove that fact. They were re-introduced by the Spanish in the 15th century & are
direct descendants of horses that previously lived in N. America. Plus, the wild horses/burros are supposed to be protected by law no matter what label you put on them as "an integral part of the natural system of the public lands". The cattle are permitted on our public lands as a privilege, not a right. Our wild herds are designated legally to be on our public lands. So, what needs to go? The answer should be obvious.

7) How can a "thriving natural ecological balance" even be attained when the National & State Wildlife Services purposefully kill off thousands of predators/year (mountain lions, bears, wolves, bobcats, coyotes) to protect the cattle industry at taxpayers' expense of $5-8M/year?

8) We taxpayers have been reamed for decades. Grazing fees are still so low that we pay $125M/year for BLM to run that program, i.e. welfare cattle grazing (& yet, a $76B industry in 2008). We pay an additional $50M+/year for BLM to inhumanely roundup & imprison our wild horses/burros in concentration camps around the U.S., non-free, non-wild & sterilized to boot. Also, many can slip through the cracks & end up slaughtered in Mexico & Canada. Ranchers pay $16/year to graze a cow & calf on public lands, up from $14.76/yr in the 1960's! They would pay $156-360/yr/cow & calf to lease private lands. Taxpayers dole out $1,825/yr/horse for short-term holding facilities & $500/yr/horse for long-term holding facilities (ranches)! Is this what we taxpayers want or deserve? Our wild horses/burros have Western public lands allocated to them legally for FREE. That's where they need to stay.

We true wild horse/burro advocates have no financial gain in all our efforts. Ours is a labor of love that takes time, energy & personal funds to save our herds from extinction & to guarantee their important presence as wild & free roaming in the West for generations to come. Our intention comes from a moral obligation to honor & respect these indomitable animals, symbols of freedom, family, spirit & our Western heritage. Our intention is pure & right & what the majority of the American public want. For everyone else, it's all about lining pockets of the cattle, big game hunting & energy industries & the Congress, DOI, BLM, USFS & DOA employees--all at huge & unnecessary taxpayer expense.

There are solutions:

1) Reject the Salazar Plan to permanently relocate our wild herds to the Midwest & East in zoo-like preserves completely sterilized, non-free & non-wild. Why should the taxpayer dole out another $100-200M to buy land elsewhere + spend millions more for care yearly when we have millions of acres of BLM land in the West where the wild horses/burros have a legal right to be & where they have evolved & adapted for centuries? BLM manages about 256M acres, the cattle graze 160M of those + 52M acres USFS lands, & the horses/burros are now only allocated 32M acres & are far outnumbered by cattle there as noted above.

2) Create exclusive large sanctuaries on the herds' legal Western public lands utilizing "reserve design" without the multiple-use requirement, i.e., retire some of the welfare grazing allotments per Title 43 CFR 4710.5(a).

3) Raise AML's (Appropriate Management Levels) to a minimum of 75K wild horses in their legal Western public lands' sanctuaries, permanently allocating a minimum of 900K AUM's of forage to them. Manage large, genetically viable herds in these sanctuaries.

4) Develop & improve year-round water sources & be prepared to supplement feed on the range when necessary since the herds won't be able to freely roam outside sanctuary boundaries.

5) Return the "non-excess" 33K captive horses/burros to their legal Western public lands' sanctuaries (the stallions are already gelded & the mares could be treated with contraceptives).

6) Implement minor roundups for the adoption program & a minor sterilization program for population maintenance on the range if natural predators are not re-introduced.

7) Create eco-tourism opportunities to create jobs & keep those profits in the West.

Remember, the President, Congress, DOI/BLM & all other government work for US. WE must demand what WE want. Congress has to work with US, the American public, to re-protect our wild horses/burros. Then, the DOI/BLM has to follow the laws passed by Congress. Right now, Congress is only working with the DOI on behalf of the cattle, big game hunting & energy industries. This is surely a path to extinction of our herds.

America, demand solutions now from Congress before it's too late. Get educated; get active. For more info & how you can help, go to: www.thecloudfoundation.org; http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/issue.html;
http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/horses/index.htm l

http://www.blogher.com/wild-horse-roundup-stirs-emotion#comment-148056

A perspective from the Black Rock Desert

I am the director of the Friends of Black Rock High Rock and I live on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. From the so-called "horse advocate" side, I often hear anecdotal evidence of skewed BLM inventories & collusion with ranchers. There is a pervasive suggestion that habitat is being stolen from horses to give to cattle. This fits easily into a cynical wordview where access to land is prioritized solely to meet the needs of humans, and where moneyed interests (in this case, supposedly, ranchers) rule policy. While I generally don't reject that worldview, I want to point out some facts that disrupt this comfortable frame.

First, neither horses nor cattle are truly indigenous American animals. The horse advocates point to a species that died out at the end of the last ice age, over 10,000 years ago, when Nevada was mostly grassland and not the sparse sageland it is today. Cattle are only allowed to graze on pubic lands under tight restrictions for 3 months of the year, and their diet is largely supported by alfalfa that is grown on farms. Feral horse herds are taxing limited resources all 12 months of the year, and their aggressive behavior prevents wildlife like antelope and mule deer from gaining access to springs. So it's true that human livestock are disrupting wildlife-- those livestock are abandoned feral horses.

In 1971 an Act of Congress was created to protect wild horses and burros, and BLM's management is restricted by these policies-- policies which certainly reflect the worldview of the "advocates." It is illegal to slaughter horses in the US (although I understand some are sold abroad for this purpose), and roundups are conducted with an abundance of consideration for the well-being of the horses. No where in the policies related to horses and burros is "extinction" stated as a desired management goal, and suggestions otherwise are hyperbole. With the advent of the Industrial Age, horses are less and less valuable and useful to people. Many horses on the range today are abandoned by people who can no longer afford to care for them. In one case, friends of mine went out on their horses and came back to find 4 horses tied up to their trailer. They did the responsible thing and took them home, at considerable expense. Many people do not behave this way.

Supposedly the ranchers are fat cats getting rich on government subsidy, but the reason this is in the media is because of significant moneyed interests. All these Hollywood stars and T. Boone Pickens put together are quite wealthy, and very successful at promoting their views. I find it interesting in reviewing all of the information that neither side accepts the science and premises of the other, and there is deep distrust and strongly held emotional attachements to each perspective. It's true, I tend to understand the "rancher" side of the argument because of my proximity to those perspectives. I think everyone agrees that healthy wild horse populations are desired in the West, it is much more difficult for everyone to agree on just what that means, or how we should act for the benefit of all life- man and animal, wild and domestic. The Friends of Black Rock High Rock does not take one position or the other on this issue, but instead encourages civil discourse among all interested groups and objective study to evolve satisfactory solutions.

We have a pretty good collection of articles on the issue on our website, including an opinion piece from our board President.

Matthew Ebert, Executive Director, FBRHR

http://zekesaysso.blogspot.com/2009/12/wild-horses-as-metaphor-for-freed...

This is an excellent perspective. I'm pleased with the overall discourse here. It's might be worthwhile to push this out as a collection of articles on the subject.

http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201005301932/NEWS/100530017

A Nevada rancher and a wild horse advocacy group have proposed creating a mustang sanctuary in the desert hills 160 miles north of Reno and have asked the Bureau of Land Management to release 1,700 captive horses into the sanctuary's care.

The proposal comes from the nonprofit Return to Freedom, which runs a horse sanctuary near Lompoc, Calif., and the Soldier Meadows Ranch, a resort and cattle operation 65 miles north of Gerlach. The proposed public-private partnership would hold most of the mustangs on 5,200 acres of private, fenced pastures around the Soldier Meadows property.

BLM officials say they are soliciting suggestions and public comments relating to the development of a new strategy for managing wild horses and burros.

"The BLM will consider any proposals from individuals or organizations with ideas on ways that the bureau can more effectively deal with the myriad challenges facing its wild horse and burro program," said Tom Gorey, BLM spokesman in Washington, D.C.

In February, the BLM rounded up 1,922 wild horses north of Gerlach. Most of those animals are being temporarily held in corrals in Fallon and Palomino Valley. They will be transported to other states for long-term holding. About 34,000 wild horses are in federal captivity, costing taxpayers an estimated $35 million this year for care and feeding.

Wild horse adoption adoptions have fallen off, particularly with the downturn in the economy. The agency plans to move captive mustangs to pastures in the Midwest and to round up another 8,000 mustangs this year.

Backers of the Nevada sanctuary proposal said the idea is a "win-win" solution for both the public and the BLM.

"The proposal offers an innovative and cost-saving five-year pilot program," wrote Neda DeMayo, founder of the Return to Freedom horse sanctuary. "We believe this proposal realizes (the government's) vision for reform of the wild horse and burro management program by managing horses on the range with fertility control, establishing specially designated wild horse preserves for historically significant and unique herds, developing public/private partnerships to further the wild horse management goals and promoting environmental tourism in rural areas."

Jim Kudrna, owner of the Soldier Meadows Ranch and Resort, said if the government approves the sanctuary plan his cattle operation will be changed to be compatible with a horse sanctuary.

"We are also planning to bring in some historic breeds of livestock such as oxen, draft horses and other animals in addition to our high-quality beef cattle," he said. "Visitors be able to see how the livestock have changed over the last 150 years. It should be a fun thing for the history-minded folks who visit our destination."

He said although all the numbers haven't been worked out, the sanctuary should save the BLM "millions of dollars" it would have spent to feed and care for the horses in Midwestern pens and pastures.

The proposal suggests a reimbursement rate of $350 per wild horse per year, $131 less per animal than the BLM is now paying for mustangs in long-term holding facilities.
Kudrna said the plan includes water improvements and "horse-proofing" of natural water sources that would benefit all wildlife in the area. Birth control methods would keep the herds in check and the number of horses involved would be within the level that range scientists say the area can sustain.

The goals, he said, are a healthy range, a vibrant wild horse herd and a thriving native wildlife population.

WILD HORSE CONFLICT

The government says wild horse and burro herds are destroying rangeland. Last year, the Bureau of Land Management said the free-roaming population of 37,000 horses and burros on Western rangelands exceeds by more than 10,000 the number that the BLM has determined can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources.

o Wild horse advocates argue the range is being managed for the benefit of cattle ranchers, energy firms, mining companies and hunters to the detriment of the federally-protected wild horse herds.

o In 2009, 32,000 wild horses were being held in government-funded corrals and pastures. This year, the care and feeding of the captive animals is expected to reach $35 million, a figure that both sides in the debate agree is unsustainable.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/11/wildhorses200611?cur...

Letter From Montana - Galloping Scared
by Kurt Brungardt
November 2006

Before 1971, when Velma "Wild Horse Annie" Johnston won her crusade to save the country's wild horses, they were being trapped in brutal airplane roundups, slaughtered, and sold as steaks overseas. Now Republican Montana senator Conrad Burns, through a bill signed by President Bush, has gutted the 35-year-old law protecting these cherished symbols of the American West.

Exhausted and terrified, a herd of wild mustangs gallop around the side of the mountain, miraculously managing to skirt the treacherous prairie-dog holes and deep crevices as they try to escape the screaming, whirling predator on their tail. Their instincts tell them they can out-run most any animal, but this one is relentless.

You wish a director would yell "Cut," and the horses would be led to a plush Hollywood stable for rest, food, and water. But it's not a movie, and the pilot flying the helicopter is not an actor. He works for a government program to round up wild horses from public lands. The target horses this week are from the Sandwash Basin herd, in northwestern Colorado.

As the horses hit a straightaway at full stride, a camouflaged fence gradually funnels them into a trap. Close to the neck of the trap, the roundup crew releases a "Judas horse," which runs to the front of the pack and leads the mustangs directly into a tiny corral. Once inside, the horses screech to a stop, piling up on top of one another as dust flies, the gate slams, and the helicopter pulls away to go back for more horses. When the crew is finished, a few of the horses will be released back onto the range, some will be put up for adoption, but most will be relocated to government holding facilities, and a large number will be eligible to be sold to slaughterhouses, thanks to Senator Conrad Burns (Republican, Montana).

Senator Conrad Burns last year. Photograph by Matthew Minnard/Las Vegas Sun/AP Images.

In 1971, Congress passed a law that banned the inhumane treatment of wild horses and put safeguards into place so they couldn't be sold for slaughter. That law was the result of a two-decades-long crusade by Velma Johnston, better known as "Wild Horse Annie." But in December 2004 that law was gutted. Just days before the Thanksgiving holiday recess, when most of Washington was getting ready to leave for the long weekend, Senator Burns put the final touches on his rider No. 142, which removed all protections for wild horses (and burros) that were over the age of 10 or had been offered unsuccessfully for adoption three times. Such animals could now be sold "without limitation, including through auction to the highest bidder, at local sale yards or other convenient livestock selling facilities." Burns inserted his one-page rider into a 3,300-page budget-appropriations bill on the eve of the bill's congressional deadline, and there would be no opportunity for either public or legislative debate.

The following week rider No. 142 was uncovered, thanks in part to a tip from the Government Printing Office. Animal advocates and politicians from both major parties were outraged. Representative Ed Whitfield, a Republican from western Kentucky, observed, "The thing that is so damaging about this Conrad Burns amendment is that he passed it on an appropriations bill that no one knew about.... It is precisely the way the legislative process should not work. I don't know his motivations, but more than likely he was protecting the ranchers who have leased those lands [for cattle and sheep grazing]."

Despite protests, President Bush, who likes to borrow the imagery and ethos of the American cowboy (and whom Burns once praised as having "earned his spurs"), signed the rider into law, capping a series of policy moves at the Bureau of Land Management (B.L.M.), the government agency in charge of managing the horses, that have sought to diminish the protected status of these "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West," as the 1971 law called them.

The rider caused such anger that in May 2005 the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill to restore the original intent of the 1971 law. A similar amendment in the Senate had to make one stop before its confirmation vote: the appropriations subcommittee for the Department of the Interior, which has jurisdiction over all federal lands and the National Park Service. Burns is chairman of that committee. Proving again that one man can make a difference, he blocked the amendment from going to vote.

The B.L.M., part of the Department of the Interior, is responsible for administering America's 261 million acres of public land. Historically, it has worked closely with ranchers and other commercial interests, such as gas and oil, coal, and timber, in the management and use of these lands. Overseeing the wild horses is one, small part of what the bureau does, but to the general public, which has an emotional attachment to them, it is one of its most important responsibilities. Celebrated in film, literature, and our nation's history, the mustangs helped Lewis and Clark complete their historic expedition, and during the opening of the frontier, they pulled plows, delivered mail, and carried soldiers in battle.

Senator Robert Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) summed up the feelings of many when, in his speech to overturn the Burns rider, he criticized the B.L.M.'s management of the wild horses. "Surely there are actions that can be taken by the BLM to ensure the proper operation of the wild horse and burro program without resorting to the slaughter of these animals."
Horse Whisperers

When you drive up the dirt road to Karen Sussman's double-wide trailer, in South Dakota, you are greeted by two dogs, 12 cats, and the 300 mustangs that roam her 680 acres. Suss man meets you at the door, and the first thing she asks is "Have you eaten?"

An intern who worked for Sussman once called her "the mother of all living things." But she is no pushover. As president of the 750-member International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, Sussman, 59, is a fiery activist who also works part-time as a nurse, in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, for the Indian Health Service. Small and energetic, with short hair that stays in place when she moves, she looks like a former gymnast and seems always ready to jump to the next task. Her home is packed with the late Wild Horse Annie's personal items, making it a kind of unofficial museum-she even has Annie's saddle resting on a sawhorse.

Sussman, who never knew Annie personally, grew up in rural Pennsylvania. In 1981, she adopted her first horse and began volunteering for Annie's organization. She became president of it in 1989, and both president and executive director in 1993. During these years, she worked closely with Helen Reilly, who was Annie's good friend and personal secretary. (Reilly passed away in 1993.) Sussman knows Annie's story inside out, and so, at one time, did many other people. By the time her 1971 law passed, Annie had been featured in countless newspaper articles, on national television, and in popular magazines as diverse as Reader's Digest and Esquire.

At age 11, while living outside Reno, Annie contracted a severe case of polio and underwent an experimental operation, after which she was hospitalized in a body cast for nearly nine months. A bright spot in her day was looking at a large painting of mustangs entitled Roaming Free, which hung in the hospital hallway. "I studied it with all my senses. I could just feel what it was like out there, winging along with the herd," Annie wrote.

When Annie's cast was removed, it turned out the constricting plaster, which covered much of her neck and head, had not allowed space for her face to develop evenly, and while she would grow to a height of five feet seven inches, she was twisted out of alignment by the polio. Annie's disfigurements proved to be traumatic. Kids taunted her, so she retreated into her studies, wrote poetry, drew, and helped her father take care of the animals on their ranch. Her best friend was a rodeo horse named Hobo, which her father had given her when she got out of the hospital.

"Then there's her most famous story," Sussman says, "the one that changed her life." On a beautiful morning in 1950, Annie was driving to her secretarial job in Reno when she approached a truck pulling a livestock trailer-a common sight. As she pulled closer, she saw blood dripping out of the trailer. Through the wooden slats she saw it was jam-packed-not with cattle, but with horses. Trampled under their feet was a young foal, no more than a few months old.

When the truck turned off the highway onto a dirt road, Annie followed it. Its destination was a slaughterhouse that processed horsemeat for pet food. The truck parked next to a holding pen, and a man unlocked the trailer gate. As the gate swung open, a tight pack of mustangs untangled and scrambled to get out, falling over the trailer's edge, landing on top of one another, fighting to get to their feet, running into the holding pen.

The horses were battered and bloody. Most had wide swaths of flesh torn from their sides, which were oozing blood. Annie would later learn that such wounds were inflicted when the horses were roped, pulled off their feet, then dragged up a ramp into the cattle trailer. Many were spotted red from shotgun blasts fired by wranglers in planes. Still in the trailer was the foal, trampled to death. Annie gasped and leaned forward, sick to her stomach.

She received the nickname "Wild Horse Annie" a few years later, as her reputation as a mustang advocate grew. In Carson City, Nevada, she entered a packed room in the state-senate building to speak before a committee about banning the airplane roundup of wild horses. As she walked down an aisle, a local rancher, in an attempt to ridicule her, said in a loud voice, "Well, if it isn't Wild Horse Annie." The press in the room picked up the nickname, and in a genius public-relations move, Annie adopted it. As a result of her activism, "Annie faced regular death threats," Sussman says, "and answered the door at her ranch outside Reno-the Double Lazy Heart-with a pistol behind her back."

Before she faced the U.S. Senate, in 1971, Annie orchestrated one of the largest letter-writing campaigns in U.S. history, and Congress was flooded with letters, many written by children and teenagers, on behalf of the horses. Widespread, unregulated commercial exploitation had brought the mustang numbers from two million in the early 1900s to fewer than 18,000 in 1971. Arthur Miller and John Huston's 1961 film, The Misfits, depicted the increasing desperation of the down-and-out cowboys who trafficked in the few remaining wild horses.

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act passed both houses of Congress unanimously. It protected the mustangs "from capture, branding, harassment, or death." The B.L.M. was the main agency assigned to enforce this law.

Annie died of cancer at age 65 on June 27, 1977, but Sussman and others continue her work, which they believe is far from over. "The B.L.M. has consistently exploited the intent of the law," says Sussman. "They have constantly chipped away at key provisions. The horses on my ranch come from two herds-one of which comes from the B.L.M.-that were zeroed out. The total land that was set aside for mustangs in the 1971 law has been reduced by over 10 million acres."

Sussman, like many wild-horse advocates, thinks that the mustangs, under the stewardship of the B.L.M., could one day reach numbers so low that their ability to survive in the wild would be at risk.
Slaughterhouse Blues

By the late 70s the population of wild horses had increased to 44,000, and changes were made to the 1971 law, adding provisions for "excess animals" to be removed from the range-the excess to be determined by the secretary of the interior when he saw a threat to "a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple-use relationship in that area [i.e., ranching]." A 1976 amendment to the law allowed for mechanized roundups (helicopters and trucks), and roundup numbers began to increase dramatically. More revisions in 1978 allowed for old, sick, and lame animals "to be destroyed in the most humane manner possible," a measure Annie supported, according to Sussman. "Annie wanted to create an airtight bill, and she foresaw population problems in the future," she says. "She wanted to deal with such problems on the range and to avoid the roundups and slaughterhouse horrors." The 1978 revisions also specified how the horse-adoption program should dispose of healthy excess animals: "qualified individuals" were allowed to adopt no more than four horses each (for which the B.L.M. charged a fee of $25 a horse). After proving they had treated the animals humanely for one year, the new owners were given title. The four-horse limit and one-year probationary period were intended to eliminate the economic incentive for ranchers to take large numbers of horses to sell to slaughterhouses.

Thanks to former Nevada Republican senator Paul Laxalt, however, a loophole big enough to drive a truck through-one straight to the slaughterhouse-was also included in the revisions. It stated that wild horses and burros would lose their protected status once the new owner received title. The implications of this became all too clear after Ronald Reagan installed the pro-ranching-and- mining James Watt and later the lesser-known but like-minded William P. Clark and Donald Hodel as secretaries of the interior. In 1984 the B.L.M. instituted a fee-waiver program, whereby most anyone willing to take at least 100 wild horses would get them for free, and from 1985 to 1987, after Congress appropriated $51 million for roundups (thanks mostly to Republican senator James McClure, of Idaho), the B.L.M. began enthusiastically removing wild horses from the range-around 40,000 between 1984 and 1987.

Journalist Tad Bartimus, in an article for the Associated Press, revealed how ranchers and the B.L.M. had gotten around the four-horse adoption limit: dozens of individuals would adopt four horses each, then give the ranchers power of attorney. Bartimus quoted a Montana rancher who had gotten 1,100 horses this way, which he planned to sell to the slaughter house. The rancher said, "We have powers of attorney from people in Arizona, California, Texas and Montana Of course, they went to slaughter. Everybody knows what's happening, but nobody will admit it."

According to a 1990 report by the G.A.O. (the General Accounting Office, now the Government Accountability Office, which does independent, nonpartisan reports at the request of Congress), 20,000 wild horses were placed with "79 individuals and 4 Native American tribes.... We found that hundreds of these horses died of starvation and dehydration during the 1-year probation period and that many adopters, primarily ranchers and farmers ... sold thousands more to slaughter after obtaining title from BLM." The G.A.O. report concluded, "By its very design the fee-waiver program was a prescription for commercial exploitation of wild horses."

The Animal Protection Institute of America and the Fund for Animals took the B.L.M. to court in response to such abuses, and in 1988 a federal judge ruled that the B.L.M. could not issue a title if it knew the adopter intended to sell an animal to slaughter. This terminated the fee-waiver program.

But in the 1990s abuses under the adoption program were still being reported, becoming more of an internal B.L.M. issue. In a series of articles for the A.P., published in the mid-1990s, Martha Mendoza documented how the B.L.M. had falsified rec ords used to identify and track horses, and how bureau officials were selling horses to slaughter after enlisting their friends and relatives to adopt them to circumvent the four-horse-per-person limit.

In 1997, to address these abuses, President Clinton's B.L.M. announced additional regulations to protect the horses, including checking with adopters and spot-checking slaughterhouses. Buyers now had to sign an affidavit ensuring they had no intent to sell the horses for slaughter or processing. Under the Bush administration things would again take a turn for the worse.
An American Classic

The mustang is a relatively small and sturdy horse, measuring close to five feet (15 hands) high and weighing on average 900 pounds. Its chest looks narrow from the front but deep in profile, more sub stantial than an Arabian's but not as bulky as a quarter horse's. Its legs spread out from its body in a distinctive slight "A" shape. Mustangs come in all colors, from black to brown to dun to cream, some red dish, some bluish, and in many these are mixed with whites and grays to produce roans, speckles, paints, and other patterns.

One of the best places to observe mustangs in their natural habitat is the Pryor Mountains, in Senator Burns's home state of Montana. And one of the best guides to take you through this territory and teach you about mustangs is documentary-film maker Ginger Kathrens. Kath rens is a rock star in the wild-horse world. Driven and tough, she lets out frequent sparks of good humor. You'd never want to get on her bad side, though, or she would stare you down with her intense blue eyes. For her PBS series, which began in 2001 with Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies, Kathrens is filming Cloud, a majestic white mustang stallion. She has followed him for more than 10 years, from his birth. Now he is lead stallion of his own family.

The Pryor Mountains are rugged and beautiful, filled with steep canyons and expansive valleys. The Big Horn Canyon cuts across the plains as far as the eye can see. To film the latest installment in Cloud's life, Kathrens treks on foot to find him. She is loaded down with gear: an Arriflex Super 16-mm. film camera, a large Canon digital video camera, a heavy tripod, a Nikon 35-mm. still camera, and binoculars. Pointing to a tree-filled valley that leads to the main watering hole, she looks through her binoculars, and a smile breaks across her face. "There's Cloud," she says. "He's making his way to the watering hole."

"The lead mare chooses when and where to feed and water," Kathrens explains. Cloud waits on top of a low hill just above the water hole. "Cloud typically takes the rearguard position to make sure it is safe for everyone else before he goes down to water." She checks the view through her telephoto lens as she explains the makeup of a family band: a stallion, a lead mare, plus several other mares, and all of their offspring under three. Usually, when the stallions are two years old, the lead stallion kicks them out and they join a bachelor band.

"Made up of horses ranging in age from two and up, the bachelor bands serve an important role in wild-horse society," says Kathrens. "The bachelors join up with one another for protection and social activities. They don't have family responsibilities, so they can hang out and cause mischief. The younger bachelors spar with the older ones to hone their fighting skills. A bachelor's ultimate goal is to steal a mare and start his own family."

"He's still letting Flint stay around," observes Kathrens. Flint is Cloud's four-year-old stepson. "When they stick around this long, we call them 'lieutenants.' They help protect the band and scare away the bachelors. Cloud has always liked Flint."

Other family bands arrive at the top of the hill above the water hole. They wait until Cloud's family is done. Kathrens's camera rolls as Cloud and his family drink and play, then head off. The next family band comes down.

"The hierarchy among the families is determined by the status of the stallion," Kathrens explains. Each new group drinks for about five minutes and moves on. Then the next family comes down. The process works in a peaceful and orderly way.

As the sun sets, Kathrens packs up and begins to hike back to camp. "This area is primarily the herd's summer area. To protect the health of the range the B.L.M. wants to lower the numbers of the Pryor herd from 153 horses to 95. When the B.L.M. originally determined the size of this range area, they didn't take into account the historic use area of the herd, which is far larger than the designated range. We're trying to get the herd area increased to include the horses' historic range, which they're legally entitled to in the 1971 Wild Horses and Burros Act. Increasing the size to include this land would keep the herds at a healthy number. The numbers are already so low that the health and future of the herd is in danger." (The B.L.M. says it did incorporate the historic use area of the herds.)

Kathrens points to the research of Dr. Gus Cothran, a leader in the field of equine-population genetics at the University of Kentucky. He uses DNA analysis to study wild horses. His research concludes that for long-term health and survival of the herds a minimum size needs to be between 150 and 200 horses. Otherwise, interbreeding will create genetic weaknesses, leading to serious health problems. More than 70 percent of the herds the B.L.M. manages fall below Cothran's minimum number. (The B.L.M. maintains that these numbers are high. They are monitoring genetic diversity in the herds, and they say that "at present, there is no immediate cause for concern about inbreeding.")

Turf Wars

In 2001, President Bush appointed Kathleen Clarke as director of the B.L.M. Before that she had served as executive director of Utah's Department of Natural Resources, where she built a reputation for favoring mining and drilling interests. At the B.L.M. she has been at the center of controversy. According to sworn testimony by the public-lands chairman of the Utah Cattlemen's Association, she encouraged ranchers to sue her own agency, after having failed in an effort to prevent Interior from issuing grazing permits to a conservation group. (At the time, Clarke denied she did anything inappropriate.) The Bush administration has rounded up wild horses at a record-setting pace, including more than 50,000 under Clarke's aegis.

The Department of Interior building, on Washington's C Street, is a stone monument to permanency and power, one of the first buildings constructed by the Public Works Administration during the Depression. As you walk down the wide main corridor, with its high ceiling, you feel safe, but small. In a back office of this landmark building, sitting around a table, Tom Dyer, until recently the B.L.M.'s deputy assistant director of renewable resources and planning, Dean Bolstad, its wild-horse-and-burro-operations lead, and Tom Gorey, a B.L.M. spokesperson, look at the numbers on their chart. They are confused. They have just applied their own formula to calculate the wild-horse population. The calculations don't match their official census sheet. "These numbers have always been a little confusing," Bolstad says. The current census numbers for 2006 seem disproportionately high, estimating 9,000 more horses on the range than their formula could account for.

Gorey says, "We think our count is accurate. It is an estimate; we can't say it is the literally correct number."

When asked its position on the Burns rider, Gorey says, "The B.L.M. has not taken a stand on the Burns rider. We see it as another management tool." Horse advocates say this is merely added proof, as if any were needed, that the B.L.M. is more or less in cahoots with Burns. "They [at the B.L.M.] are not upset that one man, Burns, covertly set the horses up for slaughter," says Chris Heyde, a deputy legislative director for the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, located in Alexandria, Virginia.

A big question is why Senator Burns has inserted himself so prominently into the wild-horse controversy when the issue is not even an important one in his state. The only wild horses in Montana are the 153 mustangs at the Pryor mountain range, and they're a tourist attraction. (Of the approximately 31,000 wild horses counted in the B.L.M.'s 2006 herd-area data were 13,384 in Nevada, 3,166 in California, 4,615 in Wyoming, 2,545 in Utah, and 2,113 in Oregon.) The senator has given several reasons. They include to prevent the horses from starving on the range, to protect the health of the range, to push the B.L.M. to get serious about its adoption program, and to cut the costs of boarding horses in holding facilities. Critics claim that these issues are already addressed by the law.

Burns grew up on a farm in Missouri, and as a young man he moved to Montana, where he sold ads for a livestock magazine and worked as a livestock auctioneer. In this world, horses are bought and sold like cattle. What do you do with old and lame horses? You sell them to a slaughterhouse to recoup a little money. It is just business as usual. Burns once explained to a journalist, "I'm in the livestock business, and I've bought and sold horses my whole life. Basically, the marketplace works."

The ranchers believe they should be the ones to control the use of their leased public lands. In many cases, they have worked these public plots for generations and regard them as their own. They see the wild horses merely as pests, consuming food and water that are meant for their livestock and tearing up fences. Steve Raftopoulos, a rancher in northwestern Colorado, faces the daily challenges of running livestock on public land. He grazes sheep in the Sandwash Basin with the wild horses. His family has been ranching in the area since 1934. "What it comes down to is proper management of the range," he says. "In managing anything you have to have flexibility. We can control how much livestock we are going to put on a range area. We have no control over the wild horses, no matter what the range condition is. Horses can really tear it up. I'm dependent on the B.L.M."

Raftopoulos speaks with clear determination. He is suspicious of reporters and environmentalists, but once he gets talking about public-land issues he doesn't slow down. "Everyone is caught up in the emotion of this, and they can't look at it logically. When the range is in great shape and the rain falls when it's supposed to, the horses and the livestock can coexist. But when there's drought, the range can be permanently damaged. Right now we have drought. And now the government wants to make it illegal to slaughter horses. This leaves no management flexibility, except to just let the horses die in an ex pensive government hold ing facility."

In the basement of the Forest Service of fice in Red Lodge, Mon tana, range specialist Wayne Burleson pulls down a projection screen and then turns off the lights. Burleson, 64, has studied the eating behavior of cattle and horses for more than 20 years, photographing and documenting their habits. He clicks through his slide show, illustrating how the eating tendencies of each animal impact the range. "The truth is they're both right," he says. "A cow can destroy the range and so can a horse. A horse can pinch out the whole grass plant with its teeth, and the cow can wrap his long tongue around a plant and pull it out. Any animal will overgraze if he doesn't have enough territory to graze or isn't properly managed."

To evaluate the impact of grazing on public land, consideration needs also to be given to big game (elk, deer, antelope). Most calculations estimate that more than four million head of livestock and three million big-game animals graze on public land. This means that wild horses account for less than one-half of 1 percent of the large animals grazing on public land. The most comprehensive independent study of this issue, done in 1990 by the G.A.O., states, "Wild horses are so vastly outnumbered on federal rangelands by domestic livestock Even substantial reduction in wild horse populations will, therefore, not substantially reduce total forage consumption." The G.A.O. report also states, "BLM could not provide [the General Accounting Office] with any information demonstrating that federal rangeland conditions have significantly improved because of wild horse removals." The study concluded, "The primary cause of the degradation in rangeland resources is poorly managed domestic livestock (primarily cattle and sheep) grazing."

Senator Burns refused to meet with V.F. to discuss his rider, but Chris Heggem, Burns's point person on this issue, says, "He did it because other people asked him to." Senator Burns has a history of being sensitive to the needs of those who donate large amounts of money to his campaign. Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who arranged for, by some estimates, close to $150,000 to go to Burns, told V.F.'s David Margolick, "Every appropriation we wanted [from Senator Conrad Burns's committee] we got." From 2001 to 2006, the senator received $380,512 from agribusiness, which includes the livestock industry. He receives more money-$69,800 so far for his 2006 re-election bid-from livestock interests than all but one senator, Texas Republican Henry Bonilla.

In Slate magazine, Deanne Stillman theorized that Montana rancher Merle Edsall may have been instrumental in getting Burns to act, because "the language in the Burns rider was the exact same wording floated by Edsall at a meeting of the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board." Edsall denies this connection to Burns. He says he wanted to take 10,000 wild horses in order to create a tourist-attraction sanctuary in Mexico. He claims that the White House and the B.L.M. wanted to privatize the wild-horse program, to which the B.L.M.'s Gorey responds, "We did receive a proposal, and we turned it down." Edsall explains, "I had a three-part plan. Part one was to give the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board authority over the wild-horse program. Part two was the sale authority. You have to have a threat before you solve a problem. The sale authority would allow the horses to go to slaughter. [I thought], People will go through the roof, and they did. But don't make a threat without a solution. Part three was the solution: Mexico and giving the horses to 501(c) nonprofits."
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Last February the B.L.M. initiated a program similar to the Reagan-era fee waiver. For the mustangs that have lost protections because of the Burns rider, it makes the adoption fee "negotiable," and drops both the one-year probationary period and the limit of four horses going to one person in any one-year period. In a letter of February 21, 2006, Clarke appealed to 15,000 ranchers with B.L.M. grazing permits to take the horses. Thanks to the Burns rider no one will be able to stop the program with a lawsuit this time. Now the B.L.M. will deliver loads of 20 or more horses free of charge to any destination. Although recipients of these horses have to sign an agreement that they do not intend to send the horses to slaughter, wild-horse activists doubt the B.L.M. will do much checking up to see that the ranchers are keeping their word. (Gorey says the B.L.M. has compliance guidelines that range from inspections to phone check-ins.)

The rationale for the fee-reduction program, as it was the last time, is to save money by removing horses from government holding facilities. But Chris Heyde says, "If the B.L.M. and the administration want to talk about money, they should look at their grazing program. According to the government's latest G.A.O. study, in 2004 the grazing program lost almost $115 million a year. The ranchers pay a nominal fee of $1.56 a month for each cow-and-calf pair to graze. The free-market rate for ranchers to lease the same amount of private land to graze their cattle is a little over $13 a month. It's a giveaway.

"This does not include the million spent each year on behalf of ranchers for predator control, to kill coyotes, foxes, and mountain lions to protect cattle and sheep," he adds. "These are the animals that would naturally help control wild-horse population. All of this when less than 3 percent of America's beef is raised on federal rangelands. And economically, livestock grazing on federal land produces only a tiny percentage of income in western states, between 1 and 3 percent. The irony is that most of the land is leased to millionaires."

He is referring to a nine-month investigation in 1999 by the San Jose Mercury News, which revealed that the top 10 percent of those holding grazing permits control 65 percent of all livestock on B.L.M. land. One of the largest livestock lessees of B.L.M. land is a company founded by one of the richest men in America, John Simplot, who is worth an estimated $2.3 billion. He lives in Boise, Idaho, and supplies half of McDonald's French fries. Other major holders of government grazing leases include the Hilton Family Trust.

Heyde and other advocates outline their solutions. Give the wild horses back all their original acreage and herd areas. Keep herd sizes large enough to maintain the future health of the herds. If the range is in crisis, support the horses with water and hay. Manage the herd areas principally for mustangs, not sheep and cattle. Keep roundup and adoptions in sync. "Just enforce and follow through on the legal guidelines of the 1971 law. After all, it is a law," Heyde says.

On September 7, 2006, the House of Representatives voted 263 to 146 in favor of a bill sponsored by John Sweeney, a New York Republican, and Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican, to ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption. There are currently three horse slaughterhouses in the U.S., one in Illinois, and two in Texas. They sell horsemeat primarily to Europe and Japan, where it is regarded as a delicacy. Chris Heyde has been inside a slaughterhouse, and he has been to horse auctions. "The majority of horses are not sold to slaughter by their owners," Heyde says, "but instead arrive via livestock auction, where 'killer buyers' purchase them. Owners are often unaware of their ultimate fate. And most of the horses are not old and lame. They are healthy racehorses, riding-school and show horses, stolen horses, and federally protected wild horses." Horse advocates are hopeful the anti-slaughter bill will pass the Senate and become law.

In Washington, D.C., the politicians fight. In South Dakota, Karen Sussman faces the daily challenges of managing her mustang herd. This morning an old mustang with a surgically repaired leg has fallen in her stall. This is a life-threatening situation for a horse. Sussman made a deal with this old mustang. "As long as she has the will to live, I'll stick by her." She is not sure if Janie Grayce, named after the two donors who paid for her surgery, wants to go on or give up.

With the help of Denny, a part-time worker from the Lakota tribe, Sussman has rigged a series of ropes to help lift the horse to her feet. She talks to the old mustang. "You tell me what you want to do." Sussman has been dreading this moment. But she is prepared to put the mare down if she won't fight to get up. "It is going to happen one day," she says. Janie Grayce lies motionless on her side with each attempt to raise her.

"Let's give her one last try," Sussman says as they pull the rope taut around the horse's body. The mare's eyes brighten. She begins to struggle, kicking her legs, trying to fight to her feet-suddenly she's up. A little unsteady, but she's up.

"Good girl. Good girl," Sussman says, petting her. Janie Grayce lets out a whinny, as if she's saying thanks. "She's a tough old mustang. She wasn't ready to go," says Sussman.

Kurt Brungardt is a writer and personal trainer in New York.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/a-solution-for-americas-w...

Madeleine Pickens has purchased the first property to launch an eco-sanctuary for wild horses in Elko County, Nevada. The ranch is located approximately 35 miles south of Wells, NV on Highway 93, a main north south travel artery and within 35 miles of Interstate 80.

THE PROPERTY:
The ranch encompasses nearly 600,000 acres of deeded and public land allotments. It is watered by 26 wells and 17 springs. Spruce Mountain rises over 10,000 feet in the center of the ranch and the ranch is flanked by two valleys rich in feed, the Independence Valley to the West and the Goshute Valley to the East. While there is ample feed on the public land allotments for summer months, forage production for the winter months and times of inclement weather conditions will be a key part of the final proposal.

Mrs. Pickens now has another piece of property under contract, the Warm Springs Ranch, a parcel of land that includes 4,000 deeded acres and 22,000 public land acres. This property will serve as the entrance to the sanctuary and the deeded land includes a number of center pivots that will provide forage production for winter months.

THE STARTUP PLAN FOR THE SANCTUARY:
In our numerous discussions with the BLM, they indicated concerns about trying to take too many horses in the initial startup phase. Therefore, the initial startup will include 1,000 horses taken from existing short term holding facilities. It should be noted , however, that the ranch can be quickly improved and expanded to increase the number of horses annually with the eventual intent to take as many as 11,000 horses, the total number currently in short term holding. As previously noted, the ranch will be entirely fenced, precluding spillover to surrounding ranches, and the entire horse population will be non-reproductive. It should be the goal of the BLM and Congress to work with the Foundation to help expand the capacity of the ranch to increase the savings to the taxpayer and decrease the problems associated with excess wild horses currently in holding.

THE FINANCIALS:
The BLM is spending an average of $5.75 per day per horse in current short term holding facilities. The sanctuary will take those same horses for $1.25 per day per horse, thereby saving $4.50 per day per horse. Those savings equate to $1,654,000 per year for every 1000 horses that can be accommodated at the sanctuary. That figure does not include cost of living increases incurred by the government holding the horses. It should be pointed out that the BLM currently pays $1.25 per day on average for ALL the horses in long term holding.

Equally important, when looking at the $1.25 per day per horse figure, is the fact that the Foundation that operates the sanctuary will reinvest 100% of the stipend received from the government back into the project. This stands in stark contrast to the current arrangements whereby private contractors capture as much of the government money as possible as profit. Reinvesting the money benefits the horses and provides the public with a unique experience as they visit this national monument.

It should also be pointed out that Madeleine Pickens has purchased the land with private funds and will deed it over to the Foundation in perpetuity for the purposes of a national eco sanctuary for wild horses. This again stands in stark contrast to the proposal by the Secretary to use taxpayer money to purchase land for "preserves."

The BLM has not gotten a handle on the excess wild horse problem over the years and the numbers have continued to mount while they have pursued a strategy of gather, gather, gather. This failure to look at the larger picture has resulted in administrative costs for various holding programs of millions and million of dollars. It is time to move in a different direction.

SUMMARY:
This proposal provides the only real alternative to the current method of holding horses, standing them in pens for what often proves to be years. It saves the government and taxpayer money, provides an experience for the American people where they can come and see wild horses in a location that will offer a full range of amenities, including a high tech learning center and a wide range of recreational opportunities that will cater to the needs and interests of everyone who visits. It will generate significant tax revenues for local government, provide jobs and other revenues associated with tourist travel.

A year later I find your letter to the RGJ. Well written. Jon

U.S. official opposes wild-horse slaughter for food

Bureau of Land Management chief Bob Abbey tells a conference that his agency plans to give mares birth control instead.

By Ashley Powers, Los Angeles Times

January 5, 2011

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wild-horses-2011010...

Reporting from Las Vegas -
Slaughtering wild horses for food isn't a viable option for thinning herds that have strained public lands throughout the West, the federal Bureau of Land Management director told supporters of horse processing plants Tuesday.

Instead, the agency plans to give mares birth control in hopes of diminishing the need for controversial horse roundups, Bob Abbey said at the Summit of the Horse conference in Las Vegas. The BLM, he said, also will continue promoting adoption and seeking locations to place captured horses other than its holding pens.

"Make no mistake, they deserve to be treated the best way that we can treat them," Abbey told dozens of people who support the opening of a horse processing plant in Wyoming.

Horse trainer Dave Duquette, the president of conference sponsor United Horsemen, dismissed the BLM's view as shortsighted and a waste of government dollars.

"What's palatable to public opinion and what needs to happen are two different things," he said after Abbey's hourlong appearance.

In a sign of how touchy the long-running debate has become, Abbey's presence at what critics called the "horse slaughter summit" incensed activists who laud the animals as icons of the American West.

The BLM, said Abbey, is obliged to talk to various stakeholders in the debate, including those suspicious of the agency, which they regard as an ineffective landlord of federal lands.

With virtually no natural predators, about 38,000 wild horses and burros have been galloping across 10 Western states - thousands more than the land can handle, the BLM said. Most are scattered across Nevada, where Abbey was formerly the agency's state director.

For years, the BLM has run "horse gathers," in which tens of thousands of animals have been captured and transferred to holding areas - a labor-intensive and costly process. Wyoming rancher Sue Wallis, United Horsemen's vice president, has derided the effort as a "welfare entitlement program for horses."

Some horses have been adopted, though that number has dwindled because of the economy, Abbey said. In 2008, the BLM considered euthanasia as a possible remedy, but later backed off amid public outrage. Wild-horse advocates found the prospect of slaughtering horses for food equally offensive.

Those who "wish to profit from the butchering of America's horses must find another way to earn a living," said Suzanne Roy of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign in a statement.

ashley.powers@latimes.com

People generally agree that horses have become overpopulated, but disagree on how to manage them. Horses are not indigenous to this continent, and interfere significantly with other animals (antelope, bighorn sheep, even cattle). It's illegal to slaughter horses for meat in the US. They fill an ecological niche formerly held by bison more or less, however, slaughter of bison is not illegal in the US. It's also legal to hunt antelope and sheep. Very strange. In the West they are called feral horses. It's as if a weed was killing the garden, but some people regard them as a beautiful creation of God, so the whole garden is sacrificed. People brought horses here, now we can't agree how to manage them. It's a serious issue, an example of technology developing beyond our control.

If someone eats meat, but opposes people eating horses, isn't that slightly hypocritical? Even dogs and cats are regularly euthanized in this country. I know I'm taking one side, but it seems that people so often are secure in their supposed "pro-horse" stand without any consideration for the destruction of habitat or even the horses' own welfare.

Group Says Horses Should Be Returned To Natural Cycle
CRISTINA SILVA, Associated Press
http://www.fox5vegas.com/family/26380786/detail.html

LAS VEGAS -- Horses should be slaughtered and processed in the United States and then sold as food to other countries that regularly consume the lean, tender meat, speakers said Wednesday at a conference aimed at reviving the country's unpopular horse processing industry.

Horses, traditionally regarded in the U.S. as companions or distinguished beasts, have been elevated to a position where they mistakenly are no longer treated as livestock ripe for consumption, argued slaughter proponents at the first Summit of the Horse conference.

Not eating the animals, in fact, disregards the food chain's natural cycle that sustains all creatures, said Sue Wallis, vice president of the United Horseman group of Wyoming, which organized the conference.

"It's not intuitive," Wallis said of the country's ban on horse processing.

The consumption of horses has long been taboo in the United States, where cows, pigs and chickens are considered the protein of choice. Only three horse slaughterhouses remained in the country in 2007, when complaints over inhumane slayings and unsafe conditions prompted Congress to effectively ban horse processing.

Animal rights groups claim there is no humane way to slaughter horses because of the animals' shape and sensitivity to smells and sounds. They want Congress to outlaw any transactions that could lead to horse slaughters, including the animals' sale to overseas processing plants.

"The industries that existed never were able to find a way to do it in a humane way," said Keith Bane, director of equine protection for the Humane Society of the U.S. "They are very distinctive, in tune to sounds and smells and fears. They smell the blood of the other horses being lead to slaughter, and they panic."

But slaughter proponents say animal rights groups are pushing romantic notions of a noble beast that once defined the untamed West. Horses, they say, are no different from lambs, cows, pigs or other animals treated as food.

Proponents hope the summit - attended by nearly 200 ranchers, breeders and lawmakers - will draw attention to an untapped economic resource. Reopening horse slaughterhouses, they said, would create jobs and increase the market value of an animal whose sale price has plummeted in recent years.

Horses are now shipped to Canada and Mexico to be slaughtered there, a cost-prohibitive expense for many horse owners.

"We want to see horse plants all over the country so you don't have the hassle of these long hauls," said Ed Butcher, a former Montana state legislator. "We are looking at plants that will probably kill 100 horses a day, nothing big."

Conference participants are spending three days discussing humane horse slaughter methods, how to battle animal rights groups and the devastation wrought by uncontrolled populations of wild horses that compete with other species for water and forage.

Temple Grandin, an animal science professor at Colorado State University, said shuttering the United States' heavily regulated horse slaughterhouses has allowed inhumane processing factories to flourish in other nations.

Horse meat remains a dietary staple in Japan, China, France, Belgium, German and Mexico. But the United States' stomach for horse meat shrank after World War II, when the consumption of Black Beauty's brethren largely fell out of fashion.

Slaughter advocates claim unwanted horses are aggravating the nation's already overpopulated horse supply.

The Bureau of Land Management oversees more than 38,000 wild horses and burros in 10 western states. Another nearly 38,000 are in holding facilities in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

The cost of the federal horse management program rose from about $37 million in 2004 to $66 million in 2010.

The soaring expense is in many ways tied to recent years of economic stress, in which families have been unable or unwilling to adopt wild or abandoned horses as frequently as they did in the past.

Slaughter proponents say the federal ban contributes to the problem because it increases competition for homes by creating more unwanted horses.

Federal officials have banned horse slaughter as a solution, but have been less zealous about taking a stance against the slaying of privately owned horses.

"We are not entertaining the use of slaughterhouses or selling horses for slaughter at all," Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey said after addressing the horse conference Tuesday, adding, "I'm not going to speak to private horses or livestock."

Animal rights groups claim overbreeding, not unchecked population control, is to blame for growing numbers of homeless horses.

"Those pushing to wish to profit from the butchering of America's horses must find another way to earn a living," said Suzanne Roy, campaign director of the American Wild Horse Preservation, in an e-mail.