One of the arguments used against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) gross mishandling of the Wild Horse and Burro Program is how the federal agency is hemorrhaging millions of taxpayer dollars.
Well, it did not take one politician in Washington long to exploit this argument to the detriment of America’s wild equines.
Instead of calling for a halt of excessive and unnecessary roundups and an investigation into the BLM’s failed and costly policies, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma suggests that the BLM either adopt them out or kill them.
In a report filed by Amy Lester for Channel 6 News, it states:
The cost to keep horses in government run short term corrals is much higher, around $5.50 a day or more than $20 million a year. Senator Coburn said that’s too much money. He insists the law tells the agency to either adopt extra animals or kill them.
“When you have an excess of animals, not humans, animals, above and beyond your capability to care for them, what you have to do is destroy that herd down to a level that we can manage it,” said Sen. Tom Coburn.
And this sounds like typical BLM accounting.
“There’s not many things you can do in agriculture to change up your cash flow so this was a good program for that,” said Ladd Drummond, a rancher in northeastern Oklahoma.
Drummond has 2,200 horses on his land. The government pays him $1.30 per horse, per day. That’s $1.04 million a year. Drummond said less than 10 percent is profit, or close to $100,000. He has to dedicate seven acres to each horse. He gives them supplemental feedings in the winter and puts out salt and mineral in the summer.
“You have a lot of expenses that go into it, but, there’s definitely a little profit built in too, it’s hard to do anything without making a little profit,” said Drummond.
Wow, $900,000. Those must be some pretty expensive supplements.
Tuesday's Horse 
Cant wait to see Vivian s rebuttal on this one !!!!
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I see you jump to bash Senator Coburn, but you sure didn’t read the entire article did you? Don’t you see something WRONG with the government paying over 1 MILLION dollars a year to one person who has 2200 of these horses on his property? Did you miss the message that our Country is financially AT RISK? At the very least, we, the taxpayers ought to get a better deal out of this because I know the rancher is not buying feed and supplements in the smallest size, but is probably getting a big break for buying in bulk. And that is IF he is actually buying and feeding all that he says he is feeding. I take it from the article that these horses are getting minimal care and that there is nothing going on in the way of socialization or taming or training. In other words, they are just being “warehoused” because they were rounded up to be adopted, but weren’t adopted -yet. Seems to me that a very profitable extra step was added into the process. I’m sure it wasn’t so very long ago that the adoptions took place very soon after round-up and that this storage process is just some extra expenses that we as taxpayers don’t need to be on the hook for. Now as for Mrs. Pickens. If she wants to open a charity on her property and accept these horses, that is fine. I think she should get the $500 bonus for up to 4 horses that are over 4 years of age and that she can accept donations as a 503 charity for the care of these horses. And if she wants to charge admission to see the horses that ought to be ok as well.
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Yes, I did read the entire article, and I am not missing any messages. Fact. Coburn’s solution to adopt them or kill them is unconscionable. Fact. The BLM rounded these horses up unnecessarily. Fact. The BLM Wild Horse & Burro Adoption program is a huge fail and has been for years. Fact. The BLM is wasting taxpayer money unnecessarily. Fact. The BLM do not want to give Ms Pickens $500 per wild horse.
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Viv,
I see from the format of the board that I should’ve clicked “reply” under Shari’s comment. I hope you didn’t think I was being mean.
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I believe in trying to be informative, you may be coming across as condescending instead of mean.
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posting you a link. Looks like he/they don’t have 2200 wild horses after all. Well, maybe they do. Who knows, 120,000 acres is a lot to keep up with and if he says he had 4,000 wild horses in 2009, then does that mean the difference in 2200 and 4000 are the number that were adopted? Or does it mean he was bragging and just upped the number by some 1800 horses….I sure hope he didn’t “lose” them somewhere.
http://www.landreport.com/2009/01/drummond-family/
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Tragically, “lost horses” can equal “slaughtered horses”. Investigations we currently have underway, if we can get around the cover ups going on, will prove exactly that. Oklahoma is one of the states implicated. Not saying there is any connection to this man’s story. But this type of “math” is typical of the whole tragic story of our wild horses and burros.
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We really need to elect descent intelligent people to public office, not cruel cowardly people whom refuse to protect want to kill all Americas precious wild life !
Coburn NEEDS TO GO !
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I ask whether any of those types exist in government.
Seems like once a person graduates to that league, all of their morals, ethics and compassion have somehow dissolved.
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The honorable Senator from Oklahoma is well known for being a nut case. I think the BLM knows they can’t get away with killing all those horses, especially now with the spotlight on the whole affair. That’s why we have to move fast before the stink dies down and people go on to something else. People these days have VERY short attention spans.
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So, Suzanne, why don’t you think about this. Dr. Coburn has just shined a very bright light on the problem. You should thank him for doing that. It’s out there now. I think he is very plain spoken, he identified the problem and he threw out a couple of suggestions. Don’t waste your energy complaining about what he did. He opened a big door for you and those who would like to see those animals remain free on the open land. Use the opportunity. Push for the restriction of massive warehousing “until they can be adopted” and push for the adoption of even the older horses. Several prisons have programs where they work with mustangs to bring them to the point of being ridable animals. Push for them to have the opportunity to do so with the older horses that are now in the warehouse system. That way these animals that are already in captivity need not be slaughtered. We don’t live in an ideal world. Bad weather, blizzards, fires, hungry predatory animals, all of these are things that may keep the herds in check in the wild. If you choose for them to be in the wild, then you have to choose the choices that may cause some of these animals to die of starvation or other causes in nature. In other words, living in the wild must mean REALLY living in the wild.
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Every word here in these articles by various wild horse advocates is absolutley true and viable. The BLM has been breaking the The Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act (Law) of 1971 and has lied to cover up thier mismanagement of the Horses the Law was to protect. These horses are not starving and nothing is going to “happen” to them later in the year. If you watch all the vidoes that are attached to this post you will never see a starving horse unless it is one of the BLM Holding Pens where it has been for months or years. I have seen the wild mustangs in thier natural habitat and they are amazing and beautiful animals and do not cost the taxpayer one red cent to be on the land that was set aside for them in the law of 1971. Mother nature culls the herds just as she does all wild animals. The horses do not hurt the land but the cattle that BLM wants to suplant them with do. BLM wastes millions and millions of dollars a year cruelly rounding up these beautiful animals and ripping them away from thier families. Yes, they have families (thier herds). It is cruel and inhumane, not to mention the fact that many of the horses die during the roundups. Maybe Mrs. Pickens is talking to the wrong people. Maybe she needs to be talking to the President and letting him know what is really going on.
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Another note that the public does not know or hear about…
When BLM gathers the wild horses they immediately tyr to “age” the horse by this they take yound foals, weanlings, yearlings and move them quick into an adoption area. Then they take the 2,3,4 year old ready them for adoption and God help the wild horse if he is 6 years or older.
BLM automatically shifts those to the long term as “unadoptable” “untrainable” and they sit in those pens until life as we know it is dead. Now once they turn 10 under the 2005 admendment they become to old to adopt by law, and they receive there death sentence.
BLM in its inept marketing department has stated for years that nothing over 5 will be considered for adoption. This holds true but every now and again you will see a BLM region letting an older horse slide through because of color. Solid blacks or paints or line back duns. The solid brown or bay horse with no white at all is rare and can slide through as well.
Can we get a moritorium on BLM and retire those uselss no good dead beats who sit on there butts and draw a pay check…
Did you know that BLM does not do any compliance checks…. They mail you a letter asking you to get your friend to say you’ve taken care of your wild horse and you send that back in. So explain to me why are we paying these people?
There’s a lot of dead weight in Washington BLM and other BLm offices and they need to retire before we get enough leverage to have them fired.
It’s true if you get ran out of another agency the BLM will hire you so look out for the Post Office employees will now become your wild horse experts…. A First Class reject coming soon to you…
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If you ever seen a person on drugs then you’ve seen the BLM. They collect wild horses like any hoarder does and its an addiction. Oklahoma has the hihest percentage of “welfare ranchers” on government drug money from horses. Yet, Congress can’t seem to tell the BLM to withdraw from there addictive ways.
Profit is not much, ask anyone who owns chicken houses, you think they make lots of money but its the chicken company that does, they make you put up 60 acres of land for every chicken house and you have a 10 year window of payoff before you see pure profit and by that time the building is worn out.
Why doesn’t the Okalahoma idiot just put BLM on the government EAP program and have them seek counciling for there ignorant ways.
Good, bad or indifferent leave the damm wild horses on the lands. Mother nature has ways of dealing with herself and doesn’t need a dam fool in Washington telling her or us how to run our lives.
Don Glen retired early before they did an investigation on him getting kick backs from his trucking budding for hauling horses. He has not escaped the long arm of the law though. He’s went down as probaly the most hated BLM program manger in history.
My idea is to adopt the wild horses and then turn them back loose on the lands they came from, there tattooed with location and range/state and that land is our land as we are the owner so use our land to house our property not pay some ignorant bankrupt cattle rancher.
With our new congress do you think they could move the BLM office to an island? Put all those insane people with each other. God doesn’t make trash but he sure made a few dummies…
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When I watched the PBS coverage of the State of the Union, Obama walked down the aisle, spotted Coburn, paused, grinned, and gave him a hearty “Hail fellow, well met!” handshake. When Jim Lehrer called Coburn “a close friend of the President from their days in the Senate”, my first thought was, “Oh, crap .. this “Friend Of Obama” is going to go after the wild horses!”
This is the “double edged sword” I mentioned in your post about Rep. Burton. When I read a “laundry list” of the spending cuts the ‘Pubs are proposing, about 1/3 of the programs either cost less or about the same amount as is spent to maintain the horses in holding, never mind the roundings. Just a blip on the Federal Budget radar screen, but, unfortunately, a blip that’s a tempting target.
I swear if this gets any traction, I’m going to plaster an appropriate message everywhere I can find space – complete with photos of living and dead wild horses!
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THIS IS TYPICAL OF A MAN SENATOR OR NOT WHO KNOW OF NOTHING BETTER TO SAY AND WHO CANNOT COME UP WITH GOOD ANSWER. HE SHOULD SHUT UP AS HIS STATE IS THE ONE BENEFITING THE MOST.
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I can’t understand him. He is an OB/GYN and has delivered over 4,000 babies. You would think he would value life. His eyes look cruel though. Why is it that so many people like the idea of killing horses? It defies belief.
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he has a one track mind , and the train had a wreck………….. Shallow opinion for sure …………………
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