Cows ate BLM’s homework; say they cannot track cattle on public lands

SOURCE: PEER NEWS RELEASE
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

BLM SAYS IT CANNOT TRACK CATTLE ON ITS LANDS
Blames Lack of “Seamless Data” for Excluding Livestock from Range Assessments

Washington, DC (Jan. 24, 2013) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says it was an absence of “reliable data”—and not politics—that caused it to exclude consideration of commercial livestock impacts from multi-million dollar assessments of environmental conditions on Western range lands. BLM thus rejected the first scientific misconduct complaint filed against it by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which today released a detailed rebuttal of BLM’s self-exoneration.

In a letter dated January 2, 2013, Louis Brueggeman, the BLM Scientific Integrity Officer, rejected the PEER scientific misconduct complaint filed more than a year earlier, on November 30, 2011. He concluded that the complaint had “no merit” since the decision to exclude grazing was reached independently by study team leaders (all BLM managers) solely for “technical reasons” relating to the “lack of sufficient existing data” about livestock impacts.

In reaching this conclusion, BLM ignored meeting minutes produced by PEER in which BLM managers are quoted saying that study of grazing impacts would concern “stakeholders” and the Washington Office due to “fear of litigation.” The claim that the real reason was lack of data does not hold water because:

— Attempts to exclude grazing began at the earliest stages of the study, before data availability was even examined. Further, BLM assertions of data gaps were never examined, let alone verified;
— Other factors being studied, such as invasive species, also have data gaps but these issues did not prevent invasive species from being selected as a study focus; and
— BLM managers hid the existence of a major livestock database which was never given to researchers.

“Caught with its pants down, BLM would have us believe it is wearing ankle warmers,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the $40 million study was the biggest in BLM history but will end up being largely useless. “As by far the biggest disturbance factor on Western range lands, commercial livestock grazing simply cannot be left out of a scientific landscape assessment.”

PEER today asked Dr. Suzette Kimball, the Scientific Integrity Officer for the entire Interior Department, to reject BLM’s findings and institute an independent review. This is the first scientific misconduct complaint filed against BLM under rules purporting to prevent political manipulation of science.

“Unless some standards of credibility are applied, agencies will be able to simply deny instances of scientific misconduct, no matter how well documented or compelling,” Ruch added. “This scientific integrity process will become a complete joke if BLM can get away with claiming ‘the cows ate my homework.’”

End.

• See the original scientific integrity complaint
• View the BLM response
• Read the PEER letter to Dr. Kimball
• Examine line-by-line rebuttal
• Look at the damage wreaked by commercial livestock

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WE SAY

BLM abacus cartoon by Vivian, from July 2010.

How can anyone be surprised by this? The BLM have never been able to count horses. Why should it be any different with cattle?

So glad this has happened on the departing Interior Secretary Salazar’s watch. It appears to us that the BLM have never been as blindly ruthless and corrupt as under his leadership. We leave you with a cartoon we put together earlier concerning the BLM and their numbers game. We were not laughing then; we are not laughing now.

In the meantime, Ken Salazar joined Twitter on Friday @KenSalazar. See https://twitter.com/Interior/statuses/295677127171375104.

— Editor.

Wild horses are running out of room on and off the range

PHOTO CREDIT: MATTHEW STAVER / NYT
Carol Walker, who lives outside Longmont, Colo., adopted three wild horses, from the Bureau of Land Management for $125 each.

“Seeing these horses out in the wild and then seeing them in a holding pen, it will break your heart,” Carol Walker tells The New York Times. in an article by Dan Frosch, “I’d rather they be free than live with me.”

Walker recently adopted three wild horses from the Bureau of Land Management and given them a home with her just outside Longmont, Colorado.

Fran Ackley, who oversees the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program in Colorado states, “They have all their needs met here. Except their freedom. I can’t say if they want it or not.”

What a ridiculous way to think, but more from him later.

Frosch, who penned the Times piece, allows both advocates for wild horses and burros to speak out and the BLM and Salazar to defend themselves. In our opinion what the BLM has done and continues to do under Salazar’s watch is indefensible.

No mention is made that these cruel and deadly BLM roundups are totally unnecessary, or that “drought and wintery” conditions are being used as an excuse to rob America’s wild horses and burros of their freedom. And yes, these equines care about their freedom, just like you do.

Now some words from BLM jokester Tom Gorey.

“We’re looking at critical mass,” said Tom Gorey, a spokesman for the Bureau. “The fact is we can’t be in a position of gathering horses that we can’t take care of. The capacity issue is staring us in the face.”

Well, Mr. Gorey, that is true. However, the “critical mass” of a mess of stockpiled wild horses was created by bureaucrats just like you. Now you are concerned. Why is that exactly?

I suspect BLM officials like Gorey are concerned because they have been exposed selling 1,777 wild horses (according to the Times) to former Salazar ranch hand and known slaughter buyer Tom Davis. That pretty much closes the slaughter outlet for getting rid of wild horses in long-term holding to make room for more. One would think; one would hope.

Anyway, because of all this, Salazar has been forced to say he has made some changes that will not make it as easy to sell wild horses to slaughter. Looks like a little bit more red tape to be got around if you ask me which appears to be easily enough done.

Why are the BLM getting rid of as many wild equines off public lands as quickly as they possibly can?

Well, most of you already know this, but it is to favor special interest groups who want the public lands the wild horses and burros are federally protected to roam on. They include public lands cattle ranchers, oil and gas drillers and various resource miners. Oh, and let us not forget the sale of large parcels of public territory to public and private sector interests for the water rights that go with these lands.

Now to the numbers.

Frosch has to work with the numbers he has been given. But before you read the statements below, remember there used to be 2 million wild equines roaming freely in the same ten western states.

“In an effort to maintain a stable population, while also preserving public land, Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, allowing the bureau to remove “excess” wild horses from the range.

But with virtually no natural predators, herds typically double every four years. Currently, about 37,300 wild horses and burros roam across federal rangeland in 10 Western states, about 11,000 more than what the bureau deems manageable.”

What? 25,000 wild horses is all these states can handle?

Here’s more from Ackley which makes him almost as comical as Gorey. It exposes the self-will, self-righteousness and self-justification behind the BLM’s annihilation of our wild herds.

“People need to realize that we’ve done more than what was envisioned under the Wild Horses Act, which is why we’re in the situation we are today,” said Mr. Ackley, the head of the bureau’s Colorado program.

Well, you may have done more than what you envisioned at the outset, Mr. Ackley, but I would say your mission is pretty clear: to remove all of America’s wild horses and burros from public lands and destroy them.

And how about this from Ackley?

“He noted that horses at the Cañon City facility are well cared for”.

Yet, this month “a strange illness sickened horses at Cañon City, and 19 died or were euthanized. Mr. Ackley said he had never seen anything like it.”

What caught my eye is that it was reported earlier that the Cañon City horses were found dead. Now it looks like they may have been euthanized.

But why? Well, there is only one thing for certain.

Whenever wild horses die and the BLM are involved there is only one fact clear for all to see: they are dead.

Read full New York Times article here >>

Interior Secretary moves to tighten rules re sale of wild horses

Cross-posted from ProPublica.com
Co-Published with the Colorado Springs Gazette

WRITTEN BY DAVID PHILIPPS

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Photo Brendan Hoffman/Bloomberg.

Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar says he will tighten regulations of the federal government’s wild horse program, restricting the number of horses people can buy and making it easier for the government to prosecute buyers who sell mustangs to slaughter.

Salazar laid out the plan in an interview Thursday with The Gazette in his Washington, D.C., office, saying the changes were in response to a ProPublica investigation published in September that questioned the fate of animals sold to Tom Davis, a San Luis Valley livestock hauler who has bought more than 1,700 horses through the program since 2009, 70 percent of those sold in that time.

Salazar has lived for decades in the same rural ranching corner of Colorado as Davis. In an interview this spring, Davis said he knew Salazar and had hauled cattle for him for years. The government started selling horses to Davis in large numbers shortly after Salazar took over the agency.

Davis maintains he has found the animals “good homes.” Wild horse advocates fear they ended up in Mexican slaughterhouses. Davis subsequently told Colorado officials that he shipped some horses out of state in violation of brand inspection laws. The Colorado Department of Agriculture has turned the case over to the district attorney in Alamosa for prosecution.

Those who buy horses from the federal government already sign contracts saying they will not resell animals for slaughter. Salazar is beefing up the language in contracts to specify that buyers can face prosecution for any “material misrepresentation” on sales applications or bills of sale, or for indirectly selling horses to slaughter by reselling to middlemen.

Under the new rules, buyers also will only be able to acquire five wild horses every six months. Any order larger than that will require the signed approval of the BLM’s deputy director.

Salazar said the changes should help prevent horses from ending up at slaughterhouses. He acknowledged, however, that fundamental fixes to the wild horse program, which has been dogged by controversy and mounting costs, have so far eluded his agency.

“It is a problem that has escaped resolution for a very long time for everyone who has tried to work on it,” Salazar said. “I don’t believe we have the solution yet at hand, but we need to continue to try to figure out the right thing to do.”

Continue reading >>

TUESDAY’S HORSE SAYS

Insofar as the new contracts go, they are like the failed Canadian equine identification document required for slaughter horses coming from the U.S. The documentation relies on the honesty of the killer buyer. There is no honor in horse slaughter or among killers.

At the end of the article, Salazar states:

“As vexing as the problem is, as difficult as it is, I think we have made progress,” he said, adding that the government is developing new drugs that are easier to use and longer-lasting. “Here is the reality. Unless we do something to get the horse and burro population controlled, the problem is going to continue to grow.”

Based on that statement alone, it is clear to see that Salazar is clearly out of touch and has absolutely no understanding of what his department is doing to our wild horses and burros, OR he is staying the course with same old pack of lies. Either way, our wild horses and burros continue to be abused and destroyed. This demonstrates that Salazar needs to go, and as quickly as possible.