Written by JADED MARE
Oh, look. Yet another equine protection organization who sounds as if they are anything but.
Who they are, we don’t care, because the BLM are willing to listen to them and their appointed mouthpieces on how to be cruel to wild horses and get away with it even more by having someone other than them say all their maiming and killing and stuff is really a-okay. Of course the Bureau of Lies and Mismanagement Bureau of Land Management still have to review this diatribe just in case it quite isn’t nice enough.
Here’s what the Associated Press reports via the San Jose Mercury News:
DENVER—Equine experts who observed three federal wild horse roundups this summer say the animals generally didn’t show undue stress when helicopters directed them to pens, but the horses showed more anxiety once they were in close quarters.
The Bureau of Land Management announced the report Friday.
The Washington-based American Horse Protection Association chose the experts who wrote the report after observing the care of wild horses during gathers in Nevada, Oregon and California.
The BLM said it would review the experts’ recommendations for better protecting the horses.
The BLM says the roundups help it manage oversized herds on public land, but some animal advocacy groups say the gathers are inhumane and unnecessary.
Predictably no one is naming names.
UPDATE
In another report, this one from The Record Courier, they did name names. The alleged experts are:
The four professionals who prepared the report, each of whom is an academia-based equine veterinarian or equine specialist, are Camie Heleski, Ph.D., from Michigan State University; Betsy Greene, Ph.D., from the University of Vermont; Sarah Ralston, VMD, Ph.D., from Rutgers University; and Carolyn Stull, Ph.D., from the University of California at Davis.
Here’s an excerpt from their findings:
The report also favorably noted the helicopter’s “precision” in gathering horses and burros, comparing it to “a dog working sheep.”
What sad individuals these are.
Tuesday's Horse 
Belongs on the front page on every newspaper in America >>>>>>>>>>>…
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Cost to the taxpayer for inhumane roundups and stockpiling them in filthy holding facilities: 67 million dollars.
Cost to the taxpayer of leaving them in the wild where they are not harming anyone and where they have a legal right to live: ZERO Dollars.
Preserving our wild horse heritage for future generations: PRICELESS
-Simone Netherlands, Respect4Horses
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Having just made a sweeping generalization of BLM, I want to recognize that there are probably some very, very good and kind hearted people at the BLM. They no doubt need their jobs, but may also be staying because they want to help the horses and know that if they leave, they will lose the ability to help each horse, a horse at a time. Also, I think when you are young and idealistic, your mind and body are being overwhelmed with what all there is to do and can do. I pray for the horses that there are kind and good hands for them along the way.
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One of the points that Temple Grandin makes in her book Animals Make Us Human is the difference between doing in the field research and academic research. They require different types of observatioinal skills. How far removed could you possibly be from round-horse stampedes than classrooms in Vermont and New Jersey? Also, there is good science showing that our impressions of what we observe can be colored by what we expect to see. These four scientists were hand picked by a person whom one advocate said called her to explain to her what the job of the BLM is. If this same person gave the same speech to these four scientists before they went on these observations, she may have compromised the validity of their findings. Also, there is good science that supports the fact that a worker who knows he or she is going to be evaluated will perform to or beyond the standards he believes he will be performing against.
The more the BLM tries to slant the evidence that they are doing a good job, the worse they look, and the more people with common sense should demand that a microscopte and a laser be used to example the behavior of these people.
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To be fair to the four women “experts,” they were invited to 3 carefully staged roundups. They probably reported just what they saw, and may have been totally naive about the big picture. (They have since been filled in.)
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Just looked up the names…this is what I found…
http://www.extension.org/pages/Betsy_Greene,_University_of_Vermont
http://www.myhorseuniversity.com/experts/heleski
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=729758
http://animalsciences.rutgers.edu/faculty/ralston/sarah-ralston.html
http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/clstull/
They are still blind… or paid well …if they can possibly say the roundups are done well and with little stress or harm to the animals involved. The videos, pictures and eyewitness accounts are there…..roundups kill and maim and stress and tear families apart.
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You can get an expert to say anything on any side of an issue. These experts are quite obviously blind … or paid well.
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Congadulations on the BLM for getting some expert professionals. Why didn’t they just go get 4 dentist to do heart surgery, they’re still doctors.
If it’s one thing I know for a fact even here we get vet interns come through wanting to know how to handle uncontrolable or scared or frightened horses, i.e. wild horses. Again the BLM, Bureau of Lying and Mystery has no dam clue on how to pick wild horse experts. If you work for the government and get fired or told to find another agency to work every idiot goes to the BLM and automactically they are horse expert when they couldn’t tell you how many teeth are in the horses mouth.
The one thing for sure is that wild horses are being used as pawns in Washington.
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