Feds unnecessarily round up wild horses, complain about costs, recommend slaughter

After ridding Western lands of thousands of wild mustangs at the request of corporate interests, the Bureau of Land Management now is worried about the price of its programs, says Andrew Cohen.

ANDREW COHEN reporting for The Atlantic writes about appointee Joan Guilfoyle:

It surely cannot be easy these days being Joan Guilfoyle, the (relatively) new director of the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. On the one hand she works for a federal agency, the Interior Department, which is largely beholden to the powerful industries it is supposed to regulate. And on the other hand, she is responsible, under federal law and policy, for ensuring the survival and management of the nation’s wild horses at a time when relentless political and economic forces threaten to decimate the herds.

“It’s tricky, and it’s hard,” Guilfoyle said last fall in an interview shortly after she assumed her post. “There are a lot of emotions around it, a lot of different opinions.” Indeed, there are. The ranchers and farmers and miners and oilmen see the wild horses as feral pests that should be gone from public and private land. Wild horse advocates see the herds as victims of faulty science, special interests, and spineless federal and state officials. There is, they say, plenty of public land out West where the horses could freely, and safely, roam.

The article continues with this:

Does Guilfoyle have what it takes? More broadly, can an Interior Department led by an unrepentant rancher, Ken Salazar, ever be an honest broker here? Not bloody likely. Having implemented a policy that has driven tens of thousands of horses from their native ranges to grim holding pens, having enabled “welfare ranching” by creating “welfare horses” by shifting the cost of the wild horses from land owners to the general public, Guilfoyle last week said, “Where are we going to put these animals? We only have so much money.”

The wild-horse-and-burro-destroying Obama Administration and his merry band of equine cutthroats should have thought about this a bit more, huh? Considering the amount of spending cuts it has made from programs necessary to a large segment of the American population, waste and stupidity like this is unforgivable. Plus they are robbing America of a majestic symbol of spirit and freedom to do it, and one that is protected by federal law. And you are funding this nightmare every time you pay your federal taxes.

What is their answer, yet again? Cohen reports this from the pro death Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board which met last week in Reno, Nevada.

The other big news was the renewed push by livestock advocates to resume the slaughter of wild horses. The argument goes something like this: Since the BLM now has “stockpiled” nearly 50,000 wild horses, and since the federal government is responsible for housing these horses at public expense, the prudent course is to get rid of the “excess” horses by selling them “without limitation” to the highest bidder. “Without limitation” is a deadly euphemism for slaughter. The sold horses would quickly end up at rendering plants.

I suppose the dastardly BLM will turn around and spend the money they rake in from selling wild horses to slaughterhouse buyers to eradicate the rest of America’s wild equine population.

I have arrived at the sad and tragic conclusion this nation doesn’t gives two figs about its iconic wild horses and burros.

Americans just don’t know? Sorry that doesn’t wash. So much work has been done by wild horse and burro advocates, that plenty know.

The truth is, there are enough Americans who know about our disappearing wild horses and burros that an immediate halt to this monstrous abuse and annihilation should have stopped years ago.

Read more of Cohen’s report. I am going to soak my head in a tub to cool down.