Take Action: BLM wild horse roundups continue

PLEASE NOTE: The following are excerpts from an Opinion Piece written by JACK FERM and published by THE INDEPENDENT of Utah at sunindependent.com. We invite you to read the entire article.

CALL TO ACTION AT THE END OF THIS POST

Did you know there are fewer than 25,000 wild horses roaming public lands?

Obama knew what he was getting when he made Ken Salazar head of the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the Department of the Interior that manages some 500,000,000 acres of public lands. The Department of Interior has been an agency ratcheted by corruption for decades. In 2009, Obama put Salazar in to oversee and manage this agency. During his term, Salazar, a strong proponent of renewable energy, pushed through more then three dozen new solar, wind, and geothermal projects on public lands. However, what this article will seek to understand is the BLM wild horse roundup and its mission to destroy the free roaming wild horses they are mandated to protect.

Salazar is an associate of a notorious senator from Nevada who is currently under investigation by the State of Utah for corruption. Harry Reid’s scandals could fill a book and include land swaps, hidden property, and lavish gifts for his intervention in and in the Utah investigation for pay to play. Reid has also been involved in BLM land deals for solar energy, Salazar’s pet project.

Tom Davis purchased nearly 1,800 mustangs from the BLM over a four-year period. He claims to have immediately resold the animals to individuals who drove them to Mexico to their painful deaths in Mexican slaughter houses. The Inspector General interviewed Davis, who refused to disclose the names of anyone he sold these animals to. So why not prosecute Davis himself and perhaps even Salazar if, as I suspect, Salazar was aware of the fate awaiting these animals?

Davis and Salazar are both cattle ranchers from Colorado. They had a pre-existing personal relationship that allowed Davis an inside opportunity to acquire wild horses from the BLM. These BLM wild horse roundup efforts and the subsequent slaughter of our wild horses began almost simultaneously with Salazar’s appointment as head of the agency. Suspicious?

The BLM claims a death rate of one percent for helicopter roundups, but these claims are inaccurate. Wild animals do not belong in pens, ergo the term “wild.” In BLM wild horse roundups, wild horses are dying in captivity.

As of August, at least 86 horses have died in holding pens after being captured in Wyoming’s Checkerboard roundup. Most of them died from broken necks, traumatic injuries sustained from desperately slamming themselves against the bars of their holding pens during terror-stricken attempts to escape. There are now fewer then 25,000 wild horses running free on our public lands.

The sense of frustration that we as a nation feel with government is at an all-time high. Maybe we should look to Thomas Jefferson and examine how he would have dealt with a government that is so out of control. The BLM wild horse roundups may be that catalyst.

The Inspector General referred his investigation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado as well as the State of Colorado Conejos County District Attorney’s Office, which declined civil and criminal prosecution. That leaves the matter in the hands of the public. Perhaps it’s time to make our voice heard. Perhaps it’s time to overwhelm the Colorado U.S. Attorneys office and demand that Davis and Salazar, if evidence warrants, are prosecuted.

CALL TO ACTION

Time to flood the government with complaints about Davis! Time to rise up and demand that our government obey our laws.

Demand letters should be addressed as follows:

U.S. Attorney John Walsh
1225 17th Street, Suite 700
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 454-0100 (phone)
(303) 454-0400 (fax)

Note that Walsh was appointed by Barack Obama in 2010 and that federal lands comprise about one-third of Colorado.

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If you are looking for talking points for your demand letter there are plenty here in this post.

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American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
wildhorsepreservation.org