BLM’s drive to destroy America’s wild horses continues

Sanctioned by Interior Dept Secy Deb Haaland

First, a look at the roundups making the news all of which are based on lies, and ending with Haaland’s deadly stand.

Based on lies

ELY, Nev. (KLAS) — Due to overpopulation, the Bureau of Land Management will be working to curb the wild horse population in the northeastern portion of Nevada.

Starting Sunday, BLM will be conducting a wild horse roundup. The goal is to gather and remove approximately 2,200 excess wild horses.

Following a survey conducted earlier this year, the estimated adult population sits at 6,032 wild horses in the Antelope Complex, which is located about 50 miles north of Ely and 50 miles southeast of Elko. That estimation is nearly 7.5 times the high end of the “Appropriate Management Level,” or range, of 435-789 adult wild horses. Reported 29th July »

Based on lies

HINES, Ore. (KTVZ) — The Bureau of Land Management Burns District announced Friday plans to conduct a helicopter gather of wild horses within and immediately adjacent to the Stinkingwater Herd Management Area beginning in mid-August. The gather is being conducted to remove about 390 excess wild horses.

The Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 gives BLM the direction for protecting and overseeing wild horses and burros on public lands. In managing these animals, the BLM works to maintain a thriving ecological balance that supports healthy horses on healthy rangelands.

The Stinkingwater HMA is located approximately 25 air miles east of Burns, in Harney County. The Appropriate Management Level – the number of horses the range can sustainably support in conjunction with other animals and resource uses – for this area is 40 to 80 horses and the current population is about 449, the agency said. Reported 30th July »

Based on lies

THE HERALD TIMES — To protect the health of wild horses and rangelands, the Bureau of Land Management began an emergency wild horse gather on July 26 on the West Douglas Herd Area about 20 miles south of Rangely in Rio Blanco County. The BLM plans to remove the entire estimated population of 450 wild horses from the herd area, state and private land.

Extreme drought has limited forage production and water resources for wild horses, and the nearby Oil Springs Fire has burned critical summer habitat and limited access to water sources.

“This emergency gather will prevent further deteriorating body condition of the wild horses in the area due to limited food and water,” said White River Field Office Manager Bill Mills. “The removal of excess wild horses over the next few weeks will protect the rangelands and reduce impacts to sensitive animal species and adjoining private properties.”

Since 1975, the BLM White River Field Office determined the West Douglas Herd Area was not identified for the management of wild horses.

The BLM will conduct gather operations using drive trapping which has been proven effective in these areas. The gather is expected to last approximately 19-25 days. Reported 30th July 2021 »

Onaqui destruction

Let us not forget the controversial round up of the Onaqui wild horses in Utah. It ended on Sunday, July 18, 2021, gathering 435 horses.

Imposition of PZP

Remember too that the BLM also plan to treat mares left on the range with PZP. This is done by remote darting. You can imagine the problems with that.

If you want to learn more about the dangers of PZP, there is an excellent article by Craig Downer, “Why PZP and wild horses do not belong together.”

As disturbing as this is, PZP seems almost tame compared to what the BLM has seriously proposed and pushed for. Read on.

The preferred sterilization method that the BLM favors for use on America’s federally protected wild mares is a procedure so gruesome, so inhumane that many veterinarians refuse to perform it. The surgery, called ovariectomy via colpotomy, is controversial even for domestic mares who are used to human handling and given normal surgical protections such as sterile conditions, anesthesia, and complete long-term aftercare.

“A colpotomy is a blind surgery in which a veterinarian inserts his arm into a mares’ abdominal cavity through an incision in the vaginal wall, manually locates the ovaries, then twists, severs and removes them using a rod like tool with a chain on the end) are unscientific, inhumane and dangerous, and will result in pain, suffering and potentially life-threatening complications for wild mares,” explains the American Wild Horse Campaign.

This is barbarous. The BLM are monsters.

How many wild horses are there . . . really?

When the number of wild horses was repeatedly reported over some time to be 90,000, we smelled a rat. To us this smacked of the usual BLM shenanigans. Admittedly, we are hardly wild horse and burro experts. But we can add and substract.

Currently, the BLM are saying that we have 86,000 wild horses on America’s public lands. That sounds too high to us. We are betting it is fewer than that.

The National Geographic are running with that number for this article. See 86,000 wild Mustangs that roam the West are at the center of raging controversy; National Geographic, by Natasha Daly, 29th July 2021. It is very likely they got that number from the BLM.

In the meantime, we contacted Craig Downer, renown author and wildlife ecologist, for help. He replied:

“Yes it’s very suspect about how the numbers remain more or less the same year after year. As I understand their plan, they actually plan to reduce the wild horses and horses to just 26,600 which is a travesty. They are making a mockery of the WFHBA and want to be considered as heroes for doing so. The whole situation stinks! We must fight to expose this wrongdoing and reform the whole program.”

26,6000. What a heartrendingly low number.

Craig Downer and some wild friends.

Reserve design proposal

Over the years, Craig Downer has collected data from more than fifty herd management areas, and supplied the BLM and the public with valuable research based on hundreds of scientifically based ecological evaluations.

Through his public advocacy, Downer hopes to raise awareness that Mustangs are native to North America and beneficial, not detrimental, to its environment.

Downer has composed a reserve design proposal for the restoration of wild horse herds at viable population levels, permitting them to adapt beneficially and harmoniously in multi-species habitats and stabilizing populations through intelligent employment of the sound reserve design principles.

He is also the author of the five-star-rated book, The Wild Horse Conspiracy.

Additionally Craig Downer has been an essential contributor in putting together the Wild Horse Fire Brigade (WHFB) plan to save the horses already rounded-up and in corrals from slaughter or euthanasia by the BLM. Having seen first-hand the value that wild horses and burros can provide to the ecosystems in an around forests and their affect on abating ground fuels, Downer endorses the WHFB plan and encourages its adoption.

Imagine if anyone in the federal government, especially the Department of Interior, had listened and adopted the above-described Wild Horse Fire Brigade plan, what a saving impact it would have had on our public lands, especially this year.

No help from the Feds

Deb Haaland currently heads the Dept of Interior and has absolutely no interest in America’s wild horses — except how to get rid of them. Haaland promotes roundups and slaughter.

Wild horse lovers will not get any help from the powers that be in Washington DC including Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland. The only thing she has said publicly that we can find — shortly after she was confirmed — is the DOI “will follow the previous administration’s plan to manage the overpopulation of wild horses.”

The Trump plan? He proposed millions of dollars of BLM budget cuts from its wild-horse program, lifted restrictions on the sale of “excess animals to slaughterhouses, and removed a ban on euthanasia of unadopted horses that had been in force since 2010.”

Haaland looks to be on an even par with Obama’s horrific appointment — the treacherous Ken Salazar. Salazar ruled over the mishandling and destruction of countless wild horses, also ripped from the range and sent to slaughter during his 8 years in charge of the Dept of Interior.

Who is pulling the strings here? Who is really behind the unremitting destruction of America’s wild horses and burros?

Featured Image: Photographer not cited.

TH

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