R.T. Fitch, author of "Straight from the Horse's Heart" and President/Co-Founder of 'Wild Horse Freedom Federation' ~ putting People between Wild Horses and Extinction
“I pledge Allegiance to the Wild Equines
of the United States of America and to the Icon
for which they stand, one symbol, understood,
undeniable, with liberty and freedom for all.” ~ R.T. Fitch
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A lot of folks have been asking us about all the wildfires that are happening in the state of Colorado. There are a lot of them occurring. One question on a lot of peoples’ minds: what does this mean for the wild horses? Right now, none of the fires burning in the state are threatening […]
Please note that several of the photos in the articles are "Extremely Graphic." While we had an interesting debate about publishing the photos, we'd rather show you the reality than just say the words. As the pro-slaughter industry has proven, words said to prove a point are easily twisted to hide the truth, while un-Photoshopped pictures simp […]
A lovely Piceance Creek/East Douglas mare blending into her surroundings (Colorado). Photos are for viewing purposes only. Most images are available online at: http://www.NickolesPhotography.com. Images by Pam Nickoles Photography, along with all site content are copyright protected and owned solely by Pam Nickoles Photography. Photos and/or text may not be […]
John W. Wallace – NY OathKeeper LIBERTY NEWS ONLINE COLUMBIA COUNTY – The Columbia County District Attorney is making good on a promise not to prosecute a man arrested under the SAFE Act. DA Paul Czajka said he would not prosecute Gregory Dean Jr. Mr. Dean, 31, of Hopewell Junction in Dutchess County, was pulled […]
Sorry for being MIA for the past few weeks. I’ve had a lot on my plate, but will try to keep up a bit better soon. I’m kinda posting this on the fly today but thought y’all would like to know that one of our PSA poster children has been at it again and not […]
On Saturday, June 1, Cloud’s 18th birthday will be celebrated in Arvada, Colorado at the Horse Protection League, Horse Protection League, 17999 W. 60th Ave. Of course, Cloud will not be in attendance as he is busy with his family in the Pryor Mountains, but many of his adopted relations and fellow mustangs will be ...
1) Slaughter supporters frequently use the logic of a cumulative total of horses that would be roaming the streets over a number of years if slaughter ends.
Using their faulty logic, we did the same thing but started with 1990-the highest slaughter count recorded-as the base year and added the number of horses that weren’t slaughtered in subsequent years. With their logic, there should be 6,198,697 horses roaming our streets! Each year reflects the base year minus the number of horses slaughtered in that year. That begs the question, where did all those horses go?
2) The next column is a count of exported horses during the years the slaughter plants were open.
Although not reflected in this spreadsheet, here is proof once and for all, the slaughter option that they keep saying is gone, is nothing but a flat out lie. We took the 5 years prior to the plants closing compared to the 5 years after the plants closed.
2002-2006 534,156
2007-2011 609,205
Difference 75,046 or a 14% increase
If we take 6 years – 2001-2006 and include this year’s numbers annualized (April numbers) we get an even higher percentage.
The BLM has NOT proved an excess of wild horses and burros
BLM’s Wild Horse Harvesting Machine by John Holland
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues at a breakneck pace to leave non-viable herds of wild horses on public lands and while it also considers cutting back on livestock grazing (watch out for drought management plans in your area).
Meanwhile, over and over again, extractive industries and new energy projects seem to go almost unchecked for use of massive amounts of water that adversely impact public lands and risk contamination of aquifers.
Just an aside on the letter below, Melani Mirati was the BLM’s COR (Contracting Officer’s Representative) at the 2012 Calico wild horse roundup and made the decision to allow the contractor (Sun J Livestock) to use a hot shot (electric prod) on a horse that had been stuck in a trailer and had just fallen on the ground. (video link under SOURCES below).
Open Letter to the BLM:
May 18, 2012
Melanie MiratiBLM Winnemucca Field Office5100 E. Winnemucca Blvd.,
RE: Public comment/Jackson Mountain wild horse gather
Dear Ms. Mirati and BLM Winnemucca Field Office:
In this document, BLM states:
“1.4 Purpose and Need for Action:
The purpose of the Proposed Action is to remove excess wild horses from within and outside the HMA, to manage wild horses at the established AML ranges for the HMA, to reduce the wild horse population growth rate in order to prevent undue or unnecessary degradation of the public lands by protecting rangeland resources from deterioration associated with excess population of wild horses within and outside the HMA boundaries, and to restore a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple use relationship on the public lands.”
My comment: The BLM has NOT proved an excess. It seems that not only are there no photos or videos shown to the public to verify the BLM’s estimation of the number of wild horses on the HMA, in order for Ms. Mirati’s population estimation to be correct, the mares would have to be giving birth to litters.
At the same time your office claims to need to remove wild horses to “prevent undue or unnecessary degradation of the public lands by protecting rangeland resources from deterioration associated with excess population of wild horses…,” on January 2012 your office issued an EA for the Hycroft Mine Expansion Project, which uses 900 million gallons of water a year (did you request 1′ and 5′ water drawdown maps for this EA?). A wild horse only drinks 15 gallons of water a day.
This Hycroft Expansion Project will use an additional 5,895 acres of PUBLIC LAND, with 2,172 acres of “new disturbance.” ON PUBLIC LAND, it seems this one project has 85 acres of roads, 176 acres including an open pit, 451 acres for heap leach pads, and 451 acres for waste rock facilities. Wild horses leave some hoofprints and eat some forage.
Please explain, exactly, how removing the wild horses will “restore a thriving ecological balance.”
Also, please explain how the Hycroft Mine Expansion’s many uses of water and disturbance of public lands, KEEP a “thriving ecological balance” and with 5 years needed for reclamation, how is this not years of “undue degradation” or “deterioration?”
Your district also has the Coeur Rochester Mine Expansion Project. In August 2010, the EPA sent a letter to Bob Edwards of the BLM, stating that the EPA was concerned about this 7th Amendment to the Plan of Operation (POO) since 1986 and that no Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) were conducted regarding the Plan of Operation OR its amendments. The EPA stated it had concerns about the proposed project’s “potential direct and cumulative impacts on water and air quality.”
24 years and no EIS? It sure seems that “uses” of public lands that make more money get Findings of No Significant Impact (FONSI), which is in violation of FLPMA (Federal Land Policy and Management Act).
Your office also gave a FONSI to Newmont Mining’s Sandman Exploration Project, in the EA, it states this project will cause 500 acres of disturbance, and “none of the drilling products to be used under the Proposed Action contain hazardous substances and all are approved for well drilling and would therefore, not contaminate ground water aquifers or surface waters. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for common drill additives are included in the Plan.”
Then
“2.1.9 Solid and Hazardous Materials …Hazardous materials utilized within the Project Area would include diesel fuel, gasoline, and lubricating grease.”
Isn’t lubricating grease used on the drill? (If so, shouldn’t lubricating grease be considered a drilling product?). Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is being used for this project, isn’t it? It seems a Finding of No Significant Impact is often given to uses that have the potential for a LOT of impact.
In conclusion, without any photographs or videos of the wild horses, you cannot prove there is an excess and you only have the legal authority to remove the wild horses from their HMAs (Herd Management Areas) if there is an excess.
What Happened to my beloved horses Suzy and Echo, and why has the FDA, USDA and APHIS turned a Blind Eye to U.S. Tainted Horsemeat Entering the Human Food Chain?
I am devastated that I cannot locate my horses and all I am being told is lies, and I am sick and appalled at what may have become of them. I cry and write and I am pleading with you to help me find them.
I, Vicky Johnson, have been desperately trying to find my two Mares, Suzy and Echo, that were taken from me on April 15th, 2012 by two people that promised me they would provide them with a good home.
I have a draft affidavit of what I believe and know to be true here:
The U.S. FDA, USDA, APHIS, and FSIS have all turned a blind eye to the risks of potential human health concerns, placed on those that are eating U.S. horses by knowingly, willing and negligently allowing unregulated U.S. horses to be slaughtered for human consumption. They are allowing adulterated animals into a human food chain. There is basically NO traceability back to the real owner or medical histories of the majority of U.S. horses that are exported, designated ‘for slaughter’ and entering a human food chain and very little testing. That could be termed “terrorism”.
Our own government agencies do not keep or track the EID’s, Equine Identification Documents, that are sent with slaughter horses for traceability to the owner, The majority of those documents are created or ‘fabricated’ at the last leg of a horses entry into the slaughter system, primarily by the those that purchase them for slaughter – not even by the real last owner of the horse. The majority of U.S. horses change owners several times in the course of their lifetime and the EID’s that are created are suppose to be signed by the last owner indicating that the horse has ‘never’ had prohibited drugs that aren’t allowed in food animals used in a human food chain. These EID’s that are created or fabricated by ’owners’ that have purchased, or stolen, the horse for slaughter have rarely owned them for more than a couple weeks , if that, and they have no basis to make any claim that the horse has never had prohibited substances as drug histories are rarely transferred when a horse changes owners. The overwhelming majority of horses in the U.S. are not raised as food animals, and the majority of horse owners have no clue what is and isn’t allowed or prohibited in food animal production. Since the majority of horse owners are not food animal producers, they rely on their vets to administer medications as they see fit and many do not even keep a record and rarely are those records ever transferred to a new owner. There is nothing that prevents the last owner to claim the horse has never been given prohibited drugs and as far as I know, no one has been prosecuted for making such a statement in regards to slaughter horses, even if it was later determined to be false, and they knew it was false when they made it.
There is big money involved with re-opening horse slaughter facilities in the U.S. If they succeed in doing so, all 9 million U.S. horses would eventually be required to comply with foreign regulations that require traceability. That would entail individual identification that would undoubtedly cost all 9 million horse owners money, and then a tracking system that again would cost horse owners more money. Think about the money for identifying and tracking 9 million U.S. horses. Most horse owners will call their vet to microchip as they aren’t going to slap an ear tag on them, so that would be a vet call of between $35 and $50 and then there has to be a record system that isn’t going to be free, and multiply that by 9 million. If the U.S. should attempt to regulate U.S. horses as food animals, it would require an entire bureaucracy to implement a system to track medical histories to the point of origin for recall purposes. Why? The U.S. basically does not eat horse meat and the majority of horse owners will designate their horses ‘not for slaughter’ if given the opportunity. In addition, there is no guarantee that the foreign entities that are eating our toxic horses now will even buy one tomorrow. If they can find them somewhere else, cheaper or of better quality, they could stop buying any at any time and then we would be left with a large bureaucracy that costs all U.S. horse owners a lot of money and still have all the concerns over what to do with ‘unwanted’ horses.
It is also my understanding that should they succeed in re-opening horse slaughter facilities here in the U.S., our government will be held directly liable for adulterated food animals entering a human food chain. Since U.S. horses are not raised as food animals, there can be no ‘lot’ or ‘batch’ testing for residues to obtain a reasonable confidence level that their meat would be safe. A ‘lot or batch’ would indicate something of the ‘same’. They are not raised as food animals, they don’t have the same owners, aren’t kept under the same conditions, aren’t given the same feed, aren’t medically treated the same, and the majority of owners have no clue what is or isn’t allowed in animals used in a human
chain. The only thing the ‘same’ about U.S. horses is the species. Since U.S. horses can’t be labeled as the ‘same’ they should not be lot or batch tested for chemical residues. Each and every U.S. horse should be individually tested for chemical residues.
I have been told that my two missing mares, Suzy and Echo, were sold to a slaughter horse buyer. Almost everything that I have been told has been associated with a lie but I still do not know where my horses are. Both of my mares have been given ‘bute’, a drug that is prohibited in food animals, along with other medications. If they did get sent to be slaughtered, the EID’s were fabricated and they are not safe to eat.
Please, please I am pleading, help me find my horses. Time is of the essence. Help expose what is happening in the U.S. horse community. There is much more to my story and I hope you will contact me and help not only me, but my horses, the people that are eating toxic horsemeat, and the U.S. horse owning community.
There must be a responsible authority and accountability, but fair warning, there is big money involved and they don’t want the truth to be told.
Please look at the sites for the links provided. They will provide specific data on the lack of traceability of U.S. horses slaughtered for human consumption, scientific reports on toxic residues found in U.S. horsemeat and how our own government knows that there is no traceability.
1) Slaughter supporters frequently use the logic of a cumulative total of horses that would be roaming the streets over a number of years if slaughter ends.
