Archive for June 15, 2012

BLM Arrests Two Citizens During Contested Arizona Wild Burro Stampede

Posted: June 15, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Wild Burros
Tags: , , , ,
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By Sonu Wasu of Tucson News Now

“A couple of them seized my arms, it seemed like they wanted to break my arms,”

Obama’s BLM Crosses the Line ~ click image to view video

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) – Two people were arrested during a burro roundup taking place in the Cibola Trigo herd management area, 20 miles outside of Yuma.

An independent journalist and a woman in her 70′s who was observing the event were taken into custody by BLM officials.

It happened on Sunday afternoon.  Here is a statement about the incident released to Tucson News Now by a BLM spokeswoman from the Arizona state office.

“On June 10, 2012, two public observers were contacted by BLM Law Enforcement Rangers outside the designated viewing area. One of the individuals (MROZEK-MALE) had been previously asked on numerous occasions to leave the viewing area based on his failure to comply with instructions from law enforcement officers. The other individual (HAYDEN-FEMALE), who was in a restricted area, was asked repeatedly to move to the designated viewing area, for her safety and the safety of those involved in the gather operations, and she refused to comply. Rangers had to make physical contact with both individuals to gain compliance. Both individuals were detained pending charges. Both individuals were placed in air conditioned law enforcement vehicles. Both individuals requested medical attention. Ambulances were called at their request. One individual was transported by ambulance. One individual was evaluated and released at the scene. Charges are pending against both individuals.”

Carl Mrozek spoke to Tucson News Now about the arrest.  Mrozek was there to film a documentary about burros.  It started out as in interest in the animal, but the interest grew as he observed roundups taking place throughout the country, and noticed the numbers of burros out in the wild rapidly declining.

A video Mrozek shot in 2009 in the California desert raised a public outcry.  The video showed a contracted BLM pilot chasing a burro in the desert, causing it to collapse.

BLM officials say that pilot was reprimanded, and was never used by the BLM again.

Mrozek said on Sunday, he along with several observers had set up in an area designated for the public, by the BLM.

Mrozek said their view was obstructed by a line of trucks.  He noticed an older woman step around the line to get a closer look at the action, when BLM officials approached her and took her into custody.

He started filming the arrest.  That’s when Mrozek said two BLM officials approached him and asked him to speak to them.

Mrozek said they suddenly jumped on him and started putting hand cuffs on him.

“A couple of them seized my arms, it seemed like they wanted to break my arms,” said Mrozek.

He kept asking them if he was being arrested.  He said the men said they did not know, and told him to “just relax.”

“I felt like the burro.  I had no rights.  I was under the control of the posse of men with machines and guns.  I felt like one of the burros,” said Mrozek.

He said the officials then put him in the back of a pick-up truck, he was crouched in a back seat with his hands still cuffed behind his back.

Mrozek said he sat there for a long time.  He says it was over an hour, when he started to feel hot and faint.

“I started feeling light headed and fainted.  At one point when I woke up I had trouble breathing.  My circulation was bad.  It was 103 degrees outside, we were parked in the sun for over an hour.  It was unpleasant, very unpleasant.

Mrozek said he had to be taken to the hospital, where he was given fluids and treated for heat exhaustion.

Mrozek said BLM officials returned his camera to him, but he noticed his microchip and all of the footage he had shot that day was missing.  The footage included video of the roundup from Sunday, along with video of the arrest and confrontation with BLM officials.

Mrozek said he felt like his First Amendment Rights had been violated, and he planned to seek legal counsel.

We asked BLM officials why they did not return Mrozek’s footage, along with his gear.

In an email, spokeswoman Carrie Templin stated: “I will not answer any of the questions in the second paragraph as they pertain to details of the case, at this preliminary stage it is inappropriate to respond to these questions.”

BLM officials say the roundups are conducted to save vegetation in the area.  Opponents argue it is inhumane to round up burros in temperatures over 90 degrees.

BLM officials said the roundup was now complete.  They had gathered 350 wild burros from the Cibola-Trigo Herd Management Area north of Yuma, Arizona.

BLM officials said they had met their Cibola-Trigo Wild Burro gather objectives safely with no incidents with the burros or personnel.

Officials said the Standard Operating Procedure for high temperature days was also met with gather operations shutting down when the temperature reached 95 degrees.

All animals are expected to be transported to the BLM Ridgecrest facility and made available for adoption to citizens willing and prepared to provide good care.

BLM officials said they offer wild horses and burros gathered from public lands in the West to qualified adopters who must demonstrate humane care for the animal for a year in order to receive title.

To qualify to adopt, you must be 18 years of age, have approved facilities to keep the animal, and transportation home for it from the adoption site. For more information and adoption qualifications, please call the BLM at 1-866-4MUSTANGS (468-7826) or visit BLM’s website at www.blm.gov/az/.

In addition, the goals of the gather, daily gather reports, and the 2010 Cibola-Trigo Gather video can be found at this link. http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/whb/gather.html

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The Cruel, Corrupt Treatment of Horses

Posted: June 15, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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Commentary by U.S. Congressman Jim Moran

“Horses have been our companions and helped make this country what it is today”

Congressman Jim Moran, R.T. Fitch – president of Wild Horse Freedom Federation, Vicki Tobin – VP Equine Welfare Alliance speaking before National Capitol during press conference earlier this year ~ photo by Terry Fitch

Horses hold an iconic place in our nation’s history. Without Paul Revere‘s trusty steed, Brown Betty, the colonists in New England might have never known of the British forces’ late night advance toward Lexington. As American settlers moved west to the Pacific, horses pulled covered wagons and plowed fields on new homesteads. Horses accompanied many of our military commanders into battle, and horses still carry our fallen soldiers to their final resting places at Arlington National Cemetery.

Horses have been our companions and helped make this country what it is today.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to our nation’s relationship with horses. America’s admiration for horses’ natural magnificence is the foundation of numerous industries, yet many of the horses used in these enterprises are treated poorly. Two sporting industries plagued by this inconsistency are the Tennessee Walking Horse show circuit and the world of horse racing.

Tennessee Walking Horse shows are too often gaudy pageants that mask a deeply entrenched subculture of abuse. The Tennessee Walking Horse is a breed long-admired for its unique gait and gentle disposition. Unfortunately, these same traits have motivated unscrupulous trainers to practice what is known as “soring” — the infliction of extreme pain on the horses’ feet by using caustic chemicals and painful devices to elicit an exaggerated version of the horse’s natural walk. This gait, known as “the big lick,” is prized at certain horse shows and draws handsome stud fees for champion horses.

Although soring has been illegal under the federal Horse Protection Act (HPA) for 40 years, it remains a ubiquitous and insidious part of the Tennessee Walking Horse community. While the walking horse industry shrouds its training methods in secrecy and denies that the problem exists, trainers who have been compelled to speak truthfully in court appearances paint a different picture. Horse trainer Barney Davis at his sentencing hearing in a Tennessee federal court, after pleading guilty to soring horses, said that “Every walking horse that enters into a show is sored. They’ve got to be sored to walk. There ain’t no good way to put it, but that’s how it is.”

Davis and his contemporaries in cruelty and greed should face meaningful consequences for their crimes. Currently, USDA enforcement of the HPA is inadequate and the statutory penalties too weak to deter this crime. A recently released USDA rule would make penalties mandatory, but we need congressional action to ensure exposure of, and accountability for, violations.

The sport of horse racing has also been overtaken by rampant cruelties inflicted for the sake of financial gain. Once referred to as “the sport of kings,” horse racing is now subject to widespread drugging of racehorses. “Doping” is the practice of administering drugs to horses in order to give them a competitive advantage when racing. According to an investigative report in The New York Times earlier this year, “trainers experiment with anything that might give them an edge, including chemicals that bulk up pigs and cattle before slaughter, cobra venom, Viagra, blood doping agents, stimulants and cancer drugs.” Doping is extremely dangerous to the horses and the jockeys who ride them because it masks warning signs of injuries and can cause horses to push beyond their limits. Devastating human and animal injuries and deaths have occurred as a result.

While the decentralized horse-racing industry has long promised to end this abuse, industry oversight has proved ineffective.

Lax enforcement allows violators to evade sanctions or receive mere slaps on the wrist as penalties. Inconsistent rules among various state commissions create a “race to the bottom” environment where individuals can avoid stricter sanctions by simply taking their operations to states with more lenient or non-existent regulations.

Federal oversight is urgently needed to address this corrupt practice that has spread to racetracks across the country because of the horse-racing industry’s inability or unwillingness to stop it. In 1980, the Corrupt Horse Racing Practices Act was introduced in Congress to address the doping problem, but never passed. Thirty-two years later, the trainer of I’ll Have Another — the winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes — was suspended in California for accumulated doping violations. It is time for Congress to finally take a stand for these tremendous equine athletes by passing the Interstate Horse Racing Improvement Act (H.R. 1733/S. 886).

Horses are our companions, our partners in sport and a living reminder of the American spirit. We owe it to them to acknowledge this special bond and to give them the humane treatment they deserve.

Click (HERE) to support Moran’s effort to stop horse slaughter in the U.S.
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Arizona Wild Burro Roundup Remains Controversial

Posted: June 15, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Wild Burros
Tags: , , , , ,
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by Michelle Faust as published on Fronteras.com

“We need a little bit of a more of a hands-off approach to let them regulate naturally”

Baby Wild Burros Captured and Imprisoned by the BLM ~ photo by Terry Fitch

YUMA, Ariz. — Early morning on the Colorado River, you expect to see boats and hear a few mosquitoes; It’s rare to see boatloads of wild burros. Wranglers have driven these animals for the last several days with helicopters and on horseback, but today they are unloading the grey equine off of a barge.

Wranglers use rattles and flags to push the animals into a holding pen, from there they’ll be loaded on to vehicles that will transport them to Ridgecrest, Calif. where they will be prepared for adoption.

Since 1971, the Bureau of Land Management has been removing horses and burros from the wild across the Western United States. Burros in Arizona are believed to have been set free by miners in the 19th century.

John Hall is the Wild Horse and Burro Specialist for the local BLM.  He said the goal is to gather 350 of the 711 burros in this area.  Hall said they are a non-native species that pose a threat to other flora and fauna.

“These animals are over utilizing the native vegetation that the wildlife here depend on,” Hall said. “And when you have this overuse by the burros, it poses an immediate threat to the native wildlife.”

Conservationists dispute the number of burros the area can support and raise concerns about the use of helicopters for rounding them up in the Southwestern Arizona heat.

Congressman Raul Grijalva wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Interior requesting the animals not be gathered at temperatures above 90 degrees. This year, the policy was changed to stop corralling before temperatures hit 95.

Susanne Roy of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign said that’s a move in the right direction.

“We need a little bit of a more of a hands-off approach to let them regulate naturally. And then in those situations where they are not regulating naturally, we will then need to use a fertility vaccine to assist in that process,” Roy said. “And this will be a far more humane approach than these brutal round-ups every four years.”

Sue Cattoor is the contractor managing the roundup for the BLM.  She said the helicopters do not put as much stress on the equine as people might imagine.

“[The animal learns] to respect that helicopter, but he’s not really afraid of it,” Cattoor said. “He knows it’s back there and he’s going to keep moving away from it because they’re a flight animal, but he’s not terrified like people think they are of ‘em.”

Traditionally the wild burros have had a near 100 percent adoption rate, but this year it’s less; 900 unadopted burros are in holding facilities with the BLM.

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