SOURCE: The Week
Why the Interior Department desperately needs beat reporters
The federal agency’s treatment of wild horses has been scandalously poor. But you wouldn’t know it from reading the newspaper.
by Andrew Cohen
Consider, for example, an unfortunate story published last month in The Washington Post about America’s wild horses and their human stewards at the Bureau of Land Management.
The average reader of this story, headlined, “U.S. looking for ideas to help manage wild-horse overpopulation,” likely came away from it with a grossly distorted view of the problems facing the herds, how those problems came to be, and what federal officials are doing (or not doing) to solve them. All of the appropriate voices were heard from, all the advocates and bureaucrats, all the lawyers and county commissioners — but the result was a cacophony, and not the symphony a good story ought to be. Critical context and perspective were missing from this report, as were key facts and history. The result was an inaccurate, incomplete mess.
There is a difference between a story that scratches the surface of a conflict and something that offers valuable insight into it. The only reason I can tell the difference in this instance is because I have spent a lot of time over the past three years reading and writing about the worsening plight of the nation’s wild horses, the federal government’s antipathy toward them, the political and economic reasons for this deliberate indifference, and the media’s casual disregard for this breathtaking breach of public trust.
Horses that have been treated with birth control are released back into the wild. | (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
What to do with the nation’s wild horses is not a simple question, and there are no easy answers. But the problem is not the most complicated ever faced by our federal government, either. There is plenty of room in this country for its herds, and there are plenty of reasonable policies that could be implemented to manage them on the range if federal officials mustered up the political courage to do so. Those officials haven’t — and without more public pressure they won’t — because of the enormously powerful lobbies aligned against the horses. You would know virtually none of this by reading the Post story, or pretty much any mainstream news organization’s story about wild horses.
The governing statute, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in December 1971, is the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. It requires the federal government to protect, manage, and control the nation’s herds. The inherent contradictions between those three verbs — protect, manage, control — has caused four decades of political and legal strife. The law no doubt has saved the herds until now, but it has been winnowed down, by subsequent legislation and administrative fiat, to where the horses today again are imperiled.
The Obama administration, under pressure from industry lobbyists, has rounded up tens of thousands of horses under the guise of “management” and “control.” Instead of roaming free on vast swaths of land out west, at virtually no cost to you or me, the horses are kept in holding pens at significant public cost. What was a “crisis” only to ranchers and farmers a few years ago is now truly a national “crisis.” There are more wild horses in captivity than in the wild because the government has made it so.
The last secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, was himself a rancher who was openly hostile to the herds. Current Secretary Sally Jewell has either ignored the issue of wild horses or has misrepresented the essence of the problems they face. A National Academies of Science report on the horses published last year, which in several important respects was sharply critical of the BLM’s policies, has been virtually ignored by the Interior Department, which won’t talk about it except to mischaracterize some of its contents. No major media outlet has covered this angle to the story.
There are great, untold stories here just begging for beat reporters to dig in. Jewell, steeped in scientific training, is ignoring the advice of federal scientists. The industries pushing to rid public lands of wild horses are the very ones benefiting from far-below-market federal leasing rates. By rounding up the herds to benefit those ranchers, the federal government has made the horses welfare wards. And now the feds are lamenting the costs and looking to get rid of the animals. What’s happened here is the classic American story: Money makes political power and political power makes all the difference in the world.
The government rounds up wild horses, to be adopted or housed indefinitely. | (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The intended takeaway of the mainstream narrative goes something like this: Earnest, humble public servants have run out of bright ideas and thus need the wisdom and ingenuity of the American people to help them save wild horses. There are more horses than anyone thinks, the BLM says. They are reproducing at rates faster than anyone can count. The cost of keeping them in pens is too high. “We haven’t had many options,” Joan Guilfoyle, a BLM chief says in the Post story. Left out in most stories is that the BLM itself created the current crisis by aggressively rounding up horses and by failing to use proven fertility-control measures.
Often left out: The lack of scientific rigor employed by the BLM in its estimates of how many horses the land can sustain; the fact that federal scientists found BLM policies are actually accelerating wild horse reproduction; the fact that the Interior Department has refused to answer in-depth questions about the report.
What does the media like to focus on? The specter of horse slaughter, which is illegal in the United States but which is occurring anyway under cover of darkness.
Horses to be housed by the government are tended by a wrangler. | (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The tragedy of the story of the horses today, and the tragedy of most coverage of it, is that there really is a crisis that won’t be solved until the BLM candidly addresses the problems it has created. The biggest failure of the Post article — and most articles on this topic — is that in addition to exonerating the BLM, it suggests that the policies now in place are the result of inexorable facts and law imposed upon officials. That’s wrong. The policies that have placed 50,000 federally protected horses in mortal danger today represent political choices that could be reversed if federal officials exercised the will to do so.
Fact: There are reasonable birth-control methods that could limit the herds’ population growth — methods the NAS report endorsed but which the BLM won’t implement.
Fact: Millions of cattle and sheep grazing on public land at greatly reduced leasing rates arguably do far more damage to the range than do the horses there.
Fact: Almost all of this is being done in the dark, without proper legislative oversight or bureaucratic transparency or accountability.
You won’t get the best answers if you don’t ask the right questions of the right people. Stories like this essentially are “beat” stories, and they cannot adequately be told unless they are told by reporters who can recognize immediately when they are being fed bullshit by the sources they have contacted for comment.
There are several reasons why there are so few “beat” reporters covering the Interior Department today. Money is probably the biggest. In the same way that media organizations have scaled down their foreign coverage, they’ve also drawn back from regular coverage of those federal agencies that don’t generate the sorts of sexy “political” stories everyone seems to like. It’s expensive to keep an Interior “beat” reporter on the road all year. This beat’s stories don’t fall from trees as they do at the Justice Department or on Capitol Hill. It takes time to understand the dynamics, the players, and the game.
Another reason we don’t see more beat reporters on the public-lands front, I believe, is geographical bias. The vast majority of the work of the Interior Department occurs, and is felt, by those who live far beyond the media centers of the Northeast. Many people back East, including many who run media organizations, simply don’t care enough about the issues raised by the work of the department to commit themselves to regular coverage of those issues. These horses are so far away from the concrete and steel canyons of New York or the statues and boulevards of Washington, they might as well be dreams to some people.
This is a shame, and a lost opportunity, because it’s easy to see in the work of the Interior Department a microcosm of all the political tensions we focus upon more generally in Washington. Interior is a federal agency manipulated by petty bureaucrats whose policies are influenced by special interests. With virtually no oversight, these officials directly control hundreds of millions of acres of land and the fortunes of millions of people. Oil and conservationism, gas and the environment, nature and nurture, it’s all on this beat. If I were a young journalist looking to make a name, I would run toward these stories.
Let me close by making a prediction. If the Post, or any other news organization, were to focus on this beat, and hire a team of smart, aggressive journalists to dig deep into what’s happening here, that team would quickly start churning out groundbreaking stories that would generate acclaim and increased public awareness. These investigative journalists would find one compelling story after another. And we’d all be the better for it.
Categories: Horse News, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Reblogged this on and commented:
This is an eye opening article from R.T. Fitch, Straight From The Horse’s Heart, written by Andrew Cohen. I think I will send this on to some editor’s and see if anyone is strong enough to jump onto this very urgent issue of saving America’s horses. Sticking our head in the sand never accomplishes anything except death of something, so I feel that if we can each form together to strengthen the drive to get these horses out of the holding pens and back to natural lands, we can make the difference that is needed. Horse friends need to do whatever you can to assist in this huge fight for their freedom. We can’t let this country only become a place where there are no natural living treasures. If I were a journalist, this would be my choice of investigation and reporting. Those skills I have not acquired but I know there are people in this country who have the skill and the forces behind them to do the full, accurate reporting that is needed to accomplish spreading the truth and bringing the government into the responsibility of truly protecting America’s Wild Horses.
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Thank you again, R.T. for this informative article. I reblogged and put on Facebook and will email to as many sources as I can. Appreciate your continued dedication to preserving the safety and future of the horses. God’s continued blessings on you and your staff!!!
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How true once again. Andrew Cohen seems to be one of the few actual journalists that does the research & is interested in the horses & burros.
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Shared on FB to those unfamiliar with what’s happening to our uniquely American heritage.
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I would like to send this to the new editor of our local paper… but the link to the original article is no good. Can you guys fix this please?
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The link is fixed. Thanks for letting us know, Icy Spots.
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Thanks, it works now and I sent it to my local paper with a request for more coverage of WHBs.
I challenge everyone reading this (whatever your opinions) to do the same, the more information we share the better. Better solutions are possible with truth and awareness leading the charge. We need this national discussion and we need daylight in decision making which is sorely lacking right now and only fuels mistrust and misdeeds.
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great piece, wonder how many strong and fearless reporter there are left on this earth . but as a capable gov. we’ve had the last few years need i say more .any way …bet if some reporter could get started with this no telling where it would take em .. pulitzer prize . i would like to be wrong but think gov. and media are quite the bed fellas .. but just my opinion. andrew and everyone good job and hope we can find someone with a backbone and have the balls to buck the same ole” same ole”
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Andrew Cohen AGAIN speaks the truth – loudly and clearly. Thank you.
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Have shared to Facebook. Will share with others, who might be interested. The teratment of our Wild Horses/Burrows, is a National Disgrace. Thank you, again, RT.!!
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One of the politicians who is concerned about our Wild Horses, is: Joseph Abruzzo, Florida Senator. Have sent this article to him.
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I’ve shared this on Facebook and sent a letter to my local newspaper editor along with the link to this very well written, passionate appeal for intelligent free thinking help. This is easy to understand for those not involved. Let’s hope whoever comes across this is moved to act and alert their respective hometown publications. Any help is better than no help.
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The BLM and the Department of the Interior has never garnered the attention that the Department of Education,or the Justice Department has per say. Plus the BLM is considered a special topics type organization whose issues are regional and relate to land use out there in “the West” where the population is sparse and the issues are localized. Northeasterners find nothing sexy about strip mining issues or mixed use land formulas or overgrazing. Yet these issues affect us all on a national level. If an aquifer in Wyoming is depleted and a water table is lowered or severely polluted due to fracking, it affects all of us. We just don’t notice because the immediate population that is affected is limited. When a BLM study regarding wild horse populations that is flawed is released and criticized, New Yorkers and Washingtonians don’t turn from the regional news to study it.
A beat reporter regularly filing on the national significance of these issues could result in a national education. As a rule, Americans spend more time concerned about trade imbalance with China or Middle Eastern conflict than they do on land usage in our own country. Why shouldn’t all Americans be concerned about these topics? Because they don’t understand them. And they don’t understand them because news editors and decision makers don’t deem them worthy of in-depth reporting and explanation. They are topics relegated to regional blogs and cattlemen’s luncheons. Let’s start explaining why overgrazing affects all of us. Let’s start understanding why the cost of allowing cattle on public lands is expensive and actually affects the budgets of all Americans. Let’s understand erosion mitigation and water rights and land leasing and all the other “strictly Western” topics that are affecting all Americans. Let’s post the footage and narrative of a beat reporter with major publication credentials observing the carnage of a round-up of wild horses to a major newspaper–frequently. If we do that, maybe the plight of the wild horse will be better understood and their welfare will be better appreciated. Maybe more people will feel outrage and demand action and accountability. Maybe the wild horse and the land they call home will be better understood. Perhaps more citizens will comprehend and feel invested in the fact that the fate of wild horses is an integral aspect of America’s legacy,not just a regional one.
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http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2014/jan/22/craig-daily-press-denied-access-open-meeting-secre/
I will not be voting for my now-Governor as a result of this denial of the press from a public meeting, held in the American Legion Hall and attended by my Gov., Sally Jewell, and a quorum of local County Commissioners. Need I mention area ranchers were well represented, or that the location is not far from the WY border?
We need good reporters but we also need to let them do their jobs!
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now the story is all blocked out
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Andrew Cohen is one of the few TRUE journalists in the media….which is mostly corporate owned. It’s now the age of “citizen journalism”.
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The People’s Treasure
by Michael Leunig
They’re privatising things we own together. They’re flogging off the people’s common ground.
And though we’re still connected by the weather They say that sharing things is now unsound.
They’re lonelifying all the public spaces. They’re rationalising swags and billabongs.
They’re awfulising nature’s lovely places, Dismantling the dreaming and the songs.
Their macho fear of flabby soft sensations Makes them pine for all things hard and lean.
They talk of foreign market penetrations And throbbing private sectors. It’s obscene.
They’re basically unloving types of creatures With demons lurking underneath their beds.
You’ll notice that a necktie always features To keep their hearts quite separate from their heads.
So if they steal away the people’s treasure. And bring the jolly swagman to his knees.
They can’t remove the simple common pleasure Of loathing public bastards such as these.
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Quote by Paul Salopek from his journey, “Out Of Eden” (Natl. Geo. Dec. 2013)
“Humanity is remaking the world in a radical and accelerating cycle of change that strips away the memory of place as well as topsoil. Our era’s breathtaking changes flatten collective memory, disrupt precedence, sever lines of responsibility. (What so disconcerts us about suburbia? Not only its placelessness but a void of time; we crave a past in our landscapes.)”
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The only way to truly ever combat the BLM is to find a way for eco tourism or something for people go out and see wild horses like in other countries who have found offering people a way to see wild animals makes them more money than hunting killing and or disposing of them like the BLM
If we could find a way to get more money into the hands of the BLM than they get for leasing land to cattle ranches they would stop this brutally cruel decimation of the wild horse herds I am not being flippant but I think we all have to agree its always the same chant ” money rules”
At least for now in the US horse slaughter cant be brought back. We are working on banning this ” permanently” in Canada. and I pray so hard it will come to pass. We must NEVER, EVER give up working on behalf of our precious horses ” everywhere” to save them and allow them to run free as they were meant to do !
God I wish I had an answer that would really work for these beloved wild horses. I grew up with a several rescued horses in the UK and I love these beautiful proud animals so dearly, each and everyone.
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Unfortunately, eco-tourism plans by BLM are all for same sex, non-reproducing herds, NOT family bands.
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The Gov Christie debacle was uncovered and pursued by LOCAL NJ press sources; then made National by Steve Kornacki on Up with Steve K via MSNBC (who broke his reporting chops with NJ politics).
Sadly, I don’t think there are any Western journalists, save for the guy in Las Vegas tenaciously following this OUTRAGE! And even he has his limitations.
Reporters and citizens haven’t a clue as to how much money and resources are involved with DOI….I still think they are the IGNORED haul of US resources and monies, export….more than DOD.
BTW, DOD treats Veterans just as badly as wild equines. LIARS and cheats!
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I posted this in the WEEK. It was there when I posted it, but now it has disappeared.
WILD HORSES TO BE EUTHANIZED ON THE RANGE
BLM MEMORANDUM (received in a Freedom of Information Act request)
Joan Guilfoyle (Chief of Wild Horse & Burro Program) & Euthanizing Wild Horses on the Range
https://app.box.com/s/unu5h23ubefkpum7mr9i
The last part of memorandum says that areas outside Snowstorm HMA will experience immediate large die-offs without water hauling.
BUT
GAS AND OIL LEASING IN HERD MANAGEMENT AREAS CONTINUES
http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/info/newsroom/2014/february/blm_seeks_comments.html
BLM Seeks Comments on Environmental Assessment for Lands
Nominated for Oil and Gas Leasing
Battle Mountain, NV – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Battle Mountain District is making available for public review an Environmental Assessment (EA) for
139 parcels of public land nominated for lease within the Battle Mountain
District in the July 2014 Competitive Oil and Gas Lease Sale. These parcels
have the potential for future oil and gas exploration and development. The
30-day public review period concludes March 12, 2014.
The BLM received nominations for 166 parcels of public land to offer for leasing,
totaling more than 285,000 acres. The BLM deferred several of the nominated
parcels to protect Sage-grouse habitat. Other parcels were removed because of
conflicts with existing mining operations. A detailed listing of deferred
parcels is available in the EA, which is available for public review, click
here to go to the NEPA
Project Summary page.
The remaining 139 parcels (230,989 acres) have been analyzed for potential
impacts in the EA. Lease stipulations identified in the Shoshone-Eureka
(1986) and Tonopah (1997) Resource Management Plans are attached to all
parcels to help protect resources.
The sale will be conducted on July 17, 2014. Additional information about the sale is
available at http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/prog/energy.html.
If you have questions or need more information about this project, please contact
Mark Ennes, Planning and Environmental Coordinator, Tonopah Field Office, at
(775) 482-7835.
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Hold on to your horses (literally)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-21/drought-means-no-u-s-water-deliveries-for-california-farmers.html
Farmers in California’s Central Valley, the world’s most productive agricultural region, will get none of the water they requested this year from a federally controlled system because of the drought gripping the state, the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation said.
The bureau said in a statement it won’t be able to deliver any of the more than 2.4 million acre-feet of water sought by farmers. A state-controlled system last month said it, too, wouldn’t be able to deliver any of the 4 million acre-feet of water sought by local agencies. …
The drought in California, the top U.S. agricultural producer at $44.7 billion, is depriving the state of water needed to produce everything from milk, beef and wine to some of the nation’s largest fruit and vegetable crops, including avocados, strawberries and almonds.
The extreme dryness may boost annual food price inflation as California accounts for one-third of U.S. vegetable output, and two-thirds of fruit and nut production, Joe Glauber, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief economist said at an agency outlook forum yesterday.
I guess we still have enough water to supply a few hundred oil and gas leases in NV, though…
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Saw the news about the California drought – the farmers not getting water to care for their crops. And here in NY there is a town that is selling thousands of gallons of water to PA for USE IN FRACKING! Frankly, I would have no problem with seeing the water sent to an area that is going thru a drought. But I sure have a big problem with sending our fresh water to be pumped into the ground with chemicals & then put in a wastewater pond for ???? Does this make any sense?
Instead of pouring all this money (& water) into the gas industry & the pipe lines – how about doing something constructive to help the areas that are going through these droughts? At some point, with the loss of so much vegetable & fruit production I would think water would be at the top of someones list!
Of course, the first thing I thought of when I read about the shortage of water was wondering if there were still any wild horses in California – if so, I imagine they will take the blame for the drought, right?
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