Ask the BLM no questions,they will tell you no lies
by “Mustang Jack”
I cannot emphasize it enough!
It is time that wild horse advocacies implore the BLM to show the American public that the 33,000 horses that are supposedly in captivity are all still present and accounted for.
Wild horse advocates as whole are entitled to know the truth! We want to know where the 33,000 horses are that the BLM were going to euthanize last year.
If any horses have been shipped before the roundups began this fiscal year, It wont be too difficult for us to tabulate how many horses have been actually shipped before the round ups began this year . And what isn’t there had to have been shipped out.
We have to keep asking where are they now.
Have you ever googled BLM wild horse holding areas just to see what you find? Nothing is what you will find. Oh sure there are some photos of a few horses scattering as they are being let into a pen.Then there are a few photos that show horses standing behind a fence doing nothing..
Where are the photos of the tens of thousands of horses that the BLM would like us to believe are in their holding areas? One would think that the BLM would want us to see just how urgent their call for relief of this microcosm of “mustangs” is.. The BLM wants us to believe that it is costing us tax payers millions of dollars to support these horses to stay in their supposed safe havens that they have provided for them.
Yet, where are they? Show us the horses!
All of them!
I have searched high and low for these horses and I cannot for the life of me find even a fraction of the total that the BLM wants us to believe are in holding. From cyberspace to the ranges, all I have seen is maybe a few thousand..
So you may ask.. How in the world can the BLM show us that many horses in photos. All they have to do is take aerial photos my friends.. Its done all the time with many other species.
Now I am going to implore all of you to pick up your cell phones or get on your computers and call or write your state representatives and the BLM and tell them to..
SHOW US OUR 33,000 HORSES!
Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
I agree one hundred percent Mustang Jack. When I found out that the BLM would not come to terms with Madeline Pickens, I came to the conculsion that they don’t have them. These urgent roundups are for adoptable horses because they don’t have any left. The way they have been operating for years I think they went South. We need a count, by an outside company that is not going to fix numbers.
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We certainly DO need an independent audit of how many horses they have, where they all are and what condition they’re in. For humane reasons if nothing else. Don’t we already have laws about cruelty to animals? Or is the BLM exempt from those laws too?
Also, I’ve been wondering why they seem to have a sense of urgency. The case filed by the Cloud Foundation still has not had a verdict, and yet they couldn’t wait. Others have asked for a moratorium on roundups as well – all to no avail.
We strongly suspect many of the horses are going to go to slaughter – or already have! Given that the EU’s new regulations regarding contaminated meat officially go into effect in April, 2010, they may be afraid there won’t be a market for these horses in Europe or Canada and maybe Mexico as well. Certainly any mare that has received PZP will not pass, and the others may not either for lack of documentation about what drugs they may or may not have been exposed to.
If this is true, we need to find out ASAP, before they’re ALL slaughtered. If they haven’t been already, that is.
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OMG, innocent old Grandma that I am, this never occured to me! You are right, I’ve never read anywhere, just where these horses are. I wonder if Mrs. Pickens has seen them.
Our present ways of Murder (slaughter) are not humane euthanasia. I can’t bear to think that this happens to ANY horse or burro.
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Ok now that we probably all agree that a wild horse audit is indeed necessary..Then let’s do something about it. Instead of hashing over what needs to be done we need to just do it.
Lets presume that the horses are being shipped as we discuss their possible fate.We can sit here and speculate and postulate for the next decade and still wonder what is happening to our horses. In the meantime they are probably being shipped and slaughtered.
I know that this sounds redundant..Because it is!But as I have been saying over and over again.. Push the BLM to answer the question! We want to see proof that horses are still where they are supposed to be.
WHERE ARE OUR HORSES?
One thing is for sure,the clock is ticking and the horses are vanishing from the rangelands by the droves.. We have no clue where they all are, or how many. All we know is that they keep scheduling roundup and roundup and not telling us a damned thing. I believe by demanding accountability from the BLM is a great first step for achieving reparation.
So how about we start inundating their email boxes and voice mails with the question that we want answered the most right now.. Do you think that we can get just a little hint from somewhere on the internet or television that the BLM has heard us?
Well, I believe that if we yell loud enough, they will answer.
I am not asking for you to do it for me or anyone else. I am asking you..No I am pleading with you! Please make the call and or send emails. Do whatever it takes.. Just tell them..Not ask them..Tell them to show us where our 33,000 horses are.
It’s up to us America! The fate of the wild horse species is really dependent on us.
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I have been wondering the same myself, where are the 33,000 horses “stashed”? On GoogleEarth I found our farm and there was a small tractor out cutting hay. Yep, our son was driving that tractor when the satelite took the shot. You would think some horses in pens, fields, wherever, would show up? Maybe they have camoflage over top of them–
Will email, call and even ask congress critters where are our horses? Thanks
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i’m curious to know if any of the wild horse & burro advocates are planning on attending the wild & feral horse & burro management policy “educational” seminar in reno next month???? i noticed that (for an additional fee) they were offering tours of the palomino valley holding facility……..there’s a talk on “ethical considerations” by proslaughterer sue wallis…the blm’s own mr. abbey…..safari club international (hunters???)…..a dreadful group of people listed it seems…..
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Hi Jo bunny.. I will be there but not as a guest speaker or guest.. There will be something said that day that will change the face of wild horse management forever. Wait,watch and listen!
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I hate to say it! But in part it is our own fault. As unintentional and educational as it was to air something so pure and magnanimous as this species,we helped the roundup to occur. Cloud and all the horses in that region was assimilated to a life domestication because the BLM knew they would bring a higher price tag because of the documentary.
The Cloud herd first aired on PBS July 6, 2008 and ever since then it has won the hearts of the many horse enthusiasts and alike. The short series immediately made celebrities out of Cloud and his family. Animal advocates of types came from far and wide to see the now infamous Pride of the Pryor Mountains.
Then the perfect storm occurred!
The BLM had a notion. It occurred to them that while the wild horses were fetching a pretty descent price in the adoption program and elsewhere.They (the BLM) took full advantage of the already publicized promotional debut of Cloud: “Wild Stallion of the Rockies”.
In comparrison it’s like having something that everyone knew was there but was complacent about it. Then as soon as it appears on televison it instantaneously becomes famous. Then the price of it increases astronimically..
In this case the BLM immediately seized the opportunity and scheduled the horses to be rounded up and get them to the adoption center ASAP.
With horses like Conquistador fetching a nifty bid of $2,500.00 shows how the series inadvertently escalated the value of wild horses from this particular band. No horse in the history of wild horse adoption has ever been sold or adopted for that price. The BLM calculatingly kept bumping the bid,knowing damn well that advocates that were present that day would match and beat the bid.
The price of trying to convey to the public just how this magnificent species has evolved into one of the most intricate, elemental forces of the rangelands has cost them dearly.
I hope that we think thrice before airing anything depicting wild horses as celebrities again.
May I suggest that if we are to air anything about wild horses, it be something that depicts abuse and inhumane treatment of animals by the BLM and those involved in roundups.
Let’s keep the horses off the television screens and on the rangelands.
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Yeah but the ones that did know,like the BLM were the ones to worry about. Cloud may have been a celebrity when he was born but that was to a small percentage of us. To the BLM, the day that the series aired he became a vested commodity if there ever was one.
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I feel the very fact that Cloud became a celebrity since the first PBS feature when he was born, is the reason so many people are now writing and emailing. I was just at a horse show this week end and people there didn’t know anything about the gather. I stood by one of the copies of the Cloud books and told anyone who would listen what was going on. They were all stunned.
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Al Kitt, Comment by mustangjak | October 4, 2009, Comment by Mustang Jack | October 5, 2009. Same people?
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Same people who Roxy?
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As a Horse Advocate and Social worker I can speak for those who can’t speak, even muted ones.
I speak for our American Wild horses ~ They are our National Treasure to ROAM in freedom as a symbol of our freedom for man/animal to conserve of our natural beauty and ethical values of altruistic love.
Equines are
our birth right ~ including the ancient bond with the dawn horse (our USA Mustangs.)
I support views of Dr Patricia Haight, Julieanne French, John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt, Velma Johnson and PBS And Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation, as well as Ginger Kathrens views as my views for these pristine centurions.
I will continue to assist these Wild Horse and speak of Wild Horses as companions, as history and to connection to our spirits of unconditional love.
Will man break their ancient bond with history ~ time will only tell.
I truly hope NOT!!
Wild Horses are not hobby horses to be tossed in a cart when we are done with their use.
I don’t understand why we always abuse them ,distroy them or ship them. We do this to anything we hold near and love and later build a fake statue to a old memory. We don’t want to kill the spirit of the West.
Maybe Wild Horses are just to be looked at and we uphold a value of trust, courage, pride we will allow an animal to set the pace for ethical values rather humans weaknesses and destruction.
If we destroy the horses we are the next large mammal in the food chain ~ our we next?
Lets not shot our chain of life in the heads or the foot.Sterilizing love is not way to keep Wild horses as a species alive but only to Manage them into Extinction. We will lose as to loss a being of nature. We can even buy back again in the future . They will be long GONE.
We are all connected in the chain of life ~ we harm Wild horses ~ we harm ourselves.
Lets do ourselves better.
I am writting Micheal Moore athttp://www.michaelmoore.com/submit
after I saw the George Knapp Investigation.
at http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11285225
(or) Go to the Cloud Foundation ~ Executive Ginger Kathren at http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/
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Press Release
Please send on to all media outlets- full press release in downloadable form available here
Return America’s Wild Horses to Their Rightful Ranges
A Response to Secretary Salazar’s Plan for America’s Wild Horses and Burros
On October 7, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a new initiative for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro program. The Secretary announced that this is a “national solution to restore the health of America’s wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them by creating a cost-efficient, sustainable management program that includes the possible creation of wild horse preserves on the productive grasslands of the Midwest and East.”[1]
The Cloud Foundation is encouraged that the Interior Department realizes that there are problems with the management of wild horses on public lands by the Bureau of Land Management and is considering ways to improve the Wild Horse and Burro Program.
However, the Cloud Foundation questions the need to develop seven new preserves in the mid-west and east (at an estimated initial cost of $96 million) when there are 19.4 million acres of designated wild horse and burro of rangelands that have been taken away from them since 1971. In just the past few weeks, 12 herds (620 horses) were zeroed out on an additional 1.4 million acres in Eastern Nevada. “It would seem that the best use of taxpayer dollars and the most humane plan for the nearly 32,000 wild horses in government holding[2] would be to return them to their native lands” says Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation. “These millions of acres were identified for use by wild horses and burros and these lands are already owned by the American public”.
Rather than spending over thirty million dollars this fiscal year (October 1, 2009- September 30, 2010) to remove a record number (over 12,000 wild horses and burros) from the range, only legitimate emergency roundups and removals should be conducted. “The BLM continues to lead the public to believe that exploding populations of wild horses are causing degradation of the range and they must be removed before they all starve. This is without merit because wild horses and burros make up only a fraction of animals grazing the range, far greater damage is caused by the privately-owned cattle who outnumber the horses more than 100 to 1,” states Arizona advocate Julianne French.
The intent of Congress’ 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act was not for wild horses to be corralled and penned. The clear intent was that the wild horses and burros be allowed to live on western rangelands designated primarily for their survival in self-sustaining populations. The BLM is not following the law in the management of America’s wild horses and burros.
Initial Recommended Steps for the Management of America’s Wild Horses & Burros
1) Cease all roundups until independent analysis can be made of each herd management area. Move forward only with emergency removals if deemed necessary by independent as well as BLM specialists.
2) Return wild horses and burros in good health to the 20.8 million acres of public land designated primarily for their use in 1971 that has since been taken away from them. As per the ROAM Act (§1579): “ensure that, to the extent practicable, the acreage available for wild and free-roaming horses and burros shall never be less than the acreage where wild and free-roaming horses and burros were found in 1971.”
3) Reanalyze appropriate management levels (AMLs) for herd management areas (HMAs). Currently only about 25% of wild horse and burro herds are genetically viable.[3] AMLs should not be reduced due to the private use of public lands for livestock grazing. Currently AML “is based on consideration of wildlife, permitted livestock, and wild horses and burros in the area.”[4] It is not cost-effective to remove wild horses from an HMA at a cost of $2600- over $3000 per individual removed in order to allow a cow/calf pair to graze for a payment of $1.36/month. Cattle, who originated in southeast Asia, damage the land to a far greater degree than wild horses, who are of North American origin.
4) Congress should follow-up with hearings on the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program as recommended by the Government Accounting Office (2008 report).
Photos and more information available from:
The Cloud Foundation
719-633-3842
info@thecloudfoundation.org
Download the Press release and send on to your local media and national media sources – available online from the Cloud Foundation here
——————————————————————————–
[1] Department of Interior press release, 10/7/2009.
[2] Nearly 32,000 wild horses are in holding as of 10/7/2009 according to BLM records. No independent inventory has been conducted and the truth of this number cannot be verified.
[3] Genetically viable defined here as a population of horses 1 year and older that is at or above 150-200 individuals with a Ne (genetic effective number) of 50 or more. This is the bare minimum for genetic viability of wild horse and burro population. More information here.
[4] According to Nevada BLM site, accessed 10/8/2009
Our mailing address is:
The Cloud Foundation 107 South 7th St Colorado Springs, CO 80905
Our telephone:
719-633-3842
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http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11375828#
New Cloud Program Airs on Sunday & Roundups Continue
The BLM plans to remove over 35% (12,000+) of our federally-protected wild horses and burros this year & this must stop- roundup schedule here
1. Please watch the most recent report from CBS’s George Knapp, this short news story outlines how BLM has moved from over-management to the clear destruction of our wild herds. Click here to watch the one-hour report “Stampede to Oblivion”
2. Continue writing, calling and demanding a stop to these roundups (click here for your government & media contacts). An immediate moratorium is needed if we are to protect wild horses & burros into the future. Already less than a quarter of herds are genetically viable & 20+ million acres have been taken away from them since 1971. The BLM is acting illegally and clearly not following the Wild Horse & Burro Act- they must be stopped- these massive roundups are a cruel waste of these horses lives on the taxpayers’ dime. In Defense of Animals has an easy to use mailing form and great sample letter, click here.
3. Sign the Save Our Wild Horses Resolution petition & join the Cloud Foundation mailing list to stay informed (join us on Facebook & Twitter & check our Blog for frequent updates too).
4. Tune into your local PBS station on Sunday evening to watch “Cloud: Challenge of the Stallions”. Check your local listings for times and join Ginger for a live chat after the show online at PBS.org. Click here for more information.
5. Please continue to support the Cloud Foundation through your donations and your purchases from the Cloud store (the new Cloud book & Breyer models just arrived- donate for your signed books and models here).
6. Please share this with friends and family– wild horses were saved from destruction before, we have to do it again. Check the Cloud Foundation site soon for our new Kid’s page. Wild Horse Annie and thousands of children saved these horses before… let’s do it again, now!
Thank you for all of your incredible support and action. We hope you enjoy this next documentary and please let it inspire you to continued action on behalf of all our wild horses & burros.
Cloud turns to face helicopter in last month’s roundup- Ann Evans photo. Middle photo by Tony Wengert, Cloud & Morning Star’s bands race across the Pryors, Summer 2008.
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Our mailing address is:
The Cloud Foundation 107 South 7th St Colorado Springs, CO 80905
Our telephone:
719-633-3842
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