Urgent Press Release from The Cloud Foundation
Elko, NV (July 8, 2010)— Over 1,400 federally-protected wild mustangs are to be rounded up beginning tomorrow, July 9, in the Tuscarora area of Elko County Nevada during the hottest month of the year. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is violating their own set-protocol for waiting six weeks after the main foaling season, defined as March 1-June 30, so that young foals can escape the inherent danger of a high-heat summer roundup. BLM will dispatch privately contracted choppers to run the Tuscarora mustangs over miles of rugged terrain in a taxpayer-funded roundup expected to last three weeks and result in the removal of some 1,100 mustangs. Only last month, Oregon BLM wild horse managers postponed a planned roundup that would have started the day after foaling season—opting to begin instead in mid-August for the horses’ safety.
“If allowed to go forward this will be a massacre,” states Anne-Marie Pinter who rode the Pony Express Race through the area on her Spanish Mustang and saw small foals. “It is covered with razor-sharp, volcanic rock that will rip up the feet of these poor foals. Before riding the area, our event veterinarian strongly recommended that we put thick rubber boots over the metal shoes of our horses—the rocks are that treacherous. We experienced triple digit temperatures and had to constantly work at keeping our horses hydrated. I can’t even imagine the toll on terrified small foals and even the adult animals at the hottest time of the year. This amounts to horrible animal cruelty and no one will know what is going on because BLM has closed the area, even the roads.”
Last winter, during the deadliest BLM roundup in memory in the Calico Mountains of Northwestern Nevada, at least two 6-9 month foals suffered a horrible death. Their hooves literally separated from their leg bones after running over similar terrain. Yet, BLM justified the dead-of-winter roundup by stating in their Environment Assessment: “Fall and winter time-frames are much less stressful to foals than summer gathers. Not only are young foals in summer months more prone to dehydration and complications from heat stress, the handling, sorting and transport is a stress to the young animals and increases the chance for them to be rejected by their mothers. By gathering wild horses during the winter, stress associated with summer gathers can be avoided.”
“Let’s be honest. What is driving these roundups has very little to do with concern for vulnerable foals and everything to do with contractor availability and using up taxpayer money before the end of fiscal year 2010,” states Cloud Foundation Director, Ginger Kathrens, who has spent over 16 years documenting the lives of wild horse families. “With only two helicopter contractors available to round up the horses, scheduling becomes tricky, especially when the goal is the removal of 6,000 wild horses before the end of September. So, the rush to rid the land of mustangs trumps humane treatment. Disgusting.”
The Cloud Foundation is asking that humane observers and the public be allowed to document the roundup and any injuries and deaths which occur. Currently BLM has arranged for a near total lockdown of roundup activities, including a widespread closure of public roads around the area. Access will be extremely limited despite promises made by top BLM officials to the contrary.
“Having a ‘media day’ during the operation is certainly not the same as having humane observers on site at all times during the operation,” says Elyse Gardner, who has documented the Pryor and Calico roundups. “A sanitized version of BLM activities is not transparency in dealing with the public’s horses. If anything, rather than transparency, BLM is closing the door on public observation because of what our cameras have already revealed about these roundups.”
If allowed to proceed, the Tuscarora roundup will decimate three herds, Owyhee, Little Humboldt and Rock Creek, living in a vast 455,000-acre area about 90 miles northwest of Elko, Nevada. Over 4,000 cattle are allowed to graze on the Tuscarora designated wild horse herd management area while only 337-561 mustangs are welcome. In 1990 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report underscored that wild horse removals did not significantly improve range conditions and pointed to cattle as the culprit for public lands damage. Despite GAO noting the lack of data provided by BLM back 20 years ago, the public has seen no improvement in the piecemeal management of an agency that favors welfare cattle over legally protected mustangs and burros. Herd areas containing 10 to 30 times more livestock than horses are the norm rather than the exception.
“Damage to livestock fences is cited as a reason to remove the horses in Tuscarora. Give me a break,” states Craig Downer, wildlife ecologist, former BLM employee, and 3rd generation Nevadan. “How about removing the fences, reducing the number of cattle and starting to manage wild horses as principal members of their ecosystems, as well as celebrated symbols of the American West? BLM’s habit of operating behind a veil of enforced secrecy is completely unacceptable.”
The Cloud Foundation opposes the further manipulation of the Tuscarora mustangs through the use of experimental infertility drugs in combination with skewed sex ratios. The result will be increased turmoil among the highly social wild horse family bands. Given the disastrous management and the lack of accurate range censuses and the presence of over 37,000 wild horses in government holding at enormous taxpayer expense, advocates continue to call for an immediate freeze on the costly roundups. Congressional hearings are needed to discuss the shortcomings of an out-of-control program that threaten the future existence of wild horses and burros on lands set aside for their use.
“BLM has responded with its classic bunker mentality, abandoning any transparency efforts and placing at risk the lives of these small foals that have never even had a chance at life with their families,” states Kathrens. “We pray that BLM will show some compassion and ground the helicopters. With all the uncontrollable disasters in the world, why is BLM determined to create one in Tuscarora?”
Links of interest:
BLM Wild Horse and Burro Management Handbook http://bit.ly/BLMhandbook
Proposed Roundup of CA Wild Horses Criticized – Sacramento Bee 7/5/10 http://bit.ly/SacBeeMustang
The Mustang Conspiracy: Sex, Drugs, Corruption, and BP – investigative report http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/
‘Herd-Watch: Public Eyes for Public Horses’ http://bit.ly/9Wvh58
Roundup Schedule- updated July 2010 http://bit.ly/2010roundup
Humane Observer Blog http://humaneobserver.blogspot.com/
After campaigning for Obama, Sheryl Crow at odds over his administration’s wild-horse plan (Associated Press) http://bit.ly/6UQleO
CNN Report, Issues with Jane Valez-Mitchell, March 25th http://bit.ly/dvl7NE
Disappointment Valley… A Modern Day Western Trailer- excellent sample of interviews regarding the issues http://bit.ly/awFbwm
American Herds Blog http://americanherds.blogspot.com/
PR Firm Hired for the Destruction of America’s Wild Horse and Burro Herds http://bit.ly/czf3HB
Mestengo. Mustang. Misfit. America’s Disappearing Wild Horses http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/resources/wild.html
Fact Sheet on Wild Herds & The Salazar Plan http://bit.ly/bfdX1y
Wild Horse and Burro Act http://bit.ly/a7hOeS
Link to this press release online http://bit.ly/NVsummerRoundupPR
Past Cloud Foundation press releases http://bit.ly/TCFpress
Photos, video and interviews available from:
news@thecloudfoundation.org
107 S. 7th St. – Colorado Springs, CO 80905 – 719-633-3842 www.thecloudfoundation.org
Related articles by Zemanta
- Cloud Foundation Voices Opposition to California Roundup (horsebackpublishing.com)
- BLM Facing Another Suit to Stop Helicopter Stampede and “Gather” (horsebackpublishing.com)
- Tuscarora Roundup delayed until July 9 (thecloudfoundation.wordpress.com)
Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Please, someone think of a way to stop this!
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omg we are so trying to stop this, but nothing we do seems to work. What if we rent a plane tomorrow & fly over the roundup area. Someone told me they can’t round up if a plane is in the area. I also noted on the BLM tentative roundup schedule that it says July 8th…..has it already happened? How will we know since the public & the press are barred?
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actually it show tody thru aug 1
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actually it show today thru aug 1. In all the places thru September they are only going to leave 1200 horses out there? How sick is that. They are gathering 7200 & removing 6000???? they make me sick
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I have no words. I feel that more radical action is needed. Friendly protests, pleas, listening to the devil soothen us with their transparency BS, is not enough. We need a revolution. They continue no matter what. We need to organize something stronger and more powerful. They just laugh at us.
BLM. May you rot in hell. The new horse gestapo. Your day will come.
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You go, girl!! You rock, &, you are SO right!! The American people have had ENOUGH, no more being nice, we HAVE to take matters into our own hands, they will NOT listen to us, or, if they “hear” us, they WILL ignore us & laugh in our faces!! I’m sorry, people, I KNOW I’m NOT the only one who feels like this, but, being nice & lawful, has gotten the horses & us, absolutely NOTHING, nothing but terror & death for the wild horses! Being patient isn’t working either, the longer we wait to act, the more wild horses will be removed & killed, & FOREVER vanish from the American west!!
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Here Here
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Unbearable!
For cattle! Disgusting methane producing welfare sucking invasive destructive exotic creatures!
For what? BLM “programs & philosophies”, taxpayer funded helicopter fortunes, and more bloody foul deaths!
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What can We do?
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This is planned animal cruelty. They know that foals will perish. Perhaps all of them. Someone needs to be there to document this. It is a media blackout.
They are wiping out the wild horses and all that is asked of us is to sign online petitions that do nothing. Why has no organization hired that lawyer that stopped the other round up? Hire her. Put her on retainer.
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I just put this up on CF, but I’d like some more feedback on the issue.
Has the Churchill County Sheriff’s investigation been completed? If so, what was the outcome? Any sane person would think the BLM would hold off on this until those results were in to avoid another scandal. I almost forgot, they have their magic “cloak of invisibility” to protect them!
Sure wish some of the Pony Express riders would weigh in on this, especially the vet.
I was reading the Nevada Animal Cruelty Statutes AGAIN and I still think the the Calico helicopter roundup fell under the category of “overdriving”. This one may as well.
Also, I know they have the following livestock exemption, but is driving horses, especially young foals, over such dangerous terrain in the summer heat an “established method of animal husbandry”? Would Nevada ranchers do the same to their own horses?
574.200. Intended applicability of provisions
The provisions of NRS 574.050 to 574.510, inclusive, and section 2 of this act do not:
6. Prohibit or interfere with established methods of animal husbandry, including the raising, handling, feeding, housing and transporting of livestock or farm animals.
I called someone (I think it was Animal Services) in Churchill County during the Calico Pigeon Fever (or whatever) outbreak. She said whatever was going on BLM land was the BLM’s business, and the county/state didn’t get involved, even with a potentially communicable disease.
The Nevada Livestock Board is legally bound to investigate complaints of livestock abuse. That’s how they earn their paychecks. I wonder how the BLM’s carefully-crafted secrecy based on conducting captures (and holding) on PRIVATE land squares with the various state LB’s legal obligations?
The BLM gets a pass on abuse just because its the BLM? OUTRAGEOUS!!!
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They have,but they keep getting torpedoed by the courts. I think a million people march on DC is called for.This is jusy like the poltic of the Vietnam War. It disgracefull. We need some candidates to run in the 2012 elections. Forget about being a Republican and forget about being a Democrat. This is bigger than that and we the people that are tired of all this political crap and lieing need to start a new party. One that will preserve and respect and once in, will clean house Royally. Find us a candidate.
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where is that report with the round-up where they had to shoot 40 something foals because the running ruined them. Its the same round-up where the trailer the contractor used tipped over full of wild horses.
Do you know where that report is?
The helicoptors work in pairs now at high speeds-he runs the horses for miles then pushes the paniced horses right into trailers!
There is no reason AT ALL for the long distance running. Where the heck is the fire?? The contractor is paid by the horse! They should be paid by the WEEK so they will work slow and carefull! No professional horseman treats their horses like this, not ONE. The BLM and the helicoptor use is old fashioned mustang killing!
Absurd and crazy, the taxpayers pay about 1,000 each to round up one healthy vibrant horse and then within a month it dies from round-up injury or poor care.
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BS, they shouldn’t be rounding up anything at all. It’s time that Americans got DC cleaned up.
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They need to be brought up on charges against themselves. What is everyone afraid of?
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This is BLATANT animal cruelty, why is BLM above the law?
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These people need to be exposed and then run out of their jobs from the least to the highest position. The American people have a right to view their horses on their land and there should be observers who represent the public interest at every day of these brutal round ups, not just at times determined (or not) by the BLM. I’m sure that the good reporting from the Calico harassment is part of the reason that they closed this. I think the other reason is that this is going to be so much worse on babies that they know if people saw it they could never defend or whitewash it. Maybe their helicopters will run into one another. They need to be chased barefoot over this terrain by their own helicopters. These people are an abomination.
They have a slick new piece of propaganda done just for Tuscarora http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vTUUMpa5BY&feature=related . Or just go to YouTube and type in Tuscarora Gather. You can see why the poor fishies need the good water. What a bunch of liars. What a bunch of disgusting animals.
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I understand what you mean about the helicoptors crashing into each other. I never in my life wish harm on any humans. That contractor and those helicoptor IDIOT horse killers.
I hope their engines fail or they get struck by lightening..please aim the engineless helicoptor towards the human horse killers on the ground.
Do not crash into the wild horses. you have killed enough horses.
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Thank you for posting that youtube and thank God for the internet. Please post any URL the BLM puts up with their lies.
Those places are where we must comment all of us. The internet info highway helps a lot to get the word out to the general public. As we know the BLM has a long history of deception and hiding from the public everything.
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reply to myself OK looks like BLM just put up new youtube very large site. get your comments in now before they stop comments. Here is the channel URL. there are many channels connect many only 2 hours old!!
http://www.youtube.com/user/BLMNational
got my demand for vid cameras up almost first woot!! no more hiding BLM!!!
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I saw that piece of propaganda too, Barbara. I about fell off my chair when they started talking about the fish! And the fences! They’d rather kill brand new foals than repair a broken fence.
First it’s starving horses and degraded rangeland. Now it’s fish and fences. What’s next?
Pssst, BLM, HMAs are not set up to federally protect fish and fences or non wild, stupid cows that would be happier grazing on rich grassland in Kansas or Oklahoma. They are created so wild horses can roam free.
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Well I don’t know how much more exposing they could possibly get, they have been exposed over and over again. It doesn’t mater as long as BLM is calling the shots and apparently the president is working for them. Considering all that he has had to of found out and still hasn’t fired Ken Salazar or sent a team in to clean out the rats that have infested the BLM yet. The only way for America to win over the Animal and Planet Nazis is to stand up and be counted and get the right people into jobs that make these decisions.
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Tried calling the BLM office in Elko – they have voicemail on. Also tried the Nevada State BLM office – same thing They are probably busy watching porn and doing meth! These horses are being removed so the land can be given to a local welfare rancher. It is pointless to contact my senators since I receive “lipspeak” only. And why bother contacting Obama again? He is off partying somewhere. I keep asking myself – hasn’t the DOI destroyed enough wildlife in the Gulf – why do they have to kill more? Aren’t people angry enough at the government already? Evidently not, because they are really pushing the envelope. Does the BLM think their actions are innocuous and there is no possibility of retribution at hand – when their names are published and they are locatable, reachable? What fools!
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I did Email the Nevada Senators Ensign and Reid, and called Senator Reid’s office as he is said to be an animal advocate (?) In his office you get an actual person answering the phone very quickly. Try it you’ll like it. Be sure to give your name and it would probably help if you live in HNevada.877 894 7711
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Oh not the mighty BLM, they aren’t worried about retribution ( and there is going to be more than they think) or anything else. I hope that when the hammer falls on these rats( and I’m insulting rats by comparison) that I get to see and enjoy it. You know what happen in France when the peasants were stepped on one to many times = revolution resulted. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head : for them LOL
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The DOI/BLM-MMS/USDA and state agencies do what they do to the wild equines (and other species) because the majority of the American public doesn’t give a S**T!
Congress is perpetually paralyzed by fundraising (aka “you give me cash, I give you a favor in return”) and politicizing via polarization by parties (how I wish we didn’t have what we have now).
BTW, Anderson Cooper 360 had a feature wherein the guest talked about the government spin doctors and the crap (fluff) website they have re: the Gulf.
This is turning into: “Gee…we thought we were doing a good job and WHOOPS! all the wild equines are either dead, zeroed out, sterilized or in holding…my bad. Forgive us…We made a boo-boo?!?!?”
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Thunderstorms and high winds in Elko today. Hopefully postpone and that someone take the handbook to the judge so he can read for himself they are break there own protocol.
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This article was just posted on the internet; it is an AP article, I don’t know where the aerial report would be accessed:
RENO, Nev. — Faced with legal challenges accusing the government of rounding up too many wild horses in the West, federal land managers released a new aerial survey Friday, claiming it confirms that they left as many mustangs as they intended after a contentious roundup last winter.
Horse protection advocates complained their own surveys had found nowhere near the 900 mustangs the Bureau of Land Management said it intended to leave on the range when it removed nearly 2,000 of the animals from the Calico mountains about 200 miles north of Reno.
But a new census from an aerial survey the BLM conducted during the last half of June found 1,141 mustangs in the five management areas that make up the Calico complex. The complex covers an area from just north of Gerlach, about 35 miles wide, running 50 miles north to the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge on the Nevada-Oregon line.
The larger overall survey found 4,217 horses in 13 horse management areas in parts of Nevada, California and Oregon.
“We are pleased to get this larger survey because it does reinforce the census and the information we have used in the past to guide our management of these areas,” BLM spokeswoman Jo Lynn Worley told The Associated Press.
Worley said BLM expected to find a minimum of the 600 horses it was required to leave on the range in the Calico complex. A second survey of the same area is planned in the fall.
A number of advocacy groups that have filed lawsuits in the past to try to block roundups that the BLM says are necessary because the wild horse population is growing so rapidly that the animals are running out of food and damaging the range.
In Defense of Animals lost a legal bid to block the Calico roundup in federal court earlier this year. Lawyers for that group said last month they intend to sue over a roundup of about 2,000 and burros planned later this summer in the Twin Peaks area of northeast California.
On Friday, In Defense of Animals joined ecologist Craig Downer in filing an appeal with the Interior Board of Land Appeals to try to block a separate roundup the BLM was scheduled to begin by the end of this week in northeast Nevada. The appeal asks for a stay of BLM’s plans to remove up to 1,200 wild horses and leave behind 337 mustangs at what it calls the Owyhee complex, three management areas covering 750 square miles north of Elko.
The appeal says the roundup should be postponed until after Aug. 15 because it is too close to the end of the peak foaling season on June 30, unnecessarily subjecting the young to life-threatening conditions including the “helicopter-created chase, or stampede, of horses for miles over rugged terrain in desert summer temperatures.”
“We continue to ask for a freeze on roundups so BLM isn’t relying on census after the fact to confirm they haven’t wiped out American herds,” said Ginger Kathrens, executive director of the horse advocacy group Cloud Foundation based in Colorado Springs, Colo. “BLM needs to commit some of their budget on scientific range monitoring and accurate censusing before they conduct these incredibly expensive roundups and removals.”
The BLM estimates there currently are 38,400 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states — about 12,000 more than what it describes as the legally “appropriate management level.” Between 16,000 and 17,000 are in Nevada.
Elsewhere in Nevada, activists with the financial backing of Madeleine Pickens and others were hoping to buy all 174 horses up for sale at a state-sanctioned auction on Saturday to prevent them from going to the slaughterhouse. Nevada Department of Agriculture officials praised the move, saying the estray horses up for auction in Fallon are separate from and not subject to the federal protections afforded wild-roaming horses. The horses are believed to be strays or descendants of horses abandoned by private owners over the years in Pilot Valley north of West Wendover near the Utah line.
Pickens is the wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens.
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Associated Press writer Martin Griffith contributed to this report.
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Per Jolynn Worley, no photos at all were taken during this count. No photos. None. Not one photo.
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Oops, guess someone thought someone else was bringing the camera. BAD BLM!!! JW personally said they didn’t take photos? Not even a photo of a waterhole being trampled by wild horses? I find this difficult to swallow. Maybe there were too many cows in the frames.
So there’s nothing but their word to back up the numbers. I’d love to get whoever did the counts under oath. Was the parallel survey (can’t remember by what agency) conducted to confirm the BLM’s findings?
Does either agency have protocols for surveys? Where’s the BLM’s supposed commitment to science? We’re supposed to accept numbers generated by agents with a pre-planned removal agenda without independent oversight?
Business as usual for our lying, cheating government.
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Hey Linda, You heard the expression: Liar Liar Pants on Fire? Well I guess you know that that perty well describes the BLM Ar* Oh’s. Besides ~L~O~O~S~E~R~S~
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NO PHOTOS OF THE BLM COUNT?
That’s par for the course for BLM, they NEVER back-up any text with a photo, never.
Because their text words are all lies.
Some BLM took pictures with their cell phone I bet. comeon one of you BLM is not a spineless skulking-hiding-horse killer… post those cell phone photos!! get a gmail account and email those photos to this blogs email.
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Let’s start with the reality for readers:
(1) last checked info is that there are 20% fewer equines in auction holding based on roundup numbers from NVDA….could be at a spa, but the number seems to be consistent with KBs trailers (2 precisely or maybe the renderer picked up the dead and euthanized);
(2) for AP journalist Martin Griffith (and whom ever)….and the scientific papers, research, photos, video re the numbers of free roaming equines in Calico (hell, how about anywhere) is where?…from whom (other than the tax subsidized horse whackers) including physical evidence with names and dates????? Just where is it Sir?
As to BLMs “info”…yeah, right and pigs fly and chickens have teeth (or is that what DOI/FDA/USDA believe because Tyson and Smithfield tell them so?) Actually, kinda sounds like BP America telling DOI that they won’t have a blow-out and if they do, they have clean up plans and equipment.
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What a crock of crap. Of course they are going to give a report that backs up their lieing sorry Arses. I could report that I had a million dollars in the bank and that would be as true as this vile lieing report. I hope the judge that is looking at this slaps a restrining order on these vermin BLM and send out his/her own surveyers and they take some horse groups with them and just see how much the BLM is lieing through their teeth and then that judge will have the BLM on a silver plater and slap them with purgery charges along with the long list of other crimes that are guilty of. Of course they would have to put guards out because as low down as the BLM is, they would haul some of their captive mustangs in to validate their report. What scum.
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An opinion writer in the Chicago Sun-Times, described Obama as doing a “Bush-lite” version of governing.
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Its time for a new President. One that will have the back bone to stand up to the likes of the BLM (Animal Nazi’s) God what is it going to take to stop these ignorant SOB’s in their traacks. People stand up and fight. These are nothing but a bunch of money grubbing no account carpet baggers. Stop these vile things in their tracks. This so called President that campained on change has got to go along with Salazar and the rest of his looser cronies. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
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I have one simple question. Since BLM isn’t doing things legally and with humanity, why are observers even asking? Why don’t they just go ahead and observe?
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Should just get a bunch of people and block their exiting where they are starting from. That would put a dent in their brutal existance LOL!
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While everyone else is playing according to the rules BLM is using this that time to destroy the herds.
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By the time they are proven wrong, it’s going to be too late for the Wild Mustangs and Wild Burros. I still don’t understand why a restraining order wasn’t put on the BLM! That to me seems like the first thing that should have been done to stop these murderous black hearted Animal Nazi’s.
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