Press Release from The Equine Welfare Alliance ~ Update: Documentation Included
Even an Elementary School Dunce knows math better than the BLM
CHICAGO, (EWA) – As controversy swirls over the aggressive removal of horses from the range by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a more fundamental question has arisen over what is happening to the horses it already has in holding. Over the past several years, equine advocates have been scrutinizing the BLM’s horse population counts. Once again, the numbers don’t add up to their claims.
The BLM doesn’t make it easy to track horses being removed from the range or residing in short and long term holding. The taxpayers who pay for the removals and the subsequent care are not allowed to view the horses under the well worn excuse that they are being held on “private property“. Consequently, there are no checks and balances to verify information being reported.
It also raises a salient question. With 262 million mostly vacant acres under its control, why on earth is a federal agency such as the BLM wasting taxpayer’s money to lease private property?
Increasingly, the BLM is using the “private property” wild card whenever they don’t want the public to see what they are doing – whether it’s the actual removals or subsequent holding. A recent article by George Knapp, They execute horses, don’t they?, spoke to this devious maneuver.
Somewhere on “private property” there are 2,282 horses missing from the BLM’s wild horse holding facilities or the numbers the BLM is reporting are not accurate.
As of July 9, 2010, BLM has removed 5,334 horses from public lands and yet, an increase of only 625 horses is reflected on their most recent population facility chart for fiscal-year (FY) 2010.
A first grade child could do the math by taking the number of horses reported on holding facility charts, adding the number of horses rounded-up and subtracting the number reported as adopted and sold and quickly discover the totals are not accurate.
-33,166 horses in holding (starting point for FY 2010 from October 2009 BLM report)
-5,334 horses removed through July 9 (prior to the Tuscarora round-up)
-2,427 adopted, sold & deaths during removals (Although the BLM reported only 2 deaths, we have added a total 170 deaths to compensate for the deaths known to have occurred during the Calico removals)
The BLM numbers don’t even reflect the 300 – 500 adopted horses BLM claims are returned by adopters each year, or the number of foals born in captivity. According to the 2008 GAO BLM report, 303 foals were born in long term holding during FY 2007. In either case, adding those numbers to the counts only increases the number of missing horses.
After allowing for the deaths, the BLM should still have 36,073 horses in holding facilities but they are reporting only 33,791 on the June 2010 holding facility chart. “Where are the 2,282 horses that are missing from BLM’s accounting of the horses in holding facilities?” asked EWA vice president, Valerie James-Patton.
The GAO report states that BLM is not required to report the number of deaths in long term holding facilities, but if 2,282 horses have died there in just a nine month period, there’s a much larger problem taking place in BLM’s wild horse facilities than just what paper work reveals, certainly much more than what BLM is willing to tell.
“How can we have any confidence in BLM’s estimates of the wild horse population when they can’t even count the number of horses in their pens?” asked EWA’s president, John Holland.
The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues free, umbrella organization with over 115 member organizations. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org
BLM documents utilized for the above article are listed below and located on the EWA website. Please refer individuals to these documents for reference or when the BLM changes their numbers, which they do often.
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Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Excellent (once again) post EWA and thanks to you and RT.
Good gravy…what a mess!
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Yes, what a mess. What a mess of a group of human beings the BLM and DOI are!
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The whole set up is for secrecy and to keep the public out. They are horses not secret weapons. The whole shebang has got to come down. Kick BLM/DOI butt people, all the way to transparency and freedom for the wild captives. mar
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For anyone who has not been keeping an eye on BLM gather reports from BLM’s monthly review page, please go to this link below. While BLM did report the deaths for Calico on the special “Calico” page, they did not include the number of deaths in their FY 2010 gather report, and in fact reported 0 gather related deaths, and 2 non-gather related deaths.
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro/wh_b_information_center/monthly_review_of/completed_gather_schedule.html
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Valerie, that has always been their trick – they only count deaths from the time the helicopter starts the run through the chutes. Once the horses are past the chutes, regardless of reasons that they die due to the stampede, they are NOT counted in the deaths. Plus, any that die on the run, they will attempt every trick they can to disqualify them as gather related.
That is the rotten bogus way they keep that irksome .5% death toll they advertize due to stampedes.
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Rox, They also do not count fallen behind horses or foals they either leave to die or go back and shoot. mar
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Mar, I know it is so sad and ugly – these are fellow human beings doing these things.
I want to say “criminal things”, but what they have done to the law makes so many of their actions legal – the chiseling of the law is what is truly criminal – we must get that changed and then instill in future generations to do their due diligence in working “Of the People, By the People, For the People” – we can never again just rest on our laurels and think our Congress is looking out for us – it requires ongoing work and oversight by us the people – just voting is not enough – another sad thing – even getting people to vote. We have all this power and don’t use it – ugh!
How much more evidence of this do we need – MMS and Gulf Spill, many, many Enron messes, Wall Streets near collapse, the mortgage crises, Americas Wild Horses, ripping apart our public lands, wolves, whales, etc., etc….
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Valerie, BLM had up the numbers of horses down on the gather report and noted small groups and put the numbers there without adding them up (they couldn’t add them up?)
and it came to about 84 horses and within the hour before I could get it posted it was removed. Like the gather reports on Calico. So it still says there were horses down. But all the little groups and numbers were removed. These horses were not able to be brought to the trap site. They were euthanized. How and where are they? mar
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I find all this hush hush stuff really scary. Where are they getting numbers from??? They say the numbers are estimated but who really knows???? They get to such and such number because???? What about weather? What about predation? What about illness or the horse having a heart attack. What about horses that get hurt and die as a result of the injury??? Where are they getting these numbers from. I would like to see the mathematical equasion and have someone from the BLM explain it step by step to me.
You know George Lucas wrote about this in the preface to Star Wars IV: A New Hope. He said that the Senate had gone bad so slowly that no one recognized it until it was too late. That it had rotted from the inside out. Other than WE hope WE still have horses out there–this agency is as corrupt as the Senate from Star Wars. Interesting that it was written over 30 years ago and how true it is today.
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This is such a horrible situation, and we feel so helpless. I managed to download that letter to the BLM Document address. I made five copies and addressed and stamped envelopes and took them around my animal loving friends to be signed. And they did. Also sent links to all horsey friends. Hope they contribute to the mailing.
E-mailed my Congressman, Lloyd Doggett, about the letter that the other two congressmen are siculating and asked him to sign it.
What more can we do when we are so far away. (Yep I donate)
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Here is a story that allows us some opportunity to provide links to stories here on R.T.s site. I may be wrong, but better to stay with facts than emotion for lead ins for this group of readers:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/27/nevadas-economic-misery-m_n_661043.html
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BLM – FAIL again ;(. This is just so sad & that’s about all I can say. Disgusting, heartwrenching & WTF are they doing with OUR horses.
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We need WikiLeaks and the Sea Shepherds!
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I am thinking that it must be illegal to remove our public horses off of public land, put them in top secret hiding on private lands where we pay the landowner for their upkeep/stockpiling. So much of what the BLM is doing is illegal or borderline illegal. They could be sued on so many fronts.
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What should be illegal and what IS illegal are two different things:
http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/index.php/news-events-a-media/news/resources/216-whbact
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Tuesdays and every week we think about the wild horses and the questions unanswered, pile to the sky!
where are the 2,000 +++missing adult wild horses blm? And where are the thousands of foals born in holding and gone missing blm? why were there groups of horse skeletons reported in HMAs blm? why was pristine wilderness ruined by large trailers, who stole those horses? where did they take the protected wild horses?
why do your round-up reports say 0 dead at a round-up yet the round-up reports said several “down” all over the HMA?
just how many dead horses have there REALLY been, just this year alone!?
why don’t you microchip and freezebrand every single horse blm?* even a grocery store can track inventory a million different items and you the blm has ONLY 50,000 unique horses to keep track of. That is ONLY 1,000 horses per state!! why can’t you use a microchip reader in the field blm? The chip-reader-gear has been used to read chips under passthrough areas for YEARS! Why BLM do you refuse and ignore requests for 24/7 webcams blm?
why do you hide everything you do?
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Micro chips or names, photos and files in a registry. It is said by those I listen to that to brand a horse makes that horse no longer a wild horse. Branding is not needed. But we do need to know all our horses.
It should be a felony, automatic, to harm or cause the death of any wild horse. This could be a bill to get out there. mar
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All good points and ideas. How far away can those chips be read? And how long are they good for?
As for horse skeletons, – we don’t know why they died. We do need to keep in mind that out of 1000 horses approximalty 100 (or 200?) will die very year on the range due to old age, lightening, broken legs, many reasons – so skeletans are to be expected.
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Rox – I hope you understand I say this with love in my heart for your ideas & your passion but what Our American Mustangs & Burros need is LESS human interference, not more.
Chipping them would still necessitate human contact. It would be an ADDED expense for the Program, and the Bureau’s biggest snivel is how dreadfully costly the Program already is (although an itemized accounting from the Bureau is certainly NOT forthcoming any time soon).
What they need is their land back and devoid of livestock allotments. HMAs should be used for the Wild Ones & the Wildlife they share them with – no hidden mining claims, no water rights bullsh*t. Multiple use on HMAs should be for the Wild Equines, Wildlife & recreation.
With no livestock, there would be no need to hunt predators to extinction. And, while I shudder at the idea of cougars, wolves & coyotes doing their jobs, at drought & lack of forage & infant mortality, I’d much rather the Wild Ones faced enemies on equal terms than face the ones they have no chance against. We – their Advocates – would have to sit quietly and allow Nature it’s course, but to acheive that perfect Ultimate Goal – a Herd conducting it’s daily life – would be a treasure beyond price.
We have far more use for them than they do us. We should be visitors in their lives, not architects.
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There are readers that read barcode and chips from quite a distance. These days we have a lot of easy to use inventory systems out there. I know for years and years the biggest racetracks and training facilities use readers to keep track of where every horse is during their day and night. The pratice run speeds for racehorses are all clocked by code readers aswell and go on computers.
A simple system of BAR CODE readers to track EVERY SINGLE wild horse under BLM care could be even placed on the neck tags with EASE!! though microchips would be harder for a dishonest federal worker to alter. as we know many times there has been numbers ‘games’ and reports changed by someone?
This system would be a HUGE time saver to BLM personal saving hundreds of man hours!and most importanty to me It would FORCE more honesty in accounting for BLMs missing thousands of wild horses.
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far as the skeletons of horses, yes I understand many horses die and there are horsebones all over the deserts.
I even met a guy who walks the deserts up north and sells teeth and sometimes bones and stuff he finds out there. I asked him to look for evidence of horse bones with bullet marks or from groups of skeletons. He told me a few times he has seen and found horse skeletons in piles out in the desert. Been a while but I have the offer out to him if he sees those groups of skeletons, I will buy photos and bones from him.
These days we have forensic Vets, I think even the HSUS has them. The reported group of horse skeletons in the court depo, that is what concerns me a lot. I would love if that group of skeletons can be given a good forensic Vet study asap! and any other horse bones that have what seems to be “HUMAN caused death”
we can use science and dna testing to tell exactly what happenened and how good their life was,how damaged their hooves are.
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Laura, they already do freeze branding – they don’t need a new system, they just need to appropriatly use the system they have. There is though a lag between the time they capture them and freeze brand them – that is where many fear they go missing. This would be the same for chips – so for identificaton purposes there would be this same gap regardless of what the system is.
Austrailia did try a tracking system, not chips though, to get a handle on migration paths. The batteries in those only lasted for so long. The public was actually donating the contraptions in order to facilitate this project hoping it would save the horses – they are under the same push from cattle industries there as here. I have not heard anything from that lately.
Mar is right, it is boots on the ground, noting markings of horses that will be the way to track migrations and if you look to the Pryors we know that will take some time – Ginger is still amazed after 16 years where she finds the horses and how they even get to where she locates them.
The point to all our efforts is to stop these gather operations unless they are truly needed, to make the horses the “primary” users, and put some group in charge that are transparent, that welcome watch dogs and truly are for the wild horses and not for cattle and other conflicting interests. These gathers are direclty related to energy projects and cattle expansion – mark my words they will increase cattle on this land next year or the year after – don’t be fooled by this years “resting” of the land.
Some reports are of ranchers getting allotments released – not sure what that is about yet.
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BLM has no friggin idea how many horses are ANYWHERE! they are the MOST incompetent in a whole Department of incompetence!
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Love it! DOI-Dept of Incompetence.
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I heard that the micro chips are causing cancer in the animals that have had them inserted–some pet owners are having them removed. The cancer shows up at the site of the micro chip insert. Anyone else hear about that?
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No. That is scary.
I have heard of them not working.
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