Story by Steven Long ~ Editor/Publisher of Horseback Magazine
“…11 horses from Big Bend Ranch State Park had been sold to slaughter”
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The director of the largest state park system in the continental United States has embroiled himself in a controversy that has already stirred the passions of animal advocates nationwide. Furthermore, he has possibly been enmeshed in an outright lie.
Greater Houston Horse Council president Barbara Chopek, a Magnolia, Texas realtor, wrote State Parks Director Brent Leisure in outrage after learning 11 horses from Big Bend Ranch State Park had been sold to slaughter. The note from the council president should carry special weight with the department. This year, The GHHC has worked directly with the state parks department to establish horse trails at Galveston Island State Park and Sea Rim State Park. It has also served on a TPWD committee to screen candidates for a horse livery contract at Lake Livingston State Park.
Earlier in the year the state sold about 60 Texas prison horses to killer buyer Trent Saulters for slaughter.
Chopek wrote to the director as well as to others in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Power train after Horseback had published internal state documents obtained by investigator Julie Caramante showing the state was well aware they were selling horses to a known “killer buyer” purveying animals to a Mexican horse slaughterhouse across the Rio Grande from Presidio, Texas.
Chopek wrote:
“As I sit here tonight reading about your recent “culling of the herd” at Big
Bend Ranch State Park my blood is boiling. Can you really be doing this? I
would like to suggest you make a visit to Presidio, Tx and see the
deplorable conditions these horses are kept in before they are shipped
across the border to the most inhumane slaughter plants in existence. Why on
earth would our state parks department allow indiscriminate breeding of the
horses entrusted to their care? I read a comment by Kevin Good that stated
“as horses do sometimes, they made baby horses” is an adult state employee
actually making this comment and is he UNSUPERVISED?
I don’t know whether to laugh or CRY! Good grief I hope he is not a father
of teenage boys!
I hope what I am reading is a case of the left hand not knowing what the
right is doing and not the customary way TPWD conducts daily business,
because if it is I now know why Texas State Parks are pleading for help.
Here are my suggestions
Geld all stallions at once.
Any surplus horses need to be given up to rescue groups, not sold across the
river for slaughter Make some intelligent decisions folks……the people of
this state will not stand for this activity or decision making process.
Take a drive to Presidio…..what you will see will sicken you.
Have a good night’s sleep all
Barb Chopek
President
Greater Houston Horse Council”
In a memo acquired by Caramante under Texas open records laws park officials settled on the rock bottom “canner” horse price of .25 cents per pound. In an August 12, 2012 memo obtained by the investigator TPWD official Dan Sholly wrote:
“Are we willing to take canner prices for our horses? Is that all they are worth? No blood lines? No high potential for more than dog food?
I am supportive of reducing the ramuda.”
Another memo obtained by Caramante stated:
“I have found a local buyer in Presidio who will buy all of the horses from the park we no longer need. He will come pick up the horses at Sauceda on his expense. This will save us money on fuel and travel cost to the auction. I have called the Talpa Horse sale near San Angelo and the going price is $0.35 per pound: the local buyer will pay us $0.25 per pound…Please consider this option for the park and sale of horses to a local buyer, and exempt us from a surplus sale.”
In an email to Chopek, Leisure confirmed the longtime killer buyer sold the horses to Mexico. He claimed the park staff was unaware of the killer buyer’s intentions to sell for slaughter even though they had used terms such as “canner prices” and the going rate for the sale of slaughter horses.
The director wrote:
Click (HERE) to read the rest of the story and to comment
Related articles
- Texas’ Big Bend State Park Sends Horses to Slaughter (rtfitchauthor.com)
- Pro-Horse/Anti-Slaughter Super PACs Popping Up Like Petunias (rtfitchauthor.com)
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
These actions should not be occurring in our country!!! The State Officials know what is happening!! Any life, human or animal, to be sold for mere pennies, is disgusting!! Exposure through the media!!
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The Governor is just as guilty as Brent Leisure, Barret Durst and the others who sent babies and mothers to die cruelly with a patella knife in Mexico. We delivered a petition to Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and Gov. Perry January 18th 2012 with 103,000 signatures protesting the shooting of our protected wild burros at Big Bend Ranch State Park. All of the same players involved with that slaughter of innocence are involved with the murder of these majestic horses. To date, we have not gotten a response. Not one indication that anyone in Austin thinks the will of the people is important. The petition is ongoing and can be found at http://www.donkeyscando.com We are up to 110,000 signatures now. Eye witnesses have told me that they never stopped shooting our rare wild burros. They claimed to have suspended shooting in April a week before our March for Mercy, so that they could conduct an aerial population survey, but they really didn’t. R.T. Fitch and his sweet wife Terry attended that march. R.T. proudly walked our white donkey throughout. She was a symbolic reference to the white donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem in peace on Palm Sunday. They KNEW this march would have huge impact, so they partnered with HSUS to take off the heat. They are liars. HSUS who partnered with them for the survey, was no longer involved a few weeks later. TPWD simply used their organization’s name for cover, and as soon as the cameras were gone, simply started shooting again.
Have any of you visited Big Bend Ranch State Park? Please do. They also stated in FOIA documents that they will not shoot if people are around as witnesses. They also don’t like to shoot in the winter because the vulture activity is low. Take your camera. Although stunningly beautiful and vast, you will find that very little lives there anymore. They have been gunning down all of the elk, aoudad, cougar, bobcat, wild longhorn cattle and wild burros with each unobserved opportunity. By the way, to keep the record straight. I spoke with Luis Armendariz and Robert Garcia who broke the burro massacre story. There were over 200 wild burros shot and left to rot in 2007. I have the photographs of mothers shot in their belly and the babies they shot too. It was horrific carnage, a true blood bath where these peaceful animals were shot anywhere on their bodies and many wondered off to die in agony after weeks of suffering. The story wrote 71 because that is all that Don Sholly and Mike Hill wrote down. How many sales of ranch horses sold do you think they wrote down? Food for thought; they are corrupt.
The focus and mindset of these officials is the high dollar big game trophy hunters who will pay in excess of $150,000 for a permit to shoot a bighorn sheep. People like TPWD David Riskind who lives in Terlingua feel this park belongs to them exclusively. Gov. Perry another blood lusting hunter is another who believes it is perfectly alright to launder money through the permit program to kill the people’s wildlife without remorse or thought of the ecological damage, or the people’s rights to protect them on OUR land. The stink goes all the way to the top, and Austin has crap all over its face. Get rid of all of them, and make it hard for them to kill anymore. Please, go to the park and bring your long range lenses. I have been informed that in October there will be a new aerial shooting spree aimed at killing the feral longhorn who they cannot gather. I assure you longhorn will not be their only targets. Any loose horses, wild burros, or other wildlife they deem “unworthy” will be shot too. If you can go please do. The animals need all of you.
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“lies catch up with liars!!”
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Would like to know just what he meant when he said horses we no longer need, sounds like he was talking about yesterdays garbage, reminds me of a song , when I see your true colors coming through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who the hell is he certainly not the all seeing eye !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where lives are concerned he is a NOBODY! Every horses life matters, more so then this person could ever imagine in his in the box life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I don’t understand how they can complain about overpopulation and not geld???????
Double Dumba$$e$!
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Those memos show that TWPD seems to to be littered with dumba$$e$ and liars.
I would love to see the vet records for those dumped equines….still talking about horses for dog food?????? WTH!!!!!!…slaughtered in Mexico no less.
Great investigative work and thank you Houston Horse Council/Miss Barb.
Thank you Horseback.
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BTW, is that a repost typo by Horseback or SFTHH regarding the word “ramuda”?
Because the word is spelled “Remuda”
Definition: A Remuda is a herd of horses from which ranch hands select their mounts. The word is of Spanish derivation, for “change of horses” ….courtesy Wiki.
I didn’t know Big Bend Park was a ranch and managed as such.
Learn something everyday!
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This person should be relieved of his duty. Fired and thrown out.
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You’d have to start with the governor and then work your way down.
So many Dipwads and so little time for the equines in Texas.
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This comment was posted on HORSEBACK:
Miss Abby on August 24, 2012 at 12:22 am
TPWD has utterly destroyed the people’s trust and demonstrated they are not up to the job mandated of “protecting and preserving the cultural and historical resources” of the lands they manage. They are an abysmal failure. They are bringing to a halt the very popular and long standing cattle drives. People from all walks of life could sign up and join in so they could experience what it was like to work on a ranch in Texas in the 1800’s herding longhorn. They are getting rid of the heritage herd of longhorns who have genetics going back 500 years! No more cattle drives, no more cattle, no more horses. They intend to shoot from helicopters in October the remaining longhorns they cannot gather because they have gone wild. Certainly any horses, burros, elk, aoudad, cougar, or bobcat who come across their sites will be shot too, and left to rot. It is the TPWD way of doing business, and it is not up to par with the expectations of an agency paid by the people of the United States of America. (Yes, they get federal dollars too) FOIA documents I have received in the recent past discussed the need for secrecy from the public of these activities. They state, if people are present do not shoot. I was told that they don’t shoot in the winter as much either because the vultures are not active. Disturbing to hear from a person charged with protecting our wildlife.
Spin control is right. They lie, they cheat, they play shell games with the taxpayer’s money, and they do all of this without direct over-sight. We need a Congressional inquiry into the management of our parks lands. We need to demote all of the employees back to the role they should be playing which is giving tours, enforcement and providing information. The parks need over-sight by a panel of people chosen by the public. And, the department itself needs to get rid of the Entrepreneurial Budget Strategy that gives superintendents carte blanc free range to find ways to make money with the parks they oversee. It is a conflict of interest created in the 90’s that has changed the departments focus from conservation to business. It doesn’t work.
In 2013 the state legislature meets again, and I do believe this needs to be on the agenda. Not only is TPWD going to move toward privatization of all their parks, but they are moving to change the intended land usage of Big Bend Ranch State park which was purchased expressly to preserve the ranching way of life. It was in the language of the sale and promises made to landowners who sold them their properties to merge into this huge tract of land.
This is what I got yesterday for my most recent open records request about the burros they are “supposedly” not shooting at the moment. Stonewall.
Dear Ms. Farabee,
We have been working on your request, and I have been informed that there are approximately 100,000 emails that were received by the agency in reference to the burros. I believe they are all of the same format, but just sent by different people. Under the Public Information Act, email addresses of members of the public are confidential, and therefore every email would have to be printed and redacted before it could be released to you. This would generate enormous costs to you for the time spent to do that. Would it be sufficient to provide you with just one of those emails so you can see the format? If not, I will prepare a formal cost estimate for you to provide you with the rest of the emails. Thank you, and have a good day.
Laura Russell
Attorney
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
(512) 389-8335
(512) 389-4482 (fax)
Learn how you can help Texas State Parks
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Ahhhh…the privatization of anything public. This would be the mantra of Darth Vader aka Cheney. I think Darth is hosting another “Jackson Hole” control the world meeting, closed to the public and press of course.
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Here is what HSUS does to publicize the cruelty of the BLM roundup at Desatoya—NOTHING. Two links— to the Waynes Blog and this month’s “Update for Animals” , and not a word of the observation of cruelty by Holly Hazard—–a foal tied up and left in the path of stampeding adult horses being driven by helicopter.
http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/?utm_source=hsusfooterblog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blog
http://action.humanesociety.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=46121.0&dlv_id=48661
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
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Thank You Susan !!!!
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This comes as no surprise to me after the burros tragedy and now public service horses,gee,I wonder if Rick Perry our governor appointed this guy,Perry is clearly not engaged in animal rights or human rights for that matter.
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He never bothered to respond to the 103,000 signatures on our protest demanding that they stop shooting the burros either. 103,000!! That is a lot, yet he ignored us. The petition is ongoing and can be found at http://www.donkeyscando.com on the left hand column. We are up to 110,000 now and will deliver them again when we reach 150,000.
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Again so sadistic and wrong headed to treat the horses after lifetimes of service this way!
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