Guest OpEd by Grandma Gregg
“BLM also considers themselves as being “above” Mother Nature too…”
Rain Horse courtesy of Lydia Rose
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) publicly published the statement that they are above the law and the 1971 Congressional Wild Horse and Burro protection LAW DOES NOT PERTAIN TO THEM! BLM stated: “The … [Congressional] Act … is not pertinent to the overall management of the wild horse and burro populations by the BLM and USFS. In general, it protects the wild horses and burros from such actions by the general populous.”
Well … apparently the BLM also considers themselves as being “above” Mother Nature too because they insist wild horses must be removed from their legally designated land (our public land) because of current widespread “drought” and BLM has been pushing this same drought agenda for at least three years. Basically these “emergency” roundups are just a front/excuse to round up as many wild horses and burros as they want, when they want and behind the public’s back with no accountability by using bait/water trapping. Read this trapping article: https://rtfitchauthor.com/2012/08/06/wild-horse-and-burro-bait-trapping-going-going-gone/
In order for anything to be considered normal or average there must be ups and downs. In 2011 the precipitation in Elko (mid-Nevada) was 125% of normal, 2012 was 63% of normal and as of April 2013 Elko had 78% of normal precipitation and since then [May] it has had another almost half-inch of rain and today’s forecast states, “BRIEF HEAVY RAIN” and “MODERATE TO LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN IS CURRENTLY FALLING” and “RAINFALL RATES OF ONE-QUARTER TO ONE-HALF INCH PER HOUR IS POSSIBLE IN THIS [storm] BAND”.
If there are any forage or water shortages on the wild horse and burro management areas it is because these resources have been sold right out from under the noses of the legally designated wild horses and burros and right out from under the noses of you and me … by guess who … the Bureau of Land Management. Disgusting!
National Weather Service (NOAA) website: http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/rainfall_data.php
Related Articles
- Wild Horse and Burro Advocates Say Enough is Enough to the BLM’s Continued Stampede Tactics (rtfitchauthor.com)
- BLM Honcho: “It’s not MY job- but I can sure doubletalk” (rtfitchauthor.com)
- BLM Looks to Spaying as Method to Further Decimate Wild Horse Populations (rtfitchauthor.com)
- BLM Offers Free Wild Horse Manure to Public, Really (rtfitchauthor.com)
Categories: Horse News, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
We need to get people into the BLM that want to help the wild horses and burros and not just want to line their pockets with blood money from killing all of the wild horses and burros !
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Sounds like the BLM needs to be sued, AGAIN!!!
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It’s all about the money, Lynette, and the cost is high…we are paying but the pockets of the BLM are very deep and ours are not. We NEED to shut this down and that is why we are here but without the help of those who could afford to make a difference we simply shuffle along attempting to pick our battles the best we can…..
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What does Obama think about all of this? Is he pro Save the Wildhorse herds? I don’t really know.
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They’re running off of our tax money..i guess they would have far greater funds available than we do. No different than that scum, De Los Santos..
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AGREED!
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I agree, they need to be held accountable, time t go back to court!
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The bottom line is they want to create a high grade, grass fed horsemeat product to sell overseas. The drought issue is just more of their smoke and mirrors game but we can see it for what it really is.
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This is the worst Corruption of it’s kind!!!! Our Wild Horses are at serious risk of being wiped out
forever!!….
This is a vicious cycle that never ends!! BLM you are a Pathetic Organization that needs
to be removed entirely!!!!!
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Say what!? Sorry this just leaves me speechless…wow and double wow.
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Say goodbye to the eastern third of Nevada and just about anywhere that will keep water flowing to the “economic engines” of the West. Thank you, BLM, for continuing to destroy our public lands and those who depend on them for their lives, livelihoods, and enjoyment. We aren’t important enough to to the economy to retain our historic water rights.
http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/blm-okays-controversial-nevada-water-pipeline
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And thanks to the government for allocating a huge amount of our Upper San Juan Basin water to the Navajo. Their water rights are tied to the establishment of the original, approximately 100 mile square Reservation in 1886, no matter when it was expanded or who else had historic rights at the time or any time afterward.
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Terrific article , GM Gregg. The HSUS has the funds and lawyers to sue the BLM so why isn’t it doing so ? Also there needs to be a Congressional investigation of the DOI/BLM as some have been saying for years. How can we get this done?
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I agree with you Barbara. The BLM just keeps on lying about the wild horses. Something must be done. This has been going on far too long now.
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all of you are doing important work, but i think if there were more effort to out the specifac individuals and organization that are producing junk science (like SRM, which call itself a scientific org, but which really is composed not of scientists qualified to research, but of blm employees and ranchers, or few of which have BS degrees (bs in every sense) bs degrees to not qualify people to do research except under supervision of those more qualified is advanced degrees…outing this kind of crap and targting there disinformation would hasten the process of winning over ecological orgs whose alliance we need and who have fallen prey to disinformation. i’ve personally been working on this for over a year, but i’m just one person…hoping more advos will choose this path, esp. those with scientific background
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Independent science will give us answers that have never been sought to the crisis BLM has created. Science needs to be paid for in the private sector and not the BLM as this is what the 71 Act directs us to do in order to avoid all the propaganda and conflict of interest we get all the time. We need to write grants and put together a professional team who can do field research and assessments to counter BLM rubbish. We can do this if people want to put the effort into it.
There are those of us who have seen this route but have not been able to cut through the highly emotional routes others are taking.
We are going to have to get behind hard science with an organized effort.
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Shame on the BLM they need to be all replaced with people that care about animals and not blood money!
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The BLM needs to be stopped. They believe that they are unstoppable so we need to stop them in their lying tracks. The wild horses and burros need to be left in the natural habitat, wild and free. The Government Land that is meant for the wild horses and burros.
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I agree with Shirley, it’s past time for pro wild equid people to get these jobs: http://www.jobsonline.net/browse/homepage_what.html?KEYWORD=blm%20job&tp_campaign_id=925&traffic_id=421452351
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Everyone has heard of the “bread basket of the world” Our Great Plains were once inhabited by the great herbivores and their predictors. Horses ripping the barks off the forests trampling the land bringing insects, birds and meat eaters. Ultimately creating the most fertile land on earth. So lets manage them so we can decide what works best. Oil pipelines, drilling, development We are desperate and dependent on oil yet 100 years ago we had no oil and horses 100 years from now we will have no oil or horses. BELIEVE it. There is nothing that will replace oil except a life style as it was before oil. Thanks BLM for ending human existence. Then maybe the few horses left can again breed in vast numbers and remake the land as they once did.
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Until the DOI puts their foot down there will be no justice for the wild mustangs or burros. Even though the horse advocates have tried to play nice, they have never reciprocated and played by the rules themselves. Now i suppose turret think they’re God and can wreak havoc on mother nature. I hope all of these greedy crooks get what’s coming to them and that puppet in office now had to see how they ravage this country. Sorry for the rant but I’ve had enough.
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And the deeper we investigate the more corrupt we find they are!
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THE BLM IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW OF NATURE OR OTHERWISE, THEY NEED TO BE DISBANDED AND A NEW COUNCEL NEEDS TO BE APPOINTED BY THE PEOPLE NOT THE PEOPLE THAT THE BLM IS IN BED WITH. THEY ARE A BUNCH OF WHORE MONGERS FOR MONEY. TIME TO GO!!
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WHY is No ONE in our Gov. looking at BLM?? Has the oil company’s and big agr. taken over completely, looks like it to me… This horse slaughter WILL be here you wait and see and then ALL the wild mustangs will be gone that has been the plan since the defunding wording was taken out of the inspection for USDA…. THEY have had a plan and are going to implement it with NO regard to the American people or certainly not the horses…. this country if it continues the way it is, is in for a very dark dark road….There are no words that can make this better, SOMEONE has to step up and make BLM accountable, someone with the power and money that can make them jump…. Seems like when ever we want any kind of change we all have to have power and money to have anyone listen, that in itself is SO SO WRONG!!!! I personally am not liking the world we are living in, not a good place……..
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Absolutely, Grandma Gregg!! BLM officials are knifing the wild horses in the back! They are their worst betrayers precisely because they have the legal authority to protect them but are doing all the opposite. This abomination must cease NOW!!!!
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Debbie, I wish there was a like button for peoples comments, you hit the nail on the head. Oil and AG certainly have taken over, and while your at it you can throw in the pharmaceutical companies, and GMO companies as well!
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BLM is hoping that enough AG-GAG laws and other unconstitutional rubbish will slow us to a stop eventually. They are sure making themselves godlike!
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Arla, who lives in Eastern Nevada, says there is no drought affecting the 3 HMAs BLM is saying they will remove horses from due to drought.
BLM policy was for Cattle and sheep are to be removed and not allowed back onto horse range until the drought is past and the grasses recovered. his is what the BLM is supposed to adhere to. We have to insist this is what they do~!
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Absolutely, Mar. I just passed through the northern end of these HMAs and took some pictures and there is plenty of grass and moisture for the horses. It’s just that the “conspiracy” never admits anything in favor of the wild horses and their freedom, but has a one track mind against them!!!! This can no longer be tolerated by any decent, still morally aware human being!!!!!
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The lies and corruption never seems to end, Craig and you’re right, decent caring human beings have the right to be heard. With the facts and truth on the side of the advocates, I find it appalling they are not held accountable for all the wrong-doing in misrepresenting the true conditions of our lands and the wild horses who inhabit them. Where is their/our protection of Free Roaming Wild Horses and Burros?! They still belong to the American people, don’t they?! Enough is Enough!!!
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5-31-2013 The BLM is composed of nothing but anti-wild horse-burros ranchers, which is the required qualifications to be a BLM employee and pledge to rid “their” public lands of wild horses-burros. BLM is in violation of the Federal law. Where the heck is our wimpy non-compassionate president? In a safe profitable “Bubble” in Wash.D.C. He’s in bed with these welfare guys…a republicCON in Democratic clothes. He is an idiot when it comes to America’s wild horses-burros, etc.
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Ok, so today my guess is my comments will be more truth from my own heart than -coptanything-my grandfather instilled into me a sense of history, values, morality, and America. He did this with and through the horses. My intense desire to be a like a flower in a field of weeds. The weeds take over, they drain the feed of the moisture, and push upwards eliminating the sun for the smaller life, they bring the predators and disguise the landscape so you cant see the beauty. He said I keep popping up to the weeds dismay and I wrap myself around the weeds to grow higher and be able to see above them-in doing so if gives an opportunity to see what’s hidden from above. So in this case the weeds are the pro-slaughter defiance and the ones below are the horses. I don’t know about ya’ll but I am ready to get the bush-hog rolling and cut the weeds out! I am sick of the BLM cost management and the supposed water issues, so much that I contacted Drovers Network to stomp a knot in their tails over supporting the drought propaganda-I have a weather radio, I get the weather radar mapping for the US for the trucking company that my ex husband runs. So why are the big rigs running through rain in the same spots yelling no water? He said that water hauling tankers are pulling water out of the areas that are supposed to be overrun with drought and fatigue to eliminate the overflows! I contacted the cattlemens association, the farm bureau-yes all lower case, they no longer are actual businesses in my vocation. I demand that we check and double check the cost effectiveness of the blm and I think we need to go through and fire all non-essential personal working with the horses. Right now in Utah a sale has to take place and people are scrambling like mad to buy up horses 31 mares and some yearlings pure bred horses that are beind sold off after being saved from neglect and abuse. Google the story. The killer buyers are going to be at the sale to buy up those animals. People we have the greatest fight in history on our hands, we have to mow the weeds down at every opportunity, we have to sue for the rights to get into the blm money and find out how as horse management that money can be better spent to maintain the animals and reduce the budget. I don’t believe a damn thing they say about costs. I received a phone call this morning from a man who claims he gets paid to haul off the blm horses such an extreme amount of money that he lives off working for them only a few months a year. I asked him to come forward, the only thing he said was he promised if we dig into the blm money and we look at the costs they claim to pay for the needs of the animals we will find that is overinflated and over spent so that people can benefit from the cash for personal gain. I believe him, I have often questioned why are we spending 6 million for a short amount of round up time for a helicopter he said they could have bought a used one years ago and saved tons of money by using it with an hourly rated pilot. I am so sick of the deceptions they state so that they can make the public believe we are paying for the horses, we are paying for something, and the horses are NOT it, I want the answers just as my grandfather demanded before, I want to know what the hell is really going on. If you are in UTAH or near where those horses are please dear God bid on them, its a small herd, the rescues cared for them for several months and now the killer buyers want them, they are pedigreed, healthly, beautiful animals. If I was closer I would be there. I am so sick of the killer buyers swooping in and killer the day! li
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Here are some ideas that were just given to me.
I think we can certainly send this “questionable drought” information to the BLM, saying that weather patterns appear to be changing and there is significant monsoonal moisture occurring in the summer months and that this should be taken into consideration as they prepare to remove more horses from the range. Buzz words we could use are: this “constitutes significant new information” which calls into question the need for such an extensive removal operation at this time.
Probably even more effective is to document how healthy the range is, how much water is out there (Craig? Arla?) and available and try to publicize that – shame them in the newspapers – flood Sally Jewel with this type of information – create a campaign and get hundreds of people to call and e-mail letting her know that there is no reason for this roundup – or a roundup of this magnitude. That would probably have a better chance at getting them to BACK OFF.
Can someone provide us with the contact information for Sally Jewell? I found the below contact information but not sure how accurate it is: and the field offices in charge of the upcoming Triple B removal are Elko and Wells and Egan. Let’s tell them what we think – not forgetting that sugar collects more flies than vinegar.
Secretary Jewell
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
feedback@ios.doi.gov
Nevada State Office
nvsoweb@blm.gov
NV State Director, Amy Lueders
alueders@blm.gov
Elko District Office
3900 E. Idaho Street
Elko, NV 89801
Phone: 775-753-0200
Fax: 775-753-0255
Email: elfoweb@blm.gov
District Manager: Jill Silvey
jsilvey@blm.gov
Wells Field Office
3900 E. Idaho Street
Elko, NV 89801
Phone: 775-753-0200
Fax: 775-753-0385
Field Manager: Bryan Fuell
bfuell@blm.gov
Egan Field Office
702 North Industrial Way, HC 33 Box 33500
Ely, NV 89301
Phone: 775-289-1800
Fax: 775-289-1910
Field Manager: Vacant (address to Acting Field Manager)
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feedback@ios.doi.gov has been working for me.
I would like to suggest that our best hope is in the horse-loving philanthropists, celebrities, lawyers, politicians, and well known activists. Lawsuits and congressional investigation to require that the law be correctly followed and enforced is what is needed.
Those of us who write, blog, and email are the base who stand behind those who can wield influence, but we have little hope of making changes unless we advocates and activists work together with optimism, enthusiasm, coherence, and large numbers. We need a leader.
Those who hate the horses and have the will to kill them are organized and united in their efforts. How do we organize this network of advocates for the WH&Bs and anti-horse slaughter? How do we go from ranting to action?
Who will take charge and lead us?
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http://ppjg.me/2011/10/14/comments-to-blm-on-snwas-nevada-water-grab/
Comments to BLM on SNWA’s Nevada Water Grab
October 14, 2011
Debbie Coffey (c)copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved
The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) wants the rights to pump billions of gallons of water annually from rural central Nevada and Utah toLas Vegas. This will be catastrophic for farmers and ranchers in central Nevada and Utah. SNWA would drain the groundwater below the existing vegetation of about 19,000 square miles (about the size of Vermont).
Again, the BLM is lacking foresight by not doing 1 foot and 5 foot water drawdown maps, which could dry up streams in these HMA areas. Will the BLM guarantee no future Wild Horse roundups in these HMAs since the BLM has extra forage to destroy? The BLM seems to minimize the impact of the GDP in this DEIS, while the BLM seems to exaggerate the “degradation to the range” caused by wild horses in comparison to this project.
6) Concerning Cultural Resources, Socioeconomics & Environmental Justice, and Public Health & Safety: This DEIS uses the word “not expected” often, which seems to allow a lot of “wiggle room” for error. This section of the DEIS also uses the word “foreseeable,” but then seems to allow for short sightedness in anticipating realistic outcomes by omitting other factors. For instance, the public is aware that solar projects use a LOT of water, and solar projects may be near the same areas as this GDP. Also, much of this land seems to be on the Chainman Oil Shale, so it should be anticipated more water will be used for oil and gas drilling.
7) According to the DEIS, 176,656 acre feet of water will be used annually (57.6 BILLION gallons of water per year). And according to Chapter 3, 3.4- 7, maps show areas with severe water erosion potential, vast “draughty soils” areas near prime farmland, and areas with low re-vegetation potential. FLPMA mandates BLM to manage multiple uses to avoid continued degradation of the rangelands and to “prevent further degradation of rangeland resource.” If BLM grants the ROWs for this GDP, it would be a reckless disregard of FLPMA, which mandates that resources be utilized to best meet the present and future needs of the American people and consider long term needs of future generations. Would creating a dust bowl in Central Nevada be in the best interest of future generations? Will this GDP contribute to future food shortages when farmers and ranchers no longer have enough water or affordable water for their lands?
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I first heard about the BLM back in 1970. Ive heard only bad things since then .lets stop them now.
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I DESPISE THE BLM AND ANYONE AFFILIATED WITH THEM. THEY ARE A CRUEL BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO SEEM TO ENJOY ABUSING OUR BEAUTIFUL WILD HORSES. !!!
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