Comments are due by Sept. 27th!
The Massacre Lakes HMA is entirely within the Massacre Lakes grazing allotment of permittee Gene Erquiaga. In what might seem like a clear conflict of interest to most Americans, the Erquiaga family seems to heavily influence BLM decisions about public lands in ways that could benefit their family. And the BLM has been complicit in this influence peddling.
John Erquiaga was appointed to the BLM Northeastern RAC, John’s wife Bonnie Erquiaga was appointed to be on the Modoc-Washoe Experimental Stewardship Committee. The Modoc-Washoe Experimental Stewardship Committee recommended that only 25-45 wild horses be left on their 39,888 acre HMA.
It is only because of the persistent, hard work of advocate Carla Bowers that we even have Alternative 4, which would allow 100-121 horses to remain on this HMA. Be sure to state that you want ALTERNATIVE 4. However, a viable herd should contain 120-150 wild horses. We need a lot of people to speak up against these entrenched special interests. so PLEASE send in a comment in your own words.
Carla suggested these points be included:
• I support Alternative 4 in the Massacre Lakes EA that will set the AML for the wild horses at 100-121 animals & reduce livestock numbers so that the forage allocations are more in balance with wild horse & livestock use in the limited size, legal HMA. This allocation follows the original intent of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Burros Act.
• I support the herd being preserved for scientific research studies since it is one of the last herds in the ten Western states to be non-manipulated since 1988.
• I support the herd being managed as an individual herd, not as part of a ‘complex’ with nearby HMAs, to preserve its integrity for scientific research. (The proposal to combine the Massacre Lakes HMA into a “complex” with the Bitner, Nut Mountain and Wall Canyon HMAs in order to address genetic and management concerns is not based on science. There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the Massacre Lakes herd migrates out of the HMA to nearby areas to intermix with other herds.)
• I support the herd being managed in family units to preserve its most natural state if animals need to be removed by water/bait trapping to obtain the AML of 100-121.
• I expect the wild horses & burros to be managed in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the American people, not in accordance with the demands of the taxpayer subsidized industries that use my public lands for personal gain.
Submit comments no later than Sept. 27, 2013 to:
(Please include “Massacre Lakes EA, DOI-BLM-CAN070-2013-0021-EA” in the subject line)
Email: casrpubcom@blm.gov
Mail: Bureau of Land Management
Surprise Field Office,
PO Box 460
Cedarville, CA 96104
The Environmental Assessment is
here. Be sure to add some original comments in your own words.
The Massacre Lakes wild horses need your voice. This is your chance to do something!
Share this on behalf of the Horses and Burros::
Related
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Will this be another disaster area loaded up with cattle? Why is it always the cattle ranchers that run the show?? Why does the BLM NOT have to comply with laws that were put in place 30 years ago? The locals need to step up and take a stand for the horses, to actually fight the BLM. We need to get rid of that sector of government completely and move cattle and sheep off the land completely. I’m tired of sending polite meters to this group of nazis who are not civilized human beings but a bunch of terrorists, dictators who think they own this country. If the horses leave, then so must their cattle and sheep!
LikeLike
Cattle ranchers are not running the show. They do make nice cover for those that are.
LikeLike
Done.
LikeLike
Seems to me this family needs to be sent back across the border from whence they came! All of the arms of the government have been infiltrated from the top job of pseudo president by foreigners who don’t care about the USA, just how much money they can amass. Do these people have ties with the Mexican Drug Cartel? It is bigger than horses–
Seems someone is trying to cause trouble between groups, just like Obama stirring up hatred between white and other colors of people. The BLM is NOT a friend of the ranchers. I don’t know any ranchers that might have cattle on BLM but I know they look at every blade of grass and take care of the land. That is how they make an honest living, if the grass is gone so is their means of making money. I don’t know how many acres it takes for horse or cow to keep sustainable forage where this is all happening, but I do know none of the ranchers I know would put their cattle where there is not enough grass to feed them. That would be stupid and they are not stupid people. You might look at the IQ of the BLM and this foreign family and figure out who is the aggressor here. Ranchers take personal responsibility for every animal they own–BLM only looks at the immediate money they and the grafters from other countries can get. I would bet the family who is profiting by wages and horses are giving the BLM employees in that area a big kick back n every horse they steal from the American people!!
LikeLike
Deb Coffey asked me to post that there is absolutely no connection with these people to drug cartels.
LikeLike
FYI… M White – Arquiaga is a Basque name, what border should they be sent back to?
LikeLike
https://www.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/37112/44507/47907/default.jsp?projectName=DOI-BLM-CA-N070-2013-0007-EA
Environmental Assessment
LIVESTOCK GRAZING AUTHORIZATION AND WILD HORSE APPROPRIATE MANAGEMENT LEVEL ESTABLISHMENT
MASSACRE LAKES ALLOTMENT AND HERD MANAGEMENT AREA
LikeLike
Emailed the request, with my thoughts added to it (nicely).
LikeLike
PETITION….Be certain to add your own comment (even one sentence) so that you will be counted.
http://act.wildhorsepreservation.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15398
TAKE A STAND FOR CALIFORNIA MUSTANGS IN MASSACRE LAKES HMA
BLM Action Aims to Reduce Wild Horse Population While Allowing Many Times More Livestock in Designated Mustang Habitat
Comments Due by Friday, September 27, 2013
The wild horse herd of the Massacre Lakes Herd Management Area, one of California’s few remaining wild horse populations, has not been touched by man or helicopter since 1988. As such, the herd is valuable for scientific research, as well deserving of its fair share of forage and water, on lands designated by Congress as “principally but not exclusively for their welfare.”
LikeLike
These are not California horses; they are Nevada horses. The Surprise Disttrict office located in Cedarville, CA oversees this HMA in NEVADA!
LikeLike
If I get nothing else done today, I want to be sure and convey my gratitude to Carla for her focused attention on this group of horses. I will send in my comments supporting her suggestions by tomorrow. I hope everyone else does as well.
LikeLike
We need to address the scientific fraud in the NAS report regarding the key issue that affects whether or wild horses and burros are going to survive on public land and that is their status as a native North American species. Rather than cite the research that is published in the tax payer funded Proceedings of the National Academies of Science when the species of the ancient mitochondrial DNA of the North American horse is identified as a 98% to 100% match to the Eurasia horse during the comparable time periods—essentially stating that there was no genetic difference been the horses that died out in North America and the horses that survived in Europe, the authors of the study were “allowed” to email Penn State Biologist Beth Shapiro for an answer.
Beth Shapiro was an et al, the 41st contributor to the second study out of the University of Copenhagen designed to build on the first and focus more on the paleoanthropolgical elements of the study. One of the primary differences between the Eurasian horses and the North American horses is that the Eurasian horses did not live in as close contact with human settlements as North American horses. Second, at the end of the last major glacial period when the continental glacial ice began to melt, the Beringia flooded and is now 400-500 feet under water. It is likely that rather than dying out in great numbers, it is possible that many of the North American horses had crossed the Beringia before the ice melted. Once the Beringia was flooded and the continent heated up fairly quickly in geological time, the horses that had existed in Florida, Mexico, Texas, Southern California moved further North (there are fossils of Equus lambei at the La Brea tar pits in L.A.). So the last few small herds of horses may have lacked the genetic diversity to survive.
If we don’t understand that these horses, our horses, are being governed by provisions in international treaties put in place during the 1990’s, but one did not go into full force until 2005, we cannot solve this. Unfortunately, the same scientist that made up the non-native, invasive, alien horse, a member of the IUCN and a member of the Board of Governers for The Nature Society, and has spent much of professional life arranging for the eradication of our wild horses without a single word of it being debated in Congress—was elected to the PNAS in 2012 where he was able to influence directly or indirectly whether the NAS team esamining the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, also served as a volunteer editor from 2008-2011, so he could head his own fraud off at the pass, and volunteered to edit PLOS and continues to edit PLOS where he inserted a pictue with a caption that contradicted what the report said about the species of North American horse, Our horses are facing a very big battle, but it is based on scientific fraud—the use of terms that sound scientific but is without evidence— it is fraud, and our administration knows it is fraud, and they are not stopping it. This was put into place during the Clinton Administration and has been so carefully concealed that it is almost impossible to find unless you figure out who the scientist is and see who he is directly connected to.
This provision was put into international treaties to avoid the scrutiny of Congress and the American people, so when you are calling Sally Jewel, I suggest you call the House Committee of Natural Resources, House Committee of Agriculture, House Committee on Energy. Representative Ed Whitfield, who addressed the first International Equine Welfare Conference regarding race-day performance enhancing drug legislation, is familiar with race horse issues, horse slaughter issues, and wild horse issues — based on legislation he has sponsored or co-sponsored since 2005. This is definitely tied to energy, and the government’s ability to decide which private companies can get lease permits for the vast quantities of oil, natural gas, and coal on public land.
Anyone who thinks that after the Sierra Club, Wildlife Society, Audubon Society and retired BLMers help get our wild horses and burros off public land those public lands are going to be converted to solar farms, wind farms, and whatever green energy pipe dream (horse manure shows promise, but we aren’t going there) are not looking at reality. As soon as the environmental groups get our wild horses off the land, there multinational companies currently sitting on most (but not all) of their leases on hold are going straight to that oil, natural gas, and coal. These companies have spent way too much money getting the right people in office, just to term this land into money sucking solar and wind energy. I.E. Unlike our government, private companies want to make money.
LikeLike
Excellent analysis, but how do we get it recognized by self-interested decision makers? What’s happening with the wild ones is the “canary in the coal mine”, but we seems to be the only ones who are taking that public. We should have powerful allies among environmentalists (and even ranchers who truly want to preserve the land). How do we convince them the wild ones 9properly managed) aren’t the enemy?
I don’t know how many people will pay attention to “manure shows promise”, but we SHOULD be going there on a local level … PRONTO!
DISPOSAL – BIODIGESTION – THE WAY OF THE FUTURE
Biodigestion holds promise for equine disposal. This option should satisfy those who argue the primary way equines can be beneficial to humans after death is as food. The technology is already being used for disposal of diseased livestock, chemically euthanized dogs and cats, and animals killed on roadways. Biodigesters can handle many types of biologic materials, including manure. In addition to a number of other useful by-products, units can be set up to generate electricity from the produced methane. The USDA has issued a number of Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) Grants for both research and building plants. Much more information is available online.
USDA Secretary Vilsack’s Column: Energy Efficiency and the Food, Farm and Jobs Bill
http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/anaerobic-digester/#sthash.XNNNl4re.dpuf
USDA Funded Digester Reduces Pollution, Powers 1,500 Michigan Homes
http://blogs.usda.gov/2012/10/12/usda-funded-digester-reduces-pollution-powers-1500-michigan-homes/
Five good reasons to implement a biogas plant on your farm
http://www.greenprospectsasia.com/content/five-good-reasons-implement-biogas-plant-your-farm#sthash.JXZ3N5w2.dpuf
LikeLike
Please stop these massacres
Horrific
Help the horses. Foals. Burros
LikeLike
These stories upset me more than words can say… that’s why I’m replying to your comment Diane… I feel exactly the same.. it is horrific.
LikeLike
Save the Massacres Lakes Wild Horses!!
LikeLike
Please, don’t destroy these beautiful creatures, they too, have a right to life. We humans don’t own everything we walk on, after all, the animals were here first.
LikeLike
Stop this roundup and extermination of these innocents!
LikeLike
Theodore Roosevelt National Park horses are in trouble…
Go here: http://www.doi.gov/feedback.cfm
And send this message:
Madame Secretary,
Might I offer an alternative to the auction sale of the TRNP horses to possible “kill buyers”. We the People already own those horses therefore I’d like to ask you to allow the Cloud Foundation and the Wild Horse Freedom Federation to take the gathered horses into custody until they can find proper loving caring homes for them.
Would it be a terrible thing to offer them life rather than death?
I trust you’ll do the right thing!
Then Call 202-208-7351 and ask to speak to the Secretary…she is in today but in a “meeting…yah rightt” and leave this message with her and ask she makes sure the Secretary gets it!
LikeLike
Done — both in a direct email (in my own words, politely) and via the petition hyperlinked by Louie C.
Thank you, Carla Bowers, for your incredible commitment to this herd. And thank you commenters (notably HoofHugs and Linda Horn) for sharing the hidden facts, the hidden agendas, the hidden players, and the various ways we can make a difference.
LikeLike
It truly is a matter of getting to the “Head of the Beast”
LikeLike
ALERT…ALSO DUE ON SEPTEMBER 27
PETITION FOR WYOMING’S WILD HORSES
http://act.wildhorsepreservation.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15346
Comments Due by September 27, 2013
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is advancing a devastating plan to wipe out wild horses in the Wyoming Checkerboard, a two million acre swath of public and private land in the southern portion of the state. Nearly half of Wyoming’s remaining mustangs live in this area. Your comments are needed now!.
At the behest of the Rock Springs Grazing Association, whose members enjoy tax subsidized grazing on the public lands portions of the checkerboard, the BLM intends to:
Zero out (eradicate wild horses from) the Salt Wells Creek and Great Divide Basin Herd Management Areas (HMAs).
Reduce the allowable management level for the Adobe Town HMA from 610-800 horses.to 225-450 horses.
Convert the wild free-roaming horse population in the White Mountain HMA to a sterilized, non-reproducing herd.
LikeLike
Thank you Carla for your incredible effort and determination. We all are behind every word. Save our wild horses and keep the population sustainable and viable for this herd. We have so many to save and we must. It is up to us to do it. Thank you to everyone who is speaking up and voicing loud and strong. We must continue to get the word out to humanity. BLM must be stopped from advancing anymore damage to our wild herd populations. Enough is enough. Stop the killing and death of our wild horses. Protect, defend and place them back into the wild. We must do this for them. We are their voices.
LikeLike