By Mary Cella of CNN HLN
They say horses and burros are hardy enough to survive in these temperatures-when even polar bears can’t withstand this cold!
Click Image to view video
Wild horses at holding facilities are provided with man-made and natural wind breaks. In contrast, there are not many natural wind breaks on the range because of the desert terrain. In terms of behavior, on-range wild horses and burros huddle together in groups to protect one another from the elements, just as they do in corralled environments.
Animals held in holding facilities are healthy and hardy. They are provided humane treatment that includes veterinary care and daily feed with access to fresh water sources. Hay provided at the facility is very high in nutritive value, and the wild horses there typically gain weight and their body condition improves. (A wild horse will eat 20 pounds of hay every day.) Because of limited water on the range, wild horses must eat snow and ice to stay hydrated in extreme weather conditions. Wild horses in holding facilities are given plenty of fresh, clean water, which enables the horses to be fully hydrated.”
They say horses and burros are hardy enough to survive in these temperatures-when even polar bears can’t withstand this cold! It’s so cold in Chicago that the Lincoln Park Zoo moved its polar bear to a climate controlled environment. The polar vortex has brought arctic temperatures to the Midwest. Today in Detroit, the high was zero degrees and the low negative two! There are tens of thousands of stray dogs wandering the streets of Detroit in these subzero temperatures. Right now, these poor homeless animals could be freezing to death.
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Categories: Horse News, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
I was going to say this should be a crime but then realized it actually is. No one has the guts to prosecute it. This is animal neglect and should be prosecuted on a federal level as these equines are in the custody of federal officials.
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The Public does not know whether they are even still alive. Information that SHOULD, BY LAW, be public has been withheld.
http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/news-events-and-media/press-releases/403-fears-build-for-foals-and-adults-in-subzero-temperatures-and-wind
THE CLOUD FOUNDATION also requested an accounting of how many wild horses are currently being held in the Rock Springs corrals. The BLM public information officer told Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of TCF in an email to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for this information.
“Responses to FIOA requests typically take months and then the government may simply deny the information requested,” stated Kathrens. “Why is this information being kept secret? Have horses already died in these frigid conditions?”
Unless TCF gets a count immediately, there may be no way to determine foal survival rates since BLM, shockingly, does not count young horses less than six months of age. At the BLM National Adoption Center in Palomino Valley (PVC) foals that die that are less than six months of age are not counted and their bodies are shipped to local renderers with no paper trail documenting that they ever existed.
BLM was criticized for its lack of transparency in the recent National Academies of Science (NAS) review of the troubled Wild Horse and Burro Program but no recommended changes have been announced or implemented. The NAS also concluded that massive roundups, like the one just completed in Wyoming, are counterproductive and stimulate increased breeding among the remaining bands.
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they don’t want us(the public)to know . a total shame on our government. i also rote to cnn on that tom davis and the blm , i’m really hoping to see a report on that ,hopefully soon . i’m so sorry for those horses, and even polar bears in the wild are able to take refuge from the the temps and weather cause they are FREE to do so. i wish with all my heart i could donate but i don’t work do to illness but give me some one to write to ,to help . than-you so much for what ya”ll do love you all.
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Cindy, Writing emails & letters IS helping. I cant afford to donate often – but I’m getting much better at writing emails and comments (practice!) And we ALL vote.
I’m really not sure if getting rid of one politician & putting another in will make a difference – but if we all keep at it – maybe there will be someone who cares.
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If you haven’t seen Nicoles email below – this is the guy to contact!
The more people who bug him & email & write – the better. Maybe
that way it will get pushed up the chain of command at least.
Jeff Krauss, Division Chief
Division of Public Affairs
20 M Street, S.E.
Washington, DC 20003
Main Contact Number: 202-912-7415
Email: Jkrauss@blm.gov
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The BLM blows more smoke up everyone’s a@@!!!!..Seeing our Wild Horses in such confined conditions that’s nothing like their environment called FREEDOM….
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And, it sure doesn’t look like they have wind breaks or overhead protection of any kind. In their natural environment, they are able to go to protective areas in the wild. Here, they suffer in pens without any coverage at all. These BLM A$$H@LE$ possess a frightening combination ignorance & arrogance that boggles the mind. They’re so stupid they actually believe their own propaganda.
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Commented on CNN:
Per the quote, BLM’s Jeff Krauss apparently has not kept up with the known fact that most BLM holding facilities do NOT have any man-made or natural windbreaks. On the range, even in desert areas, they have cliffs and valleys and trees and boulders that they DO use as natural wind breaks. I have seen this with my own eyes. Where did this Jeff guy come from and has he ever been to the holding facilities or on the range … or is he just repeating what he is “fed” by the feds? I think most of us who have knowledge of this issue do know the truth but he is sugar-coating the issue for the many Americans who do not know. Another disgusting anti-animal BLM spokesperson only concerned with his paycheck?
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How can people believe the bald faced lies that the BLM put out..let these animals go!
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Deceitful lies,………Does this man even know ????????? I think they give these people what to say , and they havent a clue, this makes me so darn mad , that our Free Mustangs have to stand there and freeze because these mindless , careless fools, are so damn stupid !!!!!!!! i have had enough of mindless cruel morons that are allowed to do this !!!!!!!! I would love to make them stand in below zero whether , I Wouldnt even give them a damn sweater…….this beyond brutal its asinine …….Just who in the hell do they think believes them NO ONE, they must be talking to themselves……..no one with a brain would ever think they speak the truth !!!!!!!
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These Federally Protected Wild Horses should NEVER have been captured and removed from their Legal Herd Management Area.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/11/22/blm-to-begin-massive-wyoming-wild-horse-roundup-to-appease-ranchers/
In a declaration filed by former BLM Rock Springs and Rawlins area manager Lloyd Eisenhauer, in the RSGA vs. Department of the Interior case, stated:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/15XxDMsR1HKkjS_tWEb4QDIEKvMwrrSoiWlxlFWfbkLe8-boHU1lBYiuqd6pH/edit?pli=1
LEGAL RSGA EISENHOWER DECLARATION.pdf
“The BLM has no biological or ecological basis for zeroing out a herd of wild horses in an HMA that existed at the time the wild horse statute was passed in 1971 . . . [B]ecause the wild horses have a statutory right to be there, whereas livestock only have a privilege that can be revoked at any time by BLM, there also is no authority or precedent, to my knowledge, for the agency to zero out these two longstanding wild horse herds simply to appease private livestock grazers.”
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I’ve said it before, and I will continue saying it. Where there is a void of federal law, state law controls. There are no federal animal cruelty laws. There are state animal cruelty laws which include that whoever having charge of or custody of, either as the owner or otherwise, subjects any animal to needless suffering or inflicts unneccesary cruelty upon the animal or fails to provide the animal with food … Or shelter or PROTECTION from the weather … Is GUILTY of a crime punishable as a felony.”. These animal cruelty laws are worded slightly different in each state but are enforced by local law enforcement. It may be sheriff, police, animal control. Don’t let the sheriff, BLM or other advocates snow you into confusion. We have laws. We have the power to demand laws are enforced. Before it is too late. I would find out where these horses are and contact the county and go from there. Stand up for these innocents.
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Where is the HSUS? Why aren’t they speaking out on this?
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Tweet, I have asked this before, and learned the HSUS considers them more or less as wildlife, so they mostly stay uninvolved. The BLM does NOT consider them wildlife, but rather as invasives, so they randomly exterminate them at will though they are paid for this by we, the people, who find this unconscionable. The federal designation protecting them as heritage species apparently offers them no protection. They are lost in a limbo-land of not quite being under the official auspices of other than the BLM, whose record on management, listening to the people, listening to science, and being “transparent” as our President terms, is abominable.
This plays out badly as well when wild horses are rounded up and sold as was done last summer from the USFS/Navajo Nation lands. The HSUS could not step in, the public was not allowed to enter the holding area pre-sale (in fact, photographers were run off from adjacent lands), and once the horses are sold for kill they are loaded into trailers which are sealed shut until they arrive at whichever slaughter plant is their final journey.
Passing the SAFE Act would end all this, at least the legal version.
Contact your elected officials and press them for their stance on this legislation:
The SAFE ACT
Senate version: S541
House version: HR1094
Also ask about the “Grazing Improvement Act”
Senate version: S258
House version: HR 657
You can go to http://www.popvox.com and find these, add comments, and send communications to your own elected representatives. Please do!
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Other than the one facility in CA that has shelter all facilities don’t have shelters. Sure they have plywood on the fences for wind breaks but IT’S SO COLD ANIMALS ARE FREEZING TO THE GROUND.
It as with good reason we asked for shelter last summer and we had that workshop–that didn’t go anywhere. It was to placate us.
If you have a several “subservient” (horses lower on the totem pole so to speak–and pardon not intended)horses and one or two dominate ones guess who’s gonna be eating? Those lesser ranked horses will not only be hungry they’ll freeze even moreso without that extra feed.
Are far as Joan Guilfoyle is concerned I believe she sold her woman parts to cattle ranchers. She blew Mustang Robin off not once but TWICE! The first time her petition was offered in her place at Reno and then a couple weeks later Robin herself was denied an opportunity to show the advisory all the pages of signatures she had acquired.
So how do we get BLM to hold themselves accountable to the same rules as they hold adopters to?
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RSGA stands for ROCK SPRINGS GRAZING ASSOCIATION
https://docs.google.com/file/d/15XxDMsR1HKkjS_tWEb4QDIEKvMwrrSoiWlxlFWfbkLe8-boHU1lBYiuqd6pH/edit?pli=1
LEGAL RSGA EISENHOWER DECLARATION.pdf
10. I am also very concerned about BLM’s agreement with RSGA to permanently
zero out the Salt Wells HMA and the Divide Basin HMA, leaving no wild horses in those areas that have long contained wild horses.
I have been to fifteen of the sixteen HMAs in Wyoming, and to my knowledge none has ever been zeroed out by BLM. It is my view, based on everything I know about these areas and the way these public lands are used by wild horses and livestock, that BLM has no biological or ecological basis for zeroing out a herd of wild horses in an HMA that existed at the time the wild horse statute was passed in 1971, as is the case with both the Salt Wells and Divide Basin HMAs. And, again, because the wild horses have a statutory right to be there,
whereas livestock only have a privilege that can be revoked at any time by BLM,
there also is no authority or precedent, to my knowledge, for the agency to zero out these two longstanding wild horse herds simply to appease private livestock grazers.
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I keep seeing this story yet nothing on how we the people can actually do to HELP. So, what can we do to help, besides call the useless BLM?!
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Just bloody hope the extreme weather conditions break, before the Horses freeze to bloody death. Absolutely riddiculous.
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Absolute cruelty!
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Weren’t there some young foals that was in the last roundup? I would swear I saw some. But with the BLM separating the mares from the foals in all of the roundups where ever the foals went you know they didn’t have any shelter. I believe they all died from the cold. But of course the BLM will deny all.
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Barbara, I found one source which said there were 73 foals, then another that added about 100 more. Some may have been living in the pens prior to the Thanksgiving roundups. Supposedly some area trainers get some of the foals sometimes, but there is no way to find out what really happened without eyes on the ground, or a BLM that understands they work for we, the people.
As another person suggested, we should perhaps try to lobby to get multiple live webcams at all holding pens, as a security measure for many reasons. The BLM should welcome this if they have nothing to hide, and it would keep the whole situation much more transparent. If the public were not kept so intentionally out of the loop much speculation would cease if the management practices were aboveboard. As it is we have no way of knowing what is going on. The pens in Rock Springs could be entirely empty right now for all we know.
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Barbara you are right Icyspots said there were 73 foals unaccounted for where are they???????????? I am sick of the lieing bastards,
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Why don’t we just press the Senate and Congress to abolish the BLM? Public pressure will prevail – just look at the successes happening on the Slaughter front! It’s time the Ranchers were prevented from using Public Lands (at Taxpayer’s expense) for their own profit and denying the rights of the indigenous population (the horses) to live there as they have done for millennia.
What is the point of keeping all the horses in pens anyway – if the Government want to get rid of them (as they clearly do) why don’t they just grow a pair and admit it, and have a cull as they did in Australia recently?
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Quester, I have no use for Australia because of this so called cull. The area where the horses were is the size of one of out states. There was nothing out there, very few people and few if any towns. This cull was done exactly like the elephant cull about ten years ago. I saw films that was shot from one of the copters showing one of the shooters hitting a female elephant in the head and killing her while her calf ran terrified and frantic around her body trying to get her to get up. All because a few villagers complained about there being to many elephants. Do you know what probably happened to the baby? It died because elephant calves need their mother and the herd for survival. And now elephants are being slaughtered for their tusks killed with military weapons like AK47’s. The elephants don’t stand a chance in hell of surviving they will be mostly extinct in the next ten years. That’s why I hate culls.
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Quester, there is the small matter of such a “cull” being illegal, for starters. To eliminate wild horses and burros the BLM and USFS must work the system more carefully. The American public would never stand for the aerial atrocity just witnessed in Australia.
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Reblogged this on "OUR WORLD".
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The polar bears at the zoo are not coming out in the weather and the BLM is saying that the wild Mustangs are used to that weather and it’ll be okay to say that this is horrific barbaric abuse is the understatement of the century I want to tell you that the BLM is running rampant our government is running rampant
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These majestic horses and burros belong to The American people and i really dont remember getting any complaints from our wild horsrs and burros so Obama, republicans and anyone else involed in this barbaric torture you ony have one choice WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT OUR MAJESTIC HORSES AND BURROS PUT BACK IN THE WILD IMMEDIATELY. DONNA SLOCUM
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I AM WITH YOU Donna, put THE mustang S back where THEY BELONG ON THE range, if you want to get rid of something get Rid of the Welfare Cattleman !!!!!!!!
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yea I will comment….the only reason these horses and burrows are in these holding pins is not because they r concerned about the poor weather conditions but to sell these poor creatures for slaughter and to be shipped to other countries for them to be eaten….they don’t care how cold these poor animals r…not one bit
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This is sickening and heartbreaking. What they are doing to these horses is criminal. Dogs are freezing solid in this kind of weather being left outside. I am so beside myself with anger at the moment. I hate the BLM.
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Shared. Thank RT
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Want to make a difference? Call or write Jeff Krauss directly to tell him how absurd his comments are in response to this cruelty:
Jeff Krauss, Division Chief
Division of Public Affairs
20 M Street, S.E.
Washington, DC 20003
Main Contact Number: 202-912-7415
Email: Jkrauss@blm.gov
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The BLM’s Jeff Krass is nothing but a liar. These wild horses can not move around to make heat for themselves let alone find shelter or even run from the storm for shelter. Why is the Government allowed to outright lie to the public? They must think we are a bunch of idiots that just dole are tax money over to them without any questions. I am sure many of these wild horses that are kept in captivy pens have died because of this severe weather we are having. Let us save our Wild Horses before it is to late.
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Nicole-thank you for Jess Krauss’s info. Will fax, call and email. We all must stand together against the wide spread outright cruelty to our American Wild Horses.
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Thank you Nicole
I sent an email to Mr. Krauss. Do hope it gets read. Frankly – if we ALL sent emails to him – might make a dent, right?
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Maggie, I wish I could believe you were right. However, the BLM folks on the ground are rarely the ones calling the shots in any significant way. The decisions are made higher up, and take years to work through the bureaucratic system. The “scoping hearings” (currently on another thread about Wyoming’s wild horses) are the very last in a long series of steps. To effect change we all MUST aim higher up, and beginning with our elected officials in 2014, which is a mid-term election year. President Obama and DOI Secretary Sally Jewell have proven they are no friends of wild horses and burros, and neither will run for office again so they are impervious to other than massive social uproar. This can happen but more people need to become aware of what is happening, then decide if they can or cannot accept its furtherance. The mid-terms are our best chance of being heard, and in time to make a significant difference.
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You what really irks me about he Presidents who ARE not a friend to Wild Mustangs ????????? I believe there is nothing as Patriotic, nothing more American , nothing more that represents our Heritage, nothing that can show FREEDOM in its most beautiful Natural form, then the sighting of a herd of Wild Mustangs thundering across the desert !!!!!Not to mention the Mustangs Built it !!!!!!!!!!! I think it is extremely un becoming for any President Not to give Honor and Prestiage to the Mustangs they are as American as you can get!!!!!!!!……. Shame on any President who doesnt feel that a great Debt is owed to the Mustangs !!!!! And does not secure their Freedom in everyway !!!!!!!!! The Mustangs are America !!!!!!! To me they hold the undisputed title of The Royal American Ambassadors of Freedom !!!!!!!
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Reblogged this on Wonder and Whimsy, Beauty and Soul.
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Reblogged this on STOP ANIMAL ABUSE and commented:
OMG…even in UK my horse is rugged & its not that cold. This is deeply upsetting; I’m praying there are no little colts or filly’s because they couldn’t withstand the freezing weather! The BLM should either move them to an indoor facility or get the highest tog rating of rugs & rug them all!! Appalled
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Jules, the best thing to do for wild horses is to return them to the wild, not to even attempt to put them indoors anywhere. Being confined in unnatural bands within small pens without being able to maneuver away from the weather is the worst possible stress we could place upon them. Worst of all is this is happening by those we pay to protect them.
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Dear IcySpots and Jules , What you said is Precisely why we are all Here , till every one of the Mustangs is returned to The Land that Belongs to them , to roam Free and they are Protected in everyway possible to ensure their Place in America the Beautiful Honored for all they have Done for America !!!!!!!!!
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This is so wrong in every way. BLM and our goverment are being heartless and evil. Save our wild horses and burros are part of us all. Save them
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THE LAW OF THE LAND
http://ppjg.me/2014/01/08/fisa-secrets-the-court-that-lays-golden-unconstitutional-eggs/
Marti Oakley PPJ GAZETTE
Legal v Lawful: Weasel word swapping at its finest
“And what is a legislative ACT? It is a statute or law that forces compliances”…
The Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros ACT
“It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death.”
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/16C30.txt
CONGRESS FINDS AND DECLARES THAT WILD FREE-ROAMING HORSES AND
BURROS ARE LIVING SYMBOLS OF THE HISTORIC AND PIONEER SPIRIT OF THE WEST; THAT THEY CONTRIBUTE TO THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE FORMS WITHIN THE NATION AND ENRICH THE LIVES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE; AND THAT THESE HORSES AND BURROS ARE FAST DISAPPEARING FROM THE AMERICAN SCENE. IT IS THE POLICY OF CONGRESS THAT WILD FREE-ROAMING HORSES AND BURROS SHALL BE PROTECTED FROM CAPTURE, BRANDING, HARASSMENT OR DEATH; AND TO ACCOMPLISH THIS THEY ARE TO BE CONSIDERED IN THE
AREA WHERE PRESENTLY FOUND, AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE NATURAL SYSTEM OF THE PUBLIC LANDS.
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