OpEd by R.T. Fitch ~ president/co-founder of Wild Horse Freedom Federation
“You have just GOT to be kidding Me!!!”
BLM Wild Horse and Burro Leadership, at their best!
Year after year we have sat before the BLM bigwigs and their puppet, special interest advisory board and offered quantified and qualified suggestions and recommendations for solutions and assistance in appropriately managing wild horse and burro populations on their rightful public land. Yet the speaking scientists, educators and advocates have gotten nothing but blank stares and silence in return. Pretty frustrating stuff, especially when you come across a press release that says the BLM is NOW entertaining the idea of offering a PRIZE for giving input into how to harangue and hassle the last of our wild equines left on their rightful range.
A prize? We don’t need no stinken PRIZE.
The real prize would be for the BLM to listen to reason, count correctly, report actual facts and quit lying to the American public as to the final disposition of their cherished wild horses and burros. That would be a first step AND a tremendous prize for the wild ones as well.
But if there is a way to duck, dodge and avoid the issue the BLM is a master at avoiding the truth.
This contest proves only one salient and obvious point…the leadership of the BLM’s failed Wild Horse and Burro program never had an original idea in their lives, and now they are willing to pay for them.
Homey ain’t biting!!!
Related articles
Categories: Horse News, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Amazing…
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A good idea would be to get rid of the cattle for starters!!!!
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Yes, remove ALL privately owned domestic livestock – both sheep and cattle
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Just being relatively new to this issue, and I am irritated beyond words. I can’t imagine how all of you on the front lines feel about this latest idiocy.
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The BLM will do ANYTHING to get rid of our wild horses except what is right-just leave them alone. This just shows how desperate they are.
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Prize? YOu mean money prize? Are you freaking kidding me is right? So the employees in the WHB program – they aren’t paid to manage. They are really paid to come up with more gimmicks, “can’t we all just get along” gifty poos contests to pay out MORE taxpayer funds to the winner of contests to see who can give the BLM a plan for management. Those degrees they are supposed to have were party hardy degrees? But wait – this is could be a savings, you don’t have t be an employee – so you don’t get benefits like vacation, health benefits, retirement – you just think of something cute and get paid for it – like HEY, LETS SPAY THE MARES!!!.
This is sounding like a bad idea, just as the adoption pipeline has become, the Mustang Cowboy Competition, and “satelitte” horse faciliities.
I think there should be awards paid to the horses (you decide the prize) for the following categories: 1). how many brands can we burn into your hide, 2). how many miles can we truck you in a certain period of time (pick a period, two weeks, a month and you can add in how many different truckers trucked you) 3); how many different kinds of food you ate since we captured your ass – talking about a buRro now; 4). How many times you skinned your face up getting moved; 5). How many times you got run down chues or whoopsie into the “wrong” feedlot; 6) how many days you went without (and this can be food, water, medical attention, hoofcare, treatment for shipping fever, difficult foaling, afterbirth fouling, wickly foal suffering after capture) while the cowboys sat in their cozy offices on the premises – this would be a nationwide question. The best award should be given to the horse whose records read the wrong sex, the wrong age, don’t know where it was born, and branded with a U at 1 year or younger. I’m sure more categories can be thought up.
Yeah, we should give the awards to the horses and burros. I vote the award would be freedom.
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Let’s just send them the thousands of articles and comments that have been made since the inception of their genocide on the horses and burros began. Think that would be enough ideas for these idiots to comprehend. Doh! So sick of their crap.
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Had to say one more thing. If you were afraid of clowns as a child then these clowns should give you adult nightmares. They are powerful and unpredictable, greedy and cruel. They are some of the scariest clowns around. They frighten me as much as terrorists. They are despicable and contemptible and I wish we had a real way to stop them before it is too late. Frankly, I am scared that this will be the end of our wild and free Mustangs and Burros. The innocents will always suffer the greed of the powerful.
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Idea:
1) Fire ALL current BLM employees and return ALL wild horses and burros back to their legally designated 53,800,800 acres of land and give them the PRINCIPAL portion of these resources as stated in the law
2) Hire a few new employees to run BLM that care about our public land and resources and wild horses and wild burros
… I think I win the prize?
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A beautiful solution in its simplicity . I would award the prize to you.
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Jan –
Good comment and so true in so many ways. I thought you would find this interesting.
Report from BLM Palomino Valley Preparation Facility:
ID# 9160748
Horse
Female
Age 19
Euthanized
Reason: Hemorrhage Gelding complications
12/07/2010
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GG that is beyond outrageous! Please tell me someone was fired for this?
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For gelding a 19 year-old mare who subsequently bled to death?
“Something” strikes me as not quite right with that.
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Gelding is the term reserved for castrating MALE horses, so there is quite a lot wrong here….
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Exactly!
And to think “those people” are in charge of our wild ones …
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Ugh. Thinking about this poor animal being made to suffer like this because someone wants her off the public lands so they can make money is utterly disgusting. Nothing is as easy or harmless as our government would try to make it appear with regard to our meddlings in wildlife management.
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Most interesting of all is that the “prize” is never described at all. Pretty suspect contest to offer a nonexistent prize to entice people to enter… What will it be – your choice of stuffed mounted horseheads for your office? The scarlet letters BLM forever on your forehead?
On a lighter note, if they offer a cash prize (since they are trying to tempt big pharma to pursue a few thousand horses, probably a non-starter), where is the prize money coming from, the sale of horses, or maybe horse parts?
Makes me wonder if such an idea, which on the surface seems innocent enough, would EVER be entertained for any other form of native wildlife, like Elk or Bighorn Sheep. I think we all know the answer would be NO.
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The Interior’s new approach is to try to endear themselves to the public, I see. There have been several of these attempts lately – the ‘this land is your land’ type of approach.
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http://yubanet.com/enviro/Loss-of-African-wildlife-spurs-a-cascade-of-consequences-in-savannas.php#.U3DrzCg-NmM
Interesting study details what happens when Zebras were removed from grasslands in a controlled study. (Recall that the West has been called the American Serengeti in historic times).
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Icy
Read the page & commented! As I said – too bad the Sec of Interior & BLM chiefs couldn’t read and comprehend a study like this – but I guess it would be just like anything Craig Downer or Ginger Kathrens has put forth – not worth their time!!!
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how to ensure healthy animals on healthy rangeland.
What, they didn’t like the suggestions and concrit from the NAS? Seriously, I have to pinch myself to remind me that we are in fact in a Democratic administration. Richard Nixon signed into law the Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, and many of our current environmental laws that are being undermined, and trying to take away any legal recourse. I thought I read somewhere where the Interior Dept.’s new ‘mitigation’ plan is trying to reduce court challenges.
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This will.entertain slaughter, the cattle people will write so many options and pro slaughterphiles will unleash their agenda. Right now they have a supposed healthyhorsemeat nutrition link to their nonsensical page….people tell me all the time, i dont look anymore….i am waiting for the musical, dr suessey type version of all this. The BLM can sing the horse haters chorus, the meat munchers welfare ranchers will each take we are the world phrase, and the rest will be sung by the loonies, I would prefer to see it on the way the world USED to think channel but its playing out in front of eyes. Now any self rezpecting politicians would look at this ploy of a prize and realize this is proposterous action by the BLM and say they need to in investigate the agencies corruption of the WHB program. We need real truth in this arena, and some self respecting politicians to speak against this horror show to traffic these horses to oblivion while offering a Prize!
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Here is some “educated input” to the BLM. They are soliciting opinions about a problem that doesn’t exist : “wild horse overpopulation” in order to give the impression that they give a damn what the public thinks and to give those not in the know the idea that there must be a problem which needs to be “solved” ! This is like the Emperor soliciting opinions from the public on what color his new clothes should be ! The simple solution to that is the same as the child’s pointing out : the Emperor has no clothes ! Behind his rationalization of need to manage numbers lies simply the naked greed of welfare cattlemen and would-be frackers who want to turn new areas of public lands into Dust Bowl Wasteland !
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This objective defines a solution to a problem that has not been substantiated.
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Very Simple
REPATRIATE the 23 million acres of Wild Horse and Burro Herd Management Areas that have been zeroed out
There is no authority for BLM’s “herd management areas” under WFRHBA
http://animallawcoalition.com/can-the-wild-horses-and-burros-be-saved/
The BLM has authorized itself to divide herd areas into “herd management areas”, something not authorized by WFRHBA. 43 CFR 4710.3-1. In this way, with no statutory authority at all, BLM has limited wild horses and burros’ access to thousands of acres that were historically their herd areas. This is done without thought about the horses’ seasonal migration patterns or available resources. The BLM then removes wild horses and burros from the artificially created “herd management areas” on the basis there is insufficient forage, water or habitat! BLM also targets them for removal if they cross the artificial boundaries into their original herd areas.
RETURN ALL captive Wild Horses and Burro to their original LEGALLY DESIGNATED areas
http://animallawcoalition.com/can-the-wild-horses-and-burros-be-saved/
Wild horses and burros are supposed to be treated as “components of the public lands”. 16 U.S.C. § 1333(a) The law is clear that “wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death” and entitled to roam free on public lands where they were living at the time the Act was passed in 1971. 16 U.S.C. § 1331 These legally protected areas are known as “herd areas,” and are defined as “the geographic area identified as having been used by a herd as its habitat in 1971.” 43 C.F.R. § 4700.0-5(d).
REPRODUCTION, MORTALITY, AND OVERPOPULATION IN WILD EQUIDS by
ROBERT C. BAUER, B.S. in Biology
In truth, releasing these wild ones back into the original areas from which they were taken, and halting once and for all the roundups, would help bring balance back to the range lands of the west. The wild horses and burros are
just this, wild, and in the wild is where they belong, to exist in accordance to nature’s mechanisms, and not according to mankind’s egotistical attempts in
seeking to maintain a ” thriving natural ecological balance”.
Only as we leave them alone in the wild, according to nature’s mechanisms, will they live on as the beautiful yet vital component of ecological balance that is so desperately
needed
IMPLEMENT an In the Wild Management program coupled with Reserve Design
Proposal for Wild Horse/Burro Reserve Design as a Solution to Present Crisis
by Craig C. Downer, Wildlife Ecologist
Click to access nhmv12i5downer.pdf
MANAGE Wild Horses and Burros as mandated by LAW
The WFRHBA also authorizes designation of specific ranges for wild horses and burros. “Range’ means the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds …and which is devoted PRINCIPALLY but NOT NECESSARILY EXCLUSIVELY to their welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for the public lands”. 16 USCS §§ 1332(c), 1333(a).
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There are no excess wild horses and burros on their legally designated land. Per the 1971 Congressional Wild Horse and Burro Act, the land is to be devoted PRINCIPALLY although not exclusively to the wild horses and wild burros’ welfare in keeping with the multiple-use management concept of public lands.
Definition of “principally”: First, highest, foremost in importance, rank, worth or degree, chief, mainly, largely, chiefly, especially, particularly, mostly, primarily, above all, predominantly, in the main, for the most part, first and foremost.
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Well, I have to say – this takes the cake! After all of the emails, comments
and really intelligent information that has been sent to the BLM – NOW you
are offering a prize??? to solve this problem (which does not exist!)
How about giving a prize to the NAS for their conclusions? After shelling
out 2 million dollars for this study – and then apparently not even reading
it – why? Because it says exactly what the biologists, horse advocates and
actual wild horse & burro specialists have been saying for decades! The BLM
is responsible for ANY bump in reproduction in the herds that have been
harassed & rounded up & penned up & gelded! Herds that are no longer
viable BECAUSE of the BLM. Telling the NAS that they cannot take into account
the thousands of cattle & sheep that are degrading the rangeland.
The Bureau of Land Management is not capable of managing wild horses or
burros or any other living animal. In fact – it seems they are also incapable of
“managing the land”.
No prize is necessary – Just do the right & humane thing – put the horses back
where they belong and stop harassing them. Cut back on the grazing allotments
and charge what they are actually worth! I’m tired of subsidizing this program.
And LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE US!
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The BLM is well aware that it is the domestic livestock causing all the damage to the range lands .. in 1990 there was a U.S. General Accounting Office Report, Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse Program, which concluded “… the primary cause of the degradation in rangeland resources is poorly managed domestic (primarily cattle and sheep) livestock.” .. they just dont care and continue to use the WH&B’s as a scapegoat because that is what the rich welfare ranchers and corporations are telling them to say.
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So…are these idiots appointed by whatever administration happens to be in power? Surely they’re not professionals? How could people that stupid hold their jobs? That entire agency should be manned by scientists, geologists, biologists, zoologists, you get the idea…instead of someones damned brother-in-law. They continually break the law and nothing seems to b e done about it. I see on the news they’ve got their own little police force! Isn’t that special…and they’re still a bunch of criminal bastards!
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I wonder of they would accept Craig Downer’s Reserve design proposal in their contest? It is a well thought proposal from a credible ecologist who has sent the past 40 years studying the wild equids. But it is probabaly over the heads of the BLM and especially the advisory board.
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What a bunch of total bull shit! Just ended my call to the BLM and told them to do the right thing and listen to what the Advocates have been saying for years. I also asked for an adoption packs to see what propaganda the are spouting. Gee, can the American public take any more of this? Unreal……..m
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Just how exactly will they decide the winner of the “Prize”, by pulling a name out of a hat which would be just their mentality or maybe they will hold a lottery, a dollar per entry….round and around they go in the same ole BS
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wonder what they would do if everyone gave these answers for their questions
#1 Use the Reserve Design Proposal for Wild Horse/Burro Management by Craig C. Downer
#2 The only obstacle that would prevent the BLM from using Craig C. Downer’s Reserve Design would be the BLM itself since there is no other obstacle standing in its way of being implemented.
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That’s good idea Storm Dancer!
Maybe everyone that owns a horse that responds to their request should identify themselves as ranchers?
Lots and lots of people have commented on their plans and yet, rarely if ever, very few of the comments/suggestions by horse advocates have ever been implemented…correct me if I’m wrong (there could be some small ones they have capitulated to that I’m not aware of)…..what’s wrong with those suggestions? …did they read them, or throw them away?
They already have the answers to their problem of mis-managed wild horses and burros…do they know how to read ?
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Ask this Subcommittee to investigate, it never hurts to let them know the truth. Once they are aware and do nothing, then we know for a fact that they are all in collusion.
http://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/subcommittees?p=public-lands-and-forests
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To BLM–please contact Craig Downer. To the rest of us–what does this diversion mean? keep your eyes and ears open–when the BLM reaches out, it’s to slap us down and commit some treachery.
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YA ASK THEM W.T.F.GIVES. and say no thanks. just BUT OUT. LET the animals all be free. that is there home. Them guys just want to kill every thing that is a animal. just look at the dollar sing in there eyes. and I do mean the two legged animals. ENOFSAID.
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