Horse Health

Gunnison prison caught with “hands in the cookie jar.” Now over 1,100 wild horses to be shipped out by Oct. 6th

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by Debbie Coffey, V.P. & Dir. of Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation, Copyright 2014 ~ All Rights Reserved.

While BLM spokesman Tom Gorey seemingly frets that it will “complicate national efforts to make sure there is enough off-range holding capacity for wild horses and burros that are removed off public ranges,” he failed to mention that the final report of the Department of Interior Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit of Utah Correctional Industries (UCI), in which about $2 million dollars in costs submitted (and paid with taxpayer’s money) was questioned as being seemingly illegal, was issued Sept. 27, 2013.  That’s almost a year ago.

In this report, the OIG pointed out that “we found that UCI’s accounting systems do not fully comply with the standards set forth in 43 C.F.R. § 12.60 for financial reporting, budget control, and allowable costs.”

Why did it take the BLM about 6 years to figure out something was wrong with the accounting at Gunnison prison?  And why didn’t the BLM fire this contractor (rescind the contract) last year? 

Basically, it was uncovered that this BLM contractor overcharged the government by about $2 million dollars.  Why is the news twisted to make it seem like Utah Correctional Industries just decided not to renew their contract with the BLM because they weren’t making enough profit?

Has the BLM even bothered to review the facility reports and mortality reports from Gunnison?  Or was the BLM only focusing on the money?  More mismanagement by the Bureau of Land Management.

And now, after 80 deaths (and perhaps more by now?) of wild mares being shipped to a feedlot in Scott City, Kansas, another 1,500 wild horses need to be shipped out of Gunnison by October 6th.  Well, the BLM has had a year to find new places for these horses.

Does anyone recall this OIG report being brought up at the National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting?  I also don’t see anything about Gunnsion Prison on the “Quick Facts” page of BLM’s Wild Horse & Burro Program website yet, either.  So much for being “quick.”

The entire BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program is wildly out of control. Here are a few excerpts from the report:

“We questioned costs that we re not allowable under terms of the agreement and applicable provisions of the C.F.R. In addition, we identified costs as unsupported when sufficient documentation related to the costs was not available for review.  Of  the $5,338,880 reported by UCI, we questioned $1,076,464 and classified $928,089 as unsupported.”

“A UCI official told us that the amount reported was based on the total amount funded by BLM and that UCI did not bill BLM based on recorded costs.  UCI was unable to provide any documentation to support the composition of the expenditures it reported. “

“Section III.A.6 of the cooperative agreement states: “[T]he recipient agrees to provide facilities that conform to BLM guidelines and specifications at no cost to the BLM.”  Based on this language and the provision that UCI would fund a share of the program costs itself, we questioned the $125,588 of recorded building and grounds costs.”

You can read the entire Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General Financial Assistance Audit for Cooperative Agreement No. JSA071001/L08AC13913 Between the Utah Correctional Industries and the Bureau of Land Management HERE.

Categories: Horse Health, Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs

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32 replies »

  2. Return our wild horses to their respective wild homes if we can before it is too late. Keep them wild and free to roam. Stop the BLM in their cow tracks now. We must do something. Keep fighting and sharing this information to the world. God Bless our wild horses and the ones that have died. We will never forget all of you. We love you and as wild horse advocates, we will work so hard to keep you free to roam, amen. God help us to help our wild horses, my prayer. Thank you God. One of your angels of many trying to save as many wild horses as we can before it is too late. Thank you God. Give us the strength and the money to help them, amen. Help us to gain the land back for the wild horses to roam free again. So many needs dear God. I love my wild horses and you know my thoughts in heaven for all the Mares, Stallions, Geldings, fillies, foals struggling to survive. Thank you God Judith your loving wild horse advocate. Wild horses are families and help us keep them bonded and together for life, amen. Thank you again my dear heavenly Father, I love you.

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  7. Human nature at its most typical. The horses do not need to be adopted out, they deserve to be wild, on the range where they belong. Lord knows what’s happened to other horses by the likes of Tom Davis, Tim Sappington, and a host of other despicable creatures in the BLM’s employ. We cannot entrust our wildlife to these killers, liars and thieves.

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    • Well said, Idalupine. I am, once again,astonished and outraged at the absolute lack of morality of these so-called public servants. They’re fxxking criminals.

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  8. Thirty days to rehome over a thousand horses being evicted by the whims of human folly. Where will they go and how will we know?

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  9. BLM complaining the Gunnison books don’t square? That there accounting system is not up to standards set? That’s hysterical!!!! Since when has BLM’s records ever been accurate? I’d love someone to try to do a monetary audit on this agency. Good luck. And the DOI is missing 162 Billion dollars? That’s rich. The pot is calling the kettle black.

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  11. It doesn’t say where the ones that are already gentled will be going. I wonder where they will be in the next few months. My husband & I have been lucky enough to come away with 3 very nice geldings from there over the last few years, very well gentled, calm trusting horses, easy to ride & loveable. I wouldn’t mind re-homing another couple before the end of the year. We have 40 acres of nice wandering land to put horses on. Anybody know??

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    • I don’t know but do recall reading that some of the horses rounded up in WY last Thanksgiving were sent to Gunnison. Since this same area’s next roundup is under litigation right now it might be worth tracing out the connections with Gunnison and Wyoming’s missing wild horses.

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  13. So basically just as the BLM lied about the need to round up our wild horses at all, in order to please their corporate masters ($4.7 billion in leasing cattle permits, mining fracking etc.) now their incompetence in dealing with corrupt contractors are again going to cause our wild horses to suffer. How many more will be allowed to die in transit from stress or languish without adequate shade, shelter, water or food in slaughter feedlots because of BLM incompetence and corruption ! Let them go again to their native ranges ! They were doing just fine before the helicopters started this push to drive them into extinction for the sake of corporate greed.

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    • I’m for defunding these corrupt agencies to the point that only a skeleton staff remains. They have defrauded us for so long and they make sure to do the most environmentally harmful practices that they can possibly do.

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  14. Barbara, thanks for the link to tuesday’s horse. First of all, the article was so detail filled but it matters a lot whether we refer to the Burns rider as a rider or an amendment. In a 2005 article that recently resurfaced on the web about the fall of 2004 when allegedly Senator Burns (staffers) and Senator Reid’s (staffers) met to discuss the creation of the Burns amendment. However, Senator Reid has been emphatic that he was not interested in the Burns amendment.

    Does this mean that the rider was a decision made by Senator Burns alone? No, it only means that Senator Reid did not want an amendment. Had the Burns rider been introduced in the Senate, the Senate would have had the opportunity to debate the amendment which means the amendment may not have passed. Senator Reid did not want to risk losing the solution to his Nevada problem, which is what the Burns rider was.

    Once again, the timeline in this story is consistent with the timeline that includes the May 1977 E.O. 11987, the Exotic Organisms Act, the decision by the IUCN lawyers to write the exotic species rule into an international agreement through UN CBD Article 8(h). President Bush’s failure to sign this treaty in June of 1992, and the Senate Speaker George Mitchell’s decision not to bring the CBD to a vote September 1994 were merely setbacks, not roadblocks. It was only a few months before someone got the idea to see if the FAO would include UN CBD (h) in the planned update to the 79 update of the International Plant Protection Convention. The Clinton-Clinton-Gore mafia knew as early as the experts meeting in April 1996 at the FAO headquarters in Rome that the IPPC would contain the synonymous language and intent of the alien species provision in the 1997 Update. Ratification of this treaty was, however, one of the last acts the Clinton administration took while in office. The Senate did not ratify the IPPC until October of 2000 after President Clinton had already issued E.O. 13112 , The Invasive Species Act on February 3, 1999. People have written about E.O. 13112 as if had the statutory effect of law because they don’t understand that President Clinton figured out that both he and VP Gore were considered highly suspect when it came to their willingness to go around Congress and use treaties for goals they wanted to accomplish that Congress was unlikely to pass. But by the time Senate Resolution 77 was passed, the IPPC was not a concern. Kyoto was, but not the IPPC. Nonetheless, Congress passed a version of the IPPC that summer, but the federal law did not have the effect of overturning the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act which is why Clinton-Gore and their accomplices in the IUCN decided to put this provision in a treaty. This treaty went into effect in October 2005–which is one reason some people blame this on President Bush—I’m not ready to give Bush a bye because he could and should have stopped this by ending the NISC. He didn’t, but since I don’t know what he knew—he’s got a ? with reservations.

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  17. From a FOIA
    28 male horses from the Triple B died at Gunnison Prison.
    All except one was adoption age … so where did all the older sale-authority male horses go?
    Only 26 Sale Authority age geldings made it to LTH out of 1269 horses captured (3 of those reported dead soon after)
    Does anyone else think that it was unlikely that there were only about 26 or 27 male horses over the age of ten out of a total of 1269?

    Dead at Gunnison:
    9 are listed as euthanized due to gelding complications
    8 died unexpected body condition unable to maintain
    4 died/euthanized fracture/injury head
    2 euthanized fractured leg
    1 died unexpected other
    1 died following illness other
    1 died respiratory pneumonia
    1 died following illness colic
    1 euthanized dangerous

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    • What are the options to terminate these vicious people , who deal in the untimely deaths of the Mustangs ??????? The Killings have to stop !!!!!! I dont want to hear the death counts ,I want to hear the live counts of RETURN TO FREEDOM !!!!!! What are our options ??do we have any ?????I dont know about anyone else but my stomach is ruined , my soul is is in chias, my mind is always in what can we do mode, and Most of all my heart is broken…. These ruthless miserable Murders of the innocent have got to be STOPPED !!!!!

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    • How many more innocent Mustangs must die unthinkable , unimagineable horrible deaths unnecessary, how long must the mares cry in the night over their maimed and murdered foals , how many more stallions will be chased to exhustion only to lose rheir families and their lives????? No actions means certian extinction ………… Is this the only end to the most wonderful gift given to man ????????????????? is this how to say THANK YOU ??????

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  18. Meanwhile….back in Kanas

    U.S. Will Pay $2 Million So Prison Inmates Can Teach Wild Horses to be ‘Gentle’
    http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-will-pay-2-million-so-prison-inmates-can-teach-wild-horses-be-gentle

    (CNSNews.com)

    The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management will pay $2 million in taxpayer funds over five years so that prison inmates in Kansas can teach wild horses and burros to be “gentle.”
    The grant, which is yet to be awarded, is for a minimum of $125,000 and is not to exceed $2 million over the next five years. The money is designed to continue a program already in place with the Kansas Department of Corrections.
    There are similar programs in Canyon City, Colo., Riverton, Wyo., Carson City, Nev., and Gunnison, Utah, according to BLM spokesperson SALLY SPENCER.

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  20. quit the killings our horses are the last of a breed if the big corporates must have the land then they should pay to have them moved safely to a national p ark where they would be safe from slaughter to live free as the were ment to be

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    • Beverly, the wild horses were supposed to live free on federally protected HERD MANAGEMENT AREAS, but this isn’t happening. The BLM is allowing many other uses on these public lands.

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