Source: terrifarley.blogspot.com
by Terri Farley
My concern over empty corrals at Palomino Valley Wild Horse and Burro Preparation Facility led me to request more details about our mustangs and their after-capture movements All of the information I’ve put in italics are taken directly from BLM sources.
“As of December 31, 2015, the number of animals at PVC are as follows: 1,129 horses and 12 burros, ”
I also asked for the WHO, WHEN, WHERE and WHY of wild horse shipping. Although the WHY is still forthcoming, but these shipping records cover the period I asked for, from November 1 – January 1. They were secured for me by BLM Public Affairs Specialist Jason Lutterman.
“November 5, 2015: A load of 86 horses shipped to the off-range corral in Carson City, Nevada (inmate training program)
“November 16, 2015: A load of 36 horses shipped to the off-range corral in Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma.
“November 16, 2015: A load of 36 horses shipped to the off-range corral in Bruneau, Idaho.
“November 23, 2015: A load of 8 horses shipped to the off-range corral in Elm Creek, Nebraska.
“December 8, 2015: A load of 34 horses shipped to the off-range corral in Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma”
WHO are these horses? Their coat colors are sorrel and roan, both strawberry and blue, gray and bay, black, brown, pinto and dun.
They’re as old as 15 years and as young as one. Some were born on the range, but many are facility born. Some have strikes listed on their final shipping orders.
Strikes tell how many times a wild horse has been offered for adoption but failed to find a home.
Three strikes aren’t good. The 3-year old bay with 4 strikes, 2-year old sorrel with 5, and three yearlings with 3 or 4 each are not protected by the BLM oversight afforded adoptees. Three strikes mustangs and horses of certain ages may be be sold outright. To whom? For what? If they’re fortunate, they might be sold to someone with good intentions.
Categories: Horse News, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Thanks for the update. Still, it seems to me the numbers don’t add up. The pictures taken more than a week ago show deserted corrals with very few horses left, yet the explanation offered by BLM only accounts for 200 horses out of the 1,400 horses that were claimed to be there by the BLM wrangler. If only 200 horses were shipped then we would have only noticed less crowded corrals (14% less crowded, to be exact).
In addition, most horses seemed to be shipped way before their mass disappearance was reported on the week after Christmas, so it is difficult that such shipments account for the dissapearence evidenced on the pictures dated Dec 30th. We all know that BLM data must be always taken with more than a grain of salt… Is the BLM simply giving us old data in an effort to create a smoke screen?
It would be great if Terri could check PV right now to compare all pens against what she saw on Dec 30th. That would come a long way to determine if the horses were shipped out of PV and then shipped back (perhaps due to people asking questions) or if BLM’s explanation was indeed right.
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On the website the group the BLM is advocating asks you to send a letter to your congressman one senator that reads as follows. The BLM trying to get people to influence politicians probably violates anti-lobbying laws.
____________________________________________
Wild horses and burros are greatly overpopulated on our nation’s rangelands. Current populations surpass 64,000 individuals – well over the level that our rangelands can support in balance with other uses. This is not only a problem for the health of the native wildlife and rangeland ecosystem, but also the horses and burros themselves. These populations continue to grow – at 18-20% per year – increasing the damage to our rangelands.
Send the letter below to express your shared concern about the exponentially growing population of wild horses and burros on our nation’s rangelands. More can and should be done to protect the rangeland ecosystem from further degradation by horses and burros, and Congress needs to act to ensure the health of our rangelands is protected.
As your constituent and a citizen who supports the sustainable management of our nation’s natural resources, I am writing to request your action to improve management of our nation’s wild horses and burros to protect our public rangelands.
Federal agencies currently tasked with managing our wild horses and burros, including the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Forest Service (USFS), are failing at obtaining the mission prescribed in the Wild and Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of maintaining wild horses and burros in a “thriving natural ecological balance.” Current management strategies, combined with Congressional-imposed restrictions on management options, have created a dire situation that risks the health of our public rangelands, wildlife, wild horses, livestock, and all other multiple uses of the range.
More than 64,000 horses and burros are currently on our public lands managed by the BLM and USFS, while these agencies estimate that these lands can sustainably support no more than 30,000 individuals. Populations exceed appropriate management levels by well over 115%, degrading the habitat and harming the functionality of our important rangeland ecosystems. More importantly, these wild herds continue to grow at 18-20% per year, doubling in size every 4-5 years. Within 4 years, we will have 130,000 horses and burros on our rangelands unless changes to our management strategies are made.
I join a wide range of sportsmen, livestock producers, wildlife enthusiasts, and land conservationists – and organizations that represent these interests – to request your attention to this matter. Our nation needs immediate action to ensure our public rangelands, and all of the multiple uses that rely on them, are protected.
Please visit the National Horse & Burro Rangeland Management Coalition at http://www.wildhorserange.org for more information.
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Since the lobbying is not directly made by BLM itself, it is not clear whether there would be grounds for a lawsuit. At any rate, I doubt real people, besides those that are within these phony horse-hating pseudo-political groups, would contact their legislators urged by these sickos. In this regard, it is advisable not to post their URL unless it is broken so as to not to create an hyperlink. Otherwise they will be ranked up higher in google and other search engines, hence promoting further their garbage. There is no need either to post in full the contents of their letters / materials…
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Great Update on the information that’s been milling around.
FYI: The BLM has launched a video on channel 20 in Colorado stating how horrible the conditions the Wild Horses are in and how they are destroying the lands. Routing the public to this website.
http://www.wildhorserange.org
Serious negative propaganda to the public that barely knows anything.
Of course most Advocates know this is their game but having millions of views from television see this, is a real SHAME!!… Wrong information to the public as to why they are being removed from their rightful territory.
Channel 20 needs to stop airing this. Time for them review the real news and information that is gathered by all Wild Horse Advocates
We need complains to Channel 9 news who owns channel 20 here in Colorado.
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That wildhorse.org is a front organization compos[t]ed of a bunch of anti-wild horse agribusiness entities (Farm Bureaus) and a several far-right ideological organizations of dubious reputiation whose main objective is to contest and denigrate anything that remotely sounds to animal advocacy or ecology, to wit:
American Farm Bureau Federation
American Sheep Industry Association
Masters of Foxhounds Association
Mule Deer Foundation
National Association of Conservation Districts
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
National Rifle Association
National Wildlife Refuge Association
Public Lands Council
Public Lands Foundation
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Safari Club International
Society for Range Management
The Wildlife Society
What does for example the Masters of Foxhounds Association, a British organization created to perpetuate the practice of shooting foxes in England for the “royals” to have fun, have to do with American wild horses or American public lands? Exactly… nothing, just like a welfare rancher “boiler room” have no business saying how mustangs have to be “managed”. The rest are just corporate spin-offs (more phoney scam organizations) created by the Farm Bureaus and the welfare rancher syndicates to bulk up their numbers when they are actually a couple guys working in a smoke-filled room at K street.
The goal of this propaganda offensive is paving the road -or sweetening the pill as you prefer- for the privatization of public lands that will likely become effective with the entry of a new (likely Cruz/Trump) administration in DC next year… the grand finale will be the release of featured film funded by Forrest Lucas and commissioned by no other than Duquette in quality of chief political officer and “pontifex maximus” of the horse eaters’ cult.
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I was recently informed that channel 9 is airing this today.
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A thought … IF the BLM wanted to re-populate the Palomino Valley facility quickly because of the concerns of the public then it could be done easily since there are two “nearby” holding facilities. As of Nov 18, 2015 the Carson City Prison facility had 1,756 WH&B and the Fallon facility had 2,254 WH&B. At that time there were only 678 WH&B reported to be at Palomino Valley.
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How much more “basic” research do we need to understand basic wild horse behavior? Perhaps we should instead fund ways to manage them in coordination with grazing and mineral extraction, rather than sterilization, roundups and removals.
John W. Turner Jr. has published on a 25 year study of wild horses in Nevada in Journal of Natural History, 2015, Vol. 49, Nos. 39-40, 2437-2464
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00222933.2015.1024778
Abstract
Wild horse populations in the American West have been heavily managed to regulate horse numbers since the inception of the Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971. The Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory (MPWHT) on the California/Nevada border is unique in the absence of human intervention there across the past 30 years. This has provided the opportunity to observe long-term patterns in the natural relationship between wild horses and their environment and to examine environmental impacts on the horse population and its activities, movements and distribution on the range. In this study multiple variables in the physical environment and in horse behaviour were monitored seasonally across 25 years beginning in 1987. Distinct summer (higher elevations) and winter (lower elevations) range use was characteristic for more than 60% of the population during the first 7 study years, with subsequent gradual but marked reduction in use of summer range. While approximately 20% of the population continued to annually use the historical summer range, the majority divided into two geographically and functionally separate subpopulations that resided year round in the historical winter range and adjacent areas on opposite sides of the MPWHT. Mountain lion predation on foals was restricted to the summer range, and exodus of horses from the summer range resulted in increased foal survival where horse subpopulations eventually resided. The long-term consequences of increased horse numbers in the MPWHT remain under continued study. The present study has shown that wild horses are highly adaptive and individually varied in response to environmental pressures. It has also demonstrated the value of long-term monitoring of wild horse populations to reveal underlying dynamics and their potential management implications.
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Despite this much welcome update, the main question remains since the data provided by BLM doesn’t really offer a plausible explanation in light of the graphical evidence showing empty pens at PVC.
200 horses out of 1,400 would not leave totally deserted pens as shown in the pictures. What happened? Were the horses moved temporarily to another place? Why? Were they returned when we set off all alarms about them going missing? Was it that, by chance, we caught BLM red-handed doing something they use to do frequently? Weren’t they moved at all and were in fact at another location of PVC? If so, exactly where? How can BLM explain the deserted pens in the pictures?
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Is there records at the holding pens they were reportedly transferred to that verifies what PV is claiming? Might be another question to answer.
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A few quick thoughts that inspire new questions.
Dec 2015 BLM facility report.
Click to access WOFacRpt122215_web.pdf
Palomino Valley
697 WH October 21, 2015
678 WH November 18, 2015
1,134 WH December 22, 2015
Interesting to note if you compare Oct & Nov & Dec facility reports that although the Beaty Butte Oregon capture removed 1071 WH (Nov 4-Nov 23) the grand total in holding only increased 501 wild horses leaving 470 unaccounted for. Did 470 die in one month or were 470 sold during that month?
Also interesting to note that the Burns Oregon holding facility increased from 544 in Oct to 838 in Nov and then down to 779 in Dec. Nothing unusual about that except that since during that time, the other known holding facility for the Beaty Butte WH was P.V which only increased 456 WH. Therefore, total WH accounted for from Beaty Butte appears to be only about 745 WH out of the 1071 that they captured? Where are the other 326? Were they “sold” off the range without even making it to a holding facility?
Just thinking out loud…
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A Slick in the Night
by Valerie James-Patton
Click to access A_Slick_in_the_Night_VJP.pdf
We keep hearing the upsetting stories from our wild horse advocates living in Nevada near the BLM wild horse holding facilities about wild horses being hauled in the middle of the night and disappearing. We hear it often.
We’ve been told by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), that’s to prevent the horses from getting overheated during the high temperatures in the hot summer months, but that doesn’t fly when we hear of it happening during the cold winter months.
When numbers from BLM reports don’t add up, and large numbers of horses are missing from the charts, all those stories of night-time hauls come to mind.
So does the story from a BLM informant, who anonymously gave his testimony to a special agent from the Department of Justice back in 1994, and was exposed in the 1997 PEER Review Report: Horses to Slaughter – Anatomy of A Cover-Up.
Even though there are questions on BLM’s math skills, it’s important to remember we’re not just questioning calculations on paper, but we’re questioning the lives of horses that have disappeared. There’s a huge problem taking place in BLM’s wild horse facilities and the horses removed from the range than just what paper work reveals, and much more than what BLM is willing to tell.
One can only wonder if they became “slicks” quietly hauled away in the night.
Even a rocket scientist adding the numbers up would not be able to give us an answer to that question.
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