Source: The Navajo Times ~ (this is an excerpt, see below)
English: Flag of the Navajo Nation Diné bizaad: Diné Bikéyah (Naabeehó Bikéyah) bidah naatʼaʼí (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With multiple efforts to reduce the number of wild horses on the Navajo Nation, officials are considering a hunt.
The Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife asked hunters and sportsmen for their support for a hunt as a potential means to reduce the number of wild horses on the Navajo Nation at the 2017 Navajo Nation Sportsman’s Expo on March 25. NNDFW staff confirmed after the conference that a proposal has not yet been completely drafted, so the department hadn’t yet anticipated details of how the possible hunt would work such as weapons to be used, number of tags to take horses, and hunt unit maps.
Department manager Gloria Tom said the department hoped to address the problem and would propose a solution to Navajo Nation governance once drafted, but also called on the hunters present to add their voices to the conversation around the feral herds and what to do about them.
“Our leaders, they really need to hear from people like you,” Tom said. “People who live out there, people who hunt.”
She said government officials sometimes take information from NNDFW as something that employees are paid to say as part of their jobs and concerns from experts who work for the government might have less impact on elected officials than the voices of their constituents and voters.
“To me, you have a greater chance of success,” she said.
She said previous attempts to trap, round up, or allow horses to be adopted had not made a large enough impact. NNDFW officials said the department is drafting a proposal to get support from Navajo Nation leaders.
“I compare this problem to our cat and dog problem,” she said.
To read the full article, subscribe here now or pick up your copy of the Navajo Times at your nearest newsstand! Find newsstand locations at this link.
http://navajotimes.com/reznews/fish-wildlife-may-propose-horse-hunt-navajo-nation/
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
“I compare this problem to our cat and dog problem,” she said.
Seriously?
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Are you kidding!! Horses have feelings. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.
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The American answer for everything you can not control or fix to your liking is to kill it. We as humans have not evolved very far. There has to be a better answer
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The Horse Slaughter supporters have finally completely derailed. They see if slipping away an antiquated, unnecessary business that America refuses, so they switch their Hatred of horses towards once again shooting them. Last night I heard from an animal Control officer from Indiana who yelled at me in a store shouting we nedd horses slaughter for all the unwanted horses. So I cornered him and asked Do you Sell horses? He replied yes. I said so you big prices? Yes. Then i can also say your horses are Unwanted? No replied they r for sale. I sale no they are Unwanted. When I didnt play his game he said Just shoot them all then. I said then lets start at your place with all your unwanted horses. No way, then well ship them to Canada I said, Never! Was HIS reply. So really this is simply a temper tantrum about them Not getting to Kill their competitor’s horses off. Yes, when man has a temper tantrum even an animal control officer sworn to Protect animals who secretly wants them all dead by gunshot. Well if they close down PETA and HSUS who would they have to blame for All the animal deaths then? Ghosts? As for the Tribe I cannot believe they would consider this travesty. Its against the normalcy of their heritage.
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There’s something fishy about this article. Are they threatening again to make the indigenous people either get rid of the horses our lose their cattle? Last that I had heard they were one with the horses. That was when the horse slaughter issue came about. This seriously smells of government and we invite how corrupt they are. Hunters? From outside? NRA and ask that crap? No way!!! Maybe this is the end of the ownership by the indigenous people of their lands. Maybe the white devils want their land fir their mega cattle lot. Maybe it is the mining and oil companies but surely it isn’t an original thought by the native Americans. Perhaps some of that Russian money was offered. Who knows..land grabs are happening all over. Look at standing rock!!
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This is the Navajo Nation government (NN Department of Fish and Wildlife) NOT the US Fish and Wildlife. The Navajo Nation must be exempt from certain US laws because a horse hunt would certainly not be allowable under the Wild Horse and Burro Act (although certain other atrocities have been perpetuated by the BLM by playing with gray areas in the act, a huge t would be out and out a violation of it). So no, this is not related to the Trump administration.
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Thanks for clarifying this, Stephanie.
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Seems that there is a lot written& said about the over-population of dogs running loose on some reservations – not being able to afford vet care & neutering? The whole idea of just letting these horses run – with no gelding being done – and surprise that they increase? Are these actual WILD horses or just domestic horses turned loose? This was the justification of another roundup on reservation land – remember? A few years ago – where there WERE some wild horses caught up in the roundup – but many belonged to individuals & had their brand on them. Didnt see where the NRA put in their 2 cents – but it would figure!
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Don’t forget that the Tribal Lands are under the Department of Interior/ Bureau of Indian Affairs
New Chair Of Senate Indian Affairs Committee Wanted DAPL Protests Shut Down
Sen. John Hoeven is an odd choice for a job dedicated to helping Native American communities.
By Hilary Hanson
The new chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is a man who has placed himself squarely in opposition to the Native American-led movement to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota
But Hoeven has condemned protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a movement led by members of the Standing Rock Sioux and joined by other Native Americans and allies from across the country. Protesters say a leak would be catastrophic for the drinking water of the Standing Rock Sioux and others, and argue that the construction violates an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government.
In November, Hoeven characterized the protests as sometimes “violent” and called for President Barack Obama to approve the pipeline’s final easement and put an end to the demonstrations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-hoeven-indian-affairs-committee_us_587177d3e4b099cdb0fd764c
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So why can’t the BLM/DIA authorize some AUMs on tribal lands, and subsidize wild horse grazing there, and pay people to manage them? Since we subsidize livestock grazing elsewhere at around 10% of market pasture rates, why can’t we pay tribal members some fair AUM equivalent to keep wild horses wild on tribal lands?
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Just a few excerpts from a well-researched article
.
Once Upon a Mine: The Legacy of Uranium on the Navajo Nation
Carrie Arnold is a freelance science writer living in Virginia. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist, Smithsonian, and more.
Decades of uranium mining have dotted the landscape across the Navajo Nation with piles of contaminated mine waste. The EPA has mapped 521 abandoned uranium mines on the reservation, ranging from small holes dug by a single prospector into the side of a mesa to large commercial mining operations.1 The Navajo people did not have a word for “radioactivity” when mining outfits looking for vanadium2 and uranium3 began moving onto their land in the 1940s, and they did not understand that radiation could be dangerous. They were not told that the men who worked in the mines were breathing carcinogenic radon gas and showering in radioactive water, nor that the women washing their husbands’ work clothes could spread radionuclides to the rest of the family’s laundry.
Bell-Jefferson and her brother Peterson Bell played in and around the mines, splashing and swimming in pools of radioactive water that had been pumped out of the mines and then collected on their property. The contaminated water looked and tasted perfectly clean. Families used it for cooking, drinking, and cleaning. Hogans and corrals were built with mine wastes, as were roads.
Canaries in the Uranium Mines
The arrival of prospectors signified the Navajo Nation’s entrance into the modern wage economy.7 Some welcomed the potential income. In 1995 former uranium miner George Tutt recollected, “We were blessed, we thought. Railroad jobs were available only far off like Denver. … But for mining, one can just walk to it in the canyon. We thought we were very fortunate, but we were not told, ‘Later on this will affect you in this way.’”
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a44/
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Is there ANYTHING that our wonderful government – in all of its wisdom – has NOT done to the Indians/Native Americans? No publicity from this spill on the reservation? Another example of what is done to indigenous people all over the world.
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Please go to their face book page and let your feelings known. Call the number too on the face book page. I find this to be very hypocritical..they did not like the government taking their land so why should it be OK to slaughter the Wild Horses from the land that is rightfully theirs. To my knowledge they were here before the people. I wish I could sit out on my patio and see Wild Horse families frolicking about. And see the new foals in the Spring who will be the next generation. They are under attack from all sides. The B L M, the ranchers and cattlemen, miners and all the disasters falling on our environments and their. Are they just as greedy and have no compassion? God gave us these magnificent animals to cherish and provide stewardship!, Murdering and slaughtering them is not.Stewardship. To kill them will bring bad energy and bad karma to the Native Nation. Have they forgotten where their roots are? They need to reconsider this big time and reach out to the mass number of Advocates and not the murderous sharp shooters and hunters! Please go to there fb page and express your rage. I did!
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And Yet the Navajo Nation sinks to an All New Low. Theres No way The Real Nations People believe this is Right. Is it just me or did the Old West stick its head in own Outhouse for too long and begin to believe all these irrational talk? I mean this is stuff you couldnt Imagine a true Native Tribe would Ever consider, intentional abuse of horses, first by slaughter now by the disguise of hunting??? Wheres Duquette his wacky juice is dripping on all these folks?
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I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Douchequette has had some influence.
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If I remember correctly, a few years ago some of the Navajo caught and sold many horses to kill buyers and simultaneously the tribe was given a very large grant of money by the US government. Dirty deals go on behind our backs every day and you can bet that our US government is behind this horse killing plan.
Keep in mind that not ALL Navajo members agreed or participated in that capture and many were outraged by it.
Horses are Sacred: A View from the Nohooká Dine’
by Leland Grass
https://awionline.org/awi-quarterly/2013-fall/horses-are-sacred-view-nohooka-dine
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Horses in that incident were rounded up from owner’s yards, too, and even if branded were shipped to slaughter. I recall reading stories from those who came home to find their own horses gone forever, and someone else pocketed the proceeds.
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First, the cowboy turned against the very animal that carried him throughout the west. Now, the Native American too? Unbelievable. And IF overpopulation was imminent, how come they didn’t use some sort of fertility control in the first place? Call me extreme or politically incorrect, but I almost see a moral equivalence between such extermination and throwing babies in a prom dumpster instead of using protection beforehand.
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There Not cowboys that condone this. Cowboys was a slang term for roaming criminals which fits.
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Is this one step toward getting the public to “accept” wild horse hunting on public lands?
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This all sounds far too familiar.
2013
The Wild Horse Crisis Out West Continues
Celebrities are fighting it, deals are being brokered, and two proposals are sitting in Congress to end it. So why are horses still being slaughtered in droves?
BLACK MESA, Ariz. — The West is on the verge of a wild horse crisis, according to the Feds. An estimated 33,000 roam freely on public lands and even more on tribal lands. Under a 1971 law, the Bureau of Land Management is supposed to protect these horses and control their numbers so that they don’t ravage grasslands or die of starvation.
But critics of horse roundups contend they are a profit-driven enterprise sanctioned by the federal government and driven by business interests like cattle ranching and extractive industries that want to clear land for development.
“The only way to get at those resources is to get rid of the horses,” said Navajo activist Leland Grass. He has been trying to stop roundups of horses, which are often bound for Mexican slaughterhouses, on the Navajo reservation.
But critics say the data the policy is based on comes from an environmental impact study commissioned by Peabody Energy in 2008 as part of the permitting process to expand a coal mine it operates on Navajo land. The coal mine fuels the Navajo Generating Station power plant, which is majority owned by the U.S. Interior Department. Interior oversees the BLM, the agency responsible for managing wild horses, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), which issues grazing permits on the reservation and contracts with horse buyers, including “kill buyers,” who buy horses bound for slaughterhouses.
Asked whether that study informed the horse policy, Zah said, “It’s definitely part of it.”
Peabody Coal did not return phone calls seeking comment.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a23720/horse-slaughter-continues-in-the-west-102413/
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2013
They Eat Horses, Don’t They? Bucking the Slaughterhouse Ban on Horses
Kevin Taylor
You can lead a horse to a slaughter … or can you?
NAVAJO LEADER’S REVERSAL
Shelly in August authorized roundups of feral horses, even appropriating $1.4 million to the tribal Department of Agriculture for the task. Various communities on the sprawling reservation held roundups that gathered 1,600 horses. The tribe sells to individuals, not packing plants, but it is widely assumed that buyers had most of those horses trucked over the border to meet their fate in a Mexican slaughterhouse.
Many Navajo were outraged by Shelley’s stand. “This is a Shameful Time in Indian Country! And because of your Support of “Valley Meat Company” Horse Slaughtering Plant, I have Lost ALL my Respect for the NCAI & for the Leadership of the Navajo Nation.,” one Navajo tribal member wrote in a Facebook post.
Shelly was battered by criticism from traditionalists and elders
.
“The healing people,” said Leland Grass of Diné for Wild Horses. “We are going to fight this to the very end.”
Grass spoke to Indian Country Today recently by cell phone atop his horse, Blondie, a captured mustang, during a three-day ride to Tuba City with other Nohooka’ Diné – Elders and Medicine People of the Diné – to perform a healing ceremony for horses.
https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/native-news/they-eat-horses-dont-they-bucking-the-slaughterhouse-ban-on-horses/
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Have you ever driven through their reservation with Shiprock in the distance? It is poorer than a third world nation. They can’t even take care of themselves, and there is alot of corruption.
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From the CANA foundation:
https://www.canafoundation.org
People saving horses—-horses saving humanity
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Why,what are you thinking.Think,Stop now.
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Tribal government does not necessarily reflect the will of the people any more than does our own. Somebody somewhere needs a good spanking
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Seriously? That is how we solve all our problems? Kill it. Evolve people and show compassion for something other than yourselves!
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Killing these animals is so twisted and wrong from every standpoint! How can any nation endorse this? Humans have lost their way!
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I thought that I had seen the pinnacle of human depravity, but this goes even a step further…it is truly disgusting 😦
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and by my native brethren as well…sad, sad, sad.
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This needs to stop.. these animals are not preditors.. they pose no agression to humans and are important to the ecosystem.. grazing grasslands that are fuel to fire. This is cruel.. and completely ridiculous.
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Wil Yazzie
April 1 at 8:02pm ·
I am writing to ask all my Native and Non-Native friends to PLEASE write a letter to the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife (P.O. Box 1480, Window Rock, AZ 86515 or call 1-928-871-6450) and tell them that you will BOYCOTT any Navajo Nation products (or visit as a tourist) if they continue with their proposed plans to allow the HUNTING of wild horses (and I am sure includes burros, although the article didn’t mention burros) on the reservation! Go to the website of the Navajo Times to read the article in the March 30 issue. The Navajo Nation Dept. of Fish & Wildlife is asking “hunters and sportsmen” for their support for a hunt. Can you even imagine horses being shot and killed or wounded and left to die in a hot desert? People say they are starving–well, I personally have never saw a starving wild horse here–only ones owned by people who won’t feed them. The same cruelty is why the highways are littered with starving, abandoned dogs killed by cars/trucks. Please, please tell them the Navajo Nation will be boycotted if they persist in being HORSE KILLERS!!!!! In the article it says horse meat is “medicine”—baloney! That is the excuse the traditionalists around the world give as an excuse to kill rhinos for their horns. Buy Viagra, for crying out loud and leave the rhinos alone! I am crying as I write this—I am sick and tired of all the animal cruelty. But this HORSE KILLING is too much!! NO MORE!! PLEASE WRITE!!! Surely Natives and Non-Natives can join together to protest the cruel and senseless killing of these beautiful wild horses. In every evil, follow the money trail. Ask who is making money off this horse killing? More hunting licenses because the wildlife has been destroyed? Remind them that the Navajo Nation advertises tourism by saying WALK IN BEAUTY. Remind them to let the horses and burros WALK IN BEAUTY!!!
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Oppose the wild horse hunt! Wild horses are NOT to be hunted. They need your support NOW BEFORE the decision is made. Please call and write to ask the Navajo Nation Council to oppose the horse hunt.
Call: Gloria Tom of Navajo Nation wildlife & game. Her front desk phone number is 928 871 6450 if you want to call.
If you are opposing the horse hunt please submit a note to below council delegates email address..tell them not to vote or not to support the horse hunt.
LoRenzo C. Bates,
lbates@navajo-nsn.gov
Kee Allen Begay Jr, keeallenbegayjr@navajo-nsn.gov
Norman M. Begay
nmbegay@navajo-nsn.gov
Nelson S. Begaye nelsonbegaye@navajo-nsn.gov, nsbegaye@yahoo.com
Benjamin Bennett
bbennett@navajo-nsn.gov
Nathaniel Brown,
nbrown@navajo-nsn.gov
Tom Chee
tchee@navajo-nsn.gov
Amber Crotty
acrotty@navajo-nsn.gov
Seth Damon
sdamon@navajo-nsn.gov
Davis Filfred
davisfilfred@navajo-nsn.gov
Jonathan Hale
jonathanhale@navajo-nsn.gov, jonzcomet@yahoo.com
Lee Jack
Sr.leejacksr@navajo-nsn.gov
Jonathan Perry
jperry@navajo-nsn.gov
Leonard H. Pete
leonardpete@navajo-nsn.gov
Walter Phelps
walterphelps@navajo-nsn.gov, nakaidinee@yahoo.com
Alton Joe Shepherd
ajshepherd@navajo-nsn.gov
Tuchoney Slim Jr
tslimjr@navajo-nsn.gov
Raymond Smith Jr
rsmithjr@navajo-nsn.gov
Otto Tso
otso@navajo-nsn.gov
Leonard Tsosie
leonardtsosie@navajo-nsn.gov, Ltnncd@yahoo.com
Dwight Witherspoon
dwitherspoon@navajo-nsn.gov, dwight.witherspoon@gmail.com
Edmund Yazzie edmundyazzie@navajo-nsn.gov
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Wild Horse Drama on the Navajo Nation
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Dear Navajo Nation,
Follow that which is BEAUTIFUL
Nizhoni by Inka Gold
Nizhoni in Navajo Native Language means Beautiful
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NAVAJO RUG WORTH $350,000 TO $500,000
Man Makes An Amazing Discovery On Antiques Roadshow
http://www.wimp.com/man-makes-an-amazing-discovery-on-antiques-roadshow/
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