Horse News

Opinion: Scheme to Kill Nevada’s Wild Horses Built on Greed

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By Charlotte Roe as published on The Reno Gazette-Journal

Zinke claims “humane euthanasia” (e.g. killing) is the only solution to overpopulating “starving” wild equines that allegedly harm the range and wildlife. No evidence substantiates his spin.

Longtime Horse Slaughter Proponent, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, wants America’s Wild Horses and Burros Killed/Murdered.

In Southeast Nevada’s high desert Silver King Herd Management Area, wild horses coexist with elk, deer, antelope and sage grouse. They are vastly outnumbered by cattle and sheep.  Although federally protected, they are in peril. The Bureau of Land Management intends to round up nearly 1,000 to achieve its absurdly low population target of 60 adults and foals, leaving one horse per 10,000 acres. In the huge Antelope Valley and Triple A Complex, the BLM plans to remove over 7,000 mustangs. The Trump Administration wants captured horses sent to slaughter.

In April 2017, Congress directed the BLM to economize by presenting a “a plan to achieve long-term sustainable population on the range in a humane manner.”  Instead, the BLM’s inhumane, unsustainable FY18 budget request, pushed by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, proposes to eradicate up to 92,000 wild horses and burros, by selling those in holding to slaughterhouses and destroying those arbitrarily deemed “excess” on the range.

 This despicable plan was conceived through propaganda, deception and what conservative columnist David Horowitz terms a takeover by the cattle lobby. Zinke claims “humane euthanasia” (e.g. killing) is the only solution to overpopulating “starving” wild equines that allegedly harm the range and wildlife. No evidence substantiates his spin. BLM estimates there are 73,000 wild equines in 32.6 million acres of public lands, an average of one horse per 456 acres.  Federally subsidized cows and sheep number in the millions.

The BLM’s wasteful system makes millionaires of a few helicopter contractors. It distracts attention from the devastating damage done by livestock overgrazing and by commercial exploitation of federal lands. Humane management solutions for wild horses and burros have long been available. They include safe, reversible birth control vaccines; the repatriation of captive wild equines to the 21 million acres the BLM removed from their historically designated ranges; readjusting “appropriate management levels” (AMLs); and ending the agency’s counterproductive system of roundup and removal. In its 2013 report, the National Academy of Sciences stated that roundups increase reproductive rates, and that AMLs are arbitrary, inflexible and groundless.

 Secretary Zinke urges further eroding of environmental regulations and undoing federal monuments to accelerate the development of public lands by extractive industries. Wild horses and burros are an obstacle to this greedy plan.

Wild mustangs run in harmony with herds of elk in Nevada’s Antelope Valley. Free-roaming equines graze down fire-prone vegetation and underbrush. They break ice and dig water holes, helping other wildlife to survive harsh winters. They attract visitors from around the world to struggling rural communities. The vast majority of Americans want them safe and free. Please urge your senators and representative to maintain the ban on selling wild equines to slaughter and to oppose budget language that allows killing these iconic animals.

http://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/voices/2017/08/31/scheme-kill-nevadas-wild-horses-built-greed-opinion/621805001/

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

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13 replies »

  3. There are hundreds of documented pictures and videos that prover they are guilty of animal cruelty resulting in a painful and unnecessary death.
    Time to be held acountable for your greed and entitlement attitude and they way you make money.

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    • Um, because they are managed… by THE BLM and USFS, the same folks that are also paid to manage America’s wild horses and burros!

      Perhaps we should propose that for every wild horse or burro removed to be subsequently killed (at taxpayer expense) 200 cattle or an equivalent number of sheep should also be forever removed from the range. It’s only fair if “range health” is the touted argument for this proposed bloodbath that private, for-profit livestock investors also do their share.

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  5. What a terrible disappointment this man has been. They all pretty much disappoint – I can only think of two Secretaries of the Interior that IMO have done a good job. The founding father of many of the environmental protections we have today, Stewart Udall; and Bruce Babbitt.

    All in the pocket of ranching and hunting – whether Democrat or Republican. I’m sure we remember Ken Salazar too.

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  7. Anyone who votes to support this mass killing of what can only be described as political pawns should be forced to watch every one of them die, and the entire event open to the public, and filmed and widely broadcast. Nobody should be allowed to vote for this and not face the results of their handiwork, up close and personal, and in public. No cowards way out should be allowed if this disgraceful excuse for “management” ever occurs.

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  10. Those RICH cattlemen and sheepmen must have SOMETHING going for them, eh?
    Why are government officials, who are charged with PROTECTING our PUBLIC LANDS, allowing them to be torn to shreds by PRIVATELY OWNED cattle and sheep????
    I SMELL A RAT … A BIG, FAT RICH ONE!!

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