Join us for Wild Horse Wednesdays®, Wednesday, May 9, 2018
5:00 p.m. PST … 6:00 p.m. MST … 7:00 p.m. CST … 8:00 p.m. EST
Listen to the archived show (HERE!)
You can also listen to the show on your phone by calling (917) 388-4520.
You can call in with questions during the 2nd half hour, by dialing (917) 388-4520, then pressing 1.
This show will be archived so you can listen to it anytime.
Our guests tonight will be Susan Wagner, President & Founder of Equine Advocates and Carol Walker, Dir. of Field Documentation for Wild Horse Freedom Federation.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently presented Congress with a new plan for managing America’s wild horses & burros, titled “Management Options for a Sustainable Wild Horse and Burro Program.”
There is nothing “sustainable” for America’s wild horses & burros in the BLM’s new plan. This new plan is a blueprint to kill, to sterilize and to ship wild horses & burros overseas, where the BLM has no jurisdiction. With this new plan, the BLM will quickly rid themselves of the wild horses & burros they were supposed to “protect,” and will manage the remaining ones to extinction within the next generation or two. Carol and Susan will discuss all of the details. And, we’ll tell you what you can do to help the wild horses & burros.
You can read the BLM’s new plan HERE.
You can read the recommendations for managing wild horses & burros prepared by Wild Horse Freedom Federation HERE.
This show will be hosted by Debbie Coffey (V.P. and Dir. of Wild Horse Affairs) of Wild Horse Freedom Federation.
To contact us: ppj1@hush.com
TO LISTEN TO ALL ARCHIVED WILD HORSE & BURRO RADIO SHOWS, CLICK HERE.
To find out more about Wild Horse Freedom Federation and our work to keep wild horses and burros wild and free on our public lands visit www.WildHorseFreedomFederation.org
Donate Here: http://wildhorsefreedomfederation.org/donate/
1/17/18 – Carol Walker, Dir. of Field Documentation for Wild Horse Freedom Federation, on BLM denying her access to photograph wild horses at Axtell (Utah) and Bruneau (Idaho) off range corrals (where the public is not allowed to see them) to help facilitate adoptions. Listen HERE.
1/19/18 – Erik Molvar, Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project. Erik is a contributor to The Hill and his blog posts can be found here. Listen HERE.
2/21/18 – Ann Marini, Ph.D., M.D., and John Holland of Equine Welfare Alliance on veterinary drugs banned in animals used for human consumption that the BLM gives to wild horses & burros. Listen HERE.
3/14/18 – Jonathan Thompson, a Contributing Editor at High Country News and the author of River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster, on the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster, and other environmental disasters. Listen HERE.
3/21/18 – Kirsten Stade, Advocacy Director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Listen HERE.
3/28/18 – Stephany Seay, Media Coordinator for the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC), working to stop the harassment and slaughter of America’s last wild buffalo. Listen HERE.
Please protect our beautiful wild horses! Farmers should not use public lands to feed their cattle. We the public should have a voice. 😢
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Stand up for our horses.
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What blm wants to do to our horses and burros is wrong. BLM is a bunch of crooks. Stand up AMERICA. ‘
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I am appalled at the current BLM “plan” to extinguish OUR wild horses and OUR wild burros on OUR public lands and those horses and burros that came from and belong back on their congressionally designated legal lands. In addition, I am angered and saddened and frightened for our entire country at the disregard and lack of respect of the law and policy of our congress that clearly states, “wild free-roaming horses and burros … shall be PROTECTED from capture, branding, harassment or death”.
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ALL IS NOT WELL IN THE SWAMP
Pruitt’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
April 6, 2018
If you’re one of President Trump’s Cabinet members, it’s always a bad sign when Fox News tears you apart in an exclusive interview. And it’s especially rough when that happens before your no good, very bad day has even begun. Maybe Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt should have listened earlier this week when the White House told him not to make any public appearances.
It started with posters appearing in his own agency’s halls calling him a “swamp monster,” and only got worse from there, with a series of ethics-related revelations. At the top of the list is the charge that he fired or reassigned at least five EPA officials-four career officials and one political appointee—for challenging him on his spending and management of agency resources. Efforts that the officials had objected to, and which didn’t ultimately come to fruition, included a $100,000-a-month charter plane membership and a $70,000 plan to replace two desks in Pruitt’s office and add a bulletproof desk to the security station outside his office. (Don’t feel too sorry for him-he got other perks like being allowed to use his motorcade’s sirens to get to the airport or dinner when he was running late, despite officials’ protests.)
Pruitt got into even deeper hot water yesterday when it became clear that the hasty ethics review he requested of his sweetheart condo arrangement with the wife of lobbyist J. Steven Hart is now in question, at least in part because ethics officials claim they were given incomplete information about the deal. A copy of the condo lease shows that Hart’s name was actually crossed out, in pencil, and replaced with his wife’s name, although officials had previously said Hart had not been involved.
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2018/04/pruitts-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day.html
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POGO (Project on Government Oversight)
Public Interest Group Wins Legal Fees in Transparency Lawsuit
April 18, 2018
In a landmark decision, a California court recently awarded thousands of dollars in legal expenses to a public interest organization that successfully fought a government contractor’s attempt to block the release of public records.
In a press statement, JMA hailed the decision as “the first of its kind” in a California reverse-FOIA case, and declared that “companies will think twice before attempting to hide information from the public.” The organization says it is now reviewing the documents to confirm whether New Flyer complied with job creation commitments in its contract.
This case is a reminder that an attack on governmental transparency anywhere-whether at the federal, state, or local level-is a threat to transparency everywhere
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2018/04/public-interest-group-wins-legal-fees-in-transparency-lawsuit.html
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GAO REPORT/1990
RANGELAND MANAGEMENT
Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse Program
August 1990
Not Linked to Rangeland Conditions
https://www.gao.gov/assets/150/149472.pdf
GAO found that existing information is insufficient to determine how
many wild horses the range can support, the extent of degradation
caused by wild horses, or consequently the number of wild horses that
should appropriately be removed from individual herd areas. For
example, for the five BLM areas GAO visited (covering 46 wild horse herd
areas), BLM had not assessed the land’s carrying capacities in over 20
years in three cases and in over 10 years in another case. The one
resource area with data less than 10 years old did not use it to set target
wild horse population levels and removal objectives. Despite the lack of
data, BLM has proceeded with horse removals using targets based on perceived population levels dating back to 197 1 and/or recommendations
from BLM advisory groups comprised largely of livestock permittees.
BLM could not provide GAO with any information demonstrating that federal rangeland conditions have significantly improved because of wild
horse removals. This lack of impact has occurred largely because BLM
has not reduced authorized grazing by domestic livestock, which
because of their vastly larger numbers consume 20 times more forage
than wild horses, or improved the management of livestock to give the
native vegetation more opportunity to grow. In some areas, GAO found
that BLM increased authorized livestock grazing levels after it had
removed wild horses, thereby negating any reduction in total forage
consumption and potential for range improvement. According to BLM
range managers, BLM has not acted to reduce authorized grazing levels
Page 3
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So after 28 years we still have insufficient data, despite massive BLM budget increases during all those years for the Wild Horse and Burro Program, with concurrent massive annual losses in the livestock grazing program.
After 47 years of paid professional management? Why aren’t people being fired? Why isn’t wild horse and burro management being shifted to different authorities whose principal mission is to in fact develop and support their humane, sustainable, and equitable management?
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GAO REPORT/1990
RANGELAND MANAGEMENT
Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse Program
August 1990
Not Linked to Rangeland Conditions
https://www.gao.gov/assets/150/149472.pdf
Because of a growing backlog of wild horses in BLM holding facilities,
BLM initiated the so-called “fee-waiver” adoption program in 1984. This
program allowed individuals, and Native American tribes under powerof-
attorney arrangements, to take, free-of-charge, wild horses determined
by BLM to be unadoptable because of age or physical imperfections.
After a l-year waiting period, the fee-waiver adopters obtained
titles on the horses from BLM. Under this program, BLM disposed of about
20,000 horses, surpassing adoptions under the Adopt-A-Horse program
in 1987, In September 1988, BLM terminated the program in response to
intense public and congressional criticism.
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GAO REPORT/1990
RANGELAND MANAGEMENT
Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse Program
August 1990
Not Linked to Rangeland Conditions
https://www.gao.gov/assets/150/149472.pdf
In the past, GAO has reported that overgrazing is damaging a large portion
of the public’s land. Over half of the public rangelands remain in
unsatisfactory condition, and about one out of every five public rangeland
grazing allotments is threatened with further deterioration7 The
condition of riparian areas-those ecologically critical zones bordering
rivers, streams, lakes, and bogs-is even worse. Many thousands of
miles of streams have degraded riparian areas needing improvementH
Wild horse and burro populations consume forage on the public rangelands
and consequently contribute to the overgrazing problem. However,
as we have noted in previous testimony,” the primary cause of the degradation in rangeland resources is poorly managed domestic livestock
(primarily cattle and sheep) grazing. When more animals are allowed to
graze in an area than the land can support, forage consumption exceeds
the regenerative capacity of the natural vegetation, resulting in erosion,
watershed damage, and other deterioration. Although recognizing that
overgrazing was occurring, BLM range managers reported that no adjustments in the authorized livestock grazing levels were scheduled in 75
percent of the allotments threatened with further damage. These managers
cited insufficient data on specific range conditions and resistance
by livestock permittees as the primary reasons why action had not been
taken.
As we further testified, BLM has been more concerned with the immediate
needs of livestock interests or budget reductions than with
ensuring the long-term health of the range.
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Just an idea…make a timeline/chart and send to Congress
1990
GAO REPORT/1990
RANGELAND MANAGEMENT
Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse Program
1997
From PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility)
Horses to Slaughter – Anatomy of a Cover-up within the BLM (April 1997)
https://www.peer.org/assets/docs/whitepapers/1997_horses_to_
Trail’s End for Horses: Slaughter
Adoption: U.S. program is meant to save excess wild animals. Federal employees may be profiting from killing, investigation shows.
January 05, 1997|MARTHA MENDOZA | ASSOCIATED PRESS
Among those who might be profiting from the slaughter are employees of the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that administers the program.
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-01-05/news/mn-15653_1_wild-horses
Breaking Through Del Rio
The four-year grand jury investigation of the Wild Horse & Burro Program and the over 3,000 pieces of evidence it accumulated that was slammed shut in 1996 (without any of this evidence ever being heard) is often referred to in wild horse circles as “Del Rio”.
Let me repeat this so it is crystal clear…
Because a subpoena demanded an accounting of the number of wild horses in a BLM holding facility, the BLM successfully shut down a grand jury investigation of the United States of America rather than comply and allow independent law enforcement to verify the number of wild horses BLM said they were holding in the facility.
http://americanherds.blogspot.com/2009/03/breaking-through-del-rio.html
2008
BLM’S SECRET PLANNING DOCUMENTS “ALTERNATIVE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS”
Documents obtained by the Freedom of Information Act:
BLM Alternative Management Options Draft Plan + Markup
BLM Implementation Team minutes + markup
BLM Implementation Team minutes + markup
https://thecloudfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/alternativemanagement_optionsblm10_2008_markup.pdf
https://thecloudfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/blm_implementation_team_minutes_2008_markup.pdf
http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/news/press-releases/archived-press-releases/350-blm-s-secret-planning-documents-alternative-management-options
Documents Reveal BLM Secret Plan to Destroy Wild Horses
Documents obtained from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) via the Freedom of Information Act by a Phoenix-based non-profit, The Conquistador Program, reveal shocking and detailed plans to destroy healthy wild horses in government holding facilities as well as those still remaining in the wild on public lands
2017
WILD HORSE FREEDOM FEDERATION WHITE PAPER
Five year investigation into Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse & Burro Program
http://wildhorsefreedomfederation.org/white-paper/
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WHAT other “gifts” are our Public Servants being given?
By WHO?
Office of the Chief of Protocol; Gifts to Federal Employees From Foreign Government Sources Reported to Employing Agencies in Calendar Year 2016
A Notice by the State Department on 01/11/2018
The Honorable MITCH McCONNEL, Majority Leader of the United States Senate
Silver horse sculpture. Rec’d-1/2016. Est. Value-$700.00. Disposition-Deposited with the Secretary of the Senate His Excellency Adel al-Jubeir, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/01/11/2018-00365/office-of-the-chief-of-protocol-gifts-to-federal-employees-from-foreign-government-sources-reported
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