“In his own sniveling words” – Ben Masters
“My Term is up and I am STILL a DWEEB”
“Three years ago I was nominated to sit as the volunteer wildlife management chair for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro program where I represented the interest of wildlife and wildlife habitat on 31.2 Million acres of our public land.
I fought for what I believed in, voted on unpopular decisions to euthanize excess horses, did my damndest to increase adoptions, tried to create more volunteer opportunities, and advocated for more equine birth control research and methods.
Ultimately, during my three years, the WH&B program has gotten more and more unsustainable with an ever increasing horse population and increasing impacts to native wildlife. To those of you who value native wildlife and healthy rangelands above all else, A part of me feels like I let you down.
My term as wildlife chair is ending and I’m disappointed in this current administration’s lack of desire to address this topic or to take outside advice from the advisory board. They cancelled our last meeting and Secretary Zinke never really responded to our recommendations.
I learned a great deal about people, about getting beaten up in the press, about how hard it is to change a big federal program, and how much easier it is to criticize a large federal institution rather than to actually get inside and try to change it. It saddens me that the WH&B program has gotten to the point where there’s 3X the target population size and literally no plan to slow the growth of the herds or the ecological impacts. It’s not the horses fault, it’s our own for mismanagement and for administration after administration for kicking the can down the road.
I’m grateful for the people I met, the public lands I got to visit, for the wildlife and horses I got to witness, and for the wildlife professionals who guided me through my volunteer term. I encourage all y’all to get involved in the issues you care about, both in the private sector and by getting involved in the system.
It ain’t easy but it’s worth it! And to all y’all that hadn’t adopted a mustang yet, there’s never been a better time! Training a wild horse is one of the most satisfying things you’ll ever experience.”
https://www.facebook.com/bencmasters
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Good riddance to a hypocrite who mostly fought to round up wild horses and send them to slaughter.
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Masters is spoiled brat & a pure narcissist!! The propaganda & false “science” never stops with these guys!
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Hope somehow we can manage to get another intelligent voice on this board to side with Ginger! Incidentally how much longer is HER term?
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The call for nominations released 2/13/19 is for the positions that represent :
humane advocacy, currently (Ms. Ginger Kathrens)
livestock management, (Mr. Steven W. Yardley)
and wildlife management interests.(Mr. Ben Masters)
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The solution is to get ALL the free loaders and their cattle/livestock OFF public lands! And for God’s sake utilize the advocates and form an Advocate group! First fire 99% of the BLM and all connected with the cattle/livestock industry, gas and oil!
Haven’t they desimated the Wild Horse and Burro population enough! I would give anything to look out my window and see a family herd of Wild horses!
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Yes, I agree, these Beautiful animals were put here to help out man, which they have done for Thousands of years. The least we can do is to take care of them, they are not asking for much. This problem is MAN. There is birth control, and there should be more done in this field, but it is easies to Run them down and send off for food someplace. I hope there is a change, there is plenty of land for them yet they are taken off the land that is their home and destroyed. Heartbreaking. WE love these horses and want them cared for and get the Ranchers off the land that that is the home to the horse, it is wrong, buy your own. Greed & money is what it is all about.
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No respect for our sacred animals and lands …….these people are not protecting the majority peoples interests for our environment….these people should not be entrusted with some of our most valuable assets …..ACCOUNTABILITY PLEASE And Responsibility
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Goodbye and good riddance. Ben Masters is no friend or advocate to the wild horses. He has been the BLM’s lapdog, and did more harm than good with his parroting the BLM’s tired rhetoric about wild horses being overpopulated and damaging grasslands. I hope his 5 minutes of fame are over once and for all. We need a true advocate on that board to be another sane, logical and truthful voice for our wild ones, along with Ginger’s.
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“Euthanasia” is a word commonly mis used to replace the word “kill” or “slaughter”
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I hope true advocates will be nominated : https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/02/13/2019-02094/call-for-nominations-for-the-national-wild-horse-and-burro-advisory-board?fbclid=IwAR1RSnuKd9oso5nfXIdWh6wNEHu91-5T7bend7LVX5cl1B40UAjMc2IMKA8
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Looks like Ginger Kathrens’ term will be up on March 21 of 2019 (just a month away), per the link provided.
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This comment is pretty damning:
“I’m grateful for the people I met, the public lands I got to visit, for the wildlife and horses I got to witness, and for the wildlife professionals who guided me through my volunteer term.”
The wild horses he would not get to visit had they all been removed and/or killed (they really can’t be called truly wild once they are off-range); the public lands he traveled quite a lot for his film previously, and they remain open to the public so that’s not germaine to his term on the board, ditto any wildlife he observed. What’s damning is he is only thanking the wildlife pro’s for guidance, not the public he was ostensibly and overarchingly supposed to be serving.
Wild horses are by law considered protected wildlife, so he is making an artificial distinction here that betrays his truer support base, and anyone reading this knows that source skewed against the survival of wild horses and burros.
Further, while adoptions can work for some horses in some cases, they are not and cannot be a primary focus of management (indeed, they weren’t in the original law). We aren’t raising wild ones on the range to produce meat or riding animals for people, they were to be protected and managed as part of a “thriving natural ecological balance” on our public lands, period.
Anyone on this board should be holding the surival and sustainable resilience of our last wild herds in their legal homelands, as part of that balance, and not focusing on mass killilng disguised as “management” to suit the whims of private interests at taxpayer loss.
I for one am very grateful the advisory board is only that, and it’s “advice” is steadfastly ignored by those making decisions on behalf of “we, the people.”
Happy Trails, Ben.
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This guy never once responded to my considerable input to him and the rest of the board, including Reserve Design. To me he was an unimaginative apologist for the anti wild horses in the wild establishment. Hope he will reflect on his own blind spots!
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Ben Masters was nothing but an enemy to our wild horses and I wonder who was backing him. There needs to be real advocates on the Board.
As for birth control , it is not needed since there is no over-population of wild horses. If the truth was known they should be on the endangered species list. How few herds are genetically viable now ?
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