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U.S. Senate Committee Funds Cattlemen’s Mass Mustang Roundup & Incarceration to Tune of $35 Million

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Update from the Cloud Foundation

Mares and foal in Burns Corrals – by Carol Walker

WASHINGTON, DC (September 26, 2019) Today, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a Fiscal Year 2020 spending bill that includes a shocking $35 million in funding to implement a potentially catastrophic mass mustang roundup proposal promoted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the so-called “American Mustang Foundation” and other agribusiness lobbying groups and, shockingly, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the ASPCA, and Return to Freedom, a sanctuary.

The proposal, misleadingly dubbed a “Path Forward for Wild Horse and Burro Management,” will accelerate the removal (by helicopter roundup) of wild mustangs from public lands and allow for inhumane management methods, such as cruel surgeries to sterilize wild mares by ripping out their ovaries. Although billed as a “non-lethal plan,” the proposal is a poorly disguised path to slaughter. It could increase the number of horses to 150,000 maintained in captivity at taxpayer expense with no guarantee of funding for their long-term care.

“We might as well call this what it is: “The Path Backward” or “The Path to Extinction,” since they’re reducing wild horses to the number that existed in 1971,” stated Ginger Kathrens, Director of The Cloud Foundation. “That extinction-level number is what caused Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Horse and Burro Act. This ‘plan’ will rip tens of thousands of horses and burros from their dedicated land and their families at catastrophic cost to the American taxpayer…billions of dollars spent to incarcerate them in cramped corrals for the rest of their lives, except for the few that are adopted. Why? So private livestock interests, (subsidized by the BLM through your tax dollars), can run cattle on public lands. It’s time for the American people to stand up and say, ‘No more. Not with my tax dollars. There are better programs to spend these billions of dollars on than this.'”

“The misguided proposal is a road to destruction for America’s wild free-roaming horse and burro herds,” said Suzanne Roy, Executive Director of the American Wild Horse Campaign. “It’s a sweeping betrayal of America’s wild herds by the nation’s largest animal welfare groups. This is a $35 million-dollar giveaway to the commercial livestock industry, which covets the public lands where wild horses roam. We’re shocked that the Senate has appropriated taxpayer funds to perpetuate a failed system of roundup wand removal when humane fiscally responsible solutions are available.”

“This scheme is the biggest threat to wild horses and burros in the West in decades, and the American taxpayer is going to finance the whole shebang” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action and a lifelong horseman. “If this ghastly plan is implemented, we’ll see massive round-ups, swelling captive wild horse populations, and jubilation from cattlemen’s associations that secured political cover from the Humane Society of the U.S., Humane Society Legislative Fund, and ASPCA for their long-time aspiration to secure a government-funded wild horse depopulation program.”

The BLM currently spends 73% of its budget to roundup and remove horses from the public lands and deal with them once removed; zero percent of the budget is spent to implement humane management of horses on the range with birth control. Nothing in the Senate bill would prevent the BLM from spending the entire $35 million to round up and warehouse wild horses and continue the “business as usual” practices that the National Academy of Science called “expensive and unproductive for the BLM and the public it serves.”  The BLM could also use the funds to implement gruesome sterilization surgeries on wild mares in which their ovaries are ripped out in an archaic procedure used in the livestock industry.

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

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32 replies »

  1. In 2013, the National Academies of Science (NAS) completed a comprehensive review and report. This concluded that the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro program has failed to use scientifically rigorous methods to estimate population sizes and growth or to assess the impacts of intensive management actions on genetic viability (NAS, 2013). The NAS report found NO EVIDENCE OF EXCESS WILD HORSES AND BURROS.

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    • I am from Utah. I am the organizer and founder of the soccer league in Butler
      Area soccer .. AYSO. I’m good at organizing and leading… I would love to go back to Utah and help with organizing and planning to save horses

      Liked by 3 people

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  3. How is the BLM able to turn a blind eye to studies like the one that Grandma Gregg sites? How do they excuse away published studies by leading scientists? And the BLM STILL continues to spin their “overpopulation” myth and people continue to buy into it! I am heartsick about this bill passing and so incredibly angry at the HSUS ASPCA and Return to Freedom for selling out our wild horses and burros and getting into bed with the Cattleman’s Association. How do these animal groups sleep at night? Where is their conscience and moral compass?? I’m going to continue the fight….I refuse to give in.

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    • They really at night. Why shouldn’t they. They got what they wanted. What you can do is,,,,the next reelection of the Senate…….vote them out. Can’t do anything if they’re not in Senate anymore.

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  7. I am only one of thousands of people who were fighting this in every way possible. I am also heartbroken for our wild horses and Burro’s, the senators who voted for this horrific bill are inhumane, and the fact that they are getting taxpayers money to pay for what is essentially the beginning of the end for these magnificent animals is mind boggling.
    Know this, I and anyone else who loves our world here in America will continue to fight. My message is too fold, karma will find everyone who has been a part of this, and the other is we are going nowhere, this fight will continue on. We will lobby, if that’s what it takes to win. Those of us that run sanctuaries and rescues are going to do everything we can for as many as we can. Thank you to everyone who has been on the ground filming the round ups, helping with injuries and rescuing as many as possible.
    We fight on.

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  8. From the Buffalo Field Campaign:

    “We have power… Our power isn’t in a political system, or a religious system, or in an economic system, or in a military system; these are authoritarian systems… they have power… but it’s not reality. The power of our intelligence, individually or collectively IS the power; this is the power that any industrial ruling class truly fears: clear coherent human beings.”

    ~ John Trudell

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      • Gail, as I read this, only the committee voted for this, NOT the whole Senate which will only see this when it shows up in the entire FY 2020 Budget Bill. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. None of my Senators is on the committee (and as noted, hardly any represent states which actually have wild horses or burros).

        Liked by 3 people

  10. It is so disheartening to know that the truth is not really known to those in charge of voting for allocating the money and how the BLM & FS have spent our money mismanaging and destroying our wild ones. If each of them could only know the truth about there not being an excess on their legal lands and if they could each spend a day actually sitting and watching our wild ones in the wild … almost all of them would then do everything they could to protect them … as the law requires and mother nature requires.

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    • Only a handful on the committee even represent states which have wild horses at all. This in itself is a travesty, perhaps of indifference or gullibility, but surely a large dose of ignorance. If my Senators voted to pass this they will be catching holy he** from me soon.

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  11. Unbelievable upsetting. The mismanagement of the BLM has been going on far too long. Anyone Senator who passes this bill is a disgrace. People should boycott meat products, that would be helpful, as well.

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    • Boycotting meat won’t touch this problem, sadly, as only a tiny fraction of commercial livestock graze on public lands, and an even tinier fraction graze the 12% or so of these grazing lands which are the legal wild horse and burro areas. We also in recent weeks have seen our “Dear Leader” trying to make a trade deal with the UK to send them our poultry products in exchange for the US importing more UK beef and lamb.

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  13. As usual, they screwed the Wild Horses and Burros discarding again the will of the PEOPLE! We must never give up the fight no matter how bleak it looks! There are a couple of things I plan on doing.

    1. I am preparing picket signs for my US House and Senate members District office. I believe they could be back in their office next week. Right now it seems NO ONE is listening to US! There are enough pictures on the internet to down load and paste to a board. If you can copy the info out there so you have some talking points and guide lines. Get a group or a couple of friends if you can or go it alone! Have someone call the media and report the picketing! Hey Hey Ho Ho don’t let our Wild Horses and Burros go! Or Hey Hey Ho Ho the Bureau of Management has got to go! (I love that one)

    2. If you can, there is a planned Motorcade Protest fir the Wild Horses and Burros in DC on November 16th! No walking just cars, trucks and what ever plastered with signs! Look for the info on Face Book. If you don’t drive there I’m sure there will be enough people going there to ride with!

    NOW is NOT the time to be silent! Let their VOICES be heard thru US! And for God.sakes if WE ALL can hang in there, Make IT a Blue TIDAL WAVE in 2020! Get out there a help people get registered and to the polls! Let’s take OUR POWER back! Just take a note from Greta, a high school student!

    The Wild Horses and Burros lives are in OUR hands!

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  14. From American Wild Horse Campaign

    The Humane Society of the United States, ASPCA, and Return to Freedom, who made promises to protect horses, just betrayed America’s mustangs and burros.

    Today, at the behest of those organizations and the livestock industry lobbyists they allied with, the Senate Appropriations Committee funded a $35 million increase for the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. The appropriation is part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Interior Department spending bill unveiled today.

    But don’t despair. This is a setback, but not the end of the battle.
    There’s a long process ahead before this becomes law – if it ever does. Congress may choose to fund the government in FY 20 by passing a Continuing Resolution instead of a spending bill. And th

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  15. Proposed Senate budget offers no funding for BLM headquarters move
    BY MIRANDA GREEN -09/24/19

    A final Senate budget deal appears set to offer no funding for the Trump administration’s plans to move the headquarters of the Interior Department’s land management agency out West.

    Funding for the Interior Department passed out of committee Tuesday deprives the Trump administration of requested funds to move an anticipated nearly 300 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees out of Washington, D.C., to Grand Junction, Colo., and other locations in the Western U.S.

    Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations interior subcommittee, said he was “pleased” that the bill failed to include any new funding for the “ill-advised” BLM reorganization.

    “Between this bill and the strong statement made by the House to oppose the reorganization, the administration would be well-advised to stop trying to ram these changes through and actually work with Congress on a good faith basis,” Udall said Tuesday.

    https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/462766-proposed-senate-budget-offers-no-funding-for-blm-headquarters-move

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  16. Who is currently Yelling at Congress to STOP THIS ? THE AMERICAN people need to call, email, fax, and phone Against this. These organizations are pro horse slaughter. These organizations NEED TO BE EXPOSED.

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  19. Tried to make a comment about John Cox’s claim in the above video that PZP is a pesticide. Have you ever known women who couldn’t get pregnant because they were allergic to their husband’s sperm? Their immune system wouldn’t let the sperm through the protein coating on her egg. The sperm has to penetrate for conception to occur and if the sperm can’t penetrate the egg due the immune system rejecting it, no conception can occur. It”s that simple. That is how PZP works. The protein coating every mammal including us, wild mares, pigs etc have on the outside of our eggs is what determines whether sperm can penetrate. If it doesn’t recognize it as friendly it won’t let it in. PZP uses the protein coating from pigs ovaries to make an injection that coats the eggs in the donor animal, in this case a wild mare, and that signals the immune system to recognize the sperm as unfriendly not friendly; and conception cannot occur. It wears off after a few years and was developed to be used on humans in Holland but with the potential lag in time wearing off there could be lawsuits if a woman wanted to conceive later and couldn’t. What manufacturer wants litigation like that? So it was put aside for humans. It is not a pesticide though and that’s the point.

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  20. Pingback: U.S. Senate Committee Funds Cattlemen’s Mass Mustang Roundup | huggers.ca
  21. Pingback: U.S. Senate Committee Funds Cattlemen’s Mass Mustang Roundup & Incarceration to Tune of $35 Million — Straight from the Horse’s Heart – New Human New Earth Communities

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