HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A grass roots movement is gaining momentum on a state tourism site on the social media network Facebook. There, wild horse lovers are urging tourists to boycott the state as the legislature considers a bill that would deny water to wild horses.
Save for the wolf, few animals living wild on what’s left of the West’s ‘wide open’ spaces engender as much contention as wild equines. To some, they are iconic, tough and unfettered living anchors to our past, worthy of respect and preservation. To others, they are competitors for scarce rangeland resources, to be stringently controlled through mandates and policies and inevitably, removals. Procedural documents outline reasons for proposed removals of Wild Equines from a home range; most allude to the lack of available forage or limited water resources. Nearly all cite the absence of predators and the vast proclivity toward over-breeding of these long-lived species as compelling cause for removals.
A few years back I wrote an article about the threat to America’s wild horses in general and the small herd of Mustangs on the Blackjack Mountain preserve in Oklahoma in particular. At that time I laid the blame for the mismanagement of one of America’s greatest natural resources at the feet of the Bureau Of Land Management (BLM) and their close ties to corporations buying leases on public land to run livestock. The BLM is supposedly responsible for the stewardship of all wild lands not currently national parks owned by the federal government in trust for the people of the United States. The acts which govern the terms of their stewardship spell out they are supposed to treat them in manner sensitive to the existing ecosystems. One of the pieces of legislation which applies to these territories is the Wild Free-Roaming Horse And Burro Actpassed in 1971 that was designed to preserve existing populations of wild horses and burros on all government owned lands.
Elvis is dead. So are Barney, Floyd, Princess, Buddy, Love, Bella and Ethel. They died on Easter, burned to death in their barn in southern Ohio, when someone set the building on fire after spray painting messages to their owner on the outside.
With vision clouded by ignorance, narrow-mindedness, prejudice and lack of morals Wyoming State Rep. “Slaughterhouse” Sue Wallis and her main squeeze Dave “Doink” Duquette got themselves so wrapped up in another state’s business that they failed to even read or understand a proposed bill that was voluntarily withdrawn.
In my opinion, one of my biggest concerns is that this Environmental Assessment is based on flawed reasoning and for reasons listed below is, basically, fraud against the American public, no matter what “authorizations” it hides behind.
On April 29, the Bureau of Land Management issued a press release announcing that its Wild Horse and Burro Long Term holding facility near Tulsa, OK would be open for one day for a public visit in June.
Interesting that this announcement comes so closely on the heels of The Cloud Foundation’s release of this viral video which graphically illustrated the horrible living conditions of wild horses at the Lake City Short Term Holding Facility near Salt Lake City, UT
While the likes of Dave Duquette and Sue Wallis waved their out of state banners and declared that Horse Tripping does not exist in Nevada the cruel and inhumane practice was occurring right under their upturned, pig-like noses.
Last November the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened up two of their privately owned long term wild horse holding facilities to the press and public and Horseback Magazine’s Chief Photographer, Terry Fitch, attended and rendered a compelling article which can be read (HERE). SFTHH has just learned that the BLM will host another day for taxpayers to view once free roaming wild horses held in same sex herds on private land at great expense while waiting to die as their natural lives and families have been totally destroyed and subverted.
Canterbury Farms near Maryland’s Eastern Shore is the nation’s largest breeder of Polish Arabian stallions, a place where horses “feel at home,” according to its Web site, and where a walk among the paddocks “will leave you with the feeling that you are visiting puppies in horse clothing.” – NOT SO!
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