With New Leadership, New Hope for Wild Horse Preservation

Finally, the dawn of a new age has begun, and the hopes and dreams of all of us who care deeply about the preservation of our wildlife, including the American Wild Mustang, have a chance at success.There is a hearing in Washington DC wednesday March 4th before the House Natural Resources committee that will focus on a new Bill, the  ROAM Act, or HR 1018. With 32,773 horses currently languishing in government holding pens, time is of the essence! Not only should ROA M become law, the captive horses should be restored to their respective herds to be monitored by qualified scientisits, as supported by the new administration, employing a more effective “in the wild” management program that will protect the horses’ well being and ensure future survival of the species,which roamed this land long before we arrived.

Please write to your elected officials and ask them to support ROAM now, before it is too late!

Here is the news from AWHPC:

- BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board met in Reno today. The number of wild horses currently held in government holding pens was reported at a staggering 32,773, thousands more than remain in the wild. No major recommendations were made, but an important topic of discussion was a bill that is making its way through Congress and that would go a long way toward reclaiming the spirit of the 1971 Act.

- Coincidentally, the Restoring Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act – HR 1018, introduced by U.S. Representatives Rahall and Grijalva, will be the subject of a hearing tomorrow, Tuesday, at 10:00 am EST before the House Natural Resources Committee. The bill would amend the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act by adding important new protections and provisions, such as the banning of helicopter round-ups and the reclaiming of land lost by America?s wild horses over the past 30 years. The hearing will be webcast live on the Committee’s website at www.resourcescommittee.house.gov . Please contact your U.S. Representative and urge him/her to support this critical piece of legislation. We will keep you informed as the bill makes its way through the legislative process.

- On a more somber note, eleven burros were recently killed near scenic Lake Pleasant, AZ, in a disturbing incident reminiscent of the Oatman massacre in which 54 burros were gunned down at Easter during the 1990s. The carcasses were found spread over several acres of public land. BLM rangers say the burros were shot sometime the week after Valentine?s Day and ranged in age from adult to newborn. ?Some were recently born and some were right in the process. There was no mercy.”

Please contact the AZ State BLM Office to insist on a vigorous investigation into this matter: 602.417.9500 – ASOWEB_AZ@BLM.gov. People who have relevant information should also call the Federal Law Enforcement Agency at 1.800.637.9152. There is a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. If found and convicted, the perpetrators face fines and prison time.

On behalf of America?s wild horses and burros, thank you for your support,

The AWHPC Team
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
www.wildhorsepreservation.org

Click here to join our email list and receive the latest updates.

 

 

Update Alert: Euthanasia for Wild Horses ??

     

On July 2nd, the Bureau of Land Management, intent upon removing American Mustangs from the Wild in support of grazing cattle on public lands, proposed euthanizing thousands of mustangs that are in government holding pens out west ( more than exist in the wild). Please visit the link attached to read what can be done to place a moratorium on further round ups,or any action by the BLM, until a viable solution is reached. After years of tax payer dollars to care for these wild creatures in inappropriate holding corral conditions, the solution is to kill them????

I have added/listed the suggestions of the Campaign to Save the American Wild Horse, which includes contacting your congressman/women, The Oprah Winfrey show, CNN’s Anderson Cooper to investigate the “herd  management” practices of the BLM, your US REP, and your senators. Tell them what you think, help save these animals’ lives, and better yet, restore their rightful grazing lands and return the captured horses to their homes in the wild. I have also included my letter to Nick Rahall, congressman who stepped up to ask for an investigation. We really need everyone’s help. Please spread the word to all your friends and family.

Thank you for your Help!!

Visit my blog: http://ginastoll.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/gina/#comments

July 7, 2008 – Action items to save America’s wild horses: say ‘no’ to BLM’s “magic bullet”

After last week’s shocking announcement that it was considering putting to death thousands of wild horses to address its budgetary shortfalls, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) went into damage-control mode, laying the groundwork for ugly compromises. Meanwhile, AWHPC Coalition members met with key congressional staffers today to assess the situation and formulate a plan of action. In addressing this crisis, our allies in Congress are counting on the American public’s vocal support.

Below is a list of action items for you to help in this fight:

Alert Oprah Winfrey to this tragedy. She needs to hear from thousands of us urging her to feature our wild horses, American icons, on her show.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper should be urged to investigate the matter.

Please also contact your US Representative, two US Senators, and Rep. Nick Rahall, Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, using the following talking points.

• BLM is warning that the 29 thousand horses left on the range could cause an “ecological disaster.” Three decades ago, when federal protection was enacted for the horses because they were “fast disappearing from the range,” population levels were much higher. The horses were not posing a threat then, so how could they be now? How about the fact that 12.5 million acres allocated to wild horses under federal law have been taken away from them? How about the 6 million head of private livestock grazing the same public lands?
• The additional funding BLM is seeking, with our horses as bargaining chips, should only be granted subject to strict independent oversight and the following conditions: 1. A moratorium on round-ups until actual numbers of wild horses and burros on public lands have been independently assessed; 2. The review of scientific findings that contradict claims of wild horse overpopulation and negative impact on the range; and 3. Implementation of in-the-wild management, including non-invasive fertility control methods, which would save millions of our tax-dollars.
• Unrestricted sales and instant titling of adopted horses are not acceptable alternatives: slaughter is a worse fate than a bullet to the head.
• Members of the public have expressed an interest in contributing to the support of America’s wild horses. Please implement tax incentives for that purpose, ensuring monies are strictly allocated to in-the-wild management and the caring for horses already in holding pens.
• What an incredible waste of tax-dollars it would be to spend millions rounding up horses by the thousands and feeding them for years, and then to just turn around and kill them.

To locate your US Representative and two US Senators, visit www.congress.org and enter your zip code.

To contact Chairman Nick Rahall, a long-time friend of the horses, click here:

BLM has set up a web-page for the public to comment. While we are under no illusion that they have any interest in the American public’s wishes, you may give them a piece of your mind by calling 202-208-7351 or by following this link: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro/feedback.html

Remind them that we, the American people, entrusted them with our wild horses, living symbols of our freedom and spirit. After thirty-five years of lies and backroom deals, millions of acres lost to private livestock, and millions of our tax-dollars wasted on rounding up horses by the thousands, our precious herds are decimated and 30 thousand horses languish in government corrals. Now a bullet or slaughter are the only alternatives they can offer us for our wild horses?

BLM cannot say we did not warn them and plead with them; they cannot say we did not offer solutions. They have failed us and we will be asking our congressional representatives to hold them accountable for their wild horse management duties, duties so egregiously subordinated to special interests. Enough is enough.

It is time America stand up for its wild horses, a national treasure. Ask your family, friends, neighbors and colleagues to speak out at this critical time. We are the horses’ only voice.

For more suggestions on how to help, please click here.

July 2, 2008 – BLM Considering Euthanasia for Thousands of Wild Horses

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board met on Monday. As Americans were making plans to celebrate Independence Day…..

 

 

Congressman Rahall;
Thank you for standing up and requesting a stay on any action against the American Mustang recently. I am horrified to think a government agency would be so bold as to impose the following ( some illegal )activites, and pass it off as “Herd Management”
( more like herd decimation and elimination…)
1.) Rob the horses of 12.5 million acres that legally belong to them to roam and feed and thrive in the wild, as intended
2.) allow cattle to graze there instead, starving the horses, removing them from access to their watering areas, where they have been for centuries
3.) hiding the trapping pens from the public eye after running them down with helicopters, killing hundreds of defenseless animals and their foals
4.) Using OUR HARD EARNED money to hold them in pens for years and thenpropose to kill them????
We need to

1.) Restore their rightful grazing land to them, as intended by the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971
2.) Release the horses in BLM pens to their rightful lands immediately
3.) Restore the active, viable herd levels in all five western states to their original numbers, and increase as necessary to accomodate all animals accounted for at present
4.) adopt humane and viable herd management techniques with independent oversight comprised of individuals with the horses’ healthy survival and best interests at heart.
4.) stop allowing the blm to run the mustang population program immediately! they have proven a complete failure, for after all, these are wild creatures indigenous to these lands, not livestock.
5.) Use our tax payer dollars to accomplish all of the above, as well as tourist revenues gained from keeping them as a viable western heritage, viewed by all the world. Unique to the USA.

 

Author Visits BLM Wild Horse & Burro Auction In New Hampshire

Steve and Sam at the Auction

It was a chilly Friday, June 5th on the New England coast, where fog, mist and occasional rain marked the arrival of the enormous BLM ( Bureau of Land Management) caravan of tractor trailer trucks loaded with 70 wild mustangs and burros to the Hilltop Equestrian Center in Somersworth New Hampshire. At least that is what I understood from the review in the Eagle Tribune the previous week in terms of their numbers. The makeshift “pens” used to control and divide the horses and burros up by age, size and I believe, gender, were a sorry excuse for shelter or even containment, too small and inadequate spaces for the animals to really stretch their legs after a long road trip, and not nearly enough room for all to get to the soggy hay, which was all that was afforded to them. It was difficult enough to witness this humiliation first hand, but almost impossible to imagine what it must feel like to these once regal, roaming spirits to be in this broken place, in this broken condition. Their ribs shown through, especially the “yearlings”, from lack of proper nutrition, and lack of room to move for most of their young lives. They tangled in their small spaces, trying to get to food and water, many having open gashes from trying to defend themsleves in too small a space, no where to run, trapped in a corner of the “pen”.

Present were a trainer, offering demonstrations and discussion as to what works with reaching and gentling these wild creatures, however, I did hear her talk of their fear of humans, their first experience with Man having been their often brutal capture, traumatic tagging, shots and freeze branding procedures. Also present were two BLM hands responsible for moving the animals to New England. I spoke with “Steve” and met “Sam” his mascot mustang, to learn more about their travels. It was documented as to where the horses had been captured, their approximate age, and the process of the auction taking place the next day was explained with enthusiasm. I looked hard at all the “previewers”, searching their faces to try to determine whether they were truly there to adopt, or would these babies go over the border to Canada? Surely a possibility with bidding starting at only 125.00. Photos from the paddock where they were held will be posted shortly, along with any record I can recover regarding the results of the auction the following day, which I was unable to attend. I was told by Steve that 46 of the horses had been adopted via the internet prior to their arrival. How does one screen for qualified adoptees on the internet, I wondered?

Would that I had enough land and a place or the resourses to adopt them all and turn them out to pasture, for that is the least of what they deserve, being stolen from their “herd families’ where they have the best chance for survival.

According to the Eagle Tribune, it has been 7 years since mustangs were brought into New England for auction, as there had been a hiatus on transporting the animals from their BLM pens. If the BLM pens are anything like what I saw, these horses will lose their health and weight and spirit in a nanosecond. Surely we can do better with our tax dollars.

Please write your legislators and tell them how you want your tax dollars spent, by restoring protective lands that rightfully belong to the herds and were established for the protection of these beautiful animals, so the herds can grow and be humanely managed back to the level which was originally earmarked by the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. That number is 50,000 ( although I believe it could and should be higher than this).

Currently, there are more mustangs in BLM holding pens than there are in the wild. This is not right!! Further, petition your legislators to pass laws that make sense towards humane herd management. There is important and relevant legislation pending at this time, which begins to address fairly some of the issues at hand, and which restores some of the protection originally afforded the American Mustang. Check the links on my earlier entry to see what your legislator has done! Ask them to petition the BLM to release captive horses back to their natural habitat, and to have their lands be restored in areas known to be home to the herds, lands that may harbor natural predators, where natural predators ( such as the grey wolf) are being restored. In doing so, allow the balance of nature work towards natural populations that will balance themselves. To the extent this cannot address all the needs of humane herd maintenance, ask them to restore humane slaughter within our borders for the sick and disabled, rather than force them to suffer needlessly on long hauls to other countries where they meet an even more sordid and cruel fate. Thank you for your help.

Please, help by going to the links in this blog and contacting your legislators, let them know how important it is to preserve our national heritage in humane and sensible ways. Tell them to please… Help Save the American Wild Horses from annihilation oversesa, and further suffering over our borders.

Saving The American Wild Horse

Horses are my passion, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.  Their beauty, grace and strength have been celebrated throughout time in history, religion, mythology and art.  Horses first landed on American soil in the early 1500s with the Spanish conquistadors who brought them aboard ships destined for the New World.  Over time, the horses escaped or were left without an owner and roamed free and wild.  Their numbers swelled to two million. 

 

But by the time the federal government passed a law in 1971 to protect these herds of wild and beautiful creatures, only about 50,000 were left roaming America’s open spaces. More than 1 million horses were captured and tamed for World War I duty; the rest were slaughtered by chicken feed and dog food companies, and hunted down for sport.  The hunting methods were cruel and vicious with helicopters and motorized vehicles chasing them to exhaustion and then weighing the collapsed horses down with tires until slaughterhouse trucks retrieved them. They were stampeded off cliffs, shot down at full gallop, or corralled and massacred, then dumped into mass graves.

 

The carnage stopped because the public took action.  Petitions and letters flooded Congress and called for America’s wild horses and burros to be protected from further slaughter.  The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was passed and the horses were safe, for a while.  The law has been revisited repeatedly since then by special interest groups and weakened to the point where the sale of “excess animals” from public lands led to more animals being sold for slaughter.

 

That’s why places like the Wild Horse Sanctuary are crucial to the survival of these beautiful, gentle and stately animals.  But sanctuary is costly and finite, limiting how many horses can be saved.

 

Saving the American Wild Horse is a compelling documentary narrated by Viggo Mortensen, Sheryl Crow, Peter Coyote, and directed by Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, James Kleinert.  The film delves into the politics behind the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) controversial policies regarding wild horses on public lands and exposes how the current massive Western land grab by oil, gas and mining corporations exploiting over 30 million acres of natural Western lands in the areas of New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and others is jeopardizing the fragile future existence of America’s wild horses and burros.

 According to the filmmaker, Saving the American Wild Horse documents the struggle of an animal that has long symbolized freedom, individualism and unbridled passion; all traits that exemplify what humans strive for in their finest hours. Through interviews with scientific experts, ranchers, historians, wild horse owners, animal rights activists, environmentalists and others the filmmaker examines the origins and effects of the recent “Burns Bill” which gutted the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 and cleared the way for the slaughter and removal of a vast majority of the wild horse herds. Saving The American Wild Horse will screen at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 30th, 2008.  www.newportbeachfilmfest.com  To learn more about the American Wild Horse, how you can help strengthen protection laws and support the distribution of this very important documentary, visit these websites: 

http://www.wildhorsesanctuary.org/about.html

http://www.animalsvoice.com/PAGES/features/horses.html

http://www.theamericanwildhorse.com/index.html

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/166841148

http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/about.html

 

I’ve created this blog with the hope that I can garner support for their mission, increase awareness, create a vision for humane treatment of these regal, intelligent animals who have served mankind so faithfully and reach the legislators who can facilitate change and put a stop to this unnecessary, senseless tragedy. Horses are an integral part of the American experience, our history, and our legacy.  They deserve a far better fate, a secure and peaceful place to live out their lives, and together, we have an obligation to our own legacy as Americans to be the ones who make that happen.