Equine Welfare Alliance and The Cloud Foundation ask Senator Durbin for Help as Wild Horse Roundup Begins

Cloud: even BLM's "gather" could not quell his spirit - Photo by Terry Fitch

Chicago, IL – December 30, 2009—American wild horse and burro advocates, The Cloud Foundation (TCF) and the Chicago-based Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) are organizing a peaceful gathering today in Chicago. The public will assemble at noon in front of Senator Dick Durbin’s office at 230 South Dearborn in Chicago asking the Senator to help halt the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) massive roundup of thousands of mustangs living in the half million acre Calico Mountain Complex area in northwestern Nevada. The wild horse capture began Monday, December 28, despite a federal court ruling recommending that the action be postponed.

Moncia Courtney and Susan Sutherland during Pryor Mt. Roundup

“We’re having this peaceful assembly to tell our government we want to stop this unprecedented winter Calico roundup. It will assault the last stronghold of America’s wild horses. Despite federal law that protects them, they have been relegated to the most inhospitable areas of the range.  Still, they have adapted and survived. The BLM is handling an American treasure callously, without regard for what Americans want. We want Senator Durbin’s help to pass a moratorium on all roundups, including Calico, until the American public and Congress can craft a sustainable future for our legendary wild horses and burros.” —The majority of wild horses captured are in good condition. Despite federal protection, wild horses have been relegated to the most inhospitable areas of the range. Still, they have adapted and survived.Susan Sutherland, Chicago Area resident and Cloud Foundation member.

The Cloud Foundation and over 190 organizations, authors and celebrities, including Sheryl Crow, Viggo Mortenson, Lily Tomlin, Bill Maher and others, are calling for an immediate moratorium on roundups until the American public works with Congress to craft a sustainable plan that protects and preserves wild herds on public lands in the West.

The BLM has acknowledged that at least half of the Calico roundup will be held on private land where the public will be unable to view the roundup. The Cloud Foundation discovered this two days before the roundup’s scheduled start.  Despite a public statement to the contrary by the BLM wild horse and burro program chief Don Glenn on December 7, 2009, the public is prohibited from viewing.

“All of our gathers are open to the public. The public is invited to come watch all the time.” Said Don Glenn of the BLM.  Glenn delivered this message to wild horse advocates as an unannounced planned roundup was already underway in Northern Nevada.

Emmy Award Winner Ginger Kathrens of The Cloud Foundation - Photo by R.T. Fitch

“We are hopeful that Senator Durbin will see through the BLM lies and deception and stop this unnecessary and cruel winter roundup. It insults the democratic process if BLM gets away with this. They have betrayed the trust of the American public.” —Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation and filmmaker for the popular PBS Nature programs detailing the birth and life of Cloud, the pale palomino stallion well-known to Americans.

In his December 23, 2009 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman recommended that BLM postpone the Calico roundup of 2,700 horses in the more than half million acre Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada. BLM will instead, move forward to remove 80-90 percent of the estimated 3,000 horses living in the Calico Mountain wild horse complex. Low-flying helicopters will chase the horses over dangerous winter terrain into traps and temporary corrals. Respiratory illnesses, permanent injury and death are expected as horses are run, possibly over long distances, and foals are separated from their mothers.

“This is a devious ploy to displace the wild horses from their legal herd areas. It is very vicious and must be exposed and stopped.” —Craig Downer, Nevada Wildlife Ecologist and member of EWA

The government agency entrusted to manage our public land shows their disregard towards the U.S. District Court by going ahead with the roundup. In denying public access to the Calico roundup—one of the most controversial roundups—BLM also shows their disregard towards the public right to observe, by carrying out the largest-ever wild horse capture, defying what federal law requires: notification, transparency and the public right to offer comment.  The public insists that BLM has gone too far.

“To start this large-scale roundup on private land where members of the pubic are forbidden to attend, allows the BLM to hide the suffering and death that will happen during the capture of the mustangs.  The public outcry over this roundup has been massive, but this government agency is behaving as though they are accountable to no one, not the public, not even Congress.” — Mark Traverso, Chicago area resident and advocate.

Makendra Silverman (TCF) and R.T. Fitch (EWA) discuss BLM tatctics during Pryor Mt. gather

Little trust is left in the agency that has been charged by Congress to manage what many call the living history of the American West. Protests are being organized around the globe with the San Francisco event expected to be the largest.

“The whole world is watching—people are outraged by the latest assault on America’s wild horses. Protests are springing up worldwide: San Francisco ,London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boulder, CO and Sun Valley Idaho, so far.” —Makendra Silverman, Associate Director of The Cloud Foundation

The Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance that represents over 85 organizations and hundreds of individuals throughout the US, Canada, the  UK, South Africa and Australia will be represented at the assembly.

Wild Horse Emergency: Sheryl Crow and Viggo Mortensen’s Cry to STOP the Roundups

Sheryl Crow & Viggo Mortensen take a stand for saving the last few remaining Wild Horses and Burros in America! This PSA/Short film tells the viewer how to take positive action in contacting our elected officials in Washington D.C. helping to create positive change. The Time Is Now!

Wednesday is Call in Day for the Wild Horses, Call President Obama NOW!

BLM Insinuates Press and Public to be Idiots in Recent Interview

Writer/Publisher Steven Long recently interviewed BLM spokesperson Heather Emmons regarding the disgraceful and unlawful actions being undertaken by her agency while conducting a massive winter time, wild horse roundup in Nevada.  Out right lies, violation of federal law, bumbling bureaucracy and total disregard for a Federal Judge’s ruling permeate the conversation as the befuddled interviewee attempted to apply logic to an illogical and out of control government agency.

Steven’s interview, in it’s entirety, is inserted below.

(Gag Alert:  Please ensure that all liquids and/or foreign objects are removed from your mouth prior to reading this interview.  The threat of either rapid expulsion or uncontrolled aspiration of said materials is all but assured while visually consuming this written dialogue.  Your safety always comes first)- R.T.

Exclusive by Steven Long, Editor/Publisher of Horseback Magazine

BLM Director, Don Glenn said on December 7th, Perl Harbor Day, that ALL BLM roundups are open to the public - that no situation would prevent the BLM from allowing citizens to observe the tax-payer-funded roundups - Even Horses Laugh!

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – When the Bureau of Land Management began their “gather’ of Wild Horse on private land on Monday, Horseback Magazine asked to go along on horseback with a reporter and photographer. We promised to be unobtrusive. We were politely turned down and told the agency would allow no press to witness what has turned into a brewing scandal for the Obama administration. We interviewed BLM spokesperson Heather Emmons.

HORSEBACK: Federal Judge Friedman last week advised against this gather. Why is the agency doing this against his advice?

BLM: Uh, well the judge ruled in our favor that we could actually go ahead and gather.

HORSEBACK: But he advised against it.

BLM: Well, all I know is that we were given the okay to go forward so we started our gather this morning.

HORSEBACK: Whose decision was it to start the gather against the judge’s advice?

BLM: Well, once we got the ruling, you know, from the judge, that we could go ahead with the gather – we went ahead with the gather.

HORSEBACK: Was it Mr. Abbey’s decision? Whose decision was it? That’s what I’m asking.

BLM: Well, I can give you the name of someone to talk to with regards to that. I can’t really talk to that.

HORSEBACK: Can you find out for me? I don’t necessarily need to talk to them. I just want to know who made the decision to go against a federal judge’s advice.

BLM: I sure can.

HORSEBACK MAGAZINE: What is your plan for allowing the media access to the roundup?

HEATHER EMMONS, BLM: We are going to be on private land. We are planning specific dates where we can escort media it to the gather, and then out…

HORSEBACK: We don’t mind being escorted, but what we have in mind though is to have full access with our people on horseback. We don’t object to having one of your people on horseback next to us but we want to be able to see everything that is going on.

BLM: That’s what I’m trying to convey to you. We can’t let you have full access with this one.

HORSEBACK: What are you hiding?

BLM: We’re not hiding anything, sir.

HORSEBACK: It sounds like it.

BLM: The reason we have parts of it on private land is because it is the only way to have access to the horses for certain areas. They are really rough areas to get to. The private land is the only way we can get in there and get to them.

HORSEBACK: Isn’t it a fact that the BLM always prohibits the press from coming in and having full access?

BLM: We like to work with people and take them in with escorts only because it’s so remote out here.

HORSEBACK: In other words, you like to control the situation.

BLM: Well, we like to be able to explain what’s going on, make sure people are there for people with questions to help them out.

HORSEBACK: We’ve been covering this for months. Some people have been covering it literally for years. We, and they, are perfectly aware of what’s going on. We want to be able to photograph it. We want to see the horses if they are injured. We want to count the horses that are injured. We want to know the nature of the injury. We want to see how the injuries happen.

BLM: Okay, well we are going to have public days that are going to happen. There are parts of the gather that will be on public land and anybody can go on that. We’ll let people know when those parts of the gather will occur on our website.

HORSEBACK: How much of the gather will be on public land? How many days?

BLM: Oh, about half of it.

HORSEBACK: Will you keep people in an observation area, or will they be able to go anywhere they want?

BLM: Well, we’ll probably put them in an observation area depending on where it is and how we set it up. As you probably well know, horses spook very easily, so we can’t have people roaming around for the safety of the attendees because the horses spook if they see any movement whatsoever, they turn around and run the other way.

HORSEBACK: I run a horse magazine. I’m perfectly aware of horse behavior. What we have in mind specifically is not to do anything that would spook a horse – but have someone on horseback standing still within a hundred yards of where the gather is taking place – standing very still and not spooking.

BLM: They’ll see you, and we don’t know exactly where the helicopter is going to guide the horses.

HORSEBACK: Was anyone from the press and public out there today?

BLM: I don’t believe they were out there today, no. Again, we talked to the land owner and the land owner did not want to have the public out there today at all.

HORSEBACK: Who is the landowner by the way?

BLM: You know, in this case, I’m not sure of the names of them but I know our Horse and Burro people have spoken with them.

HORSEBACK: Could you research that for us please and get us contact information?

BLM: I sure can. We are doing a media day on Wednesday of this week.

HORSEBACK: What is going to take place at the media day?

BLM: We’re going to have everyone meet at BLM in Winnemucca at 6 AM on Wednesday morning and do a briefing to explain to people what they are going to see, what we intend to do, how it works. Then we are gong to caravan out to the site and watch horses be gathered for a few rounds.

HORSEBACK: How long will the media be out there?

BLM: We’re anticipating maybe five hours.

HORSEBACK: And how many media days are you planning?

BLM: We don’t know at this point. We’re just going to kind of gage the interest.

Nevada Begins Wild Horse Roundup; Willie Nelson Cries Foul

from DISCOVER Magazine

The big roundup in Nevada has begun. But rather than being fodder for a old-fashioned Western, this one is kicking up a fight. Yesterday the Bureau of Land Management launched its mission to capture 2,500 wild horses from public and private lands across the state.

Contractors in helicopters and on horseback herded some of the mustangs into corrals in the Black Rock Range, a chain of mountains 100 miles north of Reno, according to a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management. Heather Emmons said she did not know how many horses were captured on the first day of the roundup, which will take two months and stretch across 1,750 square miles in the Calico Mountains Complex [Los Angeles Times].

According to the BLM, the Nevada lands can’t sustain the 3,000 wild horses that now live there, as the population will likely double in four years. So, the agency argues, winnowing the population will sustain the environment and protect the horses, too. But where the horses will end up remains uncertain. Long-term plans call for the mustangs to be placed for adoption or sent to holding facilities in the Midwest. The agency said a facility in Reno was full of adoptable horses, making it unclear when the animals gathered in the latest capture could be put up for adoption [AP].

To say that the helicopter roundup riled up some horse lovers would be an understatement. “To start this immense roundup … on private land where members of the public are forbidden to attend is a brilliant, insidious move on the part of the BLM to hide the suffering and death that they are about to inflict on our mustangs,” said activist Eylse Gardner [San Jose Mercury News]. Activists say that helicopter-assisted roundups frighten the horses and can cause injuries like broken legs, which cause horses to be euthanized. However, a federal judge last week denied a request to stop the operation by ruling that it didn’t violate the law, paving the way for its commencement yesterday.

Opposition remains, in both local activists and celebrity sympathizers—it seems the Rolling Stones aren’t the only musicians with a soft spot in their hearts for “Wild Horses.” Celebrities including singers Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow and former Playboy models Shane and Sia Barbi have tried to call attention to the issue. “We must act now before the BLM has managed these magnificent animals into extinction,” Nelson said [USA Today].

Related Content:
80beats: Wife of Billionaire T. Boone Pickens Plots to Save Wild Horses from Slaughter
80beats: Horses Were Tamed, Milked, and Probably Ridden 5,500 Years Ago
DISCOVER: First to Ride, on the intertwined histories of horses & humans

USA TODAY: Activists decry wild-horse roundups

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY           (Here’s your national coverage – R.T.)

The Voice of the Public is Ignored by the BLM

Federal officials have begun rounding up at least 2,500 wild horses from Nevada rangeland, triggering protests from animal advocates who say the trapping endangers these symbols of the American West and condemns them to lives in captivity.

The protesters are organizing demonstrations around the country Wednesday to pressure the Obama administration to impose a moratorium on roundups by the Bureau of Land Management. They want to halt the practice of sending captured horses to Midwestern pastures and holding pens, where some are adopted but most remain for the rest of their lives.

“We are very, very disappointed this is happening under the Obama administration,” said Suzanne Roy, program director at In Defense of Animals, a group that has sued in federal court to halt the roundups. “This will devastate the herd and have a devastating impact on the horses left behind.”

MORE: Plan to round up wild horses draws opposition

AT ISSUE: Wild horse debate gallops on

ARCHIVE: Wild horses a tax burden, face slaughter

The BLM contends the roundups are necessary because there are more wild horses than Western lands can support. Allowing the herds to grow unchecked will lead to starvation and suffering by the horses while destroying grazing land used by cattle ranchers, said Tom Gorey, spokesman for the BLM in Washington.

“Herd sizes double about every four years,” Gorey said. “To put a moratorium on gathers (roundups) would be untenable.”

BLM contractor's chopper running Pryor Mountain horses into trap - Photo by Terry Fitch

Helicopter wrangling

The BLM and contracted horse wranglers used two helicopters Monday as they began trapping wild horses that have roamed on more than 850 square miles of rangeland in northwestern Nevada.

Heather Emmons, spokeswoman for the BLM in Nevada, said 20 or more horses were captured by midday and the roundup would continue for as long as two months, until at least 2,500 horses are taken off the range.

The helicopters skim the ground to chase horses into pens, where they are trapped and trucked to holding facilities at Fallon, Nev., for evaluation, veterinary treatment and branding, Emmons said. She said the agency intends to leave 800 to 900 horses from this herd on the range.

Older horses will be sent to permanent holding facilities in the Midwest while younger ones go to short-term facilities and will be put up for adoption. Rates of adoption have been falling, and Gorey said the agency expects about 3,500 horses to be adopted in the next year.

More than 34,000 wild horses and burros are kept by the federal government in corrals and pastures, primarily in Oklahoma and Kansas. The government estimates that 33,000 wild horses roam on BLM-managed rangelands in 10 Western states, half or more of them in Nevada.

About 30 protesters gathered Sunday at a conservation area near Las Vegas, demonstrating against the roundup. In Defense of Animals said it was organizing a demonstration Wednesday outside the San Francisco office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in the hope of spurring political support for their call to halt the roundups. Other protests were planned in Chicago, Boulder, Colo., and elsewhere, said Makendra Silverman, associate director of the Cloud Foundation, a Colorado-based group that tries to protect mustangs.

‘Situation is unpatriotic’

The fight over taking wild horses off federal land has intensified in the past two years since the BLM under the Bush administration proposed, then backed away from, a plan to euthanize unadoptable wild horses in captivity.

Under the Obama administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposed buying land to create national preserves and sanctuaries in the East and Midwest as permanent homes for mustangs. Horse advocates have opposed Salazar’s plan as a dressed-up version of the status quo combined with aggressive roundups they say would threaten the future of wild horse herds.

“The situation is unpatriotic,” said Deanne Stillman, author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West. “What represents freedom more than wild horses? We are a country born in hoof sparks. … I do think most Americans are not happy about this stripping away of our heritage.”

Celebrities including singers Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow and former Playboy models Shane and Sia Barbi have tried to call attention to the issue.

“We must act now before the BLM has managed these magnificent animals into extinction,” Nelson said.

Advocates say that trapping in winter threatens the horses’ health because of cold temperatures and rugged terrain, and that the actions separate foals from mothers.

Emmons of the BLM said winter trapping is better because the animals are at lower elevations and can be captured in shorter distances with less stress.