U.S. public outraged by dangerous winter roundup
BLM captive wild horses in Palomino Valley 12/11/09 - Photo by K. McCovey
WASHINGTON — In Defense of Animals and noted wildlife ecologist Craig Downer asked a federal judge Wednesday to block a plan to round up about and wipe out a herd of 2,700 wild horses by removing them from a western Nevada range.
The mustang roundup planned for Dec. 28 would be one of the largest in Nevada in recent years. Federal officials plan to use helicopters to run the horses through ice and snow and into holding pens where their future will be as uncertain as the fate of the 33,000+ wild horses already imprisoned. Last year the Bureau of Land Management wanted to slaughter all of the horses due to the high cost of feeding them. The estimated cost of this single roundup ranges from $900,000 to $1,700,000 depending upon which BLM authority is queried.
Wild horse advocates say use of the helicopters is inhumane because many of the animals are traumatized, injured or often killed. Just this past week the BLM conducted a winter, clandestine roundup that left at least one of the horses dead. This action took place while BLM’s Don Glenn stood in front of Wild Horse advocates and the press during an Advisory Board meeting where he stated that the BLM is transparent and only delivers the truth.
The roundup is part of the Bureau of Land Management’s overall strategy to remove thousands of mustangs from public lands across the West to “protect” wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them, yet the BLM allows welfare ranchers to graze millions of cattle on the same public land.
A lawyer for In Defense of Animals, a California-based group that advocates on behalf of animal protection, called the roundup plan illegal.
“The BLM’s policy of mass removal and stockpiling of horses was never authorized by Congress when it protected these iconic animals in 1971 as an important part of our national heritage,” said William Spriggs, a Washington lawyer who argued against the roundup plan in court Wednesday.
In Defense of Animals and wildlife biologist Craig Downer sued the BLM last month to block the Nevada roundup. Terri Farley, a Nevada author whose books about wild horses target young readers, joined the lawsuit Monday. The Cloud Foundation, Equine Welfare Alliance and Habitat for Horses are, also, in full support of the suit yet not named in the court documents.
Erik Petersen, a Justice Department lawyer who represents the BLM, said the roundup is needed because more than 3,100 horses and burros crowd the Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada — about five times as many horses as the land can handle, yet advocates point to the land grab as being motivated by cattle and mining interests.
Removing the animals also will help preserve the “endangered and rapidly disappearing” rangeland where they live, Petersen said. Petersen did not mention the millions of private cattle and sheep that degrade the same public land that a few thousand, native wild horses graze upon.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the mustang roundups in October as part of a new management plan he said would avoid the need to kill any wild horses. This proposal has further outraged the pro-horse community and has been labeled as the “Salazoo Plan”. The intent of “Salazoo” is to move tens of thousands of native, wild horses to unnatural eastern preserves where the mares will be sterilized so that the American public may visit and view the no-producing herds die out over the years. The proposed price tag for this operation is conservatively tagged at $97 million U.S. dollars.
Salazar does openly admit that the current program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment or taxpayers.
The BLM’s wild horse program cost about $50 million this year and is expected to rise to at least $85 million by 2012 if the program is not changed, officials said.
Spriggs, the lawyer for In Defense of Animals, said the BLM has only itself to blame for the high costs. At least two-thirds of the costs for wild horses are for long-term storage facilities in the Midwest that he said were nothing more than warehouses. The cost of leaving the horses on their natural and legal assigned land would be negligible.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said he would rule on the case before Christmas.
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Categories: Equine Rescue, Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
“..The judge said that if he agrees with the argument and stops the roundup, he’s concerned what would become of the horses already captured. Mustang advocates say its BLM’s own fault for not following the law. “That was a self-inflicted wound since they’re spending 70-percent of their budget on horses in Kansas and should have spent it managing the horses in the first place,” said Spriggs….” (taken from G. Knapp, Las Vegas, NV report)
This is an unsettling statement for 2 reasons: (1) The injunction seeks to put a halt on a specific round-up and therefore, has nothing to do with the BLM controlled equines currently in holding; and, (2) *this is a currently active case being discussed on a public forum…I’m not going to help the bad guys. Let’s just say one statement requires additional filings (however that is done legally) and other options for same. Not posessing a transcript, my first thought is why is the concern of equines in current holding relevant to this filing. In fact, it attempts to halt further gathers to limit concern and unaddressed resolution of equines in holding. Odd statement to me. But I’m not a lawyer.
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I agree about publicly detailing plans. This is an open blog/forum and the powers-that-be do watch us/it.
Now that you point this out, the comment from the judge is rather odd. It has nothing to do with this case.
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I believe the judge’s question has to do with concern regarding ***** ( I will not elaborate here). Kind of a good news, bad news scenario. I talked to our mutual friend about it. ‘nuf said here.
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With so many lives at stake, I hope the Honorable Judge Friedman will make his decision with compassion and in the spirit of the original law. We all have to keep the faith, positive thoughts and prayers.
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“..The judge said that if he agrees with the argument and stops the roundup, he’s concerned what would become of the horses already captured”
I have a suggested ruling for him = restore thier 20 Million acres that we already own, that was taken illegally and return them!
Should we be writing to the court? I saw that on another unrelated case history, that the court was impressed by the public writing to them.
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“In its public statements, BLM argues it needs to remove the horses right away to protect the range from overgrazing, even though last year the bureau approved an increase in cattle grazing in the very same range, saying then that damage from horses was negligible.”
Copied this exerpt from George Knapp report – available on The Cloud Foundation page.
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