(The News as We See It) by R.T. Fitch ~ author of “Straight from the Horse’s Heart“
BLM Drives National Icon Closer to Extinction
The Helicopter is the BLM's new High Tech Weapon of Extinction
HOUSTON (SFTHH) – August 11, 2010 Yesterday, a federal appeals court rejected a plea to stop a planned Bureau of Land Management (BLM) roundup stampede of thousands of wild horses and burros in Northern California.
The BLM claims that it is necessary to use helicopters to stampede 2,000 wild horses and 200 wild burros living on the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area in an effort to protect the land they graze on and the horses themselves. Advocates counter that recent observations indicate that there are nowhere near that number of horses on the range and that private cattle far outnumber the native wild horses.
Wild horse advocates had hoped to stop the roundup with challenges in federal court. Last week the advocate’s challenge was heard by a U.S. District judge in Sacramento who declined to order a halt to the roundup, and today the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also declined to stop it.
The roundup is scheduled to begin this morning, Aug 11th, with BLM contractors firing up helicopters which will take to the air and stampede the unsuspecting wild horses into awaiting traps. The horses families, or bands, will then be broken up and the wild horses will be condemned to a life of long term holding which comes at great cost to the welfare of the equines and the pocket book of the American tax payer.
Advocates, scientists, Congressmen, Senators, scholars and Subject Matter Experts have attempted to educate the BLM special interest machine on the dangers of using helicopters to stampede horses and the risk of conducting such deadly operations in the heat of the desert summer. Such pleas of sensibility were ignored several weeks ago at the deadly Tuscarora stampede were dozens of horses were killed on the first day of the assault.
54 Congressmen have sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar asking for a moratorium on the wild horse stampedes until a full accounting of horses left on the range and horses held in captivity could be conducted. Salazar’s response, to date, was a carefully crafted statement issued by the BLM’s director, Bob Abbey, stating that such a moratorium would not be granted. The statement appears to have been produced by the BLM’s high dollar, contract public relations firm and served to only further inflame the American public as it was riddled with misquoted figures and full of unsubstantiated facts.
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Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Please stop the stampeding of the wild horses. There is room for horses and cattle. The Cattle farmers are getting greedier by the minute.
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Why can’t the Government, leave these F*****g Horses alone…All they do is scare the Animals, they are treated horrible, as shown in the picture…Mankind, can’t possibly determine, that this is good for the Horses…I wonder how much Mr. Salazar, and Mr. Abbey were paid, by the BLM Special Interest groups…I really don’t know how you A******s sleep at night…
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Please NO roundup… Protect natural… preserve natural…
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Sounds as though they castrated all of the Federal judges along with the horses.
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Unfortunately I wholeheartedly agree with you Louie. What more do we need to show to get a judge to listen?
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Maybe if we all go up to his office and take off our fly guards all at once?
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But first we need to chase them around with a helicopter in 100 degree heat.
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This is so heart breaking….these animals just NEVER get a break.
Does anyone know if the Ninth Circuit actually heard the case or just decided not to hear it at all?
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What is going on with our public lands? There are too many incidents of access being closed. This is cause for Citizen concern.
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I consider these actions a top-down directive from Obama to get the wild ones off American’s public lands. Fast-tracked energy projects and natural resource extraction (plus the jobs that go with them – many transitory) are the primary factors. Of course, there are numerous other interests only too happy to fill the coffers of both parties in exchange for postive outcomes.
Almost the entire degradation of the range has been blamed on the wild horses and burros. Truth is, the wild ones have become an “inconvenience” and an easy target for vilification and removal. Other proven causes have been shunted off in the name of the almighty dollar. The wild ones “neither sow, nor do they reap (profits)” so they must go.
The BLM cattle allotments are merely “placeholders” until more profitible uses are found for the land. Monitor extraction industries, re-purposing of water resouces, and urban development and see how many plans are in the works or already in place that will have a massive impact on American lands, public and private, and their inhabitants, our waterways, and, ultimately, our quality of life and freedoms.
To paraphrase Martin Niemoller:
First they came for the wild horses, and I did not speak out, because I did not value wild horses;
Then they came for the water, and I spoke out, but found special interests had other plans;
Then they came for the allotments, and I spoke out, but found extractors and developers had been given priority;
Then they came for the public lands, and I spoke out, but found I had no say over the government’s agenda;
Then they came for my Constitutional Rights, and I spoke out, but found there we few to defend me.
ALL of us are on a slippery slope to the destruction of everything we hold dear, and if anyone thinks they won’t go the way of the wild ones they’re wrong. The systematic elimination of our American Mustangs and Burros is the canary in the coal mine.
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Awesome. I put that on my
Facebook “Notes”
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military bases?
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……Concentration Camps…but not for the Horses, time for everyone to wake up. What is going on here is a far bigger issue than exterminating the horses…the handwriting should be on the wall for All to See.
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Medussa, there is indeed. Tony Blair of BP infamy (remember the mustang conspiracy recently published by ATS?), the UN, The Fabian Society, what a very nasty little mess being uncovered: http://www.freedomadvocates.org/search/tony%20blair/?ordering=newest&searchphrase=all
America is not the only country experiencing these assaults:
Britain: http://www.nottinghamshiretimes.co.uk/index.html
Australia: http://www.australiamatters.com/fabian.html
Oh, and those Fabian buggers like their horsemeat. It is a surprise why the Australian brumbies are now being rounded up, shot, and brutalized just as our own wild horses are? Why horsemeat in Australia has now become legalized for human consumption? Can we see what is next for American horses?
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Check out Agenda 21 and you’ll see what the regime is up to.
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the govt wants the land, period, for whatever reason and the horses are going to go! I think a Plan B needs to be developed to somehow get some of these horses, with their families, off public land away from the BLM and into sanctuaries, I don’t know how to go about this, but there has to be a way, a place to start, because the horses don’t have a chance out where there are, and it’s too heartbreaking for it to just keep happening. I know most people on these blogs want them to stay on their land, but I just don’t see that happening. Whatever special interests want the land, are going to get it, horses and burros be damned. SO, what are some viable options for these horses, that we could possibly bring into being?
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Twin Peaks HMA is in Lassen County, under the authority and jurisdiction of:
http://www.co.lassen.ca.us/govt/dept/sheriff/default.asp
If they need to read the OFFICIAL U.S. Constitution and remember why they live in this country and why they are paid to defend it, here is a link to the document:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
The BLM is illegitimate. Selfish. Violent. Destructive.
Get on board: http://www.freedomadvocates.org/
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ABCs Good Morning America is running a news alert on the bottom screen crawl regarding the Ninth Circuit Court denying hearing and the roundup of 2000 wild equines for “population control”.
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Wtf is wrong with these Judges? Maybe more people will get incensed & get involved. This is getting way old & is so disheartening every morning :(. I wish I knew what else I could do, as writing, calling, faxing, all the heads of our States & Country is not seeming to do a damn thing.
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Contact the Lassen County Sheriff’s office and tell them to uphold the United States Constitution. The BLM does not have authority to round up the horses, they are in violation of a federal law. If the feds will not uphold their own laws, tell the county to do so. If they do not do so, sue them.
Start from the other end. You are all wasting your time trying to do things the “normal” way. You are not dealing with “normal” here.
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Well said, War Horse
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I want to know exactly how many horses there are on these HMAs. If the BLM provides a number, I want to know details: What year the last census was done in an area. I want to know who did the count and what method they used. I want to know exact areas where the horses were counted.
The BLM cannot determine “excess animals” if they don’t know how many are actually out there.
For those who know more about the court proceedings, has this specific issue been addressed in front of a judge?
“Population control” can only be determined by knowing exactly what the population is prior to the round up.
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Did anyone listen to NPR on the horses? I either missed it or it wasn’t on. . .
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Hey Janet — This is the last story NPR did, I think. It’s the most recent one I found when I did a search on the NPR web site.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128930839
Was the story you’re talking about within the past few days?
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Thank you for that link. There was a note put up yesterday from Marilyn Wargo about a live radio show with George Knapp and Madeleine Pickens and Foley (?) or someone from the BLM which was supposed to air today (8-11-10). I tuned in one hour late and either missed it or it wasn’t on. After checking with Marilyn Wargo, she indicated it had been for the West Coast only (local NPR station, I guess). We have local programming in the morning on NPR after Diane Roem show, so it was probably one of these local shows.
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If you cross check the map of the Ruby pipeline and the HMAs that are being rounded up and/or zeroed out they overlap. I think the Obama Admin plans to get rid of the horses so the pipline can come through, then when it is completed lease the land for cattle grazing. It’s a win, win for big oil and the cattle rancher. It is wrong, plain and simple. It makes me sick to think our government is doing this to our loyal freinds who helped shape the nation we are today.
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Janet, it will be re-broadcast on George Knapp’s KLAS show tonight at 6 and 11 pm, whatever timezone LV is on, there is a link on MP’s site,
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I’ll offer up another link here. BLM and the Dann Sisters:
http://www.angelfire.com/nv2/wells/danns.html
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This is from Laura’s website ART AND HORSES and was posted by Laura.
Our humane observers need our help to stay on the road and in the field. If not for their documentation, we would have known nothing about the tragic Calico roundup. For those that haven’t already done so, go to Laura’s website and watch the videos. See what they had to go through just to TRY to document the Owyhee massacre:
I’m working on the reports on Owyhee and compiling some of Katie Fite’s information for court.
Getting the next “road trip” organized, not saying where I’m going…
But if you can help with expenses send to http://www.GrassRootsHorse.com and mark Laura expenses it would be appreciated. And if you have a friend in the Used Car business I need a good 4 wheel drive.
Praying for Twin Peaks that will start Monday. If you are in CA get on the observation list.
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119 more lost their freedom this morning, supposedly there were observers there.
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so much cruelty in this world. Those poor horses
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signed
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Obama keeps saying how important our history is,Doesn’t he get that these horses are one of our most prized pieces of history? What is it going to take?
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