Our wild horses out west have been under attack by our own BLM, (Bureau of Land Management)for far too long. There is a massive ongoing slaughter called “management.” It seems the public grazing land that specifically allows for free roam by America’s wild horses/burros is degraded. The horses are to blame. Never mind that of “the 12.5 million animal units the BLM allows to graze on public land, our wild horses comprise less than .3%, three tenths of a percent.” There are only 37,000 wild horses/burros left, “Aside from the general environmental degradation issues, ranchers erect fences that obstruct the movement of wildlife, reducing access to food and water, and isolating subpopulations.” This is validated on one of the videos. Clearly an overabundance of cattle on public land once issued as a place for our free roaming horses/burros by the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act has taken over and ultimately caused the degradation. Yet the BLM is determined to blame/reduce wild horse numbers. This is an unfair governmental attack on our wildlife again.
http://animalrights.about.com/od/animalsusedforfood/a/Livestock PublicLands.htm.
And taxpayers are paying for it. Per a HSUS, (Humane Society of the U.S.) article, “We have got to get off the current treadmill of spending millions of tax dollars rounding up wild horses and caring for them in captivity, and instead make wider use of fertility control as a humane population management tool.” Caring for them is a big understatement.
http://wildhorsewarriors.blogspot.com/2010/02/public-lands-cows-vs-rats.html.
The Bush/Cheney Administration in the interest of corporate America undid the 1971 Act that calls for humane practices toward our wild horse populations. So the BLM chases them to exhaustion by helicopters, corrals them in overcrowded conditions with little food and water, then loads them in rail cars meant for cattle and sends them to slaughter. The horses are unbalanced in the cattle cars, fall over and are injured.
Read the original 1971 law that protected these horses:
It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands
Further on in the Act, the BLM is allowed to determine whether or not there are excess animals threatening the ecology. By excess it’s meant “wild free-roaming horses or burros (1) which have been removed from an area by the Secretary pursuant to application law or, (2) which must be removed from an area in order to preserve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple-use relationship in that area.”
It doesn’t take an Einstein to see the travesty here.
When the BLM decides there are excess horses, the BLM is allowed to remove those animals in following order and priority, “The Secretary shall order old, sick, or lame animals to be destroyed in the most humane manner possible.”
This loophole is being overworked. According the Animal Welfare Institute, “92.3 percent of horses arriving at slaughter plants in this country in recent years were deemed to be in “good” condition, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Guidelines for Handling and Transporting Equines to Slaughter. The horse slaughter industry makes a greater profit off of healthy horses and therefore purposely seeks out such animals.
Another argument, much like that used for the slaughter of the Yellowstone wolves is states rights vs. federal. But, “Horse Slaughter is a Federally Regulated Industry.”
http://www.awionline.org
/ht/d/sp/i/12919/pid/12919.
The HSUS article also stated, “Last summer, in response to self-inflicted financial problems and mismanagement, the BLM announced that it would consider killing 30,000 healthy wild horses and burros in federal holding centers across the United States rather than implementing common sense, cost-saving management methods.”
Fortunately for our horses members of Congress evidently see the skewed logic and injustice by the BLM because HR 1018, ROAM, (Restore Our American Mustangs), has already passed the House. In addition to prioritizing on-the-range management over roundups, H.R. 1018 prevents the commercial sale and slaughter of wild horses, as well as the wholesale killing of healthy wild horses. And the ROAM Senate Bill S1579 is currently making its way through the Senate. It reinforces the protection of America’s wild horses/burros as was intended by the first Act in 1971.
But every 5 minutes a U.S. horse is slaughtered for consumption while S1579 moves to become law, and more healthy, beautiful wild horses are rounded up by an exhausting run with helicopters, corralled and neglected.
http://www.awionline.org/ht/d/sp/i/11222/pid/11222.
Call or email your senators to pass S1579 quickly. We’re fighting for another American icon that represents the spirit of America.
Watch the following video of a horse that looks much like the black stallion “Freedom,” who was captured during one of the Calico roundups and managed to jump a 6 ft. fence in a small area, then bust through a barbed wire fence. That’s the “spirit of freedom.” Freedom reminds be of the black Alpha Female wolf #527, that was shot in Yellowstone. Both animals were leery of humans.
I’m leery of humans too anymore, especially those that represent corporate America taking over our public land and causing American icons like the wolf, the mustang, and the bear to disappear. Humans like this remind me of the corporate machine in the movie Avatar that embraces the idea to overcome with little empathy and no remorse. It’s not a pretty picture, and it’s getting worse. Our civilized society is anything but.
Chief Seattle must have been a very wise man because his words from a hundred years ago still pertain to what is happening to America’s wildlife right now, “…What happens to the beasts, happens to the man.” The U.S. has corralled people against their will more than once its history.
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