Our Mission: To Change BLM Managment Tactics

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“It is incredible that one should have to furnish any argument to bring about any laws to save the Mustang, but if there must be an argument let it be this: that of all the things that have played a part in the development of this country, except for man, the horse has played the most important and beneficial role. He portrays the West as all people like to think of it. He is the symbol of wild freedom to us all.”

-Velma B. Johnston, a.k.a. Wild Horse Annie (1959)



There is a battle going on in the United States of America that many people are unaware of. Perhaps they think it’s unimportant, that it doesn’t affect them. The battle to save America’s wild Mustangs isn’t just between soft-hearted horse-lovers and hard-working ranchers. It’s much more complex than that. And in the end… we could all lose.

First of all, I do not support the idea of ceasing all BLM management of wild Mustang herds because since ranching and urbanization has taken over the ranges, and since humans hunt Mustangs' natural predators, the Mustangs would eventually overpopulate, cause habitat degradation, and starve. I must say that in some places the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) helps to care for the wild Mustangs by rounding up herds in places where there's very little food and/or water, and by rounding up Mustangs that wander onto private land (land owned by people). Some people in the BLM sincerely want to protect the Mustangs. Many roundups go without incident; the Mustangs are herded off the range into the holding pens, vaccinated, freeze-branded, and then adopted by loving owners. The BLM has many different facilities, and many are perfectly fine and do help the Mustangs. In some places the BLM is a good thing.

But in most other areas, the BLM uses its authority to take advantage of the animals and the land in its care. Over the past nine years, 40% of the Mustang population has been removed by the BLM for no other reason than rancher and government greed. Alternative methods for managing Mustang populations are available (savethemustanghorses.blogspot.…), and yet the BLM does not use them to any significant extent. Roundup teams are paid roughly $350 for each horse they bring in (dead or alive), so the pilots often go to drastic measures to capture as many horses as possible during each gather. Entire herds of Mustangs (including newborn foals) are driven at breakneck speeds over land deemed too rough for vehicles. Mustangs and burros (wild donkeys) are injured during the roundups and many beyond recovery and must be euthanized. (savethemustanghorses.blogspot.… , savethemustanghorses.blogspot.…)

The BLM openly admits to holding approximately 50,000 Mustangs in captivity (roughly double than there are in the wild), and their finances are running out. It costs roughly $3,000 tax dollars to process a single wild horse for adoption, and hundreds are removed in a typical roundup. It costs around $100,000 every single day to feed the captive Mustangs. Many Mustangs in BLM corrals are in poorer condition than they were and would be in the wild, and some are starving. Almost no BLM facilities provide shelter for the horses held captive. The panicked herd stallions often fight each other in the small spaces, desperately trying to keep their mares together, therefore hurting themselves and others.
"I'm assured repeatedly [by BLM veterinarians] that these horses are cared for," said wild horse advocate Elyse Gardner. "So why does it seem that it is the public observers that continually need to bring so many overlooked injuries, illness or orphaned foals to the attention of the BLM?" Again, alternative methods for managing Mustang populations on the range (so that they need not be removed and held in captivity) are available (savethemustanghorses.blogspot.…), but the BLM does not use them to any significant extent. This shows extreme shortsightedness on the BLM's account. They are wasting enormous amounts of money and causing animals to suffer when less expensive, more humane methods are available.

While many Mustangs do find good homes with kind people, many are sold to irresponsible owners who want to "break a wild bronco". Such owners don’t know how to handle wild horses, and are often injured. If the Mustangs are not adopted or sold, they are rarely ever returned to the wild. The BLM holds unadopted/unsold Mustangs in taxpayer-funded corrals until they either die of old age, they are euthanized, or the BLM gains the right to slaughter them. I repeat: alternative methods for managing Mustang populations on the range (so that they need not be removed and held in captivity) are available (savethemustanghorses.blogspot.…), but the BLM does not use them to any significant extent. The BLM would rather these animals suffered a slow death rather than use alternative methods to manage them.

Recent discoveries made by the National Academy of Sciences (www8.nationalacademies.org/onp… , www.nap.edu/catalog/13511/usin…) has found that by removing so many wild horses in roundups, the BLM is actually causing population growth instead of reducing it. By lowering the population to such an unnaturally small number, the herds become smaller than the carrying limit of the lands (the limit of how many animals can graze on the land before food begins to run out).With so much extra space, the species springs back as it would after a natural disaster or plague. NAS studies show that Mustang populations have been increasing by around 10% to 15% each year. For the BLM to continue their current operation, they will have to remove more and more Mustangs each year, therefore causing increasing population growth, and so on. The answer is clearly not to step up roundups yet again, but to find alternative means by which to control the population and to prevent Mustangs from becoming problems on privately-owned land.

Studies show that nearly 85% of the Mustangs are below genetic viability, meaning that they are inbreeding. By removing Mustangs and their genetic information from the wild, the BLM is forcing the Mustangs to inbreed even more.

Even with the rapid population growth (and therefore rising cost of roundups) if things continue in this manner, in about 50 years there will be no free-roaming Mustangs left. Wildlife biologists estimate that the Mustang will be extinct in the wild before the end of the century. Time is running out for the American Mustang. Will we let them become like the Quagga and the Tarpan, pale ghosts of memory? Your air won’t be any cleaner, your water won’t be any clearer, and your food won’t be any more abundant with Mustangs extinct.

In 1900, over a million Mustangs ran free (lipizzaner-kgirl.deviantart.co…, www.horse-breeds.net/mustangs.… , academickids.com/encyclopedia/… , www.masterliness.com/a/Mustang…).) Now, less than 25,000 of them are left, and that number is steadily falling. Turning our backs is not the answer. We cannot leave Mustangs to their own devices, but we also cannot ignore the damage that the BLM is doing.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Protect the Salt River Mustangs

Click here to sign the petition to protect the Salt River Mustangs from removal and to consider more humane management methods: https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-annihilation-of-the-salt-river-wild-horses?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=377672&alert_id=xBWLDIUFqU_4Vm62J6WoryL7ITUmaCMSPcfwn53W8EncRHpoxp%2BeuU%3D





"The iconic Salt River wild horses are in danger of being killed. The US Forest Service (USFS) has posted a public notice of roundup and removal. The outrageous part of the notice states: “Livestock not sold at public sale may be sold at private sale or condemned and destroyed, or otherwise disposed of.” The USFS has ignored a humane management proposal from the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group.

I am writing to object in the strongest of terms to the Forest Service planned removal of the Salt River horses in the Tonto National Forest.

In 1971 the USFS was mandated by the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act to establish wild horse territories where wild horses and burros existed at that time. The Forest Service admits that the Salt River Wild Horses were present in and around the Salt River at that time, and many eyewitnesses and articles prove that fact, yet they did not create a territory for the herd. The reason for this has never been answered by the USFS.

We believe that the Forest Service violated a federal law by refusing to assign a Wild Horse Territory where they themselves have records of wild horses roaming as far back as 1930. There is no reason why the Forest Service should want to rob Arizona of this historically, economically and ecologically significant herd. Why are they in such a hurry and why are they doing this without a fair public process?

We are at one of those crucial points in time that mankind really may regret years from now. If the horses are rounded up, the Forest Service will make an historical mistake that cannot be reversed.

Instead of using our tax dollars to eradicate the Salt River wild horses from the National Forest, we urge you to accept the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group’s Preservation Proposal. A public-private partnership offers opportunities for win-win solutions to preserve this amazing herd and important tourism and heritage resource.

The Salt River horses are beloved by the public and tourists who travel from around the world to visit this unique heritage herd, but once they are gone, they are gone for good. Please don’t let the USFS take away this important part of our natural heritage. Join the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group and ask the USFS to spare the horses and accept the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group’s Preservation Proposal."

-Shannon Conely, Pheonix, AZ


Click here to sign the petition to protect the Salt River Mustangs from removal and to consider more humane management methods: https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-annihilation-of-the-salt-river-wild-horses?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=377672&alert_id=xBWLDIUFqU_4Vm62J6WoryL7ITUmaCMSPcfwn53W8EncRHpoxp%2BeuU%3D

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