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.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

BLM Plans to Destroy A Wyoming Mustang Herd


(left to right) Fuego (challenger), Fermat (band stallion), Lovely, Mac, Taylor (Mac's mother), and Hypathia (rare Curly mare) Photo: Ginger Kathrens and Lisa Friday
Help Save the White Mountain and Little Colorado Wild Horse Herds!
Comment on BLM’s Plan to Sterilize Mares! Deadline: Thursday, January 14th

Dear Friends of our Wyoming Wild Horses;
BLM is planning to sterilize the mares in the White Mountain Herd Management Area. . .unless we can stop them. White Mountain is the most visible, most photographed, most approachable wild horse herd in Southern Wyoming with a driving loop and signage to facilitate the viewing experience. The White Mountain Herd is the biggest tourist attraction in the immediate Rock Springs area, the horses are healthy and well-fed (as can be seen from the photos), and the herd is also within the BLM’s Appropriate Management Level of 205-300 horses. 
Despite all these facts, the BLM to use the White Mountain mustangs in a “mare spaying research experiment” to be conducted with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The adjacent Little Colorado Herd would serve as the control group. 
BLM proposes to conduct helicopter round ups, removing all wild horses over the “Appropriate Management Level” (even though the the White Mountain herd is within the BLM’s stated AML) on over 1 million acres of mostly public lands. Currently, BLM estimates 268 wild horses in White Mountain. Little Colorado numbers are estimated to be 330 with an AML of only 69-100 on over 600,000 acres of Federally-owned land. If the BLM needs to reduce the population of either of the herds, the Little Colorado herd should be treated with fertility drugs, not White Mountain.
Once rounded up, approximately 300 horses would be permanently removed. This is more than the entire herd population of White Mountain. In White Mountain 30-50 mares would be fitted with radio collars and stallions would have tracker tags placed in their tails. One year later, the horses would again be rounded up with helicopters and mares would be spayed using surgical techniques as yet unspecified and then tracked to determine changes in behavior/band fidelity/mortality in comparison to the control group in Little Colorado. 
The bands would be destroyed in both herds as the stallions will be separated from the mares after capture so the band fidelity and behavior data will be useless. We don’t want to think about the mortality rate as we know horses will be killed during and after the helicopter stampedes and may die as a result of the collaring and subsequent operations. 
   
  1. Conduct field research to determine the habits and natural behaviors of the White Mountain-Little Colorado using non-invasive techniques (i.e. ground observations/photographs/GPS recorded locations, etc.)
  2. Conduct behavioral research while field darting with the reversible vaccine PZP. Over 50 mares in these HMAs received PZP-22 in 2011 and will only require a booster shot to render them infertile for 1 to 2 years. 
  3. Conduct any removals in the late winter/spring months using bait or water trapping. Do not chase them with helicopters! Keep traps in place for several weeks to recapture for boostering young mares that did not receive PZP-22 and are not dartable (most, if not all mares in White Mountain, can be field darted). Mares in a trap can be darted without touching them. 
  4. Do not put collars on mares or tail tracker tags on stallions. This is not necessary in the White Mountain HMA. It will require capture and will result in the shattering of the bands just to put on the collars and tail tags.
  5. Do not operate on the mares. Once sterilized, there is no going back. Those horses would be unable to pass on their genes, and the gene pool would shrink, resulting in inbreeding and/or eventual eradication of the entire herd.
  6. Raise the AML of 79-100 in Little Colorado to a genetically viable number of 150-200 adult animals. Reduce livestock grazing. There are 6,000 cows with potentially 6,000 calves or 30,000 head of sheep in the two legally designated wild horse herd management areas. 
  7. Collaborate with interested organizations and individuals to conduct the above field darting and record-keeping. (Data sheets are already compiled for over 200 of the White Mountain wild horses!)
  8. Save millions of taxpayer dollars and manage the herds on the range, living in freedom with their families. 

What can you do?



Send your comments to:
Wild Horse and Burro Specialist
BLM Rock Springs Field Office
280 Highway 191 North
Rock Springs, Wyoming 82901

Fax: (307) 352-0329

Electronic comments must be sent to the following email address to be considered: Rock_Springs_WYMail@blm.gov
(Include "White Mountain & Little Colorado EA Comments" in the subject line.) 
Here are the links to the BLM Scoping Letter and Documents. www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm…

Please do what you can! This is nothing more than a wild horse extermination plan dressed up as a research project. Time is short, send your comments by days end Thursday, January 14. Thanks!

Happy Trails!
Ginger



(Lovely with her stallion, Fermat) Photo: Ginger Kathrens and Lisa Friday

 (Mac, Hypathia, Taylor) Photo: Ginger Kathrens and Lisa Friday
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