Wild Horses: Please Comment on Proposed Destruction of Red Desert Wild Horse Herds
October 5, 2015An Evening with Carol Walker on Adobe Town’s Wild Horses at University of Denver
November 4, 2015
The BLM’s plans for the Saylor Creek Wild Horse Herd is the blueprint for their management to extinction of our wild horses in the West. This must be stopped.
From the Cloud Foundation:
Press Release for Immediate Release
BLM to Sterilize Idaho’s Saylor Creek Wild Horses
-Drastic Plan threatens future of all wild horse herds in the West
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO. (Oct. 20, 2015 – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), long criticized for its inhumane helicopter roundups, massive, indiscriminant removals, and warehousing of America’s wild horses and burros, announced their intent to sterilize the Saylor Creek wild horse herd in Idaho. The BLM’s Jarbridge Resource Management Plan would “treat all wild horses surgically or chemically to eliminate reproduction capability.”
“This chilling decision, if allowed to stand, will set a deadly precedent for all our wild horse and burro herds in the West,” states Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation (TCF). “Sterilizing a herd is the opposite of the intent of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act (WFRHBA) and the BLM’s long repeated mantra, ‘Healthy herds on healthy rangelands.’ How can a sterilized wildlife population be considered healthy?”
TCF, partnered with the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC), argues that the plan violates both the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the WFRHBA:
- Violates NEPA because it fails to analyze an alternative that restores access to the Snake River as a water source for wild horses
- Violates NEPA because it fails to adequately analyze the impacts of managing a non-reproducing herd in the Saylor Creek Herd Management Area (HMA)
- Does not analyze the impacts to: the “wild” and “free roaming” nature of wild horses and other behavioral dynamics; the physical health of mares; genetic diversity; and rangeland health.
- Violates the WFRHBA by proposing to manage a non-reproducing herd in the Saylor Creek HMA.
“The BLM has run rough-shod over the wild horse and burros for over 40 years, zeroing out almost half the herds that were identified for protection in the WFRHBA,” adds Paula Todd King, Communications Director for TCF. “Now they want to turn the Saylor Creek Herd area into a ‘sanctuary,’ more accurately described as a dumping ground for other sterilized mustangs in holding.”
Many have concluded that there are safer, reversible ways to control wild horse populations in the wild, including the prestigious National Academies of Sciences in their 2013 Report to the BLM on the management of the Wild Horse and Burro Program.
“The NAS report clearly supports safe, effective and proven methods for controlling wild horse populations ‘on-the-range’ like the reversible fertility vaccine PZP,” states Linda Hanick, manager of the army of TCF social media followers. “By implementing field sterilization of mares and stallions as a means of population control the BLM guarantees managing wild horses and burros to extinction.”
In 1971, 339 herds were identified for protection after the passage of the WFRHB Act. Only 179 herds remain. The vast majority of the remaining herds are managed at non-viable levels of under 150-200 adult animals. 83% of forage in the 179 wild horse and burro herd areas is allocated to privately-owned livestock that cost taxpayers over $120 million a year for administration of a flawed and range damaging program.
“This is just the beginning of the end for wild horse families in the wild if we don’t say ‘no’ as loudly and collectively as we can,” concludes Kathrens.
Links:
The Cloud Foundation: Say No to Sterilizatio
Record of Decision, Jarbridge Resource Management Plan
Feds Plan Wild Horse Sanctuary in Southwestern Idaho
Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and BurroProgram
Media Contacts:
Paula Todd King
paula@thecloudfoundation.org
4 Comments
The BLM’s Jarbridge Resource Management Plan would “treat all wild horses surgically or chemically to eliminate reproduction capability.”
What EXACTLY is meant by “chemically…to ELIMINATE reproduction capability.” ?
WHICH CHEMICALS does the BLM intend to use on these horses ?
So you would rather have the horses over populate and starve a slow painful death?? You is really causing these horses to suffer?? Look farther than your emotions, look a reality!! If your solution is a win win for all parties involved let’s hear it. Right…complicated….that is the struggle we all face.
Dear Holly, Wild horses overpopulating and starving has NEVER been the issue – there are effective, temporary birth control measure out there that the BLM is simply not using, and turning a deaf ear to ANY suggestions.
Point of view. If the wild horse organizations would have worked with the BLM over the years to create a sustainable number of wild horses for the environment they live in instead of spend millions on lawsuits, the wild horse would have been better off. No livestock producer can let his herd double in size every two to three years with no control. That is why we have 50,000 wild horses in holding pens across the county. No amount of dedicated land could sustain a horse herd of that size. So now the BLM is faced with the undeniably unpleasant task of trying to rein in the growth of the wild horses. If all of the proponents would volunteer time, and finances to create a sustainable herd, you would all be applauded. Instead, you cry about the land/feed set aside for domestic livestock and other wild ruminants.
Remember, there are other wild animals who rely on the same grass you want dedicated to the horses. What about elk, deer, antelope, and the small rodents who need feed. Horses will historically graze feed right into the ground, leaving it bare with no feed for anything. Horses find a range and usually stay with it, so the numbers need to be balanced with the feed available.
Also, remember we are in a very historic drought cycle, which has impacted feed availability. Domestic livestock has already been removed from the range, and for the horses to survive, some of them must be removed also.
Instead of whining and crying, work together to save the key components of the wild horse herds, understanding they can either be removed, or they will starve to death from lack of food and water. The resources are finite.
I would rather see the horses sterilized and continue to live out a normal life s to seem them captured and put in holding pens. You all have ideas, so why can’t you all sit down and make a positive impact on the continued existence of the technically “feral” horses. They were never native to this continent but were introduced by the Conquistadors. They contribute to the history of our country but are no different than the longhorn cattle or the donkeys.