Wild Horses: Wild Horse Freedom Federation BLM Exposé Making Headlines

Wild Horses at Rock Springs Holding Facility

From Straight From the Horse’s Heart: article by Scott Sonner -(published nationally)  forward by R.T. Fitch ~ pres/co-founder Wild Horse Freedom Federation

“The detailed research of Debbie Coffey, Director of Wild Horse Affairs for Wild Horse Freedom Federation is highlighted and reported on in the following AP article.  You can read Debbie’s original article and download, for your files, the document in question here: http://rtfitchauthor.com/2014/02/19/joan-guilfoyle-euthanising-wild-horses-on-the-range

“nearing the point of financial insolvency due to undesirable trends in every aspect of the program,”

The head of the U.S. government’s $70 million wild-horse management program warned last summer that it is headed for financial collapse unless “drastic changes” are made in the decades-old roundup policy she said could be setting U.S. rangeland-improvement goals back 20 years.

In a strongly worded internal memo to an assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Wild Horse and Burro Division Chief Joan Guilfoyle recommended suspending all roundups until thousands of mustangs currently in federal corrals are sold or adopted.

Guilfoyle also said sterilization should be considered, and she recommended for the first time euthanizing wild horses on the range “as an act of mercy if animals decline to near-death condition as a result of declining water and forage resources.”

Those are among the few realistic alternatives given a crippling combination of congressional budget cuts, spiraling costs, lingering drought, a record 49,000 mustangs in long- and short-term holding, and an on-range population that doubles every four years and is expected to surpass 60,000 in 2015, Guilfoyle said.

It’s “nearing the point of financial insolvency due to undesirable trends in every aspect of the program,” she said in the August memo to Greg Shoop, assistant director for renewable resources and planning.

“Drastic changes in course are mandatory to remain financially solvent and reverse trends” undermining the Bureau of Land Management’s goals, she wrote. “Considering the circumstances, on-range management goals may not be achieved for another 20 years.”

Labeled “Internal Working Document,” the Texas-based Wild Horse Freedom Federation obtained the memo under the Freedom of Information Act and first posted it on its website Wednesday:

http://www.rgj.com/viewart/20140222/NEWS/302220038/Internal-US-memo-shows-troubled-wild-horse-management

And now the Associated Press has picked up the story and the Washington Post and others have featured the story.