• Uncategorized

    Secretary Salazar’s Tax-Wasting Proposal-The BLM!

    Today: Senate Hearing Stirs Up Controversy Over
    Government’s Wild Horse & Burro Program

    Thousands of Americans Contact Senators Expressing Opposition
    To Secretary Salazar’s Tax-Wasting Proposal

    Washington, DC (March 3, 2010) – Today, as the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hears testimony from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, In Defense of Animals (IDA) and thousands of taxpayers call on Senators to deny the tax-wasting proposed budget submitted by the Department of Interior (DOI) for its Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse & Burro Program.

    At 10 a.m. (Energy Committee Hearing Room – SD-366) DOI Secretary Salazar is scheduled to testify and justify his budget which includes doubling the appropriations for the Wild Horse & Burro Program from 2010. In addition to an operational budget increase of $12 million, Secretary Salazar is seeking an additional $42.5 million to purchase private land to act as a holding facility for wild horses removed from already owned public lands.

    Last year, Secretary Salazar acknowledged that current BLM practices – including its so-called “management” of wild horses and burros by rounding up and removing them from their natural Western ranges – as “unsustainable” yet to date no changes have been implemented.  Secretary Salazar talks about change – but has done nothing to change the agency’s broken, never-ending cycle of rounding up wild horses and stockpiling them in taxpayer-funded holding facilities.

    IDA maintains that allocating additional funds to this poorly managed program without serious requirements for reform would be fiscally irresponsible. In FY 2010, Congress increased the BLM’s wild horse management budget by 30 percent. At that time, the Senate Appropriations Committee noted that the current program was unsustainable and directed the agency to change course.

    “Instead of implementing humane and cost-effective on-the-range management approaches, the BLM instead used the additional funds obtained last year to continue business as usual, rounding up even more horses, with 12,000 targeted for removal from the West this year alone,” said William J. Spriggs, lead counsel on the pending wild horse lawsuit against DOI and BLM filed by the international law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney on behalf of IDA, renowned ecologist Craig Downer and popular children’s author Terri Farley.  “Now the Secretary is asking for more money for this ill-conceived program and he plans to incur even more costs to taxpayers for his proposed ‘preserve’ in the Midwest or East that is not only fiscally irresponsible but will harm the horses it purports to help.”

    “The use of tax dollars to purchase private lands in the Midwest or East to house horses taken from public lands in the West makes no fiscal sense,” said Eric Kleiman, Research Director, In Defense of Animals. “Since privately owned livestock are allocated a far greater share of BLM lands than wild horses, why not let ranchers graze their cattle on private lands in the Midwest and free up publicly-owned resources for wild horses to remain on their natural Western ranges?”

    Recently the BLM concluded the largest roundup of wild horses in recent years capturing 1,922 horses in the Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada; the roundup has to date killed more than 68 horses and caused more than 35 heavily pregnant mares to spontaneous abort.  That roundup proceeded despite a December 23, 2009 ruling by federal court Judge Paul Friedman in the lawsuit filed by Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney questioning the legality of the BLM’s long-term holding facilities and suggesting that the BLM postpone the Calico roundup.

    Wild horses comprise a minute fraction (0.5 percent) of grazing animals on public lands, where they are outnumbered by cattle at least 200 to 1. The BLM has recently increased cattle grazing allotments in areas where wild horses are being removed. Currently the BLM manages more than 256 million acres of public lands of which cattle grazing is allowed on 160 million acres; wild horses are only allowed on 26.6 million acres this land, which must be shared with cattle.

  • Uncategorized

    Why is the BLM Allowed to do This?

    OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ESCALATES ASSAULT ON WILD HORSES:  2,000+ MORE MUSTANGS TARGETED IN NEVADA

    Ignoring public outrage, government hits milestone: number of wild horses in BLM warehouses exceeds those left on the range

    Eastern Nevada (January 19, 2010) – Ignoring growing public outrage over the unnecessary mass roundups of wild horses, the Obama Administration has announced its next victims:  2,000 mustangs living in two herd management complexes in eastern Nevada. According to In Defense of Animals (IDA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)’s newest assault, when combined with the ongoing roundup of horses living in the Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada, will eliminate nearly 4,500 horses, or a quarter of the state’s estimated wild horse population.

    The BLM recently announced that it is taking public comments on the next targets for capture and removal:

    • 550 horses living in and near the Eagle Herd Management Area (HMA) in eastern Lincoln County (50 miles southeast of Ely), beginning mid-February and leaving only 100 horses in the 625,000 acre public lands complex; and
    • 1,506 mustangs living in the Antelope Complex (east/southeast of Elko), leaving just 471 horses behind on more 1.3 million acres in a roundup scheduled for late summer/early fall.

    “President Obama may go down in history for presiding over a deadly milestone for these living legends,” said William J. Spriggs of Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney, which filed a pro bono lawsuit to stop the Calico roundup on behalf of IDA, ecologist Craig Downer and popular author Terri Farley.  The case is ongoing in federal court.

    “Under his watch, the number of wild horses stockpiled in government holding facilities has surpassed the number of mustangs left free and wild on the range. By reducing the number of horses to dangerously low numbers, the Obama Administration is placing the viability of these historic and unique herds at great risk,” Mr. Spriggs concluded.

    Since December 28, the BLM has captured nearly 1,000 horses in the Calico Mountain Complex killing at least seven of them.  That roundup proceeded despite a December 23, 2009 ruling by federal court Judge Paul Friedman questioning the legality of the BLM’s long-term holding facilities and suggesting that the BLM postpone the Calico roundup.

    More information on the Eagle roundup is here. Follow news of the Calico roundup and other important wild horse news on IDA’s  blog and get updates on Twitter

    Wild Horse Facts:

    · The Obama Administration plans to remove 12,000 mustangs from their Western ranges in FY 2010. Most of these horses will end up in government holding facilities.

    · The number of wild horses in government holding facilities (35,000) now exceeds those left in the wild (33,000 by BLM estimates).

    · The wild horse population today is smaller than in 1974 when the BLM conducted its first census after Congress protected the horses due to their dwindling numbers.

    · Wild horses comprise a minute fraction (0.5 percent) of grazing animals on public lands, where they are outnumbered by cattle at least 200 to 1.

    · The BLM manages more than 256 million acres of public lands. Cattle grazing is allowed on 160 million acres, while wild horses are restricted to 26.6 million acres of land that is shared with cattle.

    · Since 1971 when Congress protected wild horses as “living symbols of freedom” and important parts of our national heritage, the BLM has removed over 200,000 horses from the range and taken away 20 million acres of wild horse habitat.

    · The BLM frequently increases livestock grazing allotments after removing wild horses. Horses are also displaced for the benefit of other commercial users of public lands, including mining, oil/gas and other extractive industries.

    • The Obama Administration proposes to spend up to 500 million tax dollars to purchase private lands in the Midwest and East to warehouse wild horses removed from public lands (which the taxpayers already own) in the West. In response to IDA’s lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Paul L.  Friedman ruled that these holding facilities are likely illegal.
    • The mustang has spent hundreds of years acclimating to the arid, rocky terrain of the west and their presence on that landscape is part of our national heritage. Not only are they ill-suited to the wet, lush Midwestern climate but their absence from the west is an affront to our cultural history.

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    In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization located in San Rafael, Calif. dedicated to protecting animals’ rights, welfare, and habitat through education, outreach, and our hands-on rescue facilities in Mumbai, India, Cameroon, Africa, and rural Mississippi.

  • Uncategorized

    Secret Holiday Roundup….Disgrace!

    Obama Administration Blasted for Secret Holiday Roundup of Thousands of Wild Horses in Nevada

    Roundup Begins Today Despite Federal Court Advice, Pending Federal Environmental Complaints and Violation of BLM Promise for Public Transparency

    Washington, DC (December 28, 2009) .. . . Public outrage is increasing as the Obama Administration  proceeds with a controversial Christmas week roundup of thousands of wild Nevada mustangs despite a federal court’s suggestion last week that the action be postponed.


    Today, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will commence the cruel wild horse capture in secret, on private lands where the public will be barred from observing the treatment of the horses.  In response, In Defense of Animals (IDA) today released video of BLM chief Don Glenn, stating on December 7 that “All of our gathers are open to the public; the public is invited to watch all the time.”

    Just a day before Glenn made that statement, the BLM completed the roundup of 217 horses on the California/Nevada border, an action that was taken illegally with no public notification. Two weeks later, the BLM denied a request by an IDA observer to witness a helicopter stampede of horses living in the Palomino Buttes area in Eastern Oregon, stating “no observers would be allowed or welcome at this roundup.”

    “Directly counter to the spirit of the Obama Administration’s promise of transparency, the President is allowing the BLM to secretly begin the roundup of thousands of wild horses living peacefully on more than one-half million acres of public lands in Nevada,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, IDA president. “This roundup will commence out of view of the public during a holiday week when government officials are off on holiday and have been unable to address complaints and a formal Motion to Stay (stop) the roundup. This action reflects very poorly on the BLM and most of all on the Obama Administration.”

    In a December 23, 2009 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said that the BLM’s plans to stockpile these horses in Midwestern holding facilities is likely illegal, and consequently suggested that BLM postpone the Calico gather.  That ruling, combined with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) violations cited in IDA’s complaints to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Interior Department, should warrant President Obama’s intervention to stop this roundup immediately, IDA said.

    Judge Friedman’s decision was made in response to a federal lawsuit filed by IDA, ecologist Craig Downer and noted children’s writer Terri Farley to halt the roundup, which involves a helicopter stampede and capture of 2,700 horses in the more than 500,000-acre Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada.  The horses will be traumatized, terrorized, and many will be injured and/or killed. Foals and their mothers will be separated and horse family bands will be shattered forever

    In a 2008 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the BLM was not transparent with the public about how horses are treated under its Wild Horse and Burro management program.

    “For America’s wild horses, President Obama’s promise of change rings hollow,” said IDA president Elliot M. Katz, DVM.  “His administration has continued the same secretive and destructive Bush Administration war on the wild horses of the American West.”

    IDA said that wild horses are removed for the benefit of private livestock owners and other extractive users of public lands.  Despite a Congressional mandate to protect wild horses in the Calico Complex, the BLM has in recent times increased the number of  cattle to run on the same public lands where they are removing wild horses. The BLM ignores its federal mandate to remove livestock from federal wild horse management areas “if necessary to provide habitat for wild horses or burros, to implement herd management actions, or to protect wild horses or burros from disease, harassment or injury” (43 CFR § 4710.5).

    If the Administration continues its current course, it will capture and remove nearly 12,000 wild horses a year from their native Western homes for the next three years, after which time the number of horses in Midwestern holding facilities will number more than 50,000 and far exceed those left on the range.

    Contact:

    Suzanne Roy, Program Director, In Defense of Animals

    919-697-9389; [email protected]

    Eric Kleiman, Research Director, In Defense of Animals

    717-939-3231, [email protected]

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    In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization located in San Rafael, Calif. dedicated to protecting animals’ rights, welfare, and habitat through education, outreach, and our hands-on rescue facilities in Mumbai, India, Cameroon, Africa, and rural Mississippi.
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