Showing posts with label Tuscarora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tuscarora. Show all posts

8/1/10

Contempt of Court Re-filed Against Ken Salazar and BLM


Here we go again, folks. The BLM is clearly in contempt of court and we have another chance to prove it. Please help support Laura! The only place you can donate to Laura Leigh's legal fund is at www.grassrootshorse.com.
Amplify’d from thedesertinde.com

Contempt of Court Re-filed Against Ken Salazar and BLM

By ROBERT WINKLER


July 31, 2010

RENO, Nevada – On July 30th
 
Laura Leigh re-filed Contempt of Court charges against Ken Salazar, Secretary ofthe Department of the Interior, Bob Abbey, Director of the BLM and Ron Wenker, Nevada State Director of the BLM in regard to what BLM calls the “Tuscarora wild horse gather.” The BLM continually refers to the three herd management areas of Owyhee, Rock Creek and Little Humboldt under one umbrella name of Tuscarora. Thejudge, at the time of hearing earlier motions, recognized that Tuscarora was
three herds and not one as BLM would like people to believe.


Adding to what seems like a deliberate move to create confusion, every day the gather schedules change. At present the BLM website, touted in BLM press releases as the only place for correct information, has two completely different gather schedules posted. If a person really wants to know the true schedule they have to contact the appropriatefield offices. It would seem to even the casual observer to be a shell game of now you see it, now you don’t.  



The judge denied the original motion to hear the case based on the parameters set forth in a statute known as the Winters standard. This is the standard by which actions seeking injunctive relief are judged on their merit. On July 28, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals modified its position on the test used to determine the element, “likelihood of success on the merits” when granting or denying injunctive relief under the Winters decision. The circuit court reaffirmed the use of its sliding scale method, finding it consistent with Winters.


The law change opened the door for the re-filing under the new guidelines. “We are not going away,” said Laura Leigh, plaintiff in the lawsuit brought about through the support of Grass Roots Horse, a citizen action group. Support for Laura Leigh’s court action is coming in from people all over the country. “Some people are donating to further the cause with $3.00 donations,” said Maureen VanDerStad, member of Grass Roots Horse. “That tells it all right there. People are so fed up with the mismanagement of the wild horses and burros that they want to be a part of doing something to stop it. The blatant disregard for our First Amendment rights by BLM and the cruel and inhumane treatment of the wild horses, which belong to the American people, has spurred the movement on with a vengeance,” she further states.



Laura Leigh is an artist, author and journalist who is best known for her work in documenting wild horses. She is the founder and director of Herd Watch, a citizen group that monitors the actions of the BLM and the Wild Horse and Burro Program. Full reports documenting range conditions in herd management areas and the condition of the horses themselves are conducted by Herd Watch with a
meticulous eye for detail.




Yesterday at the Nevada State Legislative meeting, the main focus was on the implications of the Western Watershed Organization’s multi-million dollar settlement with Ruby Corporaton, representing Ruby Pipeline. The Wild Horse and Burro Program came into the discussion and Laura Leigh was there to set the record straight. “Sitting in the audience it was really interesting to see the cattlemen bringing up the very same issues of the difficulties of dealing with the BLM that the wild horse advocates have been dealing with for years. If people do not support accountability in government, it is easy to see how that failure to demand accountability and transparency can turn against them,” Laura Leigh said.
To read the legal filings, donate to the legal fund, or volunteer please visit www.grassrootshorse.com where there are links to the best sites with more information on the issue.
Read more at thedesertinde.com


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7/31/10

BLM Reports of Wild Horse Deaths During Tuscarora Roundup Are Laced With Contradictions

Maureen is being polite. The BLM lied. They lied to the advocates, the press and the Federal Judge. And got away with it. Are we still living under the Rule of Law or not? Ask your Senators and Representatives about that. I'm sure going to ask mine!
Amplify’d from www.examiner.com
Equine Advocacy Examiner
BLM reports of wild horse deaths during Tuscarora roundup are laced with contradictions
July 26, 2:21 PM Equine Advocacy Examiner Maureen Harmonay
Newly captured Owyhee mares and foals huddle at Palomino Valley, photographed by Cat Kindsfather
Newly captured Owyhee mares and foals huddle at Palomino Valley, photographed by Cat Kindsfather

In an apparent effort to rebut the arguments put forth by advocate Laura Leigh in her motions for Temporary Restraining Orders (TROs) against the Owyhee, Rock Creek, and Little Humboldt portions of the Tuscarora "Gather" in north Elko County, Nevada, the BLM has falsely attributed some of the mustang mortalities to dehydration issues when in fact, other factors were at work. 

For example, on Tuesday, July 20th, BLM reported that "two animals were euthanized due to pre-existing water starvation/dehydration related complications."  But when the Owyhee Veterinary Reports for these horses were released, they told a very different story.  One of the horses who was shot was a 25-year-old sorrel mare, who was put down "for a pre-existing condition that was a severe LF (left front) lameness attributable to a poorly healed old fracture injury," and the other was an 18-year-old bay stallion who had a "severe enlargement of the RF (right front) fetlock, producing a chronic and incurable lameness."

Really?  How were these "lame" horses able to survive, and thrive, on the range for so many years, and then gallop at a breakneck pace over unforgiving ground to flee the BLM-hired helicopter that chased them into waiting traps?  Would it be more accurate to surmise that in fact, both horses were crippled by the chase itself, and that in spite of BLM's protestations to the contrary, their deaths were very much "gather-related?"  In the absence of independent observers, it's hard to know the truth.

The Owyhee roundup has been the direct conduit to the deaths of at least 25 horses (that we know of), in spite of BLM's repeated insistence that most of the fatatlities were not "gather-related."  The agency's long-strained credibility is continuing to erode, as a nation of horrified spectators begins to raise its voices in protest against what looks more and more like a deliberate effort to eradicate wild horses from America's public lands.

Indeed, in her Supporting Declaration for Laura Leigh's latest motion against the Tuscarora Gather, Dr. Nena Winand, DVM, a respected equine veterinarian affiliated with Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine in New York, unequivocally asserts that it was the roundup itself, and not any pre-existing conditions, that killed the Owyhee wild horse victims:
"Pushing the animals, having been driven via helicopter over the distances they traveled, at a more rapid gait than they would otherwise travel in such environmental conditions, in environmental conditions which included elevated summer temperatures, and where the condition of many of the gathered horses improved rapidly following the gather, all lead me to compellingly conclude to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the deaths and injuries to these horses were substantially due to the gather itself, the manner in which the horses were driven during the gather and in their having to negotiate the environmental conditions existing there at the time.
And it my further opinion to the same degree of reasonable medical certainty that the conditions existing on the range prior to the gather, were not causative in injuring and killing those horses who perished on the dates of the gather.  The uncontroverted fact remains that nearly all horses who reportedly perished, did so during the process of the gather itself or immediately thereafter while the horses were in the custody of the BLM, but not before."
Read more at www.examiner.com

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"From my earliest memories, I have loved horses with a longing beyond words." ~ Robert Vavra