Showing posts with label United States Secretary of the Interior. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States Secretary of the Interior. Show all posts

1/1/11

Int'l Fund For Horses - Impeach Salazar!

The Int'l Fund for Horses has a form that you can use to have your name added in support of the impeachment of US Secretary Ken Salazar and BLM Director Bob Abbey relating to alleged criminal conduct in the management of America's wild horses and burros. You must be a US resident.

Please visit their page and help get these horse killers impeached!
Amplify’d from www.horsefund.org
WILD HORSES AND BURROS
Support Our Campaign to Impeach US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and BLM Director Bob Abbey
Complete the form below to have your name added in support of the impeachment of US Secretary Ken Salazar and BLM Director Bob Abbey relating to alleged criminal conduct in the management of America's wild horses and burros.  You must be a US resident.
Please read carefully before submitting your information.
Thank you for your support.
Read more at www.horsefund.org

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5/27/10

Calico: Past, Present & Future V - from American Herds

If you are as appalled as I am over this article from American Herds, please re-blog, re-tweet, re-post and whatever else you can think of to spread the word! Thank you.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010


Calico: Past, Present & Future V

This is the fifth in a series of articles that attempts to disclose some of the known issues playing behind the scenes in the Calico Complex and beyond….


A Greenpeace activists trudges through oil on a beach near
Venice, Louisiana,on May 20, 2010.
Huffington Post

NO RETURN TO FREEDOM

Yesterday, the Honorable Judge Friedman issued his verdict for the Calico Complex wild horses and all those now warehoused in BLMs many long-term holding facilities by dismissing all counts of the complaints filed by plaintiffs In Defense of Animals, Craig Downer, and Terri Farley, through the pro-bono legal services of William Spriggs of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney.

First, Judge Friedman issued the opinion that though he refused to stop the round up back in December, because he didn’t, any prayer for relief was now moot because the round up had already taken place.

He also chastised the plaintiffs for not appealing his initial refusal to stop the round up when he failed to grant the injunction back in December. In my opinion, when Friedman issued yesterday's legal opinion about his ruling to not grant a halt to the round up, he presented a legal argument that shared some twisted semblance of logic used by other kinds of rapists; that “No” didn’t really mean no and the plaintiffs should have asked again.

Judge Friedman also cited several other legal technicalities the plaintiffs failed to overcome such as standing – better known as the right to sue due to a legally cognizable interest, actual injury and harm, and failure to establish more than a causal connection between, well, everything that has gone on. Click Here to learn more.

While it is generally accepted that the almost 100 now dead horses, 40 or more aborted and/or miscarried foals and dozens of injuries sustained by the Calico herds who DID suffer irreparable harm and injury had no legal voice in the matter, turns out, neither does any of the American citizens whom are shoved aise with the only rights still guaranteed is merely to act as witnesses to the decimation of our American herds - well, that and of course, to fund it.

The ruling also reminded us that Judge Friedman found the Safari Club and Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) to have sufficient standing to sign on as defendants in the Calico case due to their “vested interests”.

As we saw in the last post, BLM and NDOWs cozy relationship spurred the Surprise Field Office to approve a land use plan that “no longer manages for a reasonable number of wildlife” – that concept is only reserved for wild horses and burros.

NDOW is one of the most active and aggressive supporters of “protecting habitat” for the ever-burgeoning big game populations and their influence can be found behind the scenes of every major and most minor management decision being pushed through on public lands in Nevada; NDOW also often targets the easy pickens of wild horse and burro resources to further their goals. After all, who is there to defend the wild horses and burros? Only BLM….

However, NDOWs involvement in wild horses and burro management isn’t limited to just BLM as we will soon see.

Though Nevada Bighorns Unlimited claimed financial sponsorship of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge fence repair and census of wild horses, according to Sheldon manager Paul Steblien, it was NDOWs planes that “discovered” 700 wild horses were missing from the Refuge back in June 2007.

It would appear that NDOW also maintains an equally cozy relationship with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), as not only were they consulting with lawyers and Judge Friedman about their unconditional support for the removal of the Calico wild horses, they have also been very busy behind the scenes working with USFWS managers at Sheldon, BLM, the U.S. Energy Regulatory Committee and yes, the Ruby Pipeline….

The FWS has expressed concern that certain measures proposed by Ruby (i.e., facilitation of horse and burro movement around construction areas, fence line manipulation, and opening of gates for construction activities) could result in additional wild horses or burros entering the Sheldon NWR. The FWS could then be required to increase its expenditures to manage the wild horse and burro populations, which could detract from the funds necessary to manage other NWR resources. Ruby has committed to coordinating with the Sheldon NWR to implement and maintain access restriction controls to prohibit the migration of wild horses and burros onto the Sheldon NWR. Ruby would coordinate with the FWS to repair or replace any cattle guards on the Sheldon NWR damaged by construction, and install new fencing, gates, or cattle guards at key areas. Finally, Ruby would erect fences to restrict animal movement out of the HMAs.”
Ruby Pipeline Final EISChapter 4, page 4-114
January 8, 2010
,


Dead Calico Wild Horse due to round up entrapment by non-compliant cattle guard.
Photo courtesy of Craig Downer,copyright 3/29/10 available at
Elyse Gardner-The Humane Observer, Craig Downer's Report On
The Calico Complex In The Helicopter's Wake: The Aftermath And
Another Roundup Casualty? BLM Abdicates Responsibiity
For Pre-Roundup Safety Precautions.



THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS
While the DOI’s Minerals Management Services has been bilking the American people out of billions in royalties owed to the nation by the oil and gas industry for decades with a slew of scandals recently heightened by DOI employees in bed – literally – with industry executives, no amount of investigative reporting, scathing exposes, Congressional involvement or promises of reform from current Secretary of the Interior seems to be making a dent in the lucrative sales of our resources through backroom deals. Click Here to learn more.

While questions continue about what legally constitutes a bribe with respect to making deals with government employees and public resources, what The Ruby Pipeline’s parent company El Paso Gas is now doing to pave the way for their $3 billion dollar pipeline is not only considered totally legal – it is required.

Hailed as “mitigation measures” versus good old fashioned bribery, in order for Ruby to lay down its massive pipe, they have to provide compensation to the agencies overseeing state and public resources to ease the impact of the project in order to protect the public trust. At least, that’s how the story goes…

Though the general public gets to review two documents released by the U.S. Energy Regulatory Committee on what erecting the Ruby Pipeline will entail, behind the scenes agencies of all sorts have been involved with intimate “consultation” processes about what they want, what they need and how to negotiate the best deal they can out of El Paso’s war chest before they seal the deal.

As BLM was releasing the first environmental assessment to remove the wild horses in Calico in late October, at the exact same time another document was being submitted to Ruby in what can only be described as a gold plated Draft Wish List, which included hefty requests by none other than NDOW itself.

This document is titled, “Draft Ruby Pipeline Migratory Bird Conservation Plan” and was recently obtained via extensive FOIA requests submitted by Western Watersheds Project (WWP) on the Ruby Pipeline. According to the FOIA records obtained by WWP, this Migratory Bird Conservation Plan was submitted to Ruby on October 26, 2009.

Though it is plain to see it was originally written to include open and transparent coordination with BLM, U.S. Forest Service and state fish and game departments, this Wish List is now being slid through exclusively under USFWS’s jurisdiction – though all agencies will continue to be consulted and will include “joint ventures, project interests from private landowners, corporations, non-profit groups, and non-governmental organizations in making any decisions about what migratory bird habitat projects should be completed under this agreement.”

According to this document, in response to various agency demands for compensatory conservation measures, “Ruby acknowledges its responsibilities and conservation measures that have been identified to provide additional conservation benefits that go beyond typical avoidance, minimization and compensatory measures” (emphasis added)

The Plan goes on to state that, “In order to accomplish this, Ruby will deposit funds in an account (or accounts, if necessary) to be used for the protection of migratory bird habitat through the acquisition of lands, implementation of habitat restoration, and long-term management of the lands for the benefit of migratory birds. Habitat enhancement and improvement projects will also be considered as legitimate uses of these funds.”


THE WISH LIST
So what does the Wish List cover? Just about everything any and all agencies involved could wish for with a starting price tag of almost $17.1 million dollars when the sum of all the disclosed projects are added together.

There are also a mountain of other projects the agencies are asking Ruby to “mitigate”, many whose total costs were undisclosed, which include:

> $2,000 per acre for fencing in the Little Humboldt Allotment, Castle Ridge, Spanish Ranch Allotment, North Fork Group Allotment, Eagle Rock Allotment, Taylor Canyon, Tuscarora, Diry Peaks, Delano Mountains, Bluff Creek, Mill Creek and 25 additional unnamed allotments in order to protect aspen stands - as well as “other” identified aspen stands throughout the life of the project.

> Purchase property or water rights associated with the Brunea Wildlife Management Areas, which includes Stowell property match for NDOW funding and a seed storage facility that would be secured by NDOW and other agency partners with $1.5 million requested for initial construction of the facility and $375k for staffing it for the next 5 years – including benefits.

> Undisclosed cost of restoring native grasses on 10,400 acres.

> Removal of 92 miles of roads insides WSA’s at undisclosed costs.

> Purchasing the Soldier Meadows Ranch – home of the Soldier Meadows Allotment that overlaps three wild horse HMAs where the Calico Complex round up began. The Wish List reasons why buying the ranch outright is such a great idea by stating, “With the proposed pipeline route traversing most of this allotment along the head of the hydrologic watershed for Warm Springs Canyon and the northern reaches of the High Rock drainage; a substantial list of projects have been proposed to mitigate or attempt to offset the construction and pipeline footprint. The sum of those related projects in conjunction with a 3 year payout to take non-use could approach the assessed value of the ranch. In so much as this ranch is the pivotal base property for much of the grazing issues within the Black Rock Wilderness area, the High Rock Wilderness and associated NCA (National Conservation Area), this purchase would have the support and possible buy in from a number of partner conservancies with Ruby. The inclusion of all private parcels scattered throughout the allotment such as the springs south of the ranch, Wall Canyon, Cottonwood Canyon, Stanley Camp, Summer Camp, Slumgullion, etc. would all be windfalls for the public and remove a number of current conflicts”. (Editors Note: It would only be considered a windfall for those interested in seeing the circumvention of federal law regarding the protection of wild horses and burros and livestock grazing in what would then be private and/or state protected lands held partnership with Ruby, a.k.a., El Paso Natural Gas Corporation.)

> At least 20 miles of fencing was also included for lands adjacent to Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in the Wall Canyon Allotment to separate allotments and “would control trespass livestock and feral horse use on critical wildlife habitat between the Sheldon NWR and the Warm Springs and High Rock drainages.”

> And at least 42 springs, seeps and various water sources are identified in the document as being targeted for fencing with several references to “feral horses” being excluded from these areas including:

- The only two remaining springs left for wild horse use in the Massacre Lakes HMA (located in the Juniper Pasture on the Massacre Lakes Allotment), Post Springs and Indian Springs.

- Fencing of the 40 acres Miller and Lux Springs in the Nut Mountain Allotment that overlaps the Nut Mountain HMA.

- Fencing Idaho Canyon Springs that overlaps the Calico HMA.

- Rock Springs in the Wall Canyon HMA, where BLM Winnemucca photo files from 2008 obtained via FOIA cites Rock Springs as exclusively used by wild horses and is specifically marked as “No Livestock Use” by BLM. Meanwhile, the Draft Migratory Bird Conservation Plan states “the replacement and/or repair of fencing around Rock Springs would control trespass livestock” and in another section titled “Rock Springs Spring Enhancement”, the plan is to fence "approximately 40 additional acres of the spring and meadows and pipe water to a trough outside for livestock, feral horses, and big game species”. So much for exclusive use by wild horses….

> Other springs found in the BLM Winnemucca photo files being used by wild horses and targeted for exclosures on the Wish List that can initially be identified include Clear Springs, Tin Trough Springs, Summit Spring and Santa Clause Spring in the Black Rock West HMA, and the Antelope Springs, Cherry Springs and Mustang Springs in the Warm Springs Canyon HMA,

However, in the spirit of fairness, some of the proposed exclosures are allowing for pipelines to carry water to troughs that would be located outside the fenced springs for continued wild horse and/or burro use.


Summit Springs, Empty Trough, BLM Winnemucca photo files. 7-29-08
Rock Springs, titled "Faucet found open, water loss, troughs dry".
BLM Winnemucca photo files. 7-10-08


Rock Springs titled, "Faucet open, water loss, troughs dry".
BLM Winnemucca photo files. 7-10-08


Rock Springs, titled, "Troughs after turning off faucet found open".
BLM Winnemucca photo files. 7-29-08


Rock Springs, titled, "Troughs full". BLM Winnemucca photo files. 10-23-08

And one year later? Rock Springs, merely titled,"Troughs Empty".
BLM Winnemucca photo files. 7-18-09


RUBY, EL PASO AND HALLIBURTON
As Colorado based El Paso Gas Corporation was backpedaling earlier this year about their involvement with wild horses and burros affected by the Ruby Pipeline by pointing out that everything they would do would be according to “BLM policy”, one of the issues the astute reader of Ruby’s Final EIS will note is that all Ruby’s proposed mitigation measures for access to water by wild horses and burros involves hauling water, not the establishment of long-term water sources – those are being considered for fencing during the four year mitigation and reclamation process.

However, while El Paso’s public affairs specialists were recently citing their complete objectivity regarding the issue of wild horse management to calm any further public speculation about their potential prejudices, less than a year earlier, a letter sent by Ruby Pipeline LLC to Nevada Associate BLM State Director Amy Lueders on March 31, 2009, belies Ruby’s true feelings about feral horses as they proceed to make a claim so bold and ludicrous, not even the strongest anti-wild horse opponent has had the audacity to try and fabricate as fact what Ruby does when they blame wild horses for habitat fragmentation in the letter, which states, “Further, the introduction of non-native species, in this case wild horses, can have a fragmenting effect upon the landscape” (pg. 4)

BLM also fired back at the suggestion of Ruby’s behind the scenes involvement in the Calico Complex round ups by posting a Press Release on January 22, 2010, which essentially poo-pooed the idea that Ruby and BLM were doing anything less than honorable with respect to the management of wild horses and burros affected by the pipeline.

However, a press release doesn’t hold water in the legal arena – just ask Judge Friedman – and the legally established BLM “policy” that Ruby will follow has lots and lots of loopholes managers from a variety of agencies can evoke at their discretion.

HMAs would be managed individually in four of the eight herd management areas; however, the Nut Mountain, Bitner, Massacre Lakes, and Wall Canyon HMAs would be managed as a complex. This would facilitate recovery of degraded or threatened ecosystem components by providing sufficient management flexibility to (temporarily) remove horses from an entire HMA (or portion thereof) in order to permit recovery following wildfire, resource improvement projects, or overgrazing by horses….”

BLM Surprise Resource Management Plan
Section 2.21 Wild Horses, pg. 2-82
Record of Decision, December 2008

As the Ruby Final EIS proposes to formalize a blanket agreement to “erect fences to restrict animal movement out of the HMAs” for undisclosed miles at equally undisclosed locations and BLM’s Tuscarora and Winnemucca Field Offices are working hand in hand with Nevada Department of Wildlife and USFWS to feed Ruby a Wish List that will fence miles more of critical water sources, meadows and habitat away from wild horses and burros – as well as possibly just unloading public lands to be managed by corporate partnerships with anyone but BLM - we, the public can rest assured that BLM will be as open, honest and humane about what they are really doing behind the scenes as they have been with the handling of the Calico Complex wild horses over the last several months.

For a more detailed accounting of the daily death tolls, restriction on public access and BLMs transparent operations of the Wild Horse and Burro Program, visit the Humane Observer by Elyse Gardner, who has chronicled the on-the-ground realities faced by the Calico Complex wild horses since their removals began.

As for El Paso Gas Corporation, they have lots of on-board experience with those who know how to pass the buck of responsibility to anyone but themselves as in early December, Timothy J. Probert was named to their Board of Directors. Mr. Probert also is currently serving as the President of Halliburton, Global Business Lines, which includes both Drilling and Evaluation and Completion and Production divisions and their respective service lines.

Wonder if Mr. Probert’s division of Halliburton had anything to do with all the scandals involved in the Minerals Management Services or the currently unfolding tragedy now being played out in the Gulf Coast, thanks to all those “cozy relationships” between corporations, government employees and multi-billion dollar projects that allow the by-pass of environmental protection laws such as NEPA in favor of doing business at the national expense.




While President Obama recently slammed British Petroleum, Transocean and Halliburton for “falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else” at recent Congressional hearings over the gulf oil horror, what the public hasn’t seen is any real reform or change under Obama’s pick for Secretary of the DOI as the Colorado based Salazar has a long, long history of support for the energy industry, including the approval last year of the British Petroleum’s exemption from doing the required detailed environmental analysis at the Deep Water Horizon site now hailed as fast becoming an unprecedented ecological disaster.

As Judge Friedman ruled that any prayer for relief to the public and the Calico horses is now moot and Gulf Coast residents are learning the dirty truth about the greasy realities of the DOI, Secretary Salazar pushes onward in his determination to ram through his Wild Horse & Burro Initiative in this BLM sponsored Denver Public Workshop on June 14, 2010, which will focus exclusively on Salazar's brainchild of leaving merely a few treasured herds of wild horses and burros on public lands while the rest are sterilized to achieve reproduction cycles that match fluctuating adoption demands or carted off to mostly private Sanctuaries in the Mid-West or Eastern states far removed from their native, "protected" ranges.

Wonder what the $42 million dollars Salazar has requested from Congress to purchase land back East for warehousing our wild horses would do if it was dangled in front of state Fish & Game Departments and Sheldon NWR instead to ensure “mitigation measures” for the long-term management of wild horses and burros too.

But then, Secretary Salazar has publicly stated there is no longer any “room” for wild horses and burros out West anymore and apparently, President Obama and his administration continue to support Secretary Salazar 110% - no matter what the cost.

So, we the public are left to live with the mess, stand witness to the dying and deceased while simultaneously being herded down the Obama/Salazar canyon of “work shopping” on how we believe the DOI can best implement the final destruction of our American herds under Salazar’s Initiative.


Secretary Salazar, do you really want to try something new in the Wild Horse & Burro Program? Why don’t you demand the DOI start following the spirit and intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act instead of devoting all its resources to circumventing it.

Now that would be a change for sure!

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3/8/10

BLM's Final Solution for the Wild Horses and Burros

BLM's Final Solution for the Wild Horses and Burros

Originally Posted Dec 21, 2009 by Laura Allen

 
© Copyright Elyse Gardner

Horse Slaughter Information provided courtesy of Valerie James-Patton and Equine Welfare Alliance, http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/

Internal documents from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) shed light on the agency's motives and plans for the wild horses and burros.

Two reports issued by the BLM for internal use only, The Herd Management Option Plans from October 2008, and the Team Conference Calls Report from July-September 2008 contain astonishing proposals to manipulate the WFRHBA and NEPA, eliminate the wild horses and burros altogether from the wild, and until they can be euthanized or sold most likely for slaughter, sterilize them and place them in feedlots paid for by rescue organizations duped into thinking the animals are in private "preserves".

BLM is the agency within the U.S. Department of Interior that is tasked with protecting the wild horses and burros pursuant to the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, 16 U.S.C. §1331 et seq. (WFRHBA) as free roaming animals in their historic herd areas and designated ranges. "All management activities are to be at the minimal feasible level." 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1333. Wild horses are not to be subject to "capture, "harassment" or "death". 16 U.S.C. Sec. 1331

BLM team members involved in these discussions included Jim Stratton, Rob Jeffers, Al Kane, DVM; Jim Johnson, John Neil, Lili Thomas, Gus Ward, Alan Shepherd, Bud Cribley, and Don Glenn.

These reports are almost certainly the precursor to BLM's current proposal issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in October, 2009. The plan as announced is essentially to:

(1) work with non-profits and  wild horse enthusiasts to create "preserves" in the Midwest or east, an idea that runs counter to the  WFRHBA mandate to maintain free-roaming behavior and avoid zoolike settings for these wild animals,

(2) designate additional ranges that under WFRHBA are to be "devoted principally" to the wild horses and burros, but under BLM they have been afforded the same or even less preference than grazing cattle and sheep and other uses of the land, and

(3) work to restore the "sustainability" of herds and public lands which, translated  from BLM-speak, means more slaughter and euthanasia of wild horses and burros and extinction of the herds through continued removal of  wild horses from their herd areas and ranges, aggressive "fertility control", monitoring of sex ratios, and introduction of non-reproducing herds.

This proposal is floating around Congress and the Obama Administration. There has been no indication there will be a hearing or any changes made to the laws or authorization of appropriations that may be necessary to implement the plan. The full plan has never even been made generally available to the public.

Indeed, BLM has already begun to implement this plan.  The removal or gather schedules for 2009-2010 are aggressive, and BLM has shown no signs of reconsidering these plans despite increasing calls for a moratorium on gathers and a pending request for a preliminary injunction on a large gather of 2,432-2,736 wild horses in Nevada set to begin December 28.  Indeed, just a couple of days ago, BLM announced plans to roundup 1,977 wild horses and remove 1,506 from the Antelope Complex in Nevada. The BLM has yet to issue the Environmental Assessment for this action.

And, earlier during the first week in December, without any public announcement, BLM rounded up 217 wild horses on the Nevada-California border. This gather of what are known as the Buckhorn wild horses had been scheduled for the summer, 2010. The roundup was conducted in secret, and it is not known how many horses were injured or killed or what happened to them.

Currently, allegedly "excess" horses, those deemed necessary to remove from designated herd areas or ranges basically because of overpopulation or to "maintain a thriving natural ecological balance", are generally held in short-term (STH) or long-term holding facilities (LTH) on private lands. 16 U.S.C. §§1332, 1333 As of May 31, 2009 there were 8,532 horses and 57 burros in short-term holding facilities that have a total capacity of 15,645 animals. As of that date there were 22,126 horses in long-term holding facilities that have a total capacity of 22,100. The long-term holding facilities are full. BLM claims there are 10,350 excess wild horses and burros that must be removed from herd areas and ranges. Since 2000, BLM has removed more than 74,000 wild horses and burros from the wild, 40% of the population.

Manipulating the WFRHBA

In these 2008 reports BLM employees and consultants discussed placing the wild horses and burros in LTH facilities on public lands by converting grazing rights for cattle. To do this legally, requires changing the status of the horses and burros from wild to titled or owned livestock. The WFRHBA protects wild horses on public lands, meaning they can't be corralled in LTH there.  BLM team members discussed that to keep the animals in LTH on public lands, they would create non-reproducing herds:  "One could argue that a non-reproductive herd is not self-sustaining. Also refer to [43 CFR 4700.0-6  (c]) which states: "Management activities affecting wild horses and burros shall be undertaken with the goal of maintaining free-roaming behavior." By managing for sterile animals we may be taking away their "free-roaming" behavior by altering the social interactions."  If the animals are no longer ‘free-roaming", they are not wild and arguably could be considered livestock and kept in LTH on public lands.

In effect, BLM proposed to manipulate the WFRHBA by actually intentionally destroying herd behavior, free-roaming behavior, which as an agency they are supposed to protect, so that they could get around another provision of WFRHBA to allow the horses to be kept in LTH on public lands.

BLM team members also considered ignoring the WFRHBA prohibition on"relocat[ing] wild free-roaming horses and burros to areas of the public lands where they do not exist" but noted,  "However, a solicitor's interpretation concludes BLM is not prohibited from moving excess wild horses to LTH areas on public lands because no case law implies such a prohibition. Should BLM elect to move excess horses to LTH areas on public lands, appeals or litigation would be likely and could take years to resolve."

BLM team members discussed that the LTH facilities could be nothing more than feedlots. "BLM (or others? ie horse advocacy groups? would buy livestock permits with the objective of managing the allotments for a non-reproducing herd. Due to trouble finding additional pastures for excess horses, we may need to have feed lots. If the humane organization did take over payment of feeding excess horses they would need to pay for whatever type of facility is available."

Note that BLM's current plan as described by Interior Secy. Salazar, calls, in part, for humane groups to take over the cost and care of wild horses and burros placed in "preserves" in the midwest and eastern states. "Preserves" is presumably a euphemism for "feed lot".

In this way, BLM would also manage the animals to extinction. The BLM team member discussed, though, "This alternative may require a change in regulations based on 43 CFR 4700.0-6 (a), which states: "Wild horses and burros shall be managed as self-sustaining populations of healthy animals in balance with other uses and the productive capacity of their habitat."

Actually, for this plan to be legal, Congress would be required to repeal the WFRHBA requirements that BLM manage wild horses and burros as free-roaming "components" of the public lands at the "minimal feasible level" and avoid "capture", "harassment" and "death". 16 U.S.C. § §1331, 1332, 1333.

 
© Copyright Elyse Gardner

Aggressive sterilization and manipulation of herd ratios

Other plans discussed by the BLM team to reduce the wild horse and burro populations included adjusting herd ratios from 50/50 to 70/30 male/female ratios with some of the horses returned to the wild after being gelded and an increased use of PZP, as well as using other unauthorized fertility drugs called Gonacon and SpayVac.

Team members acknowledged Spayvac was "barely available" for research, let alone approved for use as a contraceptive.

With PZP the BLM Instruction Memorandum requires field officials to consider using fertility control and justify when it is not used. During a June 15, 2009 meeting the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board noted the liquid the longer term effectiveness of the pelleted form of PZP is unproven. It is also well known that PZP may cause out of season foals.

In the 2008 team reports, BLM team members noted, "This alternative may require a change in regulations based on 43 CFR 4700.0-6 (a), which states: "Wild horses and burros shall be managed as self-sustaining populations of healthy animals in balance with other uses and the productive capacity of their habitat.  ...One could argue that a non-reproductive herd is not self-sustaining.  Also refer to (c) which states: "Management activities affecting wild horses and burros shall be undertaken with the goal of maintaining free-roaming behavior." By managing for sterile animals we may be taking away their "free-roaming" behavior by altering the social interactions."

Despite the clear language of WFRHBA and some of its own regulations, the BLM team asked,  "Do we have an obligation not to affect horse herd behavior?...Does it affect behavior and do we care? Burger stated in the late 80's that you should aim at a ratio favoring females, but BLM thinks a 50/50 ratio is natural. Would having more stallions change the band structure, will mares and colts be beaten down at water bottlenecks? Since we do not have any evidence [changing the sex ratio] is bad, the BLM should be allowed to do this on a large scale. We do not know if it is bad so should we wait until we know?"

BLM team members discussed options such as filling herd areas with only geldings or sterilizing all mares. BLM also discussed placing wild horses in non-reproducing herds and wanted to look in each state for possible places for these herds.

In one discussion team members proposed it would be easier to "justify" a non-reproducing herd rather than zeroing out herd areas.

The idea was to eliminate a herd management area for every non-reproducing herd area that was created.
The team noted, "When making changes on HMAs (sex ratio, gelding, etc) the implementation would be a trial and error".

BLM knew the aggressive sterilization of mares would mean an increased death rate of at least 10% and admitted that "herd behavior would be out the window". BLM admitted, in effect, these aggressive sterilization plans would not only be potentially dangerous to the wild horses and burros, destructive of their herds and families, but also illegal and ultimately cause their extinction.

Euthanasia and Slaughter

The BLM team's favorite ideas for eliminating wild horses and burros appear to be euthanasia preferably in the field and also by reducing restrictions on sales.
  
The team considered, "How many could be euthanized at a gather without having a NEPA?" The BLM is required by National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321, et seq., to prepare Environmental Assessments or EAs or, if indicated, Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) or Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), for any proposed changes to public lands that may have a significant environmental impact.  The law directs the agency to identify environmental concerns, consider alternatives including no action at all and take a "hard look" at the problem and minimize significant environmental impact. A significant environmental impact includes actions that are likely to be highly controversial or have uncertain effects on the quality of our lives and that affect cultural and historical resources. 40 C.F.R. §1508.27(b).)

In other words, BLM hoped to be able to kill as many wild horses and burros in the field as possible without implicating NEPA.

BLM also discussed drastically reducing the time wild horses and burros are available for adoption or sale before they would then be euthanized.

The team observed, "People willing to put down healthy horses at gather sites could be a problem....Having vets put down healthy horses at preparation facilities could be a problem...Provide counseling due to stress for employees and contractors that have to euthanize healthy horses".

Team members also asked how many more horses could be euthanized without affecting disposal practices. It was noted that Reno Rendering, for example, "will take as many as could be sent". They checked on the capacity of other rendering plants to take more wild horses.

One team member questioned, "Are we euthanizing horses to save money to complete gathers?"

Under the WFRHBA,  "[a]ny excess animal or the remains of an excess animal shall be sold if--
      (A) the excess animal is more than 10 years of age; or
      (B) the excess animal has been offered unsuccessfully for adoption at least 3 times." Currently, a wild horse or burro must be offered for adoption at 3 specific satellite or adoption events before qualifying for sale under subsection (B). Wild horses and burros sold in this way are called 3 strikes horses. Animals sold under this provision lose the protections of the WFRHBA. 16 U.S.C. §1333(e).

Adopters can take possession of 4 wild horses or burros at a time and title is not transferred for at least one year. 16 U.S.C. §1333(c) Only then do the wild horses or burros lose the protections of WFRHBA.

The team notes indicate, "The team needs to address selling horses without limitation....We need to make horses easier to [sell] by changing our policy on the criteria for what constitutes a three strikes horse."

The team discussed selling eligible horses at the gather site.

The team discussed that a horse would get a "strike" after each adoption event and also each 30 day period where a facility is open to the public by walk up or by appointment. In that way, BLM could say the horse had been offered unsuccessfully for adoption at least 3 times for a period of 30 days, even if no one ever even looked at the horse let alone considered the animal for adoption. After the third 30 day period of unsuccessful adoption offers, the horse would be euthanized on day 31.

A note from a team member states, "Sally had an e-mail from a person in Canada who wants 10,000 horses that he would slaughter the horses and send them to a third world country.  Don is going to send the email....Making horses easier to sale by changing policy on the criteria for what constitutes a 3 strike horse, which could be horses that have been in facility for 90 days or 3 weeks. Jim said he has a demand for horses going to Denmark, but they are having a problem getting titled horses."

Another note advises, "Address the need for congress to change the adoption law and allow instant title."

Notes from a June 15, 2009 Wild Horse and Burros Advisory Board meeting indicate "that BLM [should]advertise and market sale eligible animals (with the intent clause) in foreign countries with known good homes by offering "select sales" for sale eligible animals 11 years of age and over, and for younger animals that have been offered for adoption three times during a 90 day period and that BLM continue to explore opportunities to foster foreign aid by providing sale eligible animals (with the intent clause) to foreign countries for agricultural (nonfood) use."

Only BLM would call a slaughter house a "known good home". The BLM is obviously in contact with kill buyers, those that buy horses and transport and sell them to slaughter houses. Despite the mandate of the WFRHBA, BLM, the agency charged with protecting wild horses and burros as free roaming components of the public lands at the "minimal feasible level" is clearly attempting to smooth the way for their slaughter.

During its discussions in the past year BLM considered ways to keep the public away from round ups and the killing and sales of healthy horses and burros and planned to brand protests as "eco-terrorism".  This was all to be done in secret. Unless Congress or the courts step up and stop this rogue agency, it looks like BLM's plan may succeed.

 
© Copyright Elyse Gardner

  
© Copyright Craig Downer

Go here for information about the WFRHBA and how BLM has eroded the protections for the wild horses and burros
Go here to find out how you can join the call for a moratorium on BLM roundups of wild horses and burros.

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10/30/09

Secretary Salazar Urged to Consider Strategy to Manage Free-Roaming Horses and Burros

WildEarth Guardians - Show Press Releases
Date: 10/8/2009 Press Release
Author: WildEarth Guardians
Contact: WildEarth Guardians (505) 988-9126
Email: msalvo@wildearthguardians.org
Additional Contact: Mark Salvo, WildEarth Guardians, (503) 757-4221

Secretary Salazar Urged to Consider Strategy to Manage Free-Roaming Horses and Burros

Grazing Permit Retirement Effective Tool for Resolving Grazing Conflicts

PHOENIX - Responding to the “significant damage” free-roaming horses and burros can cause to public lands and resources, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar outlined a proposal yesterday in Washington, DC, to improve management of free-roaming horses and burros in the West. However, a western conservation group has criticized the Secretary for failing to recommend voluntary grazing permit retirement, among other strategies, as an effective tool for reducing livestock grazing conflicts with free-roaming horses and burros and native wildlife on public lands.

Given that millions of domestic cattle, sheep, horses and goats are permitted to graze more than 260 million acres of public land in the West, WildEarth Guardians contends that the Interior Department cannot ignore the continued harmful impacts of domestic livestock grazing in its efforts to protect sensitive public lands. WildEarth Guardians recently issued a report, Western Wildlife Under Hoof, which documented the myriad effects of livestock grazing on native wildlife and ecosystems across the western United States.

“Public lands grazing is permitted all over the West, and it’s nearly impossible for displaced wildlife to escape the impacts of domestic livestock production,” said Mark Salvo, WildEarth Guardians’ grazing program specialist. “Any proposal to improve horse and burro management in the West should include removal of domestic livestock from public lands to make way for horses and burros and wildlife.”

Voluntary grazing permit retirement is an increasingly popular way to resolve grazing conflicts on public lands. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, enacted last April, allows ranchers to permanently retire their grazing permits on select public lands in Oregon and Idaho in exchange for compensation.

“Voluntary grazing permit retirement is an ecologically imperative, economically rational, and politically pragmatic way to address grazing conflicts on public lands,” said Salvo.

A recent survey of public land ranchers in Nevada—the state with the most free-roaming horses and burros—indicates that as many as half are interested in retiring their grazing permits for compensation.

The Western Wildlife Under Hoof report is available at http://www.wildearthguardians.org/Portals/0/support_docs/report-WWUH-4-09_lowres.pdf.




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10/9/09

Return America’s Wild Horses to Their Rightful Ranges - A Response From The Cloud Foundation to Secretary Salazar's Plan for Our Wild Horses


ALERT!  Please post and re-post!  ALERT!

Return America’s Wild Horses to Their Rightful Ranges:

A Response to Secretary Salazar’s Plan for America’s Wild Horses Equids

For Immediate Release

OCTOBER 8, 2009‐ COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO‐‐ On October 7, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a new initiative for the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro program. The Secretary announced that this is a “national solution to restore the health of America’s wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them by creating a cost‐efficient, sustainable management program that includes the possible creation of wild horse preserves on the productive grasslands of the Midwest and East.”1

The Cloud Foundation is encouraged that the Interior Department realizes that there are problems with the management of wild horses on public lands by the Bureau of Land Management and is considering ways to improve the Wild Horse and Burro Program.

However, the Cloud Foundation questions the need to develop seven new preserves in the mid‐west and east (at an estimated initial cost of $96 million) when there are 19.4 million acres of designated wild horse and burro of rangelands that have been taken away from them since 1971. In just the past few weeks, 12 herds (620 horses) were zeroed out on an additional 1.4 million acres in Eastern Nevada. “It would seem that the best use of taxpayer dollars and the most humane plan for the nearly 32,000 wild horses in government holding2 would be to return them to their native lands” says Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation. “These millions of acres were identified for use by wild horses and burros and these lands are already owned by the American public.”

Rather than spending over thirty million dollars this fiscal year (October 1, 2009‐September 30, 2010) to remove a record number (over 12,000 wild horses and burros) from the range, only legitimate emergency roundups and removals should be conducted. “The BLM continues to lead the public to believe that exploding populations of wild horses are causing degradation of the range and they must be removed before they all starve. This is without merit because wild horses and burros make up only a fraction of animals grazing the range, far greater damage is caused by the privately‐owned cattle who outnumber the horses more than 100 to 1,” states Arizona advocate Julianne French.

The intent of Congress’ 1971 Free‐Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act was not for wild horses to be corralled and penned. The clear intent was that the wild horses and burros be allowed to live on western rangelands designated primarily for their survival in self‐sustaining populations.

Initial Recommended Steps for the Management of America’s Wild Horses & Burros:

1) Cease all roundups until independent analysis can be made of each herd management area. Move forward only with emergency removals if deemed necessary by independent as well as BLM specialists.

2) Return wild horses and burros in good health to the 20.8 million acres of public land designated primarily for their use in 1971 that has since been taken away from them. As per the ROAM Act (§1579): “ensure that, to the extent practicable, the acreage available for wild and freeroaming horses and burros shall never be less than the acreage where wild and freeroaming horses and burros were found in 1971.”

3) Reanalyze appropriate management levels (AMLs) for herd management areas (HMAs). Currently only about 25% of wild horse and burro herds are genetically viable.3 AMLs should not be reduced due to the private use of public lands for livestock grazing. Currently AML “is based on consideration of wildlife, permitted livestock, and wild horses and burros in the area.”4 It is not cost‐effective to remove wild horses from an HMA at a cost of $2600 ‐ over $3000 per individual removed in order to allow a cow/calf pair to graze for a payment of $1.36/month. Cattle, who originated in southeast Asia, damage the land to a far greater degree than wild horses, who are of North American origin.

4) Congress should follow‐up with hearings on the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program as recommended by the Government Accounting Office (2008 report).

Photos and more information available from:

The Cloud Foundation

719-633-3842

info@thecloudfoundation.org
______________________________________________________________

1 Department of Interior press release, 10/7/2009.

2 Nearly 32,000 wild horses are in holding as of 10/7/2009 according to BLM records. No independent inventory has been conducted and the truth of this number cannot be verified.

3 Genetically viable defined here as a population of horses 1 year and older that is at or above 150‐200 individuals with a Ne (genetic effective number) of 50 or more. This is the bare minimum for genetic viability of wild horse and burro population.
More information here.

4 According to Nevada BLM site, accessed 10/8/2009



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