Cattle Grazing Regulations Include Doctored Environmental Analysis | Union of Concerned Scientists

This happened during the Bush Administration - but, why hasn't anything been done to correct the situation? Please, contact your Senators and Representatives and ask them.

Grazing Regulations Include Doctored Environmental Analysis

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials compromised the integrity of a BLM study by removing scientific concerns about the effects newly relaxed grazing regulations would have on public lands. Millions of acres of public land in the western U. S. are protected by BLM grazing rules, which regulate when, where, and for how long cattle may graze there.

Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times reported that prior to relaxing Clinton-era restrictions on cattle grazing in June 2004, the BLM edited out portions of an environmental analysis calling into question the environmental sustainability of the new regulations.1 Agency scientists had studied the effects of grazing on wildlife and water quality and expressed concerns.

Cart reported that the BLM eliminated the original draft's warning that the "the Proposed Action will have a slow, long-term adverse impact on wildlife and biological diversity in general." Instead, the final version of the environmental analysis endorsed the new regulations, which were supported by the cattle industry, stating that the new rules would prove "beneficial to animals."2

Erick Campbell and Bill Brookes are both recently retired scientists, each with more than 30 years experience at the BLM. Campbell, a biologist, authored the section of the BLM study on the impacts of the rule change on wildlife and endangered species, while Brookes, a hydrologist, evaluated the impact on water resources. Both characterized the edits as an attempt to suppress scientific information. Campbell termed the matter "a whitewash" and "a crime." "They took all of our science and reversed it 180 degrees," he said. Brookes agreed, adding "Everything I wrote was totally rewritten and watered down."3

The BLM argued that the changes resulted from a standard editorial process and issued a statement saying the conclusions reached by Campbell and Brookes were "based on personal opinion and unsubstantiated assertions rather than sound environmental analysis."4 In an interview Campbell refuted those charges, saying "All the science they extracted from my narrative was peer-reviewed science. This was not gray literature...This was peer-reviewed science in major journals."5 The concerns of Campbell and Brookes were echoed by wildlife experts at the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and by officials at the Environmental Protection Agency.6

1. Cart, Julie. "Land Study on Grazing Denounced." Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2005. latimes.com requires subscription, article available from advocacy website, accessed December 5, 2006.
2. Bureau of Land Management, "Grazing Administration--Exclusive of Alaska; Final Rule," Department of the Interior, July 12, 2006, accessed December 5, 2006.
3. Cart.
4. Bearden, Tom. "New Grazing Rules." NewsHour with JimLehrer, August 10, 2005. Transcript online, accessed December 5, 2006.
5. Mitchell, Michele and Breslauer, Brenda. NOW with David Brancaccio, July 22, 2005. Transcript online, accessed December 5, 2006.
6. Cart, Julie. "Federal Officials Echoed Grazing-Rule Warnings." Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2005. latimes.com requires subscription, available online from advocacy site, accessed December 5, 2006.


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Update On Cloud, Firestorm And Exhilaration From Pryor Wild

I sent an email to Matt at Pryor Wild a few days ago asking about Cloud, his four year old daughter, Firestorm and the others injured in that messy, mismanaged roundup. He kindly emailed me right back informing me that he'd seen Cloud and he appeared to be moving fine. What a relief! Then on Friday he emailed me that he'd updated the Pryor Wild Blog with this video of Cloud and Firestorm as they look now. As you can see, they look just great!

Also, on the last segment of the video, you can see Exhilaration, who has a puncture wound on the back of his right front leg. Matt thinks he'll be okay, but you really can see him limping in this segment. Will have updates on him ASAP.


I know many of us have been greatly saddened by the decimation of this herd as well as many others as the BLM continues on their mad pace to gather all the wild horses from their ranges. The massive gathers are not only continuing, but increasing in number and scope, with hundreds more horses already having been removed from their ranges.

Please continue your efforts to stop this madness while there are still some wild horses left to save. See the Cloud Foundation for the latest information on what's happening and what you can do. We did get their attention. We can't stop now!

For the horses.

Horses On The Range - "Wild" Or "Feral"?

~ Watch the full program here ~

America's "wild" horses are often scorned by many people - including the BLM and Ken Salazar - as domestic cast-offs, horses that either escaped or were turned out by their owners, "feral" domestic horses. As such, they do not get the protection accorded "wildlife," and they are accused of being "non-native" or even "exotic" species that damage the environment and compete with "native" species for natural resources. Is this accusation valid? According to the latest studies in molecular genetics the answer is NO:

Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife

By Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. and Patricia M. Fazio, Ph.D.*

Are wild horses truly “wild,” as an indigenous species in North America, or are they “feral weeds” – barnyard escapees, far removed genetically from their prehistoric ancestors? The question at hand is, therefore, whether or not modern horses, Equus caballus, should be considered native wildlife.

The question is legitimate and the answer important. In North America, the wild horse is often labeled as a non‐native, or even exotic species, by most federal or state agencies dealing with wildlife management, such as the National Park Service, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. The legal mandate for many of these agencies is to protect native wildlife and prevent non‐native species from causing harmful effects on the general ecology of the land. Thus, management is often directed at total eradication, or at least minimal numbers. If the idea that wild horses were, indeed, native wildlife, a great many current management approaches might be compromised. Thus, the rationale for examining this proposition, that the horse is a native or non‐native species, is significant.

The genus Equus, which includes modern horses, zebras, and asses, is the only surviving genus in a once diverse family of horses that included 27 genera. The precise date of origin for the genus Equus is unknown, but evidence documents the dispersal of Equus from North America to Eurasia approximately 2‐3 million years ago and a possible origin at about 3.4‐3.9 million years ago. Following this original emigration, several extinctions occurred in North America, with additional migrations to Asia (presumably across the Bering Land Bridge), and return migrations back to North America, over time. The last North American extinction probably occurred between213,000 and 11,000 years ago (Fazio 1995). Had it not been for previous westward migration, over the land bridge, into northwestern Russia (Siberia) and Asia, the horse would have faced complete extinction. However, Equus survived and spread to all continents of the globe, except Australia and Antarctica.

In 1493, on Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas, Spanish horses, representing E. caballus, were brought back to North America, first in the Virgin Islands, and, in 1519, they were reintroduced on the continent, in modern‐day Mexico, from where they radiated throughout the American Great Plains, after escape from their owners (Fazio 1995).

Critics of the idea that the North American wild horse is a native animal, using only selected paleontological data, assert that the species, E. caballus (or the caballoid horse), which was introduced in 1519, was a different species from that which disappeared 13,000 to 11,000 years before. Herein lies the crux of the debate. However, neither paleontological opinion nor modern molecular genetics support the contention that the modern horse in North America is non‐native.

Equus, a monophyletic taxon, is first represented in the North America fossil record about four million years ago by E. simplicidens, and this species is directly ancestral to later Blancan species about three million years ago (Azaroli and Voorhies 1990). Azzaroli (1992) believed, again on the basis of fossil records, that E. simplicidens gave rise to the late Pliocene E. Idahoensis, and that species, in turn, gave rise to the first caballoid horses two millions years ago in North America. Some migrated to Asia about one million years ago, while others, such as E. niobrarensis, remained in North America.

In North America, the divergence of E. caballus into various ecomorphotypes [breeds] included E. caballus mexicanus, or the American Periglacial Horse (also known as E. caballus laurentius Hay, or midlandensis Quinn) (Hibbard 1955). Today we would recognize these latter two horses as breeds, but in the realm of wildlife, the term used is subspecies. By ecomorphotype, we refer to differing phenotypic or physical characteristics within the same species, caused by genetic isolation in discrete habitats. In North America, isolated lower molar teeth and a mandible from sites of the Irvingtonian age appear to be E. caballus, morphologically. Through most of the Pleistocene Epoch in North America, the commonest species of Equus were not caballines but other lineages (species) resembling zebras, hemiones, and possibly asses (McGrew 1944; Quinn, 1957).3

Initially rare in North America, caballoid horses were associated with stenoid horses (Perhaps ancestral forerunners but certainly distinct species), but between one million and 500,000 years ago, the caballoid horses replaced the stenoid horses because of climatic preferences and changes in ecological niches (Forstén 1988). By the late Pleistocene, the North American taxa that can definitely be assigned to E. caballus are E. caballus alaskae (Azzaroli 1995) and E. caballus mexicanus (Winans 1989 – using the name laurentius). Both subspecies were thought to have been derived from E. niobrarensis (Azzaroli 1995).

Thus, based on a great deal of paleontological data, the origin of E. caballus is thought to be about two million years ago, and it originated in North America. However, the determination of species divergence based on phenotype is at least modestly subjective and often fails to account for the differing ecomorphotypes within a species, described above. Purely taxonomic methodologies looked at physical form for classifying animals and plants, relying on visual observations of physical characteristics. While earlier taxonomists tried to deal with the subjectivity of choosing characters they felt would adequately describe, and thus group, genera and species, these observations were lacking in precision. Nevertheless, the more subjective paleontological data strongly suggests the origin of E. caballus somewhere between one and two million years ago.

Reclassifications are now taking place, based on the power and objectivity of molecular biology. If one considers primate evolution, for example, the molecular biologists have provided us with a completely different evolutionary pathway for humans, and they have described entirely different relationships with other primates. None of this would have been possible prior to the methodologies now available through mitochondrial‐DNA analysis.

A series of genetic analyses, carried out at the San Diego Zoo’s Center for Reproduction in Endangered Species, and based on chromosome differences (Benirschke et al. 1965) and mitochondrial genes (George and Ryder 1986) both indicate significant genetic divergence among several forms of wild E. caballus as early as 200,000‐300,000 years ago. These studies do not speak to the origins of E. caballus per se, but they do point to a great deal of genetic divergence among members of E. caballus by 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Thus, the origin had to be earlier, but, at the very least, well before the disappearance of the horse 10,000 years ago.4

The relatively new (30‐year‐old) field of molecular biology, using mitochondrial‐DNA analysis, has recently revealed that the modern or caballine horse, E. caballus, is genetically equivalent to E. lambei, a horse, according to fossil records, that represented the most recent Equus species in North America prior to extinction. Not only is E. caballus genetically equivalent to E. lambei, but no evidence exists for the origin of E. caballus anywhere except North America (Forstén 1992).

According to the work of researchers from Uppsala University of the Department of Evolutionary Biology (Forstén 1992), the date of origin, based on mutation rates for mitochondrial‐DNA, for E. caballus, is set at approximately 1.7 million years ago in North America. This, of course, is very close, geologically speaking, to the 1‐2 million‐year figure presented by the interpretation of the fossil record.

Carles Vilà, also of the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Uppsala University, has corroborated Forstén’s work. Vilà et al (2001) have shown that the origin of domestic horse lineages was extremely widespread, over time and geography, and supports the existence of the caballoid horse in North American before its disappearance, corroborating the work of Benirschke et al. (1965), George and Ryder (1995), and Hibbard (1955).

A study conducted at the Ancient Biomolecules Centre of Oxford University (Weinstock et al. 2005) also corroborates the conclusions of Forstén (1992). Despite a great deal of variability in the size of the Pleistocene equids from differing locations (mostly ecomorphotypes), the DNA evidence strongly suggests that all of the large and small caballine samples belonged to the same species. The author states, “The presence of a morphologically variable caballine species widely distributed both north and south of the North American ice sheets raises the tantalizing possibility that, in spite of many taxa named on morphological grounds, most or even all North American caballines were members of the same species.”

In another study, Kruger et al. (2005), using microsatellite data, confirms the work of Forstén (1992) but gives a wider range for the emergence of the caballoid horse, of 0.86 to 2.3 million years ago. At the latest, however, that still places the caballoid horse in North America 860,000 years ago.

Finally, the work of Hofreiter et al (2001), examining the genetics of the so‐called E. lambei from the permafrost of Alaska, found that the variation was5 within that of modern horses, which translates into E. lambei actually being E. caballus, genetically. The molecular biology evidence is incontrovertible and indisputable, but it is supported by the interpretation of the fossil record as well.

The fact that horses were domesticated before they were reintroduced matters little from a biological viewpoint. They are the same species that originated here, and whether or not they were domesticated is quite irrelevant. Domestication altered little biology, and we can see that in the phenomenon called “going wild,” where wild horses revert to ancient behavioral patterns. Feist and McCullough (1976) dubbed this “social conservation” in his paper on behavior patterns and communication in the Pryor Mountain wild horses. The reemergence of primitive behaviors, resembling those of the plains zebra, indicated to him the shallowness of domestication in horses.

The issue of feralization and the use of the word “feral” is a human construct that has little biological meaning except in transitory behavior, usually forced on the animal in some manner. Consider this parallel. E. Przewalskii (Mongolian wild horse) disappeared from Mongolia a hundred years ago. It has survived since then in zoos. That is not domestication in the classic sense, but it is captivity, with keepers providing food and veterinarians providing health care. Then they were released during the 1990s and now repopulate their native range in Mongolia. Are they a reintroduced native species or not? And what is the difference between them and E. caballus in North America, except for the time frame and degree of captivity?

The key element in describing an animal as a native species is (1) where it originated; and (2) whether or not it co‐evolved with its habitat. Clearly, E. caballus did both, here in North American. There might be arguments about “breeds,” but there are no scientific grounds for arguments about “species.”

The non‐native, feral, and exotic designations given by agencies are not merely reflections of their failure to understand modern science but also a reflection of their desire to preserve old ways of thinking to keep alive the conflict between a species (wild horses), with no economic value anymore (by law), and the economic value of commercial livestock.

Native status for wild horses would place these animals, under law, within a new category for management considerations. As a form of wildlife,6 embedded with wildness, ancient behavioral patterns, and the morphology and biology of a sensitive prey species, they may finally be released from the “livestock‐gone‐loose” appellation.

LITERATURE CITED
Azzaroli, A. 1990. The genus Equus in Europe. pp. 339‐356 in: European Neogene mammal chronology (E. H. Lindsay, V. Fahlbuech, and P. Mein, eds.). Plenum Press, New York.
Azzaroli, A. 1992. Ascent and decline of monodactyl equids: A case for prehistoric overkill. Annales Zoologica Fennici 28:151‐163.
Azzaroli, A. 1995. A synopsis of the Quaternary species of Equus in North America. Bollttino della Societa Paleontologica Italiana. 34:205‐221.
Azzaroli, A., and M.R. Voorhies. 1990. The genus Equus in North America: The Blancan species. Paleontologica Italiana 80:175‐198.
Benirschke K., N. Malouf, R.J. Low, and H. Heck. 1965. Chromosome compliment: Difference between Equus caballus and Equus przewalskii Polliakoff. Science 148:382‐383.
Fazio, P.M. 1995. ʺThe Fight to Save a Memory: Creation of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range (1968) and Evolving Federal Wild Horse Protection through 1971,ʺ doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station, p. 21.
Forstén, A. 1988. Middle Pleistocene replacement of stenoid horses by caballoid horses ecological implications. Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 65:23‐33.
Forstén, A. 1992. Mitochondrial‐DNA timetable and the evolution of Equus: Comparison of molecular and paleontological evidence. Ann. Zool. Fennici 28: 301‐309.
George, M., Jr., and O.A. Ryder. 1986. Mitochondrial DNA evolution in the genus Equus. Mol. Biol. Evol. 3:535‐546.
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Hibbard C.W. 1955. Pleistocene vertebrates from the upper Becarra (Becarra Superior) Formation, Valley of Tequixquiac, Mexico, with notes on other Pleistocene forms. Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, 12:47‐96.
Hofreiter, M., Serre, D. Poinar, H.N. Kuch, M., Pääbo, S. 2001. Ancient DNA. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2(5), 353‐359.
Kruger et al. 2005. Phylogenetic analysis and species allocation of individual equids using microsatellite data. J. Anim. Breed. Genet. 122 (Suppl. 1):78‐86.
McGrew, P.O. 1944. An early Pleistocene (Blancan) fauna from Nebraska. Field Museum of Natural History, Geology Series, 9:33‐66.
Quinn, J.H. 1957. Pleistocene Equidae of Texas. University of Texas, Bureau of Economic Geology, Report of Investigations 33:1‐51.
Vilà, C., J.A. Leonard, A. Götherström, S. Marklund, K. Sandberg, K. Lidén, R. K. Wayne, H. Ellegren. 2001. Widespread origins of domestic horse lineages. Science 291: 474‐477.
Weinstock J.E. Willerslev, A. Sher, W. Tong, S.Y.W. Ho, D. Rubnestein, J. Storer, J. Burns, L. Martin, C. Bravi, A. Prieto, D. Froese, E. Scott, L. Xulong, A. Cooper. Evolution, systematics, and the phylogeography of Pleistocene horses in the New World: a molecular perspective. PLOS Biology 3:1‐7.
Winans M.C. 1989. A quantitative study of North American fossil species of the genus Equus. pp. 262‐297, in: The Evolution of Perissodactyles (D.R. Prothero and R.M. Schoch, eds.). Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Please note: This document is the sole intellectual property of Drs. Jay F. Kirkpatrick and Patricia M. Fazio. As such, altering of content in any manner is strictly prohibited. However, this statement may be copied and distributed freely in hardcopy, electronic, or Website form (updated June 12, 2009).
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* Author Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Director, The Science and Conservation Center, Billings, Montana, holds a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. Patricia M. Fazio is an environmental writer and editor residing in Cody, Wyoming, holding a B.S. in agriculture (animal husbandry/biology) from Cornell University, an M.S. in environmental history from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. in environmental history from Texas A&M University, College Station.

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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Stampede to Oblivion: An Investigative Report and More…

Investigative reporter and Peabody award-winner, George Knapp, reports on what is really happening to Nevada’s wild horses in “Stampede to Oblivion”. This special report will air on Saturday, Oct. 10th at 9pm in Nevada. It will be available online later as well– stay tuned. Watch a preview here:

   more on: The Cloud Foundation Blog

Senate Votes to Stop Slaughter of Wild Horses and Burros!

This just in from The Animal Law Coalition ~

Senate Votes to Stop Slaughter of Wild Horses and Burros!
Posted Feb 25, 2009 by lauraallen

* Wildlife
* Horse Slaughter

Wild burros

The Senate also prohibited BLM from using funds to kill healthy unadopted wild horses and burros!

Update Sept. 25, 2009: The Senate has voted to pass H.R. 2996, an appropriations bill for 2010 for the Dept. of Interior including the Bureau of Land Management ("BLM").

BLM manages the nation's wild horses and burros. In the bill the Senate made clear to the BLM: Appropriations ... made [in this bill]shall not be available for the destruction of healthy, unadopted, wild horses and burros in the care of the Bureau of Land Management or its contractors or for the sale of wild horses and burros that results in their destruction for processing into commercial products.

Follow the link below to read all about it!

Senate Votes to Stop Slaughter of Wild Horses and Burros! | Animal Law Coalition