I-Team: Injunction Filed to Fight Wild Horse Roundup

 Chief Investigative Reporter George Knapp and Photojournalist Matt Adams

I-Team: Injunction Filed to Fight Wild Horse Roundup

Posted: Dec 16, 2009 8:06 PM EST Updated: Dec 16, 2009 8:10 PM EST  

The fate of thousands of Nevada's wild horses was on the line Wednesday in the nation's capital. Advocates for the horses asked a federal judge to stop a massive roundup planned for later this month in northern Nevada.

The focus of the court battle is the proposed Calico roundup. The Bureau of Land Management says it needs to remove 2,700 horses from an area larger than 500,000 acres and it needs to happen even in brutal winter weather. Advocates for the horses argued the BLM action is cruel, dangerous and clearly illegal.

"The whole idea of the Wild Horse Act was the horse living in its natural state on the continent of its origin. Now that's being perverted and they are being made into slave horses, against their will and against the will of the people," said Wildlife Ecologist Craig Downer.

Downer is one of two Nevadans who lent their names to the lawsuit filed in Washington by the group In Defense of Animals to stop BLM in its tracks.

BLM had planned to start the roundup December 7, 2009 but delayed its plans for a few weeks. Unless Judge Paul Friedman orders otherwise, BLM will unleash its wranglers and choppers on December 28, 2009. The three-month project could cost $1.7 million in taxpayer money and remove 90-percet of the estimated 3,000 horses that live on more than half a million otherwise empty acres of public land.

The Calico gather is one of many on the BLM schedule. The bureau wants to capture another 12,000 horses to join the 33,000 already living in government pens. Earlier this year, Downer said the BLM's new found sense of urgency goes too far. "It's totally in your face extremism. It's a bold faced attempt to obliterate, and those few they leave, they sterilize them, cut them down to such miserably low numbers that they will become inbred or some rancher is going to come out and shoot the rest of them," he said.

In its public statements, BLM argues it needs to remove the horses right away to protect the range from overgrazing, even though last year the bureau approved an increase in cattle grazing in the very same range, saying then that damage from horses was negligible.

The lawyer representing Downer and the other parties thinks a winter roundup will kill many of the mustangs but his arguments in federal court focused on the law. "It does not include a roundup such as what is contemplated here. In fact, it is quite the opposite," said attorney Bill Spriggs.

Spriggs told the judge that the law lays out specific steps that must be taken before mustangs can be removed from public land, and that BLM hasn't followed any of them in the Calico Hills. He further argued BLM has no legal authority to warehouse horses in out-of-state holding pens, which is where most of them end up, in part because BLM puts minimal effort into adopting them out.

The judge said that if he agrees with the argument and stops the roundup, he's concerned what would become of the horses already captured. Mustang advocates say its BLM's own fault for not following the law. "That was a self-inflicted wound since they're spending 70-percent of their budget on horses in Kansas and should have spent it managing the horses in the first place," said Spriggs.

Because the roundup is slated to begin December 28, a decision on the preliminary injunction will have to come soon, most likely by next week. If it is granted, the mustang advocates will have the time to launch a much broader legal assault on the BLM's entire approach to the wild horse issue.

The I-Team special report on wild horses, Stampede to Oblivion, is re-airing this Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. and it covers many of the central issues in this debate.

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America's Wild Horses - A Study in Mismanagement

How the US Government is eradicating an American icon

Over the past 30 years, under pressure from special interest groups and in blatant disregard of the public’s wishes, the BLM has systematically favored subsidized livestock grazing on public lands to the detriment of wild horse populations. The Burns Amendment, slipped into the 2005 federal budget without so much as a hearing or opportunity for public review, was the last nail in the coffin of federal wild horse protection, opening the door to the slaughter of thousands of these living symbols of our Nation’s spirit. A few months later, while in the process of rounding up another 10,000 horses supposedly due to poor range conditions, BLM eased public land grazing restrictions for private cattle. Now BLM is considering simply killing "excess" horses to help balance its budget.

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In 1971, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the U.S. Department of Interior, was put in charge of implementing the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. When the Act was passed, the U.S. Senate stated: "An intensive management program of breeding, branding, and physical care would destroy the very concept that this legislation seeks to preserve […], leaving the animals alone to fend for themselves and placing primary emphasis on protecting the animals from continued slaughter and harassment by man." Sadly, this Congressional mandate has been ignored and, over the past thirty-five years, no strategic plan to keep viable herds of wild horses on public lands was ever developed. 

Pursuant to the 1971 Act, BLM is directed to protect and manage wild free-roaming horses and burros as components of the public lands, and may designate and maintain specific ranges on public lands as sanctuaries for their protection and preservation. Yet, its management policy has translated into a diligent and steady herd reduction campaign, causing America’s wild horse population to dwindle to less than 25,000 and to lose 19 million acres of its legally allocated range.
Approximately 36,000 wild horses and burros adopted through BLM’s Adopt-A-Horse program are unaccounted for, and in 1997, BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program Director conceded that about ninety percent of rounded up horses ended up at slaughter. Questioned off-the-record, BLM employees routinely acknowledge rampant mismanagement and disregard for the 1971 Act (see Case Study #1). 


In 1992, wild horses and burros were left out of BLM’s revised mission statement altogether.

“Excess Animals”: A Very Nebulous Concept


The 1971 Act requires that wild horses "be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands." The Act also defines "range" as “the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare, in keeping with the multiple-use management concept for public lands." By law, only “excess animals” should be removed from the range. It is therefore how BLM determines “excess” that will shape the entire Wild Horse and Burro Program. 


The legal requirement that “excess” be determined based on population monitoring and inventory has been circumvented by allowing BLM to determine “excess” based on whatever information is in its possession at the time a decision is made, rather than requiring that relevant information (such as actual census numbers) be obtained. In fact, only four percent of BLM’s wild horse and burro budget is allocated to population inventory. The legal requirement that BLM consider the “recommendations of qualified scientists in the field of biology and ecology, some of whom shall be independent of both Federal and State agencies,” has also been circumvented or ignored. 

© Laurel Monreal Photography horsesofnature.com

“Excess” is simply determined on paper, using grossly inflated fertility rates (up to 25%, whereas the National Academy of Sciences estimates actual growth rates to be closer to 10%) and generalized data that does not take into account the specificity of each geographic area (foaling rates, mortality rates and foal survival rates can vary greatly from one area to the next). This questionable methodology leads to highly inaccurate population estimates (e.g. an 800% discrepancy in the Salt Wells HMA - WY, 2006). 


In conjunction with flawed population monitoring, BLM relies on the notion of “Appropriate Management Level” (AML) to determine “excess.” AMLs dictate how many horses and burros can be allowed on the range, and therefore what constitutes “excess.” AMLs are the single most important tool in BLM’s arsenal. They are also a moving target: once AML is reached in an area, meaning the wild horse population is deemed at an acceptable level, it is often subsequently lowered, paving the way for more round-ups (e.g. in 2001, the national wild horse AML was drastically lowered to 26,000; since then, it has crept down by a few hundred every year, adding up to a further loss of 1,500 as of 2006). 

AML for a given Herd Management Area (HMA) is based on forage and water availability, or rather, forage and water allocation. Case study after case study have shown that BLM consistently allocates substantially more forage to private livestock and game animals on the very areas that were legally designated for wild horses (e.g. 700% more forage allocated to livestock than to horses in the Stone Cabin Complex - NV, 2007), steadily reducing wild horse AMLs, sometimes to the point of eradication (the so-called “zeroing out” of a herd area). 


Likewise, only a small fraction of water available in a given area will be allocated to wild horses (e.g. 7% in the Spring Mountain Complex - NV, 2006), who will then be removed due to supposed lack of water, while livestock and game animals are allowed to thrive in areas that, by law, were to be “devoted principally” to wild horses (see Case Study #2). Case in point: bighorn sheep can be found on seventy-five percent of Nevada’s Muddy Mountain HMA and are allocated water from the National Park Service (NPS), water guzzlers and specially made dams. These water developments have allowed the HMA to be turned from seasonal into year-round bighorn habitat, a victory for the local hunting lobby, but are not taken into account in determining wild horse and burro AMLs for the area, despite a federal mandate that “all range improvements […] be installed, used, maintained and/or modified on public lands […] in a manner consistent with multiple-use application” (43 CFR 4120.3-1 (A)).


Another critical piece of federal regulation states: “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, the authorized officer may close appropriate areas of the public lands to grazing use by all or a particular kind of livestock.” (43 CFR 4710.5 (A)) This provision is also routinely ignored.

More Round-Ups


Round-ups (or “gathers,” to use a placating BLM euphemism), are BLM’s “management” tool of choice: the fewer horses on public lands, the more convenient for public land managers and special interest groups. Oftentimes, livestock is restocked shortly after wild horses have been removed (e.g. about 1,000 sheep reportedly brought in the Dry Lake Complex just a couple of weeks after 200 horses had been removed from that same area - NV, 2006; ten-year grazing permit granted for 6,882 head of cattle in New Pass Ravenswood HMA the same month as 692 horses are removed from the same HMA due to "lack of forage" - NV, Oct. 2007). 


In addition to the concept of “excess animals,” BLM has several tools at its disposal to justify round-ups. Early on, BLM did not capture wild horses who ranged out of their herd boundaries. Today, if wild horses step out of their boundaries, BLM removes them permanently from public lands. In the state of Nevada, home to about seventy percent of our nation’s wild herds, horses found outside of their federal boundaries are treated as stray animals and sold at auction, usually ending up at slaughter. 


Another well-established BLM practice is to thin out herds to the point where they are no longer deemed genetically viable, and then use the threat of in-breeding as an excuse to zero out such herds completely. It has been estimated that up to three-fourths of our remaining wild horse and burro herds are below population levels that would guarantee their long-term survival. Sex ratios in wild horse herds normally average 50/50. To further affect viability, BLM will stack herds with seventy percent of males, severely disrupting herd dynamics and behavioral patterns. 
Still, BLM’s most often used rationale for round-ups is the threat of starvation and drought conditions: so-called “emergency gathers” are another way for BLM to circumvent the legal requirement that only “excess” animals be rounded up. 


Whereas private cattle and sheep are promptly restocked, if in fact they were removed at all (e.g. almost 50% of the total estimated horse population removed from the Ely District following brush fires, but no reduction in authorized livestock for the 23 affected grazing allotments - NV, 2006), horses are not returned to the area after the “emergency” conditions subside. BLM simply makes the zeroing out of the HMA official by issuing an AML of zero: a wild horse range originally managed under the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act is now permanently devoid of wild horses (e.g. Blue Nose Peak HMA, AML of 1 - NV, 2003). Over the years, dozens of HMAs, representing millions of acres, have met this fate.

“This is not a Democracy”
(Jim Sparks, BLM District Manager, at a Sept. 2008 public hearing in Billings, MT)


A 1990 GAO report found that “in many areas where wild horse removals have taken place, BLM authorized livestock grazing levels have either not been reduced or have been increased thereby largely negating any reduction in forage consumption.”  In 1997, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility noted that “little has changed since the 1990 GAO report.  Wild horse management decisions continue to be made within the BLM on a political rather than scientific basis, and in the political balance between horse and cow, the cattle industry almost always wins.” (see Case Study #3)


Today, BLM continues to conduct indiscriminate round-ups, zeroing out herds in violation of the 1971 Act. In 2001, it obtained a 50% increase in annual budget to $29 million for implementation of an aggressive removal campaign (in 2005, that budget rose to $39 million). Twenty-four thousand horses were slated for capture; no long-term plan was put in place for these horses after their removal.

Case Studies
#1 - Jackson Mountain round-up/Palomino Valley deaths, NV, 2007
#2 - Nevada drought, 2004
#3 - Highland Peak HMA, NV, 2003-07
#4 - Wild burro status: critical analysis

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BLM Destroyed Another Wild Horse Herd While Advocates Sat At Advisory Meeting

Get MAD! Get VERY mad while there are still some wild horses left for us to protect! 

clipped from rtfitch.wordpress.com BLM Destroyed another Wild Horse Herd while Advocates sat at Advisory Meeting December 13, 2009 R.T. Fitch Leave a comment Go to comments BLM’s Don Glenn Openly Lied to Press and Advocates while Wild Horses were Rounded up article courtesy of  The Cloud Foundation Once free, their beautiful lives ruined - Palomino Valley 12/11/09 - Photo by K. McCovey Read The AP’s Martin Griffith’s 12-12-09 article on the Clandestine Buckhorn Roundup of 217 horses (San Francisco Chronicle, Examiner.com) Following the yet-unsolved shooting death of 6 federally-protected mustangs, more of America’s mustangs are removed; at least one mare has died to date. The discovery of shooting deaths of six wild horses on the California-Nevada border has led to the exposure of an apparently clandestine BLM roundup of over 200 horses. The roundup of the Buckhorn Wild Horses was scheduled to begin in August 2010.

Read more --

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A Win For The Horses!

 
H.R. 2996 is now law, Public Law 111-88, Interior Dept. and Continuing Appropriations, FY 2010. Under this law, BLM is prohibited from using any funds "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".

This is the mandate that was proposed by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA, telling the Senate:


"We ... are down to just a few herds of horses. And the reason that i think that this is even more important than to just western states or the ranchers or landowners or humane society and others is because for the people generally, the idea of wild spaces with wild horses is something that is really part of our heritage. And we want to make sure that that heritage isn't lost, that we're being responsible in terms of the way the land is being used for multiple purposes and from the perspective of horse advocates, that the horses themselves are being treated fairly.
"And none of that right now is being done in the way that most people, i believe, would appreciate or would be satisfied with. There have been any number of studies that i'm going to submit to the record.
"Most recently, the congressional research service as well as the government accounting office has suggested major changes to the program. I'm just going to go through a few possible options. One, the creation of several public-private sanctuaries. This has been suggested by a few fairly high-profiled individuals in our country. The idea has merit. We are working with a variety of different groups along with the department to think about the possibility of creating public-private partnerships, large sanctuaries, maybe 500,000 or a million acres where thousands of wild horses could not only roam freely in a healthy way, but they also could potentially become ecotourist opportunities for some of the states and communities as it would be an attraction that could potentially make money and attract people out to some of these western areas. Or, for that matter, grant rural areas in other parts of the country.
"There is a possibility to make some smart investments to step up some of the adoption programs that might work. And there are any number of scientific and new technologies that can be brought to bear in terms of breed management, reproductive issues that could help us get a much more cost-effective, sane and humane approach to this problem. 

 This bill passed the Senate on September 25, 2009.
 
For more go to Animal Law Coalition

Image via Wikipedia Wild stallion Lazarus and part of his band in West Warm Springs HMA, OR

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FOIA Request Uncovers Unprecedented Evidence Horse Slaughter is Inhumane

FOIA Request Uncovers Unprecedented Evidence Horse Slaughter is Inhumane

Documents never before made public reveal the USDA was aware of extreme cruelty during horse slaughter at facilities in the U.S. The documents dispute claims horse slaughter in the U.S. was in any sense humane and instead reveal a brutal, terrifying ordeal that should be permanently banned.


Ithaca, New York (PRWEB) December 4, 2008 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a 906-page document revealing for the first time the alarming cruelty that takes place during horse slaughter in the U.S. The documents included almost nine hundred photographs. Information was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request submitted 3 years ago by equine cruelty investigator Julie Caramante. Animals Angels assisted Caramante in obtaining the documents, and they are now working with Animal Law Coalition to assess and disseminate the information.

"I've been an equine cruelty investigator for a number of years," said Caramante, "and I've witnessed many incidents of animal cruelty but nothing could prepare me for these images."

The photographs document significant injuries to horses at the slaughter house. Injuries included conscious dismemberment, open fractures, blinding, and battered faces. It appears some horses were left to bleed out. Other injuries indicated long term abuse and neglect.

'The pain and terror these horses had endured is criminal," said Caramante.

In July, well before release of the documents, Dr. Nicholas Dodman of the Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee describing horse slaughter as, " a brutal and predatory business that promotes cruelty and neglect," concluding that as a veterinarian a "rapid end to this wholly brutal and un-American trade" is warranted.

Horse slaughter in the U.S. ended in 2007 after the three remaining plants in Texas and Illinois were closed by state lawmakers and the courts. There is a federal bill pending in Congress that would prevent horse slaughter from resuming in states without laws prohibiting it.

Those in favor of horse slaughter have insisted horse slaughter should resume because they claim U.S. humane laws protect horses from cruelty, unlike Mexico and Canada where American horses are now sent to be slaughtered for human consumption in France, Belgium and some other countries.

Former Rep. Charlie Stenholm who is now a lobbyist for the horse slaughter plants, has called horse slaughter a safe, convenient way to dispose of horses. He has called it a "well-regulated industry" practicing "humane euthanasia". Stenholm has told the House Judiciary Committee horses are personal property and owners should be able to decide what to do with their property without government intervention.


Sonja Meadows, executive director of Animals' Angels, said, "We now know [from these new documents] that being on U.S. soil does not make horse slaughter humane or better. That this could go on even with the presence of USDA inspectors makes absolutely clear that horse slaughter is not euthanasia and definitely not a humane end."

Meadows is hopeful that the shocking evidence of the cruelty of horse slaughter in the USDA document will compel the new Congress to act swiftly to pass a federal ban on the transport and slaughter of American horses. "In 2006 the House voted by a wide margin, 263-146, to ban horse slaughter. But the session ended before the Senate could vote," she said. "Now, this new evidence removes any doubt. We must act quickly. We cannot allow horse slaughter to continue any longer."

About Animal Law Coalition and Animals' Angels

Animal Law Coalition works to stop animal cruelty and suffering through legislation, administrative agency action, and litigation. ALC offers legal analysis of the difficult and controversial issues relating to animals. Join ALC at http://www.animallawcoalition.com and together we can take action for animals nationally and in your state and community.

Animals' Angels is a 501 (c)(3) non profit organization with fulltime investigators in the United States and Canada. We work to end animal cruelty and abuse and to improve conditions for farm animals. Our investigators are out in the field every week, trailing livestock trucks on highways, visiting markets, collecting stations and slaughter plants. For more information please go to http://www.animals-angels.com.

The Ballad of Slaughterhouse Sue

This Glorious Presentation is dedicated to that tireless and dedicated Advocate of Horse Slaughter for Profit, the disgrace of Wyoming, your enemy and mine - Slaughterhouse Sue!

Okay, everyone - Get out your captive bolt pistols! Pull on your tall boots so the blood won't get on your good pants, and lets do the Slaughterhouse Boogie all around the old kill chute!

After the celebratin' is over, we can set down to a wonderful meal of Horse-meat Chili eaten off our beautiful horse hide tablecloth! Hey! The chili and the tablecloth were made from the same horse!

Yeehawwww!

Image via Wikipedia

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