Well, as expected, it would appear BLM has decided it’s now a free for all in the Wild Horse and Burro Program and destroying the herds as fast as they can is at the top of their agenda.In a sad parallel to other atrocities committed by corrupted zealots, I’m reminded of the killing frenzies conducted by the Nazi’s when they realized their “kingdom” was about to fall.
In one week’s time, we have seen:
1. BLM approve a Herd Management Plan for the Nevada Wild Horse Range wild horses, the first and oldest of America’s protected herds, a plan that includes a little one liner about the “option” to completely wipe out the herd and replace them with 100% geldings.
Imagine….BLM has granted themselves the “authority” and option to now ship geldings into a restricted military base where no prying public eyes can go.
2. The option to castrate stallions right in the field at the round up pens and then release them back into the wild 24-48 hours after surgery, all the while maintaining BLM will monitor all geldings for 7-10 days.
Sure they will....and if they bleed to death, who will know?
3. Unsatisfied with “selling” America’s heritage species, BLM now wants the authority to shoot them straight on the range for any reason in a tidy little package called euthanasia.
And they also want to do it FAST, especially with 1,000 wild horses currently being gathered at the Nevada Wild Horse Range at this very moment (aka, Nellis Air Force Base).
According to wild horse advocate, Karen Mayfield, who attended Mondays National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting, the Advisory Board has appointed a three member panel that is suppose to “discuss” euthanasia via conference call within 10 days of last Monday’s meeting.
Apparently, for the first time in their bureacratice history, they have a fire under thier butts to "do something" about BLMs mess, which they have supported and encouraged every step of the way.
Other Board recommendations included:
*Board Recommended to implement to review their census.
*Recommend radio tracking research in Sheldon range.
*Recommend for BLM to come up with 3 HMA's for the gelding issue.
*Cost analysis for spaying mares.
*Recommend for BLM to act in a timely manner to present Herd Management manual.
*Recommend euthanasia. They have delegated a subcommittee of three of the advisory board members to have a conference call within the next 10 days to discuss euthanasia.
*They also discussed Instant Titling for the Long-Term Holding Facilities, which would take act of Congress.
So the big questions at the moment are…
Do these three members have the authority to issue a “kill” decision or does it have to come from the Secretary of the Interior?
Apparently BLM believes they do NOT have to get permission from Congress to begin shooting wild horses at the round pens, only at the long-term holding facilities. Does BLM intend, based on the “three member recommendations”, to begin to immediately start euthanizing wild horses, perhaps at Nellis or some of the other “emergency round ups” planned in the next few weeks?
Euthanizing wild horses and burros is already legal – it was built into the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act but Congress has previously forbid it. However, the Secretary of the Interior has been given “broad powers” to manage the Wild Horse & Burro Program as he sees fit and since it is already legal, in my opinion, he DOES have the authority to exercise this option.
And what’s Congress or a judge going to do about it since it’s already an established law?
Is BLMs newest plan to just shrug their shoulders later IF Congress “slaps their hand” and then issue an insincere apology of “Our bad….” over the bodies of the now dead wild horses?
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3 comments:
Now I have to agree with Anonymous who wrote "Get it straight". While it may be true that BLM considered (but dismissed from detailed study) a proposal to manage the NWHR as a non-breeding population in its entirety, BLM's selected alternative would manage only a small portion of the herd as geldings (about 30 to 35 geldings initially, with the option of managing for 60 to 100 geldings over time). Which would leave a breeding population of about 240-400 studs and mares. And...the geldings would be studs born on the range not imported from somewhere else, allowing them to remain on their home range for their entire lives. What could possibly be better than that?
hahaha - don't count your GAO chickens before they're hatched... you may be eating crow...
I posted this on another website but felt the need to inform other advocates as to what is really happening here with this latest propaganda ploy from the BLM and their proposal to SLAUGHTER all horses in holding pens.
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I have real issues with the BLM using the word euthanasia. First of all euthanasia implies something more humane that what the BLM is proposing.
The word association when someone hears euthanasia is to be held in loving arms and sent off to la la land, peacefully. There is NOTHING peaceful about what the BLM is proposing to do to 30,000 plus horses currently in holding facilities. Do you honestly think that they are going to gather each and everyone and give them an injection (three are required for euthanasia) and let them go peacefully to sleep? Hell no they aren’t. How this dirty deed will be performed is with a gun, dropping horses everywhere around before each one gets it’s turn in a blood bath babies included! I urge EVERYONE...when you are discussing this vial proposition of the BLM lets call it what it is… SLAUGHTER. No where in your posts, articles, or discussions should the word euthanasia come up.
a couple of points to take into consideration..
The BLM has been gathering horses at an alarming rate during the Bush administration. 30,000 plus currently in holding pens, with plans to gather from the Pryor Mountain (Clouds home) and another 5,000 more from Nevadas pathetic 12,000 (by BLM stats) by the end of the fall.
You might be asking yourself what the hell is going on here? We have more horses in holding pens than we have in the wild. Federal mandated herd management areas have been zero’d out and by my resources over 150 of them in the last two years alone.
BLM has the right by Federal law and thru it’s wild horse program by laws to RELOCATE horses to areas where they are supposedly given the first priority and legally should be. So why aren’t they relocating some or all of the horses in holding pens to those zero’d out areas and want to slaughter them instead is a real good question that should be pressed.
It’s been investigated and researched by several independents and group advocates that the BLM has been routinely sending horses to slaughter under the guise of ‘unadoptable or estrays’ since the implimentation of the Burns act.
If you examine the BLM’s definition of “estray” it is any horse that is in an unauthorized herd area. They are removed, held for 30 days for the proper owners to claim them and pay any fees or fines. If not claimed they are sold to slaughter.Of course no one claims wild horses as they do not belong to anyone.
“Unadoptable” by BLM definition is a horse that has been in a holding facility longer than 2 years, and or over 10 years of age (they figure they can’t be trained), and or any horse that has been adopted out, returned and has be adopted out or sent to another home and retured, their so called three strikes program.
BLM has been gathering horses over their considered unadoptable age, horses in areas where public land has been re-zone and then routinely, legally, and very orchestratedly sent them to slaughter. Very questionable when you consider BLM does the re-zoning.
Basically they are bitching about finances NOW because congress won’t fund round ups and their blood money has dried up. With the closure of slaughter plants, they cannot ship these horses across borders without having to answer to the public, or even parent departments i.e. the Interior department. They have been conducting these nasty sneaky practices ever since the Burns act was implimented and getting away with it. Your right Debbie, they are holding our horses hostage,literally!
The HSUS with all their good intentions wants to spay and neuter everything and are actually buying into the over population propaganda ‘pleading’ with the BLM to consider relocating horses BUT gelding stallions and giving mares long term contraceptives before they do...OH PLEASE...AND where the hell is PETA when you need them? They should have been on this one YESTERDAY! This proposal by the HSUS is too extreme AND white washed and one has to wonder who they might be in bed with? They need to GET REAL and off the complacant band wagon if they are really who they say they are put their foot down and demand those relocation programs are put in motion WITHOUT the ‘spay and neuter clause.’
Hypothetically, let say all the horses in pens are relocated and there is a suspencion of round ups..that would mean appoximately 40,000 wild horses NATION WIDE would be roaming free. Any other animal would be on the endangered species watch list. I suppose the HSUS is buying into the lame argument that wild horses weren’t indigenious to North Amercia either? I know I maybe preaching to the choir but in case you don’t know, wild horses do have their own special DNA strand. That same strand that makes a Quarter Horse different from a Arabian
A couple more points I want to bring up.
According to Senator Harry Reids office (D-NV), no less than three major renewable energy companies have researched, reported, done everything they needed to do get wind, solar and geothermal farms set up within the 110 million acres designated all purpose permit in NV. These companies can get wind and solar farms up, running, AND providing for the consumer, helping to reduce the energy crisis for NV in as little as 10 months. THE LAST stage of that process was to get a permit from the BLM. In the last two months BLM has denied them permits!
Why would the BLM deny benign to the envoirnment, benefical to the entire state a permit to a company that would create an estimated 180,000 jobs to a state that is currently listed in the top 5 for the nations highest unemployment rate? It seems like a no brainer, a win win situation for everyone...unless your George W. Bush.
Renewable energy is going to compete with oil interests. Secondly, if certain areas are permitted for renewable energy, ranching interests would have to get out. Wild life and HORSES would be permitted to roam freely, left to prosper outside fencing parameters. By law the dept of interior and BLM cannot allow two seperate companies to operate on the public land area.
People, it goes much deeper than the BLM complaining about funding. Let’s summarize…
1. The BLM has been gathering illegally and desposing of our horses by ‘legal’ laws as per the Burns act. Their’supplimental income’ has dried up with closure of horse slaughter plants in the US. Remember, wild horse meat is very desirable due to the fact that it has not been contaminated with carcenogentics of routine drugs like dewormers, vaccinations, and bute etc. BLM does NOT deworm, vaccinate or give pain killers to ‘estrays’.
2. BLM has been methodically zeroing out federally mandated wild horse HMA’s and giving permits to those areas to livestock ranching corporations.
3. By doing #2, this keeps the renewable energy companies from competing with big oil, and giving BUSH and his cronies justification from the public to open up off shore drilling. While personally I’m not opposed to opening up some areas of the US for oil production, off shore drilling is a major disaster waiting to happen. All you have to do is look up or remember the Exxon Valdez, Pugent Sound, and the San Francisco, Newport Beach disasters, not to mention several smaller ones that didn’t make the national news.
4. The bottom line is the BLM wanting to SLAUGHTER our wild horses is just another propagated spin to protect oil and livestock industry interests at the expense of anhilating our wild horses.
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