by: Debbie Coffey (c)copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved 

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The Indian Lakes Road/Broken Arrow BLM holding facility where the BLM is holding our wild horses in Nevada has a sign hanging at the entrance:

Troy Adams Broken Arrow USA.　

The link to the website for Broken Arrow USA is no longer active. The Broken Arrow Ranch of Lincoln, CA was featured on animal cloning company Bovance’s website .

The sale of Broken Arrow Ranch’s cattle clone was listed at the Denim and Diamonds Sale and the last address in the middle column is: Broken Arrow Angus Ranch, Troy Adams, 345 Karchner Rd,, Lincoln, CA. 95648, phone (916) 645-1924 Pharmaceutical company Geron (www.geron.com) (TX. ViaGen and Trans Ova Genetics (of Sioux Center, Iowa) own Bovance, the animal cloning company (which featured Broken Arrow).　

Most, if not all, of Geron’s board of directors each sit on the boards of several other pharmaceutical companies. ViaGen is very actively cloning horses:

Some background:

The first equine clone, named Prometea, was foaled in 2003.　 ViaGen is working with The Continental Studbook to register cloned foal produced for North America.　 ViaGen also has a facility in Queretro, Mexico for Latin American producers.

ViaGen is cloning cutting horses:

Viagen is cloning quarter horses: and lots of horses…look at ViaGen foals:

Viagen is gene banking:　

In 2008, The National Cutting Horse Association said clones could be shown. In 2009, The American Quarter Horse Association featured a forum on equine cloning and my bet is that clones will be approved in 2010.　

Former Senator Conrad Burns, who scrapped many protections for the wild horses, registered as a lobbyist for the American Quarter Horse Association in 2008 with Gage LLC.

Conrad Burns was also a co-founder of Slaughterhouse Sue’s (Wyoming Rep. Sue Wallis) United Organizations of the Horse,  a trade organization that is working to reinstate horse slaughter in the U.S.　

The American Quarter Horse Association donates money to (sponsors) Slaughterhouse Sue’s United Organization of the Horse.　This means the American Quarter Horse Association is pushing for cloning, while atthe same time donating funding to Slaugherhouse Sue’s push for horse slaughter in the US.　 So, they want to kill real horses, but they support cloned horses!

In 2007, ViaGen hired Leah Wilkinson to manage it’s food policy activities and outreach to the food industry. Wilkinson was the Dir. of Food Policy for the National Cattleman’s Beef Association, which is also a sponsor of the United Organizations of the Horse.

JoLynn Worley, a spokeswoman for the BLM, told me that the BLM does random DNA testing on the wild horses “periodically” at the capture site and the holding facilities. On the BLM website, it states that:

“The BLM actively monitors the genetics of each herd by sending genetic samples to Dr. Gus Cothran at Texas A&M University.”　Dr. Cothran furnishes the BLM a report on every sample with recommendations for specific herds.”

Beside the fact that this, the BLM’s own statement, negates the BLM’s stated method of how it determines appropriate herd management.

What has Gus Cothran recommended to the BLM?　 What do genetics have to do with appropriate herd management levels?　

Why is the BLM collecting the DNA of our wild herds, especially if there are “too many” of them?

Texas A&M is a hotbed of animal cloning. Even if Dr. Cothran is no longer at that university and is a paradigm of ethics, why is only one person storing and controlling the DNA of our wild horses, and seemingly without any oversight by peers or anyone else?　

There are HUGE amounts of money involved in cloning, much more than natural breeding methods.　Semen from clones and clones sell for much, much more money. There could be temptation for someone to sell DNA from our wild horses to the cloning companies.

Sue Stokke of the BLM said the BLM hires rendering companies to haul away dead horses from the Indian Lakes Rd. facility.　

Since scientists have cloned cattle from cells from the kidney of a cow that had been dead for 48 hourshttp://afgen.com/clon49.html (in place for the DNA of dead wild horses?　

The BLM sterilizes stallions as soon as they arrive at the BLM facilities, which doesn’t make much sense since the BLM immediately separates the stallions from the mares in different pens, so it’s not likely that they could impregnate one.　 However, if wild horses were to become extinct, and cloning companies had added even one protein or spliced in a transgene to patent their DNA (like Monsanto does with GE plants), then the cloning companies would have a patent that would become even more valuable with horses being sold as food and for pharmaceutical uses. It’s like eliminating the competition (they can’t patent natural horses).　Cloning companies would own this life form.

ViaGen states that it also “adds value to the marketplace” by “licensing and selling proprietary animal genetics and providing traits and technology for animal agriculture industries worldwide.” It would be interesting to find out if any branch of the U.S. government has any shared patents with any of the animal cloning companies (the USDA shared a patent for “terminator seeds” which was bought by Monsanto, and the U.S. government has received royalties off of the shared patent!).　 Is the fox guarding the henhouse?　

Noted:

Indian Lakes/Broken Arrow USA BLM holding facility:

Sue Stokke said that Troy Adams and his wife live in the big house that is on this property, and that a wing of the house is used by the BLM.

Property records for 5676 Indian Lakes Rd. in Fallon, NV indicate that the property is owned by Michael A. Casey and Claudia C. Casey.　 This property was bought as a bargain and deed sale in 2005.　 The sale price was $545,000.　 The assessed value is only $32,780.　 The Casey’ mailing address was 53601 Austin Hwy., Fallon, NV　 89406