Kill the Bills: HB 318 and HB 302, Not the Buffalo
Buffalo Field Campaign is appealing to all of our supporters to send messages against HB 318 and HB 302 to kill the bills – not the buffalo – in the Montana Legislature. You can watch the action on both bills in the House Agriculture committee at 3 PM (MST) Tuesday, February 16.
HB 318changes the legal definition of wild buffalo or bison – redefining the wild, migratory Yellowstone bison herds as domestic or feral. Under HB 318, wild buffalo would no longer be recognized as wild, and the wildlife species would – by definition – be extinct in Montana. HB 318 would also stop the reintroduction of wild buffalo because the legal definition precludes the species from ever being recognized as wild.
HB 302 interferes with Montanan’s constitutional right to participate in decisions to reintroduce wild buffalo by giving a board of county commissioners veto authority over the state’s decision. Reintroducing wildlife is the responsibility of wildlife biologists entrusted with ensuring wild American bison, our National Mammal, are protected for future generations.
Tonight my heart is very heavy because the wild horses I have grown to know over the last 4 years are on the brink of being chased by helicopters and removed from their homes and their families forever.
During a pandemic, the Bureau of Land Management is continuing an aggressive, punishing and devastating schedule of rounding up and removing wild horses off of our public lands. This roundup is going to be the largest in recent memory, with over 2400 wild horses scheduled to be removed. The Red Desert Complex is 5 Herd Management Areas that are contiguous: Green Mountain, Lost Creek, Crooks Mountain, Stewart Creek and Antelope Hills. In the middle is a Herd Area, Arapahoe Creek that is no longer managed for wild horses, which is ridiculous and inexplicable because the horses move though the area. More
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Land of Hope and Glory UK Earthlings Documentary
Surge (2017)
Film Review
This is a documentary about the brutal conditions under which factory farmed animals are raised in the UK, Australia and the US. This type of footage is extremely rare because Food Inc makes every effort to conceal the disgusting conditions under which our meat is produced.
Factory farmed pigs and chickens seem to fare the worst. Even though pigs are as intelligent and emotionally complex as dogs, they are raised in extremely confining cages and forced to lie in their own feces, as well as being routinely tortured and beaten by their keepers. Pigs, like most other factory farmed animals, are fed massive doses of antibiotics (contributing to antibody resistance and the rise of “superbugs”) while continual exposure to feces makes factory farmed meat a major source of food borne illness.
Chickens and more than 90% of ducks and turkeys are also crowded into pens. In chickens raised for meat, 45% suffer painful fractures because their specially bred bodies are too heavy for their skeleton.
What seems most consistent among all factory farmed animals (besides their continual exposure to feces) are the inhumane conditions under which they are killed. Although most jurisdictions require them to be asphyxiated or electrically stunned prior to slaughter, abattoir personnel are rushed and poorly trained. As the film clearly shows, many animals are still alive when they’re butchered.
This is a wild family in the Green Mountain Herd in Wyoming. For the past three days the BLM has been chasing hundreds of horses with helicopters and rounding them up and yesterday two foals died of what the contractor calls “capture shock.”
Here’s the BLM’s story in their Gather Reports: “Summary: BLM euthanized a captured horse with a pre-existing condition. Two colts were treated for capture shock during sorting at the holding corral. One colt died shortly after being treated and the other died while being transferred to the veterinary hospital in Lander”
Here’s our opinion: It was very hot. These foals likely ran as hard as they could to keep up with their mothers while being chased by a helicopter. The BLM ran them to death. So while the BLM attempts to put lipstick on a pig by blaming the deaths of the foals on “capture shock,” we place the blame directly where it belongs – on the BLM.
If the foals were treated, where are the vet reports?
Montana’s largest Buffalo Safe Zone has been sold. The former Galanis property, about 700 acres of lush green grass and rolling hills, was recently bought, and while we don’t know exactly how the new owners feel about the buffalo, the large “Bison Safe Zone” sign has been removed. The caretaker has contacted us to say that we are no longer welcome there, and we fear that this may mean the same for the buffalo. This is *critical* habitat that the buffalo from the imperiled Central herd use winter and spring, one place they are safe from any harm, and they are devoted to this land which is part of their calving grounds. The Galanis family — incredible champions of the buffalo — are devastated that they have had to let this land go. It’s a heavy blow to all of us. But, we still don’t know for sure how things may or may not change. Perhaps the new owners will understand the tremendous support and fierce loyalty the buffalo have from all the surrounding neighbors and others throughout the West Yellowstone community, and keep things as they are.
Wenk Forced out by Secretary of Interior Zinke
On the federal level, Yellowstone’s superintendent, Dan Wenk, has been ousted by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. Though wrongfully touted by some “green” groups as a “bison protector”, Wenk had, apparently, been in dispute with Zinke over the number of wild buffalo — the country’s national mammal — who should exist in the Park. The controversial Interagency Bison Management Plan, crafted in the interests of ranchers, places a political cap of 3,000 on the buffalo population. A number not supported by science, ecology, or any form of logic. Yellowstone National Park alone can sustain upwards of 6,500 buffalo, while the surrounding lands of the Greater Yellowstone country could support at least 20,000. For a population who once existed in the tens of millions, this is still a minuscule population size. Yet, Zinke — a Montana cattleman — wants to drive the endangered population down to a mere 2,000.
Zinke, a corrupt Trump appointee, is a known enemy of the earth, a strong champion of industry and corporations who has oil & gas, timber, mining, and ranching advocates salivating. It’s no surprise that, being from Montana, his attention would turn to the wild buffalo of Yellowstone with an aim to cause them greater harm.
For nearly 30 years Park Superintendents have played a lead role in slaughtering buffalo inside Yellowstone National Park. Some have expressed regret, like Mike Finley. Wenk is just the most recent of several superintendents behind the National Park Service’s ongoing slaughter of our last wild buffalo.
That being said, the reality is, Wenk has hardly been a champion of the buffalo. Thousands of the country’s last wild buffalo — the beloved Yellowstone herds — have been shipped to slaughter from within Yellowstone, brutally treated, hazed, domesticated, and otherwise harmed with Wenk standing as Yellowstone’s superintendent. For all the years he’s been in office, he has bent over backwards to serve Montana’s livestock industry, destroying imperiled wild buffalo. It has only been in recent months — after Yellowstone’s trap was attacked four times — and public pressure against the buffalo slaughter has been mounting — that he has started to come out advocating for wild buffalo to be managed as wildlife, and that the livestock industry should not be the ones to dictate how buffalo live or die.
Too little, too late. Actions speak much louder than words, and Wenk’s hands are covered in buffalo blood no different than Zinke’s aim to be. Not only that, but a 50-year wild buffalo domestication / commercialization program has been approved under Wenk’s “protective” leadership, which has already resulted in dozens of buffalo being slaughtered or confined for life.
Will it be worse without him as Superintendent? We simply need to grasp that this whole system is broken and we must stand in solidarity and fight back harder. Zinke has made it clear that the war against the country’s last wild buffalo — our national mammal — is escalating. With our sites aimed straight and true, we stand up even stronger for the wild.
Guests will be:Tamira Ci Thayne-Founder and 13 year former CEO of Dogs Deserve Better & JenniferKanady -Campaign Director of the Federal Break The Chains Campaign with In Defense of Animals
“To destroy them so that oil, gas, livestock, hunting and mining interests can deplete the land without any horses or burros standing in the way is bad for the environment and frankly, un-American.”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has raised red flags for a number of reasons during his short tenure. He seems to care less about protecting America’s national monuments than allowing them to be exploited by special interest groups and has been caught up in one corruption scandal after another. You would think that it’d be difficult for a man like that to do anything else that could make people who don’t bleed money-green to despise him.
Unfortunately, the lives of 50,000 wild horses and burros are in Zinke’s hands, because Congress is preparing to negotiate appropriations for the Interior Department and whether to allow for the unlimited slaughter of wild horses and burros.
It all stems back to the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 a bill that offered protections to the horses and burros that roam the United States — and, of course, was immediately opposed by special interests in Big Agriculture who were determined to erode its protections. The interests’ first major success in doing so occurred in 2004 after Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., attached a provision to an omnibus bill that removed most of the legal protections established in 1971 and privatized the animals themselves.
That’s where Zinke comes into play. In 2009, the Montana State House introduce a bill to build a horse slaughterhouse in the state at a time the country had been two years without one.
“Zinke wanted to bring slaughter back so ranchers and others in the horse business could dispose of their unwanted, unhealthy or inconvenient horses quickly and for a profit,” Susan Wagner of Equine Advocates and Debbie Coffey of Wild Horse Freedom Federation told Salon by email. “The [Montana] bill did not pass but fast forward to today, and now all these animals are facing extinction. The Interior Department’s budget being slashed by more than $1 billion also doesn’t help.”
Wild Family in Salt Wells Creek before being rounded up
Right now, Congress is working on the 2018 Spending Bill that will determine the fate of wild horses and burros in the United States. This wild horse family above which was rounded up in October in addition to the 45,000 other wild horses currently held in holding facilities imminently face possible killing or slaughter.
Your Representatives and Senators, who are supposed to be representing you, need to hear from you right now to make sure that wild horses and burros remain protected from killing and slaughter once the spending bill is voted upon and becomes final.
Please call your Senators and Representatives and tell them:
“Please work with leadership in Congress to make sure that the final 2018 spending bill protects America’s wild horses and burros from mass killing and slaughter. Please protect wild horses and burros and work to humanely manage them on our public lands. Please do not allow horse slaughter plants to be opened in the United States.”
To find out more about Wild Horse Freedom Federation and our work to keep wild horses and burros wild and free on our public lands visit www.WildHorseFreedomFederation.org
Foreground: SHARK founder Steve Hindi, investigator Stu Chaifetz, and pigeon rescued from a shoot. Background: scene of the January 4, 2018 pigeon shoot in Henderson, Maryland.
“HSUS operatives have a long history of making false claims. They often claim credit for either the accomplishments of others, or for “victories” that never occurred at all, as in the case of these pigeon shoots. Other times, HSUS misleads supporters by claiming victories that are in fact backward steps in the effort to improve the treatment of animals.”
by Steve Hindi, president, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness
On Monday, January 15, 2018, I sent an email to Humane Society of the United States president Wayne Pacelle demanding a copy of all HSUS documentation regarding live pigeon shoots around the country. I copied Anna West and Heidi Prescott, as both are employed by HSUS, and are mentioned in the January 15 email to Pacelle.
I demanded documentation from Pacelle because HSUS is not telling the truth about the status of pigeon shoots. In September 2017, Heidi Prescott gave assurances to Animals 24-7, via West, that pigeon shoots in Maryland had been stopped. More
Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah deceived Congress by implying there was a 41% increase in wild horse & burro population in only 5 months, and by showing a photo of one thin horse and claiming that a majority of the wild horse population on the range were starving or dying from dehydration.
Stewart authored the recent Amendment in the House that would lead to 46,000 healthy wild horses & burros in BLM holding facilities and tens of thousands more on public lands being “euthanized” (killed).
Researcher Marybeth Devlin submitted her remarks (below) countering Stewart’s OpEd to the New York Times via its “we want to hear from you” page. However, when I clicked on the link to the “we want to hear from you” page, it was gone (so apparently, the New York Times doesn’t want to hear from anyone). Marybeth also commented on The New York Times Opinion Section on Facebook, where Stewart’s piece is listed (among others, halfway down the page).
Our thanks to Marybeth Devlin for exposing the misinformation opined by this squirrelly politician (my apologies to squirrels). Stewart’s own constituents even booed him in Salt Lake City this year.
“No birth control, no euthanasia, no slaughter: None of them fixes fraud. The problem is fraud – BLM’s fraud – not overpopulation. What is needed is honest management of our wild horses and burros.” – Marybeth Devlin
by Marybeth Devlin
The Bureau of Land Management’s wild-horse fraud: The “overpopulation” of wild horses is a pernicious lie, a concocted “crisis”. The government doesn’t have a wild-horse problem — wild horses have a government problem. More
You can also listen to the show on your phone by calling (917) 388-4520.
You can call in with questions during the 2nd half hour, by dialing (917) 388-4520, then pressing 1.
This show will be archived so you can listen to it anytime.
This is a wild family in Salt Wells Creek that has no idea what is going to happen to them.
Our guest tonight is Carol Walker, Dir. of Field Documentation for Wild Horse Freedom Federation. Carol has been at the Bureau of Land Management’s roundups of wild horses in the Checkerboard area of Wyoming. This roundup will result in the devastation of the three largest remaining herds in Wyoming.
Carol has an important update for the public. The BLM is not giving the public accurate numbers in reports.
Montana’s largest Buffalo Safe Zone has been sold. The former Galanis property, about 700 acres of lush green grass and rolling hills, was recently bought, and while we don’t know exactly how the new owners feel about the buffalo, the large “Bison Safe Zone” sign has been removed. The caretaker has contacted us to say that we are no longer welcome there, and we fear that this may mean the same for the buffalo. This is *critical* habitat that the buffalo from the imperiled Central herd use winter and spring, one place they are safe from any harm, and they are devoted to this land which is part of their calving grounds. The Galanis family — incredible champions of the buffalo — are devastated that they have had to let this land go. It’s a heavy blow to all of us. But, we still don’t know for sure how things may or may not change. Perhaps the new owners will understand the tremendous support and fierce loyalty the buffalo have from all the surrounding neighbors and others throughout the West Yellowstone community, and keep things as they are.
The PPJ Gazette 