Topic: The Pony Express relay has been postponed till next spring.Instead,the Lady Godiva relay will be ON – Sacramento (Oct 15th). Reno/Carson-City (Oct. 16), Salt Lake City (Oct. 18), Cheyenne (Oct. 23),Denver (Oct. 24),Richmon-DC (Oct. 30) Phoenix (Nov. 6).
Anthony Marr’s MARR-PLAN to end wild horse roundup, captivity & slaughter once & for all.
Wild Horses, Mustangs, Adobe Town Herd Area, southwestern Wyoming, USA
On April 1, 2021 the Bureau of Land Management published their Environmental Assessment for five wild horse herds in the Red Desert of Wyoming, in the public lands that include the Checkerboard: Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, White Mountain and Little Colorado. These herds are on 3,436,000 acres. Despite having a new administration and a new Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, the BLM pushed out this plan to remove 3555 wild horses, the largest proposed roundup in history. This brutal plan includes as alternatives for the remaining horses left on the range dangerous spaying of wild mares, putting IUDs in wild mares and gelding stallions. Not only does the BLM want to remove as many wild horses as possible without even doing an actual count of their numbers for the past two years, they want to leave the remaining horses sterilized so that ultimately the wild horses will be eradicated in these areas. Here is the link to the documents: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/1501993/570
If you are asking why, the main reason for this aggressive action is the Rock Springs Grazing Association. They are one of the most powerful grazing associations in the country despite only having about a couple dozen member families, and they are the primary holders of grazing leases in these Herd Management Areas and the primary holders of private land within the Checkerboard. They consider all these 3,946,000 acres of public and private land to be “theirs.”
They will never rest until all the wild horses have been eradicated, and they have considerable influence over the Bureau of Land Management. I have been observing, photographing and documenting wild horses in these areas since 2004 and involved in 5 lawsuits to stop the destruction of these wild horse herds over the past 8 years, and no doubt soon will be a plaintiff on yet another lawsuit. If not for keen public involvement and lawsuits, these herds would have been zeroed out long ago. Under this plan, there will be 1550 wild horses total left on 3,436,000 acres, or one horse per 2216 acres.
Here is the imaginative table that includes population estimates based on made up numbers:
Just a few years ago, Rep. Chris Stewart proposed to slaughter the wild horses, but Congress rejected this idea. The next move was the Incentive Adoption Program. That program was to gather, remove, and give the wild horses to the public for $1000, with a caveat to keep them for a year; then do with them what you want…even to put them in the slaughter pipeline. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says that happens infrequently. Yet every day in the social media wild horses are advertised as being in kill pens aka auction yards, from the NW to the SE and from the NE to the SW…not just 1-2 horses but 10-20 on average with some projected to be 1000 to 2000 yearly. Kind-hearted souls wanting to rescue them from the kill pens are becoming exhausted, now out of funds to help purchase them.
Recently six, two year old wild horses were purchased from a kill pen in Colorado. They had had a long journey from Litchfield, CA or Fallon, NV to Brighton Springs, WY, to MT, and on to a fairground in the Dakotas where they were to become part of the Adoption Incentive Program. There they were purchased by couples 4 each for $8000, or by singles 4 each for $4000. Some of the horses went to a couple who run the Bar S Rodeo Co. in ND. with the wife saying to an informant, the wild horses were used in the rodeo. One year later, after two virtual meetings, titled horses and $8000 in pocket, the wild horses were dumped in the Philip Auction Yard in SD and driven to Fabrizius Auction Yard in CO. There they were purchased by a “kind-hearted soul” who found them at two years old, pregnant, with alopecia (hair loss likely due to stress), with lost or crooked tails, head shy, and flighty. The damage was done with movement now to try to repair them to trust a human.
Cars, cars, cars, trailers lined up this past week to take young wild horses from Rock Springs in WY. Fill out an application, stamp “approved,” quickly take a horse , no time to assess them, done. With so many in kill pens now, it is likely many more through this seemingly superficial program, will end up in kill pens as well or in isolating pastures, or in filthy corrals. Yes, there are those who also will end up in good, safe homes. Yet this program appears to be a sneaky way to get rid of our American treasures with taxpayers footing the bill only to further brutalize the voiceless in our society. When does it stop? I would ask those of you who have taken these wild horses out of kill pens to look into their background, to write about it, to contact your lawmakers re: your findings, and to approach the BLM to refine or forget this insensitive, evildoing program.
Across the road, behind our observation point, we cannot see the trap or the run up to the trap from here at the Red Desert Complex Roundup. This is not meaningful observation. Two days ago we were here and could see the horses moving at a great distance then around the hill and that was it. We are in Crooks Mountain Herd Management Area. It is 36 degrees right now but when the wind picks up it gets bitter. We are waiting for the helicopters to bring in the first group of wild horses and will be watching them as best we can for the short time they are in view.
The trap – I cannot see it from where I am supposed to observe
The helicopter pilot just brought in a small family. There were 6 horses one sorrel stallion peeled off and is moving slowly away and the other 5 were driven around the corner and I assume into the trap since I cannot see it. They were very far away.
They have just stopped rounding up horses in Crooks Mountain for the day – the wind really picked up. I saw a group with a gray mare, a pinto mare and foal, bays, and a bay stallion and another darker group came in. Meanwhile three horses turned around and headed the opposite direction on the ridge. All of the 20-25 or so horses captured today have looked very tired, like they have been run a very long way. This group finally got close enough to identify a small family – dark mare, bay stallion and bay foal with blaze tucked in between them. The helicopter went back for them after driving the colorful family in. They were clearly tired. It was painful to watch. The helicopter hung way back but they had to go a long way before going out of site behind the hill. I did not see them go into the trap of course because it is behind me across the road.
The Bureau of Land Management Does Not Allow the Public to See Wild Horses Being Driven into Traps with Helicopters
Published by Carol Walker at November 4, 2020 Categories Tags
I am at the observation point for the helicopter roundup at Crooks Mountain Herd Management Area in the Red Desert Complex. It is 37 degrees. I am the only member of the public here today.
Well my hope was unfounded – we not only have no view of the trap that the horses will be driven into, we cannot even see the wings of the jute funneling them in. Supposedly they will drive the horses by the hill we are allowed to sit on. I would not call this “meaningful observation.”
This is the stubborn hill that I wish I could have super powers to see through – between me and the trap where the wild horses are being driven in with a helicopter. In Crooks Mountain HMA this morning about 35 horses just got captured. Mostly bays with a couple of dappled gray stallions and one pure white older stallion. They were trotting and galloping, we saw them over on a ridge then they disappeared from sight we cannot see the trap or even the lead up to the trap from this location. This is not acceptable public observation. I am not here to take pretty pictures I am here to see how the horses are doing, if anything happens to them and I am unable to do that in this location.
I am at the viewing site for the Red Desert roundup – it will be the last day for this area in Antelope Hills. It is a balmy 31 degrees this morning. Yesterday they captured 107 wild horses and I thought they were done here. They only plan to leave 60 horses in this HMA of 159,000 acres. They will release 25 horses.
I saw a colorful family run on top of the hill near the trap. They came down followed by a group of four black horses who waited on the hill while the helicopter went after a big group of about 12 pintos buckskins, grullas and bays who looked so tired – moving slowly, I am not sure how far they had been pushed. It took a while for the helicopter to get the four blacks to meet up with the big group and get pushed in. They are using only one trap for this area which is absolutely huge. More
A gorgeous and proud buckskin stallion runs as fast as he can, away
Yesterday, 20 wild stallions and 46 wild mares were released back into Stewart Creek in the Red Desert Complex in Wyoming. The day before 24 stallions had been released.
Yesterday morning we drove 2 hours to the trap site, hiked and set up our gear and then were told that they cancelled the roundup for the day because of high winds. Of course the forecast had said that last night and this am, so it should not have come as a surprise. One more day of freedom for the wild horses of Arapahoe Creek.
The 20 stallions
We rushed back to temporary holding hoping we could see the stallions being released.
A very happy varnish roan
I watched 20 wild stallions being released back into Stewart Creek Herd Management Area in Wyoming. As the trailers drove up I was struck by the wildly proud posture of a stunning buckskin stallion in the front of the trailer. He did not look like a good candidate for captivity, so it is a very good thing that he has been included with the stallions to be released back into Stewart Creek.
On day 5 we had a day off due to wind – I of course spent it with the horses, and saw a rainboy behind a family that I knew. I hoped it would be a sign.
There is another beautiful sunrise as I wait for the helicopters to chase the horses into the trap 1 mile away in the Red Desert Complex Roundup in Wyoming. We are at a location about a mile from the trap site. The winds are calm and it is 21 degrees this morning. More
It is another morning a mile from the trap site waiting for the helicopter to chase the wild horses in Stewart Creek Wyoming. Yesterday 84 horses were captured, no injuries or deaths. We hope that continues today. The wind is not bad right now but is forecast to pick up this afternoon.
The two helicopters went out and we saw a big black stallion circle around and go right by us – I stopped breathing as he paused and looked at us, then kept trotting our of sight into Lost Creek. There will be at least another day of freedom for him.
The black stallionHe stands and looks before heading out
Then several groups came in together, silhouetted by the sun directly in our eyes, the two helicopters worked together and brought them in. At least 40-50 horses. They headed out again as the contractor is loading horses into stock trailers – we were told then they load them into the big semis to take them to temporary holding.
Next three small groups come in and the helicopters head out again. The wind is starting to pick up but it is not nearly as bad as yesterday so far. I saw several stock trailers head toward temporary holding, the babies in the back. We will most likely have a chance today to go see the horses that have been captured today several hours after the helicopters stop.
In the stock trailer
I watched 3 more groups of wild horses being driven in using two helicopters, but once again a small family of 5 colorful horses ran away right toward us to Lost Creek. I am using an 800mm lens but it is still very far away and hard to see. From what I can tell they have gone through a barbed wire fence, which is being used as one of the boundaries of the lead up to the trap. Even though there are some pink flags, a barbed wire fence should not be the side of what they are driving the horses into – there is too much possibility for an injury to the horses. The stunning big pinto stallion brought up the rear of his little family – he looked at us as they trotted by but was not concerned about us. As they got closer I could see the sweat streaking down their bodies from running. He let them walk at one point until he heard the helicopter and then they started running away. They have a reprieve at least for today.
On Day 2 of the roundup, the wind was so severe that the helicopters could not fly. So I headed out to see the horses one last time. It was bittersweet. It was wonderful as always to see the families i knew so well. First I saw Leopard Appaloosa stallion Looking Glass and his family. I continued to a water tank, and saw blue roan stallion Blue Zeus and his family who were on the move, so it was a quick look.
Blue Zeus on the move
Then I encountered a very colorful family I had never sen before with lots of pintos including a handsome palomino pinto stallion. It was a hello and a goodbye. Then the last family I saw was a beautiful wild mare, stallion and foal. They had no idea what was coming for them.
What a time to meet a new family!The last little family I saw
This morning when I arrived at the trap site for the second day of the round up I had thought maybe the high winds would ground the helicopters today but so far it is a go. We are in Stewart Creek this morning, about a mile from the trap.
Looking into the sun
I watched over 30 I think wild horses (I am not the best at counting) be driven by two helicopters working in coordination into the trap. The winds are pretty fierce so I was surprised that the helicopters are able to fly. They came in in several large groups. But one very colorful family with pintos and buckskins evaded the helicopters, running straight into Lost Creek and they are still running, I am not sure if they are going to go after them today, they may have won a temporary reprieve.
They got away, for now
One large group of about 40 horses ran right through the jute and away from the trap at full speed. Then another group of about 20 horses was driven into the trap. For the last hour they had been pushing the group that got away and were bringing half of them around to the trap and the horses ran away again. Once the helicopter moved off they slowed to a trot then a walk clearly exhausted, but then made their way past us into Lost Creek. Mostly bays and some grays. One stallion is lagging way behind. He stops.
In August of 2018 the Bureau of Land Management began a roundup in the Red Desert Complex of Wyoming. The Herd Management Areas in the Complex are Green Mountain, Stewart Creek, Lost Creek, Crooks Mountain and Antelope Hills. They were planning to remove 2670 wild horses in total, and the last roundup had been in 2011. The BLM stopped about halfway through on August 17 because they had nowhere else to put the rest of the horses they proposed to remove. So 1444 wild horses were rounded up, 25 were released back into Green Mountain including 12 mares who were given PZP birth control. The bulk of the horses removed were from Green Mountain, with about 300 from Stewart Creek. Ten wild horses died during this roundup, including some foals who were literally run to death in the heat.
Bachelor Stallions
Now the Bureau of Land Management is planning to continue this roundup. Because it was paused they do not need to do any more Environmental Assessment, any more public comment. They can just start at their convenience, which turns out to be some time in October of this year. They plan to remove over 1000 wild horses – likely over 1500.
Just to state the obvious, come on people, wake up, there is a Pandemic! You are going to ignore that and pretend that chasing wild horses with a helicopter and separating them from their families and homes, killing some, sending most of them to be warehoused for the rest of their lives in a feedlot situation for millions of taxpayer dollars is a priority? Surely millions of dollars being squandered in wild horse roundups happening now in Utah and Nevada and soon in Wyoming could be better used helping people who are at risk people who are losing their jobs, their homes and their lives?
Apollo, Hera and their new colt
Of course, our government will say this money has been allocated to remove the horses. Yes and that is a problem – it is not a priority! These horses who are on public lands currently are not posing a threat to anything except the cattle ranchers’ greed to put more and more livestock on our public lands. And surely it has occurred to someone that what a great time to remove these horses – when most people are staying at home and trying to stay safe.
“Subsidized livestock already outnumber wild horses and burros by over 37 to 1, yet livestock overgrazing is a top cause of damage to federal rangelands.”
Environmental travesties are on the rise, many obscured by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the biggest ones will soon be taken up by Congress.
In its long-overdue report to Congress, the Bureau of Land Management proposes capturing and removing 220,000 wild horses and burros over 10 years to achieve its unsupported, arbitrary “appropriate management level” of 26,690 — a near-extinction population level.
It will cost American taxpayers $1 billion to expel these animals from the dedicated rangelands where they currently live at no cost to taxpayers. Thousands of wild mares could be subjected to ovariectomy, a discredited, brutal form of sterilization. In the end, hundreds of thousands of once-wild animals will languish in crowded holding pens — and taxpayers will be footing the bill.
Wild horses are federally protected animals. The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act established their ranges as dedicated habitat to be “managed principally ” for their welfare. Flouting this law, the BLM has removed wild equids from nearly half of their designated 52 million acres. Now, government machinery is accelerating to remove most of the rest.
The BLM plans to wipe out three herd management areas in Wyoming’s famed Checkerboard and sterilize an entire herd in a fourth — “zeroing out” 2.5 million acres of their habitat for continual use by privately owned livestock.
In Nevada, the BLM intends to eliminate six herds in the Caliente Complex, imprisoning 1,700 wild horses at taxpayer expense. They will also take 1,800 wild horses from Oregon’s Barren Valley, proposing sterilization as “management,” killing off the “wild” in these wild horses.
Figures Show Vast Areas Failing BLM’s Own Rangeland Health Standards
Washington, DC — The Bureau of Land Management’s most recent data on the health of federal rangelands reveal extensive damage from excessive commercial livestock grazing, according to figures posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Last month, BLM announced its intent to rewrite its grazing rules without specifying the measures it is considering.
BLM’s Standards for Rangeland Health prescribe the minimum quality of water, vegetation and soils, as well as the ability to support wildlife, required by the agency for permitting livestock grazing. The most recent (2018) rangeland health report on BLM grazing allotments across 150 million acres in 13 Western states shows –
Of total acres assessed, 42% fail to meet BLM Standards for Rangeland Health, totaling nearly 40 million acres, approximately the area of Washington State;
The largest portion (70%) of range health failure is due to livestock overgrazing in allotments covering nearly 28 million acres, an area the size of Pennsylvania; and
These figures are underestimates because nearly 40 percent of these federal rangelands – nearly 59 million acres or an area about the size of Oregon – have never been assessed.
“By its own yardstick, BLM is a poor steward of our federal rangeland,” stated PEER Advocacy Director Kristen Stade…
“the B.L.M. has scheduled nearly twenty oil-and-gas-lease sales on federal land nationwide through the end of 2020, and the Administration has shrunk the size of wildernesses and national monuments, paving the way for more drilling…It is a classic land rush.”
Even if you’ve never been to the vast red-rock desert country around Moab, Utah, you’ve been there—its mesas and buttes, its towering arches, have been the backdrop for a thousand movies (and even more S.U.V. commercials). It’s what we think about when we think about “the West,” a truly mythic place. Some of it has been protected in national monuments and parks: Arches and Canyonlands. But the fate of a large swath of it, though nominally belonging to the American people, may soon fall to a guy named Craig Larson.
Here’s the story so far. Under a long-standing law known as the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, anyone can “nominate” a parcel of federal land for oil-and-gas development—it doesn’t cost a thing. The rules are so lax that you don’t even have to supply your name if you want to nominate a piece of land, but Prairie Hills Oil & Gas did provide at least that much context when it asked the federal Bureau of Land Management to set aside land between Arches and Canyonlands. Prairie Hills Oil & Gas, of North Dakota, it turns out, is headquartered at a home that Larson, an attorney, co-owns in Big Lake, Minnesota, about forty miles northwest of Minneapolis. After the land is nominated, and certain review processes are completed, the B.L.M. moves to set up a lease auction, which, in the case of Larson and Utah, is scheduled for September. (Although Larson has nominated the parcels, anyone, in fact, could be the ultimate winning bidder.)
“BLM states biologically impossible annual wild horse population rates…”
photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently posted their annual Wild Horse and Burro Herd Statistics. As in previous years, BLM’s report is full of obviously false, biologically impossible population growth data.
WHY is it important to expose this fraud? Because BLM uses the phony figures to convince everyone (but especially, the Congress) that an overpopulation crisis exists. Given the “crisis,” BLM requests millions of dollars in funding to capture and remove thousands of wild horses and burros from the range or, alternatively, to sterilize them. The fraudulent figures reflect BLM’s corruption. Yet, the Agency is granted deference, as if it were providing true data.
BLM’s falsified population figures affect not only specific herds (by triggering unwarranted, excessive roundups) but also misrepresent the total wild horse and burro population. The astronomically-high numbers for certain herds significantly inflate the summary data, making it seem as if all herds grow at a high rate.
Here are just a few of the many false figures that BLM is alleging for the reporting-year beginning March 1st 2019 and ending February 29th 2020:
WARM SPRINGS Herd Management Area (HMA) a 497% increase in ONE year (a herd of 30 horses produced 149 successful foals in one year which would require that every single horse – including the stallions! – have more than four surviving foals in one year. Biologically impossible
TOBIN RANGE Herd Management Area (HMA) a 377% increase in ONE year (a herd of 30 horses produced 113 successful foals in one year which would require that every single horse – including the stallions! – have more than three surviving foals in one year. Biologically impossible
HARDTRIGGER Herd Management Area (HMA) a 371% increase in ONE year (a herd of 14 horses produced 52 successful foals in one year which would require that every single horse – including the stallions! – have more than three surviving foals in one year. Biologically impossible
SNOWSTORM Mts. Herd Management Area (HMA) a 252% increase in ONE year (a herd of 90 horses produced 227 successful foals in one year which would require that every single horse – including the stallions! – have more than two surviving foals in one year. Biologically impossible
DIAMOND HILLS SOUTH Herd Management Area (HMA) a 187% increase in ONE year (a herd of 216 horses produced 404 successful foals in one year which would require that every single horse – including the stallions! – have more than one surviving foal in one year. Biologically impossible
DIAMOND HILLS NORTH Herd Management Area (HMA) a 129% increase in ONE year (a herd of 271 horses produced 349 successful foals in one year which would require that every single horse – including the stallions! – have more than one surviving foal in one year. Biologically impossible
Not only are these false statements misleading to Congress and to the public but the perpetrators (BLM) of these fraudulent population increases are in violation of Title 18 (18 U.S.C.§ 1001). Making false statements (18 U.S.C.§ 1001) is the common name for the United Statesfederal CRIME laid out in Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which prohibits making false or fraudulent statements, in “any matter within the jurisdiction” of the federal government of the United States, 18 U.S. Code § 1519. Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, violates this federal crime shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years.
Horses and burros have an approximate 11-month gestation period but as shown above and in their statistics, BLM continually gives biologically impossible annual herd increases. A recent study of 5,859 wild horses showed that although the average annual birth rate was about 20%, the survival to the age of yearling was only half of those – therefore a maximum herd increase of only 10%. In addition, adult mortality must be factored which therefore reduces the average herd increase to less than 10% annually. The National Academy of Science report cited two chief criticisms of the Wild Horse and Burro Program: unsubstantiated population estimates in herd management areas (HMA), and management decisions that are not based in science (NAS, 2013). The BLM’s biologically-impossible and scientifically-indefensible population-growth rates constitute dishonest and distorted data, which the BLM uses to mislead Congress and the American people. These false population statements are a federal crime punishable by prison and a fraudulent action against the American public in addition to being a travesty against our wild horses and burros.
WHY is this so important? Because these are the statistics that BLM gives to Congress when requesting funding for wild horse and burro capture and management plans, including the recent BLM $1-Billion Wild Horse Disaster Plan that pushes for massive roundups and the destruction of wild horse social behaviors through surgical and chemical sterilization for both mares and stallions.
*** Click (HERE) for a complete mathematical analysis of BLM’s fraudulent and deceptive population statistics.
Unfortunately, Thompson seems to NOT have fact checked her own article, which is filled with omissions and errors. And, how does this uninformed person, call a real expert a “HOAX?”
While citing an article by Carol Walker on wildhoofbeats.com, Thompson states that Carol Walker “serves as the Director of Field Documentation for the non-profit Wild Horse Freedom Federation.”
FACT: Carol Walker has not been the Director of Field Documentation for Wild Horse Freedom Federation since early November, 2019, and has not been listed on Wild Horse Freedom Federation’s Board of Directors on their website since that date.
Thompson then goes on to claim that BLM’s plan “to ‘annihilate”’ the herds is a claim not supported by facts.”
FACT: Almost every wild horse advocacy organization in the U.S. (with experts who have been researching and following every aspect of wild horse & burro issues for many years) has spoken out against this BLM plan.
In fact, dozens of advocacy groups have spoken out against a very similar “path forward” plan.
It certainly seems that this “Fact Checker” did not do much research before “fact checking” or writing her opinion.
Thompson only cites sentences from the BLM’s plan, and obviously has an extremely narrow knowledge of this topic. Thompson seems to have blinders on since her only source of “fact checking” is what the BLM wrote.
Many members of the public know that in 2016, the BLM’s Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board urged the BLM to euthanize all of the wild horses in holding facilities. Many members of the public, who have been researching all aspects of wild horses and studying genetic analysis reports, also realize that the BLM’s plans for removal and sterilizations WILL annihilate America’s wild horse herds.
Thompson, from Vevay, Indiana, is listed as the President of American Heritage Carriage Company, but this does not qualify her as an expert on wild horses.
Lead Stories claims to be “an innovative fact checking and debunking website” but with Thompson’s article, it seems that their “fact checking” has set an extremely low bar. In my opinion, Thompson’s article deserves the “hoax alert” and Lead Stories has, unfortunately, promoted disinformation.
The BLM wants to remove 4,000 wild horses from four Herd Management Areas in Wyoming, which would mean removing 40% of all of the wild horses in Wyoming.
Please comment on a new Wyoming Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Resource Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for proposed changes to the management of four wild horse Herd Management Areas (HMAs) in Wyoming: Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and White Mountain.
Please urge the BLM to select Alternative A, which would manage wild horses in their respective 4 herds at the current Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs) for each herd with a total AML 1481-2065. As you can see on the graphs below, wild horses are already currently far outnumbered by privately owned livestock on public lands on these Herd Management Areas.
The BLM certainly seems to be violating the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) by favoring some “uses” (livestock grazing) over other “uses” (wild horses). FLPMA stipulates that the BLM take into account the “coordinated management of the various resources without permanent impairment of the productivity of the land and the quality of the environment with consideration being given to the relative values of the resources and not necessarily to the combination of uses that will give the greatest economic return or the greatest unit output.”
If the BLM even took this into account, they ignored it. More
The Bureau of Land Management is developing a new Resource Management Plan in Wyoming and has an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for proposed changes to the management of four wild horse herds in Wyoming: Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and White Mountain. The BLM’s proposed actions in their “Preferred Alternative” would zero out the Great Divide Basin Herd, zero out the Salt Wells Creek Herd and the White Mountain Herd and cut the Adobe Town Appropriate Management Level by half. Comments are due on this plan by April 30.
Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, Adobe Town and White Mountain encompass 2,811,401acres, 70 percent of which is federally managed public land and 30% is mostly private lands with some state owned lands.
At issue here is the Checkerboard – a mix of public and private lands 20 miles wide that was set up in the 1870s, when the government was selling private land plots to raise money for the railroad. The private land, about 891,807 acres, is owned by Occidental, the parent company of Anadarko, and the Rock Springs Grazing Association, an association of 24 families. The Rock Springs Grazing Association has been working very hard over the last 8 years to get all of the horses removed from the Checkerboard area even though it is not all private land – it is a mix of private and public land. They have been involved in 4 lawsuits regarding the status of wild horses on federally protected public lands and this proposal is the latest, most sweeping and devastating attempt to have all the wild horses removed. RSGA and the BLM have been attempting to manage the Checkerboard as if it were all private land but it is not, and that is illegal.
David Philipps’ New York Times article “A Mustang Crisis Looms in the West” (3/22/20) requires correction for falsely blaming degradation of public lands in the West on wild horses, in both the headline and the body of the article.
Data and maps from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conclusively show private livestock, not wild horses, are overwhelming public lands in the West, both in grazing territory and sheer numbers (relative to wild horses).
BLM Grazing AllotmentsWild Horse Herd Management Areas More
“BLM is far too close to the industries it’s supposed to be watching. “These are not merely probable breaches of law by private persons,” the complaint alleges, “but a pervasive pattern of lawlessness which BLM has taken affirmative steps to further and encourage.”
by John L. Smith
As an environmental protection specialist in the Bureau of Land Management’s enormous Battle Mountain District, Dan Patterson was accustomed to working under difficult conditions.
When you’re one of a handful of BLM ecologists in an area that stretches over five Nevada counties and covers 10.5 million acres, you often toil alone and can find yourself a long way from his home office in Tonopah.
But these days Patterson finds himself even further from his supervisors after filing a withering whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and Department of Interior Office of Inspector General alleging “illegalities and wrongdoing” by managers at the BLM’s Nevada state office and Battle Mountain district. Patterson’s complaint takes dead aim at the management style and decision-making of BLM Battle Mountain District Manager Doug Furtado and accuses him of abusing his authority by fast-tracking mining and oil and gas drilling projects and playing politics with enforcement, in the process violating laws and regulations meant to protect public lands. “As an Environmental Protection Specialist, Mr. Patterson’s professional responsibilities are in conflict with the objectives of District Manager Furtado,” the whistleblower’s attorney Kevin H. Bell of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) asserts in a 13-page complaint.
The Bureau of Land Management just announced plans to destroy three wild herds of horses in the Checkerboard Area of Wyoming’s Red Desert. These wild horses are federally protected and living on 2 million acres in southeastern Wyoming.
The proposed Resource Management Plan would zero out the Salt Wells Creek Herd, the Great Divide Basin Herd, and roundup up and surgically sterilize the entire White Mountain, meaning within a few years this herd will be gone as well. All three of these iconic herds have large sections of “checkerboard” of public and private lands throughout much of the area, which since 2011 has led to several lawsuits. The Rock Springs Grazing Association, the most powerful grazing association in the country wants all of the wild horses removed. Instead of participating in land swaps that would allow consolidation of the public lands that wild horses roam on, they want all of the land, private AND public for grazing their livestock and the wild horses removed completely even though America’s public lands are “mixed-use” by definition.
The Adobe Town Herd Management Area, which has only a small fraction of Checkerboard and over 478,000 acres will have its Appropriate Management Level (which is the range from low to high of wild horses allowed in the area) cut almost in half, from 610-800 to 225-450.
The plan will result in the removal of over 4000 wild horses from their homes and families and freedom, and 40% of wild horses habitat gone forever.
Changing the Land Use plans as a vehicle for wiping out entire populations of wild horses defies their federally protected status. And the issue here is bigger than wild horses in Wyoming – this may very well serve as BLM’s new template for eradicating all of America’s treasured wild horses. Read the rest of this articleHERE.
Stop the BLM from Destroying 5 Wild Horse Herds in Wyoming
By Carol J. Walker
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released a Scoping Document with a 30 day public comment period on 5 of the largest wild horse herds in Wyoming:
Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, White Mountain and Little Colorado.
I have been visiting, observing and photographing the wild horses in these 5 herds since 2004.
The BLM claims that these herds are “overpopulated” even though they completed a roundup of three herds, Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek and Great Divide Basin only 2 years ago. The last roundup and removal in White Mountain and Little Colorado was in 2011. More
Trump administration calls wild horses biggest threat to public lands — here are the real threats
“The livestock industry continues to run roughshod over the vast majority of our Western public lands, causing a cascade of major environmental problems.”
BY ERIK MOLVAR, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
Acting BLM Director William Perry Pendley told the Society of Environmental Journalists in Colorado on Friday that wild horses were the biggest problem facing federal public lands in the West.
The silliness of this statement becomes obvious when one considers that wild horses don’t exist on more than 85 percent of BLM lands, and where they do occur, they have to share the range with domestic livestock which typically have an even bigger impact on the land.
Pendley’s misstatement would be funny if it weren’t so dishonest and is symptomatic of major problems stemming from placing one of the nation’s most vitriolic opponents of environmental conservation in charge of our biggest land management agency.
Let’s examine some of the real problems facing the Bureau of Land Management, from the standpoint of an environmental professional, to put Pendley’s claims in some context.
Erik Molvar is a wildlife biologist and executive director with Western Watersheds Project, an environmental conservation group dedicated to protecting and restoring watersheds and wildlife throughout the West.
Letter from USDA’s Forest Service informing us that they had no records of the Devil’s Garden wild horses for almost a 4 month period of time (Click on each page to enlarge or print)
Wild Horse Freedom Federation has been working diligently, over many years, trying to find out the truth about what is happening to America’s wild horses & burros.
We currently have 9 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed for violations of FOIA law by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). More
“County commissioners in the rural American West possess the daunting authority of Afghan warlords, it’s been said. They wield their power by demanding federal agencies do their bidding in the vast expanse of public lands in which the counties are embedded.”
By STEPHEN TRIMBLE
County commissioners in the rural American West possess the daunting authority of Afghan warlords, it’s been said. They wield their power by demanding federal agencies do their bidding in the vast expanse of public lands in which the counties are embedded. Too often, they have their way.
Last week, the Trump administration announced a plan to move the Bureau of Land Management’s top officials out of Washington and into regional western offices. The scheme will only exaggerate the influence of county commissioners, to the detriment of most Americans.
Western counties are enormous. Utah’s largest county, San Juan, at nearly 8,000 square miles, is larger than Connecticut and almost as big as New Jersey. Like many counties in the rural West, San Juan is too dry and too remote for dense settlement; fewer than two people per square mile live there.
Under the Trump administration, local officials in dozens of such unpopulated counties have been flexing their muscles, especially in Utah. Read the rest of this article HERE.
by Debbie Coffey, V.P. & Dir. of Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation
In my humble opinion:
Return to Freedom (RTF) continues to add insult to injury in their efforts to boondoggle the American public with a controversial proposal, by recently claiming “We understand that there has been considerable misinformation spread online about this proposal to Congress. If you wish to delve deeper, please contact us to schedule a call. We’re also planning a webinar for RTF supporters.”
If you are one of their supporters, you should ask them direct questions, like “What, specifically, is the supposed misinformation?”
Every other major wild horse & burro advocacy organization, along with many knowledgeable advocates, have come out against their proposal. All of these organizations have been very specific in the disastrous aspects of this proposal and have backed their concerns with facts.
Officials in San Juan County are conducting a case of political and malicious criminal prosecution against Mark Franklin and Rose Chilcoat. The case, over a year old now and not yet even in the trial phase, is already a blow against Mark and Rose and a black eye for San Juan County. They saw a nefarious way to seek revenge against Rose, who is a successful, effective conservationist, and they are getting it. Mark and Rose have accumulated over $100,000 in related legal bills defending themselves against trumped up charges for an utterly insignificant event. They suffer the stress of being falsely accused of crimes that could incur substantial fines and decades in prison. It is a travesty that court proceedings have been allowed to grind on to this point. There is, alas, more legal grinding yet to go. More
Between 2011 and 2016, fracked oil and gas wells in the U.S. pumped out record-breaking amounts of wastewater, which is laced with toxic and radioactive materials, a new Duke University study concludes. The amount of wastewater from fracking rose 1,440 percent during that period.
Over the same time, the total amount of water used for fracking rose roughly half as much, 770 percent, according to the paper published today in the journal Science Advances.
“Previous studies suggested hydraulic fracturing does not use significantly more water than other energy sources, but those findings were based only on aggregated data from the early years of fracking,” Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, said in a statement. “After more than a decade of fracking operation, we now have more years of data to draw upon from multiple verifiable sources.”
The researchers predict that spike in water use will continue to climb.
And over the next dozen years, they say the amount of water used could grow up to 50 times higher when fracking for shale gas and 20 times higher when fracking for oil — should prices rise. The paper, titled “The Intensification of the Water Footprint of Hydraulic Fracturing,” was based on a study conducted with funding from the National Science Foundation.
“Even if prices and drilling rates remain at current levels, our models still predict a large increase by 2030 in both water use and wastewater production,” said Andrew J. Kondash, a PhD student in Vengosh’s lab who was lead author of the paper.
More Water than Oil
The shale industry has been heavily focused on amping up the amount of fossil fuels it can pump per well by drilling longer horizontal well bores and using more sand, water, and chemicals when fracking (which raises the costs per well and, as DeSmog recently reported, raises risks of water pollution).
But the water use and wastewater production per well have been growing even faster than the per-well fossil fuel production, the researchers found, labeling the water demand and wastewater growth “much higher” than the oil or gas increases.
The researchers studied data from over 12,000 oil and gas wells representing each of the major shale-producing regions in the U.S.
Their findings are particularly troubling news for arid areas like the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, where underground water supplies are already taxed by residential and agricultural demand, and where fights over water use are brewing.
On average, a Permian Basin well used 10.3 million gallons of water in 2016, according to a San Antonio Express-News investigation earlier this year — more than double the average per-well demand just a few years ago.
A Waterfall of Waste
The wastewater problem has attracted the eye of industry analysts, particularly in the Permian.
“One of the biggest risks facing operators today is the issue of produced water,” wrote Ryan Duman, a Wood Mackenzie senior energy analyst, describing how in parts of Texas and New Mexico, wells can produce up to 10 gallons of wastewater for every gallon of crude oil. “The sheer volume of water is unprecedented.” READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE HERE.
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?
You can also listen to the show on your phone by calling (917) 388-4520, or call in to ask questions during the second half hour of the show, by calling (917) 388-4520, and then pressing the number 1
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A main water source in the southern part of Sand Wash – Corona and family drinking 2 weeks ago – now dry
Our guest tonight is Carol Walker, Dir. of Field Documentation for Wild Horse Freedom Federation. In just a couple of days, public comments are due for a 10 year plan by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that will result in the removal of 580 wild horses from the Sand Wash Basin Herd Management Area (HMA) in Colorado. The original Environmental Assessment (EA) was written in 2016, and instead of doing a proper revised EA or new Scoping, the BLM is only issuing a “Decision of NEPA Adequacy.” This is likely a violation of the NEPA process. The horses would be safer left in their HMA and managed there while Congress is deciding the fate of all wild horses and burros.
Also, the terrible drought has dried up much of the water in the Sand Wash Basin, so a volunteer group has raised money and is prepared to haul water to the horses. At first the BLM said the Colorado state office had to approve this, but now it is being kicked to the Washington DC office. While the bureaucratic wheels grind slowly, the wild horses will suffer. Carol will talk about the actions you can take to help save these wild horses.
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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
A couple of notes to preface the Huffington Post article below:
Regarding Russian-American company OOO Rancho Khasan: “On Nov. 1, Anatoli Lebedev, the organization’s co-founder, wrote: ‘[F]or marketing we need a very clear picture ― how are we able to extract some horses for meat from the whole herd … without hurting hearts of animal rights activists, who trusted us?’”
The PPJ Gazette 
