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.
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 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.
William Perry Pendley, serving an illegally long tenure as BLM “Deputy Director acting in the capacity of Director”
by Debbie Coffey
Brian Maffley wrote a Salt Lake Tribune article about William Perry Pendley, the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “Deputy Director acting in the capacity of Director,” and stated “…Pendley said his marching orders are centered on fighting and preventing fires, reducing the numbers of wild horses and burros, and accommodating more recreation.”
William Perry Pendley, along with the Secretary of the Interior (David Bernhardt)and the White House, continues to divert attention away from the very serious environmental and human health problems caused by well over 100,000 abandoned mines on public lands, and instead, put a focus on removing America’s wild horses and burros from public lands..
Carol Walker and I were guests on Whistleblowersradio show and talked about the abandoned mines in our nation, and noted that the BLM rarely informs the public about this issue, but blames wild horses for being the “biggest problem” in the West. More
“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.
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.
“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.
The Bureau of Land Management doesn’t have a Director or an Acting Director. Brian Steed is the Deputy Director, Policy & Programs, but he is “Exercising Authority of the Director.” There are 8 “acting” Directors under him.
Deputy Director, Policy and Programs, Bureau of Land Management
Exercising Authority of the Director
Brian Steed is the BLM’s Deputy Director for Policy and Programs, exercising authority of the director. Before joining the BLM in October 2017, Steed served as Chief of Staff for Representative Chris Stewart of Utah. Before that, he taught economics at Utah State University and was once a deputy county attorney in Iron County, Utah. He is a native of Logan, Utah, and attended Utah State University, earning both a B.A. and M.A. in political science. He also earned his law degree at the University of Utah, with a Certificate in Natural Resources and Environmental Law. Steed then earned his doctorate in Public Policy from Indiana University in 2010. Read the full biography
Richard T. Cardinale is detailed to the position of Deputy Director – Operations, Bureau of Land Management since June 11, 2018. Rich has been serving as the Director of Business Operations in the Office of the Chief Information Officer since December 1, 2017. Read the full biography.
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
This show will be archived so you can listen to it anytime.
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.
TO LISTEN TO ALL ARCHIVED WILD HORSE & BURRO RADIO SHOWS, CLICK HERE.
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?’”
New Uniform “Vision Cards” Display Images of Oil Rig and Livestock Grazing
Washington, DC — U.S. Bureau of Land Management employees are now under orders to wear “Vision Cards” on their uniforms displaying official maxims, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These cards are little message boards with aphoristic statements about vision, mission, values, and guiding principles of the BLM.
“The person of federal employees should not be used for political messaging,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting the Vison Cards’ similarity to propaganda placards used by totalitarian regimes. “This is supposed to be the Bureau of Land Management not Mao’s Red Guard.”
The two Vision Cards for uniform wear repeat language from the agency website. The cards –
Display the image of an oil rig and what appears to be livestock grazing, in contrast to the official BLM logo which shows a tree, river, and mountain;
Reference serving “stakeholders” and “customers” but do not mention serving the public; and
Declare that the purpose of improving “the health and productivity of the land” is “to support the BLM multiple-use mission.”
It is not clear from where the order to wear the Vison Cards emanates. BLM has no permanent director nor has the Trump White House even named a nominee. During the past year, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and a small band of political appointees in DC have dictated BLM policy. While reports of the mandatory card display have reached PEER from the West, the organization is still trying to determine whether the order is national in scope.
If the BLM would raise the livestock grazing fees, even just a little bit, they’d have plenty of money to be transparent. Also, there is little that can possibly “slow down the agency’s decision-making process” since it remains in the dark ages.
“Media requests only make up a fraction of the total requests agencies receive, but the new policy setting an organizational “cap” on requests could severely hamper the work of journalists – and concerned citizens – trying to use FOIA for its intended purpose.”
Recommendations appear to target media requests, and raise the cost of already prohibitive processing fees
According to records obtained by the Washington Post, the Bureau of Land Management is recommending new legislation that would limit the number of FOIA requests individuals and agencies could file with the agency, create stricter criteria for fee waivers, as well as increased fees for “search and redaction.”
For justification, BLM cites the agency’s limited resources, which in turn causes requests to “slow down the agency’s decision-making process.” In Financial Year 2016, the report states, the agency’s FOIA work cost $2.8 million, which was approximately .2 percent of the agency’s total budget of $1.3 billion that year.
As has been written about before, the vast majority of FOIA requests are by commercial entities. For some agencies, the percentage of commercial requests are as high as 95 percent.
Since the BLM has removed state websites and staff directories from the internet, and they now have only one portal for very limited public information, we thought we’d give you a quick update on who’s running the Bureau of Land Management at national and state levels. Source: BLM
Deputy Director, Programs and Policy, Bureau of Land Management
Exercising Authority of the Director
Brian Steed is the BLM’s Deputy Director for Programs and Policy, exercising authority of the director. Before joining the BLM in October 2017, Steed served as Chief of Staff for Representative Chris Stewart of Utah. Before that, he taught economics at Utah State University and was once a deputy county attorney in Iron County, Utah. Read the full biography
“This article was originally published for World Animal News in November, 2015 and titled “Wildlife Crimes: Why Is It So Difficult to Enforce Laws”. This is an updated version that includes reference to a 2016 GAO report detailing the shortcomings and successes of combating wildlife trafficking. It often seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There are some positive changes, but they are slow.”
The passage of the Global Anti-Poaching Act (H.R. 2494) through the House on June 25, 2015 was long overdue and very encouraging news for wildlife law enforcement. It will greatly assist in addressing the rapid expansion of wildlife criminal syndicates and terrorist groups globally. Finally, after decades of “paralysis by analysis” there is some political motivation in the U.S. to deal with the exponential growth of wildlife crime here and around the world. Why has it taken so long?
The most recent GAO report dated September, 2016 titled Combating Wildlife Trafficking: Agencies are taking a range of actions but the task force lacks performance targets for assessing progress: http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/679968.pdf
Perhaps there will be another GAO report this year to show measurable progress.
Layers of bureaucracy and political meddling
When one examines the primary agency responsible for investigating wildlife crimes on the federal level, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement (USFWS/OLE) has been and is the lead entity to do so. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is primarily a biological entity under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior that oversees a host of at least nine (9) agencies, like the U.S. Park Service (USPS), the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to name a few. The USFWS/OLE is just one of fifteen (15) National programs managed by USFWS. In essence many layers of government within the Department of the Interior which is not a law enforcement entity like the Department of Justice. Other law enforcement agencies like the FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, and the Secret Service, are not under the umbrella of a non-law enforcement entity that can sometimes run political interference and impede wildlife investigations and protection. More
On the Bureau of Land Management’s new website, on the Program Data page for the Wild Horse & Burro Program (under the Wild Horse and Burro Sales to Private Care tab), the BLM claims “It has been and remains the policy of the BLM, despite the unrestricted sales authority of the Burns Amendment, NOT to sell or send any wild horses or burros to slaughterhouses or to “kill buyers.”
The BLM claims “Wild Horses and Burros Sold to Good Homes” but then includes a total of 402 wild horses and burros sold in Fiscal Year 2012. (In this 402 total, 320 were horses and 82 were burros.)
BLM sale logs obtained by us in Freedom of Information Act requests indicate that in Fiscal Year 2012, the BLM sold 239 wild horses (almost 80% of the 320 horses that were sold) to kill buyer Tom Davis of La Jara, CO. Many, if not all, of these wild horses went to slaughter in Mexico.
Does this look like a “good home” to you?
BLM states it has a policy not to sell wild horses and burros to kill buyers, but: More
After NBC News wrote about the Bureau of Land Management featuring a photo of a coal bed at the top of their website, the BLM changed it… to now feature this photo of an oil & gas pipeline.
The Bureau of Land Management is scrubbing most of its links off of the internet, and in doing so, erasing much of its history from public view.
Many of the blm.gov links that are still remaining on the internet at this point say “page not found,” or the links are no longer cached.
The BLM also suddenly removed state and district websites. Instead, you will now find “landing pages” that direct you to only one main Bureau of Land Management website. (You can look at the new BLM website HERE.)
I called a BLM Public Affairs Specialist to ask some questions about the defunct websites and links. This person said in the past there were about 90,000 pages (and then a bit later stated that it could possibly be only about 60,000 pages) of BLM content on the internet, but that all of these pages couldn’t be maintained or updated, and weren’t centralized. This person said the BLM’s prior content management system was outdated.
Most importantly, this person also said there were now standards to reduce the amount (of pages/content). More
In May, 2016, the Bureau of Land Management promoted Special Agent Dan Love, the BLM agent who oversaw security during the agency’s failed roundup of Cliven Bundy’s cattle in April 2014, to a new position overseeing the security of BLM facilities nationwide.
And now, the Dept. of the Interior Office of Inspector General issued a report about Love’s ethics violations at Burning Man and more. The report states:
“We also confirmed that the Supervisory Agent intervened in the hiring process by increasing the number of candidates that would be interviewed. As a result, the Supervisory Agent’s friend, who had worked with the Supervisory Agent as a Federal air marshal received an interview and was ultimately hired as a BLM special agent.
During our investigation, the Supervisory Agent displayed a lack of candor when interviewed and tried to influence an employee’s comments prior to an interview.”
Report: BLM agent broke federal ethics rules at Burning Man
by Jenny Kane
A Bureau of Land Management supervisory agent from Utah violated federal ethics rules after he used his position to get his family and girlfriend into Burning Man and influenced the hiring process for a friend, according to a report released Monday.
The Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General for a year and a half investigated three complaints about the agent. The agent is not named in the report but is described as “the person behind many of the BLM requests” at Burning Man that were canceled in 2015, the report said.
Those requests — which included a more than $1 million VIP compound complete with flushing toilets and 24-hour access to ice cream for BLM officials at the annual event in the Black Rock Desert — were pushed by Utah’s former Special Agent in Charge, Dan Love, who oversaw law enforcement at Burning Man for several years.
The VIP compound was an unprecedented request of Burning Man, the organization that hosts 68,000-person artistic campout over Labor Day weekend in Northern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. When details of the compound leaked to the Reno Gazette-Journal, members of Congress and the public expressed outrage. After the event, Love was reassigned.
Love, who is best known for his chief law enforcement role during the 2014 Bundy standoff, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday or Wednesday. He is expected to be a key witness in the Bundy trials, according to an article published last year by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The first phase of the trials are set to begin Monday.
Inspector General’s Office officials said that the agent’s name was withheld in the report because he is not a top official within the agency, and because it is considered a personnel matter that BLM officials will handle.
According to the Inspector General’s report, the unnamed agent used his official position to buy three sold-out tickets to Burning Man; had five on-duty BLM officers escorting his father, family-friend and girlfriend during the event; and also changed the hiring process so an unqualified applicant, a personal friend of his, would be hired.
“Federal ethics regulations prohibit soliciting gifts from a prohibited source. Ethics regulations also prohibit federal employees from using any authority associated with their public position for the private gain of friends and relatives,” the report said.
The agent’s visitors also received unauthorized access to the Burning Man headquarters for BLM officials and they received overnight lodging in BLM-leased facilities.
When word spread that the agent had complaints filed against him, he used intimidation to discourage his co-workers from speaking with investigators.
“You know, if you don’t side with me, grenades are going to go off and you’ll get hit,” the agent told an employee who later spoke with investigators, according to the report.
In the middle of June, 2014, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) moved 1,493 wild horses from the Teterville Long Term Holding pastures in Oklahoma to the Beef Belt Feedyard in Scott City, Kansas. Over 13% of these wild horses died at this feedlot.
191 of the wild horses died in less than a year (7/7/14 – 6/30/15).
In a BLM “news” release dated 8/15/14 (over two years ago), the BLM announced that 57 wild horses had died at the BLM’s Scott City, Kansas “corral.” In this news release, the BLM stated that it had “launched an investigation” into the cause of deaths, and promised that “Once the investigation is concluded, the team will complete a report that will be made publicly available.”
To date, over two years later, the BLM has not made any report available to the public about the Scott City feedlot deaths.
Wild Horse Freedom Federation (WHFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and found out that 196 horses died at the Scott City feedlot from 6/17/14 – 8/2/16.
The political class is now demonstrating a level of hubris rarely, if ever, seen in the American system.
Within just a few hours, three of the top four most post powerful politicians in the country unabashedly revealed the low opinion they have of liberty and the American people and a willingness to persecute, prosecute and lie to those who advocate and fight for Constitutional government. And by their silence, the rest of the political class nodded their agreement.
First, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Bunkerville, Nev., rancher Cliven Bundy and the hundreds of Americans who rallied to Bundy’s defense domestic terrorists. Then, President Barack Obama brazenly lied to the American people in claiming that 8 million people had signed up for Obamacare and that the program was a success, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And early Friday morning, we learned Speaker of the House John Boehner has proclaimed once again to big money donors and crony capitalists that an immigration bill would be passed this year over the wishes of the majority of Americans. More
“The EPA is telling landowners they the EPA are prosecutor, defender, jury and judge where property is concerned. If you for instance have an indentation in the land and water would accumulate while it was raining, the EPA has and will exercise complete jurisdiction of that property. The EPA has taken the position they are ultimate owner of all property and the title holders rights are subject to the wishes of the EPA.”
REFLECTIONS ON INDEPENDENCE AND THE DECLARATION THEREOF
From the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”
We were, according to the Declaration of Independence granted certain rights by the creator that are unalienable rights. Amongst these unalienable rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is important to note that these unalienable rights are not restricted to these three, but these three are included in the total. Unalienable rights are rights not given by the government or men but are from the creator. Therefore these rights are not be taken from us or restricted by the government or men in any way. Included in the total of the unalienable rights would be many of the rights reserved for the people in the Bill of Rights. These are rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion not freedom from religion, freedom to bear arms, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and so forth. These rights are essential in a free society. In every totalitarian state, it is these rights that are restricted and limited first.
Our founding fathers told us, when any government becomes destructive of these rights, we are to alter or abolish that government and form a new one. This is a very serious charge we were given. As we look at the happenings and events in recent history, the question we must ask is have we reached such a time? Doing a quick exam, I would suggest we are coming closer and closer to that time if it has in fact not been reached. At the very least we must have an open and honest discussion that transcends spin and political correctness. More
Brian Steed
Richard Cardinale
Michael D. Nedd
The PPJ Gazette 
