Reported By Mike Zaman

August 28, 2010

Republished with permission of Horse Back Magazine
http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/2586

Independent Review Too Late for Wild Horses and Burros?

COLORADO SPRINGS, (Cloud) - The Cloud Foundation fully supports the independent review of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) mismanagement of America’s Wild Horses and Burros by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), but only if it is coupled with an immediate moratorium on all wild horse and burro roundups. 54 members of Congress requested both the review and an immediate moratorium in a letter sent to Secretary of Interior Salazar on July 31, 2010. Each herd is an integral part of the ecosystem and without a moratorium there will be few genetically viable herds on Western lands in left to study. The NAS review of the flawed Wild Horse and Burro program is scheduled to begin in 2011 and last two years, but at the current rage BLM will have removed tens of thousands more mustangs from their legally designated ranges in 10 western states by then. In just this fiscal year alone, BLM has removed nearly 12,000 wild horses and burros, most warehoused at taxpayer expense.

“At the fast and furious rate of the removals, the NAS study will have far less value with so few wild horses and burros remaining on their home ranges. They will however, have the opportunity to study BLM’s techniques at managing over 40,000 captured wild horses,” explains Cloud Foundation Director and Emmy award-winning producer, Ginger Kathrens, who has been documenting wild horses and burros in the west for over 16 years. Kathrens is referring to the 40,000 plus mustangs, which will be corralled in short and long term holding by the end of next month. “I expect the NAS report to be enlightening regarding the lack of science in BLM’s decisions aimed at ridding the West of our wild horse and burro heritage. A moratorium right now is essential so that NAS will have a few viable herds left to study.”

The Cloud Foundation and over 200 organizations and celebrities sent a request for independent review in the Moratorium Letter over nine months ago and have never gotten a reply from Interior Secretary Salazar or President Obama. The signees continue to request an immediate moratorium on roundups to be coupled with an independent review of BLM and the return of the over 24 million acres of public land taken away from the wild horses and burros since 1971.

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The Views and Opinions Expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article

Reprinted With Permission From wildhorsepreservation.org

For Immediate Release from The Cloud Foundation: Portland, OR (August 18, 2010) — The Stinkingwater wild horse herd of Southeastern Oregon is slated for a near complete removal in a summer helicopter roundup scheduled to begin today.

This tiny foal and her mom will be targeted by BLM helicopters begining today.
Photo by Makendra Silverman, The Cloud Foundation

Concerned citizens in Oregon and across the country have been calling for a stop to this unnecessary and costly action. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposes to roundup all 214 wild horses and young foals they claim live in the area and release back only 40, leaving 20 stallions and 20 mares. At least one mare with a less than two-week-old foal are in danger from this roundup. Horses will be pushed over miles of rugged country criss-crossed with barbed wire fences in this roundup planned to last five days.

“The range is beautiful with abundant water and forage but it is managed as a cattle ranch - not as a wild horse range”, explains Cloud Foundation Associate Director, Makendra Silverman, who visited the range last week in a Herd-Watch capacity. “I found a less than one-week old foal and named him Pluto, assuming he is the last foal of the season. Running Pluto over these sharp volcanic rocks and rough terrain even a mile could be fatal.”

Although outnumbered 20:1 by privately-owned livestock in Stinkingwater, BLM has determined that only 40 wild horses may live on this 133 square-mile range. Minimal genetically-viable levels are set at 150-200 adult horses. Not one Oregon herd, including the famous Kiger mustangs, have herd levels set above 150.

“We’ve seen this again and again,” explains Cloud Foundation Director, Ginger Kathrens. “BLM sets their ridiculously low “appropriate” management levels at non-viable numbers and then turns around and zeros out the entire wild horse or burro herd for being ‘too small to manage’—the American public wants our wild herds preserved, not destroyed.”

Advocates fear that deaths will occur in Stinkingwater as a helicopter runs panicked horses and foals through a maze of barbed-wire fences.

“In 1990 the Government Accountability Office Report underscored that wild horse removals did not significantly improve range conditions,” explains Kathrens. “The report pointed to cattle as the culprit as they vastly outnumber horses on BLM-managed public lands and reported that wild horse removals are not linked to range conditions, noting the lack of data provided by BLM. Oregon has lost over half of the original wild horse and burro herds designated for protection in 1971.”

“I hope that I might return to find Pluto and his family safe in Stinkingwater - enjoying the precious freedom granted to them by Congress but so often dismissed by the BLM” concludes Silverman.

READ EYEWITNESS REPORT ON CONDITIONS AT THE STINKING WATER RANGE ON THE CLOUD FOUNDATION BLOG

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The Views and Opinions Expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article

Reprinted With Permission From Hroseback Magazine

August 27, 2010
Judge Denies BLM Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit to Preserve World Famous Wild Horse Herd

Court Declares Challenge to BLM Mismanagement to be “Ripe for Review”

Photo by Terry Fitch

WASHINGTON, (Cloud) — On August 25th United States District Judge, James S. Gwin, granted a legal request by The Cloud Foundation, Front Range Equine Rescue and photographer/author Carol Walker, to file a Second Amended Complaint against the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) actions in the mismanagement of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horses. The ruling allows addition of the United States Forest Service (USFS) to the suit. The Custer National Forest is presently moving forward with building a restrictive boundary fence to prevent the wild horses from accessing crucial current and historical summer grazing lands.

Judge Gwin ruled that the Plaintiffs’ claim against the fence is not moot as the fence could be removed or further fence building activities stopped should subsequent legal decisions rule in the Plaintiffs’ favor. Judge Gwin ordered the BLM and USFS to answer the Second Amended Complaint within 30 days.

“BLM’s tactic of completing removals of wild horses and burros from the range in whirlwind fashion and avoiding legal challenges to its underlying management of these animals did not work in this case,” explained Valerie J. Stanley. Attorneys Valerie J. Stanley and Bruce A. Wagman represent the Plaintiffs in this action.

In his decision, Judge Gwin wrote that “[the] government is also incorrect that the Plaintiffs’ claim challenging the 1987 Custer National Forest Plan is time-barred” and found the Cloud Foundation’s legal challenge to BLM’s use of a Categorical Exclusion that BLM uses to avoid analyzing the environmental impacts of the processing of wild horses and burros removed from the range to be “ripe for review because it is a purely legal question fit for judicial review.”

The ruling represents a significant step forward in the Cloud Foundation, Front Range Equine Rescue and Carol Walker’s legal attempts to protect the beloved and historically significant Pryor wild horses. Commonly known as “Cloud’s herd”, the horses are descendents of the horses of the Spanish Conquistadors, the Lewis and Clark expedition and Crow War Ponies.

“We will never give up fighting to preserve this unique herd,” explains Cloud Foundation Director and Emmy award-winning producer, Ginger Kathrens, who has been documenting the Pryor Wild Horses for over 16 years. “They have a right to live free on lands we know they have continuously roamed for centuries. Attempting to fence them out of their home is unconscionable.”

Kathrens journey with the wild stallion she named Cloud began when he was just hours old. It represents the only on-going documentation of a wild animal from birth in our hemisphere.
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Links of interest:

Judge Gwin’s Opinion and Order http://bit.ly/Gwin35
The Fencing Off of Cloud’s Herd http://bit.ly/NoFence
‘Herd-Watch: Public Eyes for Public Horses’ http://bit.ly/9Wvh58
Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act http://bit.ly/a7hOeS
Mestengo. Mustang. Misfit. America’s Disappearing Wild Horses http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/resources/wild.html
Disappointment Valley… A Modern Day Western Trailer- excellent sample of interviews regarding the issues http://bit.ly/awFbwm
Fact Sheet on Wild Herds & The Salazar Plan http://bit.ly/bfdX1y
Short-link to this release online: http://bit.ly/BLMdenied
Past Cloud Foundation press releases http://bit.ly/TCFpress

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The Views and Opinions Expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article.

Removal of 100 % of Moriah Mustangs Adds to 20 Million-Acre Habitat Loss for Wild Horses and Burros

Ely, Nevada (August 26, 2010). . . Beginning tomorrow, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is scheduled to roundup and remove every wild horse living in the Moriah Herd Area 48 miles north of Ely, Nevada. It will take the agency four days to capture, via helicopter stampede, the estimated 72 horses living in this 55,300 acre public lands area.

The action is part of the most aggressive government roundup effort in recent years, with 12,000 mustangs and burros targeted for removal from the Western range this year. The majority of captured mustangs will join the 38,000+ wild horses already warehoused in government holding facilities, a number that exceeds the population

“The Moriah Herd Area is just the latest federally protected wild horse habitat to be ‘zeroed out’ by the Interior Department,” said Suzanne Roy, Campaign Director for the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, which is supported by a coalition of 40 public interest, conservation, historic preservation, horse advocacy and animal welfare organizations.

“Over the past four decades, BLM has eliminated more than 20 million acres of federally-designated habitat for wild horses and burros, shrinking the lands available to these Congressionally-protected animals to just 26 million acres,” she continued. “By contrast, livestock grazing is authorized on 160 million acres of BLM lands.”

In Moriah, BLM is claiming that removal of all of the 72 wild horses is necessary to improve rangeland health, yet the agency continues to authorize more than four times as many cattle - over 300 — to graze those same lands.

“In area after area, BLM sets arbitrarily low management levels for wild horses and allocates the majority of resources to livestock,” Roy concluded. “It’s clear that private commercial interests drive BLM policy, but the public is increasingly demanding change in the way our public lands are managed.”

Last month, 54 members of Congress sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging a halt to BLM roundups, citing concern about the trauma, injuries and deaths caused in the helicopter stampedes and raising questions about BLM’s “flawed” and “unsustainable” wild horse management policy.

Ranchers graze cattle on public land for a fraction of the cost of grazing on private land ($1.35 per Animal Unit Month (AUM) on public lands vs. an average of over $15 per AUM on private lands, according to the Congressional Research Service, 2009). Publicly-subsidized livestock grazing — dubbed “welfare ranching” — costs taxpayers in excess of $122 million annually, yet cattle grazed on public lands provide just 3% of the nation’s beef supply.

The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. For more information, see:

www.wildhorsepreservation.org

Fact Sheet on BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program

Fact Sheet: Livestock vs. Wild Horses on BLM Land

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The Views and Opinions Expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article

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Republished with permission of Horse Back Magazine
http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/2292

August 18, 2010

WASHINGTON, (HSUS) - The Humane Society of the United States and Blaze’s Tribute Equine Rescue secured custody today of 17 horses who survived a horrific horse trailer accident in Oklahoma in May. The horses-who were bound for slaughter when the accident occurred-will now have a chance at being adopted into loving homes.

“These horses had already been through so much, and still faced the possibility of being shipped to slaughter when we intervened,” said Cynthia Armstrong, The HSUS’ Oklahoma state director. “We are very happy that the owner agreed to give these horses a shot at living a full life, in the comfort of a loving family.”

The horses were among a group of 30 equines who were being transported in a tractor-trailer to slaughter in May when the driver fell asleep at the wheel, and the truck overturned on Turner Turnpike. Eleven horses were killed in the crash or had to be euthanized due to the extent of their injuries. Two more horses died later as a result of injuries sustained in the wreck.

The HSUS and Blaze’s Tribute Equine Rescue worked together to negotiate the release of the remaining horses from their Missouri-based owner, a slaughterhouse middleman know as a “killer buyer.” Through the negotiations, the killer buyer ultimately decided he wanted to “do the right thing” by allowing these horses to go up for adoption.

Two anonymous donors provided the funding needed to cover the costs to secure the release of the horses, their transport to Blaze’s Tribute Equine Rescue’s facility and their immediate veterinary needs. The horses will remain in the care of the horse rescue group until they are ready to be adopted.

“I am so glad that these horses now have a second chance at life. They were doomed for slaughter for human consumption, suffered a trailer wreck and now have a chance to be part of someone’s family,” said Natalee Cross, president of Blaze’s Tribute Equine Rescue. “They will know what love is and no longer fear what is around the corner. They have a new beginning and one that we hope you, as a potential adopter, will join us and give these horses the forever, loving home they deserve.”
Each year, tens of thousands of American horses are transported over long distances, without food, water and rest, to horrific deaths at foreign-owned slaughter plants. The HSUS is working to pass federal legislation, The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S.727) to permanently end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption abroad.

The Views and Opinions Expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article.