Reprinted With Permission From Wildhorsepreservation.org

http://www.wildhorsepreservation.org/news/?p=1919

By JESSE McKINLEY Published: September 5, 2010

More than 1,200 wild horses have been captured during the current roundup.

OUTSIDE RAVENDALE, Calif. — It is horse versus helicopter here in the high desert.

The current roundup in northeastern California and neighboring Nevada has been going on for a month

On one side are nearly 40,000 horses spread over 10 states, whose presence on the range is a last vestige of the Old West. On the other is a group of crusty cowboys whose chosen method of roundup involves rotors more than wrangling, using high-tech helicopters to drive galloping mustangs into low-tech traps.

“When they get in here, they know something’s going on,” said Dave Cattoor, 68, a straight-talking roundup expert who has been herding horses since he was 12. “The chips are down.”

Over the last month, Mr. Cattoor and his feral quarry have been doing battle under the dry, horizon-to-horizon skies of northeastern California and a neighboring Nevada county, with humans the inevitable victor.

More than 1,200 horses have been captured during the current roundup, much to the chagrin of people like Simone Netherlands, an animal rights advocate who says that the roundups — part of a nationwide push to take some 12,000 horses off public lands — are cruel, expensive and unnecessary.

“They’re running at full speed for miles and miles for hours, with babies, little babies, and they don’t let up on them,” Ms. Netherlands said. “They’re stressing them out to the max.”

The Bureau of Land Management, which is overseeing the roundup, disputes that, saying that the roundups are humane and that it must reduce the wild horse population to more sustainable levels, both for their health and for that of the other animals that live in this harsh terrain.

“Some advocate groups would like us to leave the horses out there and let nature take its course,” said Bob Abbey, director of the bureau. “We don’t believe that’s a sound option.”

The debate over roundups dates back decades, to the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, a federal law that protected what was then a faltering wild horse population and made it illegal for cowboys like Mr. Cattoor to round up horses on their own for sport or profit.

“A cowboy really wasn’t a cowboy if you didn’t rope a wild horse,” Mr. Cattoor said. “But they stopped that. They stopped the maintenance, which costs nothing, and turned it into a multimillion-dollar deal. It’s crazy.”

Dave Cattoor says the current method of rounding up wild horses is “the best we can do.”

Questions about the roundups have intensified in recent years as costs have mounted, both in dollars and in dead horses. Seven horses have died in the current operation, and last winter, a roundup in Nevada resulted in over 100 horse deaths, prompting more than 50 members of Congress to ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to look for independent analysis of the bureau’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. Late last month, the bureau did just that, asking the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a technical review of the program.

Horses that are captured are offered for adoption, but with demand for horses low and the cost of feed high, the government often ends up quartering them on large private ranches, primarily in Kansas and Oklahoma. In 2009, about 70 percent of the entire program’s $40.6 million budget was spent holding 34,500 horses and burros, a system that the Government Accountability Office has concluded will “overwhelm the program” if not controlled.

“They are a symbol of the American West,” said Nathaniel Messer, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Missouri and a former member of the federal Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Committee. “But do we need 35,000 symbols of the American West?”

For critics like Deniz Bolbol, the pattern of roundup, removal and stockpiling is an example of the bureau’s catering to private interests on public lands, namely by favoring livestock ranchers — who pay the government for the right to graze and who can sell their animals — over wild horses, which cannot be sold for slaughter.

“We remove wild horses from the public lands so private livestock can graze, and then we ship the wild horses to private ranchers in the Midwest where we stockpile them and pay private ranchers,” said Ms. Bolbol, a spokeswoman for the group In Defense of Animals, which has sued to stop the roundups. “This is what you call a racket.”

And while Mr. Cattoor calls Ms. Bolbol and other protesters “fanatics,” he does not think the government’s reliance on big, periodic roundups makes much sense either, saying the bureau needs more steady maintenance of the wild herds, which can double in size every four years.

Animal advocates like Denise Constantinide think the roundups are cruel, expensive and unnecessary

Perhaps the only other thing the two sides can agree on is that the horses — whose estimated populations range from about 120 in New Mexico to more than 17,000 in Nevada — are magnificent. Art DiGrazia, the operations chief for one of the bureau’s wild horse and burro offices in California, said that some of the mustangs on the range were descended from Army cavalry horses, which were bred for size, speed and strength and left here or given to ranchers.

“They have the intelligence and endurance to work out in this country,” said Mr. DiGrazia, a bearded New Jersey native who speaks in a hoarse whisper. “They’ll know before you know that there’s something out there going on.”

The method of capture is simple: horses are located from helicopters, which have been used in roundups since the mid-1970s, and pushed toward the trap site, essentially a funnel shaped by two netted walls that lead into a temporary corral. Once the herd runs into the funnel, Mr. Cattoor lets loose a so-called Judas horse, which is trained to lead the rest into the trap, where — uncombed, unshod and often stomping and biting — they slowly settle into their new lives as kept animals.

All of which is more humane than the old days, said Mr. Cattoor, who recalls cowboys using rope and brawn to bring in a herd, often injuring horses and horsemen alike.

“You have to really put the pound on them,” he said. “You’d have to get them sore footed and tired, and there’s a lot of problems with getting them really tired. Today, at this point, this is the best we can do.”

One recent morning, Mr. Cattoor and his team conducted several successful runs — 10 horses in one, a handful in another — before a small herd of four horses, their black manes and wild tails flying, came running full-tilt across the desert. The helicopter was close on their heels, whipping up curlicues of dust in the horses’ wake.

They were headed straight for the trap, when suddenly the herd broke, with three horses escaping across a field, while a single stallion — the leader — galloped in another direction. The pilot, perhaps 50 feet up, chose to follow the larger group, but horse sense had its way; the three headed into a patch of trees, where helicopters cannot pursue. The stallion, meanwhile, disappeared up a ridge and back into the wild.

The aim of the roundups is to reduce the horse population to more sustainable levels

Mr. Cattoor watched it all, standing near his Judas horse with a resigned smile, as roundup opponents watched happily from a public viewing station several hundred feet away.

“These wild horse advocates love it when the horse beats the helicopter,” Mr. Cattoor said. “And they do sometimes win.”

Watch the related video

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Reported by: Emon CRWE Newswire Middle East correspondent.

According to the Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergi Lavrov Russia is ready to sell two dozen helicopters to Afghanistan. In addition, the interior Minister of Afghanistan will be free to put small arms and ammunition on the helicopters. The Afghan president said that republic needs the support of Russia. Dmitry Medvedev has promised to help in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking.

Sergi Lavrov said; the helicopter package was discussed last August 18 in Sochi, the meeting was held between the presidents of both countries, Afghanistan and Russia.

His suggestion how we see this initiative, was passed a few months ago in Brussels. We expect a concrete answer from our partners, but this readiness is of course must be on reciprocal basis, First of all, in term of the source of finance.

The presidents of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan after the meeting in Sochi, issued a joint statement on combating terrorism and drug trafficking. According to President of the Russia Dmitry Medvedev, Russia supports Afghanistan in the fight. In turn, Afghan president Hamid karzai, thanked Medvedev for his attention to Afghanistan and added that Afghanistan needs the support of other states and such a great country like Russia.

The Sochi Summit is the second meeting between the leaders of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. For the first time, a year ago, all the presidents of these countries were in the same group in Dushanbe.

Today’s meeting was believed to be more political, designed to demonstrate Russia’s desire to be involved in the process occurring in the region.

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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.

Reported By: Soha CRWE newswire Middle East correspondent

The USA has said that it won’t press Pakistan for any new offensives. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said `they (Pakistani military) are going to have to divert some troops and already have to try to deal with the flooding.

He said further `but I would say that we weren’t expecting them to undertake new offensives for some period of time anyway. I think it just remains to be seen. It really depends on how many troops they have to use`.

The USA has already tripled the number of helicopters helping Pakistan’s relief efforts. Robert Gates said that the USS Peleliu, an amphibious assault ship, was moored off Karachi awaiting the green light to dispatch its 19 helicopters to the disaster zone.

Richard Holbrooke, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, urged the American people to comprehend the enormous scale of the suffering in Pakistan.

He said `although the deaths are far less than they were in the (2004 Indian Ocean) tsunami, and in the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and in Haiti, the overall number of people affected is much larger than all of those combined`.

`The international recognition of this disaster has not yet been sufficient to its dimensions`, he added.

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.

By Bobbie Katz

Reporter for crwenewswire.com

The first phase of the roundup of wild horses in northern Elko County, Nevada, is over for the moment but as the Bureau of Land Management prepares for phase two in its goal to remove a total of 12,000 horses from BLM land in 2010, the controversy continues at a fever pitch. Phase one, which was a two-stage roundup, saw the deaths of 12 out of 228 horses in the Tuscarora roundup and 21 out of 636 horses in the “emergency” Owyhee gather, mostly from stress, dehydration, and water intoxication, putting the heat on the BLM once again for what many consider inhumane treatment and unnecessary removal of the animals.

For any animal lover, these deaths of an icon of the American West are certainly a reason to want to blast the BLM into the next state. The agency still bears the ignominy from the disastrous Calico, NV, roundup that ended in February of this year when 158 horses died after being run for miles and miles over rock in the dead of winter In fact, the recent tragedies in the BLM’s gathers have led Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to declare that the BLM has one year to get its act together or lose jurisdiction over the wild horses and burros.

Still, no matter which side one chooses to listen to, big questions still remain as to where the blame for the roundup fiascoes should fall. Is the BLM really the thorn in these horses’ sides that they have been portrayed to be, conducting roundups in circumstances under which they should never be conducted and that are not for the equines’ benefit but rather that of other parties such as cattle ranchers? Or is the agency, like these helpless creatures, fenced in by a law that is in desperate need of amendment or repeal by Congress?

“We manage 179 herd management areas over 10 western states,” explains Tom Gorey, Senior Public Affairs Specialist for BLM Public Affairs. “The current population of horses and burros in those areas is 38,400, which is 12,000 more than our management studies show the land can support. The horses are not allowed to go beyond the boundaries in which they were found roaming in 1971 when the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act was created by Congress for the animals’ protection. But the mandate of that law is for the BLM to manage the land for a thriving ecological balance It says in Section 13.33 of that law that the Secretary of the Interior shall immediately remove excess animals because of size impact from overpopulated herds.”

“We are not removing horses so that we can increase cattle grazing,” he continues. “In actuality, cattle grazing has declined by 30 percent since 1971. We remove the horses for the sustainability of the range. We manage the herds on 26.6 million acres of BLM land and over 5 million acres of non-BLM land, which adds up to 31.9 million acres total. The herds reproduce at a rate of 20 percent per year and we don’t have fertility control for the horses. As a result, over a four-year period, which is how often we conduct the gathers, the herd size has doubled. Forage allocation is done according to land use plans. Wildlife is the first to be affected by the overuse of forage by horses and burros.”

For its part, the media has been intensely critical of the BLM’s handling of the horses and wild burros. And while there is certainly room for questions and opinions, it needs to be noted that the things the agency has done in the past and is trying to implement in the future in favor of the animals have virtually gone unreported.

Such is the case with a press release from Gorey’s office, dated June 3, 2010, which came out before the Tuscarora and Owyhee roundups began. In it, Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey announced that the agency is taking the Federal Wild Horse and Burro Program in an unprecedented new direction – and, on the BLM website, it is seeking public comment, for which the deadline is August 3, 2010, on a Strategy Development Document implementing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s Wild Horse and Burro Initiative. Calling it a new day and stating that there is a need for a fresh look at the program, Abbey said that the BLM will consider the public’s input as it prepares a long-term strategy for the management of America’s wild horses and burros.

Abbey also stated that as the strategy is developed, certain topics and options will not be considered, including the euthanasia of healthy excess animals for which there is no adoption demand (even though it is required by a 1978 amendment to the 1971 Act) and sale “without limitation” to any buyers (required by law by the 2004 Burns Amendment to the 1971 Act). Both of these amendments proved untenable to the BLM (the latter virtually ensures that the animals would end up in slaughterhouses) and the agency never adhered to them, as evidenced by the GAO report of October 2008 that cites the BLM for non-compliance of these articles. According to Gorey, these amendments were also untenable to the majority of Congress, so no action was ever taken against the agency.

The press release contained other information that should be very heartening to horse advocates. Abbey said that other difficult topics and even some controversial options will be up for discussion, among them the implementation of a comprehensive animal welfare program; the potential reintroduction of wild horses or burros into herd areas where they currently don’t exist; increased use of fertility control or other methods to slow population growth; opportunities to make more forage available for wild horse and burro use; the establishment of preserves to care for unadopted wild horses; the designation of selected wild horses and burros as treasured herds; opportunities to place more excess animals into private care, and continued emphasis on science and research to ensure that the BLM is using the best available science to manage wild horse and burro herds now and in the future. Admittedly, to get some of these things accomplished, the BLM, with the aid of the public’s voice, is going to have to get Congress to make some changes to the 1971 Act as it exists today.

Abbey did say that the agency was going to move forward with scheduled gathers in the near term, noting that they were being analyzed and that the public was being engaged in the planning process. When it came to Tuscarora and Owyhee, that latter statement certainly proved false. In fact, even after a court order allowing artist and horse advocate Laura Leigh to attend the Owyhee roundup, she was told that her name was not on the list. In addition, much of the roundup was conducted on private land, thus keeping the public away as well. That has made the mortality of the animals even harder to bear and created more controversy because many people believe that the BLM is hiding the real way the horses are handled from the public.

Admittedly, when it comes to the gathers, the situation is heart-wrenching from any perspective. It may come as a surprise to many but that fact is not lost on the BLM, either.

“When we talk about mortality in these gathers, our goal is zero,” Gorey claims. “We don’t have an acceptable mortality rate but deaths are inevitable. The gather itself may cause deaths. The horses may stumble or break a leg, even in the holding pen. But out of 7,500 horses we gathered last year, we had less than half of 1 percent mortality rate. Any death is regrettable and we would like each one to be preventable.”

In regards to the charges of inhumane treatment of the animals during the gathers, Senior Wild Horse and Burro Specialist Susie Stokke explains the Tuscorora roundup in which 12 horses died.

“There were horses in two pastures – Star Ridge and Dry Creek,” she says. “There was no livestock use in either pasture. There is a water catchment and a pond and the horses will trail 8 to 10 miles to the Owykee River to drink, too. The gather began on July 10. While the horses appeared to be in good body condition, it looked like they hadn’t gotten any water. We rounded up 228 horses but after realizing that some of the horses were drawn up, we suspended operations by 9 a.m. that same day.”

“We then went into an emergency gather on Friday, July 16, and had gathered 636 horses as of Monday, July 19,” she continues. “There were 21 deaths, three of them related to injuries in the corral. The BLM hauled more than 30,000 gallons of water from Monday, July 12, until the end of the roundup to make sure that the horses had enough to drink. In the big picture, Tuscarora and the other gathers are what we are doing under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which charged us with the protection, management, and control of the wild horses and burros. It’s the way the law reads – the removals are addressed in law. Excess horses must be removed for the benefit of wildlife and for the benefit of the horses themselves. Letting Mother Nature take care of its own is a laisse faire policy. We’re charged with a minimalist approach to balance the range.”

By virtue of the 1971 Act, the agency has the responsibility to maintain the herds at the number that were found on the land at the time the law was created (17,000). Stokke, admits to what many horse advocates have maintained for years – that the animals may have been under-counted when the act was instituted.

She and Gorey also both maintain that the published literature stating that there were more than two million horses on the land in 1900 is fallacious and that it came from a book by Frank Dobie called “The Mustangs.” Stokke reiterates, however, that while many of the people who work for the BLM are horse owners and equine enthusiasts who truly love horses, herself included, and that the agency respects and appreciates the horses as icons of the American West, the BLM, as a multiple-use agency, has the responsibility to maintain the balance on the range.

Then, of course, there is the water issue and the fact that animal advocates say that the horses are being denied access to the water because the BLM is allowing ranchers to fence off the water for the benefit of cattle. They point out that the ranchers pay the BLM .$1.35 per cow per month for grazing privileges, which, because of the vast amount of cows, amounts to some $26 million or more a year in revenue for the government. The BLM contends that the horses are not being denied access to water and that it is the natural drought conditions that are causing the problem.

“When you travel to a herd management area, you’ll see private ranch land fenced off for cattle,” Stokke answers. “Owyhee, has one pond and the Desert Ranch Reservoir. It’s fenced-in public land because the water is privately owned. But there are three large gaps in the reservoir fence so that the horses can get water. They also have access to one spring on private lands. However, the balance of water there is an unfenced catchment pond, which is dry because of the drought.”

There still are some seeming inconsistencies, such as how can you have private water rights on public land? And how can you fence off public land and deny access to the water? Then there is the issue of the helicopters used to round up the animals, which horse advocates claim terrify the animals and cause them to stampede. Gorey admits that the horses are under a degree of stress and that the noise disturbs them because it is not a natural noise. But he claims that they are not being stampeded but rather are being moved at a different pace.

“Horses are bred to run to escape from danger,” Stokke adds. “We’re using their natural behavior to get them at a pace we need them to go. The alternative would be inefficient gathers that would be dangerous to the animals. We don’t want to lose any horses. We’ve gathered thousands since 2004.and the mortality rate of the gathers, on average, is less than 1 percent. Over the last 40 years, the BLM has developed standard operating procedures to make the gathers the safest and most humane that they can be. We’ve even developed ways to keep foals with their mothers. What we really need are people to help us either by adopting animals or caring for the animals we have to remove.”

“We are very selective about who we allow to adopt a horse,” Gorey sums up, a point that goes back to the agency not adhering to the the 2004 Burns amendment. “We don;t want to put a horse in the wrong hands. Right now, we have 35,000 horses and burros – mostly horses – in holding facilities. The land can only support 26,600 horses and burros in conjunction with the resources and other uses of public land across the 10 western states. We have only sold 4,100 horses and burros under the Burns Amendment.”

Sometimes it’s necessary to give credit where it is due. One thing is for certain – if the public truly wants to secure the safety and protection of the wild horses and burros, they need to voice their comments on the BLM’s proposed strategy by August 3. The difference between life and death for these magnificent creatures may lie in their hands above all others. It is only the voice of the public that can get Congress to get with the program and change the 1971 Act so that the animals can survive and thrive.

Next: Part III – The 1971 Act — another ill-advised law from Congress – and what they should do about it

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.

By Zee
Mid East correspondent for crwenewswire.com

Los Angeles County experienced a series of fires this past Friday.

The first fire was in Santa Clarita near Calgrove Boulevard. It broke out at about 1:30 p.m. and quickly covered an area of 15 acres. Three helicopters sprayed water as 100 firefighters battled the blaze on the ground. At 3:30 p.m., the fire, which had threatened 30 homes, was finally put out. Some homes, as well as the freeways in the area, were evacuated until 7 pm.

The second fire was near 14 Freeways in Acton. This fire burned on a 23-acre area near Hubbar Road and Escondido. The pungent smoke caused one person living nearby to lose consciousness. A vehicle was also reported to be burned in the fire. The blaze was reported at 3:30 p.m and was fought by 150 firefighters. It took two hours to put it out.

While firefighters were busy with the fires in Santa Clarita and Acton and arson investigators trying to determine the cause of the two incidents, another bush fire of a small scale was reported near Dodger Stadium at about 6 p.m. The fire covered an area of three acres and was in an uneven area that trucks could not reach. So with the help of helicopters spraying water, 69 firefighters battled the fire. While it was being fought, two lanes on the Southbound110 Freeway were closed.

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.