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Add Your Name To Our Letter
The following is a letter to urge BLM to cancel the current operation and work toward alternative solutions:
As a US taxpayer I implore you to cancel the removal operation at the Fish Creek HMA. The current plan will destroy a $2 million dollar investment made in 2015 to create a framework for appropriate management of wild horses at Fish Creek, including the identification and protection of habitat critical for the long term preservation of the herd.
The agency appears to be on the verge of removing nearly 75% of the wild horses that currently exist in the area in an operation steeped in politics, not common sense.
This removal will devastate the underlying framework, I as a tax payer, have invested in. Historic data indicates the boundary lines of the Herd Management Area (HMA) are inaccurate invalidating the stocking level (AML) of wild horses and creating unfair management. In addition the removal will devastate the wild horses living in the area.
The protocol begun in 2015, and halted after the financial investment, was an incremental process that would fix underlying flaws and create justified decisions. Nearly 2 million dollars were invested to fix management and the agency is throwing that investment away. Many wild horses have already lost freedom, and some paid with their lives, to create a long term plan at Fish Creek to validate any assertion of fair management. BLM cancelled the plan without true cause.
As a tax payer the decision to move forward with a broad scale removal at Fish Creek is irresponsible to the public and the public resource.
BLM should not remove any of the wild horses that were branded with tracking numbers and have done extensive DNA profiles on. The agency cancelled the data/fertility control program that was to begin in 2016. This decision has been cloaked in secrecy. Until BLM is fully transparent in it’s decision process at Fish Creek the removal should be cancelled.
It appears that the BLM has entered into secret deals that may re-designate waters noted in the 2015 Environmental Assessment (and every other EA associated with Fish Creek) without full stakeholder involvement. BLM has dismantled waters used by wild horses and noted in every single management document on Fish Creek.
Furthermore, the agency will not release this critical information prior to further removal of wild horses based on the very waters it dismantled in secret deals!
Until the agency discloses it’s past actions and decision process concerning critical waters that the Fish Creek herd has relied on since there were wild horses in Fish Creek, the agency is essentially obstructing the ability of wild horse advocates to appropriately address the pending operation. The agency must also disclose any other agreement, settlement, informal handshake deal, involving any practice that references wild horse management.
BLM is attempting to justify the operation with a Land Use Plan that is three decades old that they know is seriously flawed. Since 2009 BLM has refused to do a revision, or even a supplement, to rectify flaws devastating to the herds in the district. I am tired of BLM claiming to manage wild horses, yet do nothing but make excuses to appease politics.
As a tax-payer, and member of the public with a strong interest in preservation of our wild horses, I implore you to cancel the operation and work with advocates for a long-term solution.
Sincerely,
your name
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT
Your support is extremely valued, and we couldn't do the work we do without supporters like you. Together we will make a difference at Fish Creek.