Corporate entities, and their lobby groups, have created a situation where wild horses are in serious danger. The cost to your wild horses will be devastating if this is not stopped.
Send a letter directly to your representative by adding your name below.
No new funding or changes to the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program. The BLM Report to Congress is 3 months late and impeding appropriate debate and scrutiny.
The BLM Report to Congress likely contains serious ethics regulation violations. The delay, under current BLM Deputy Director Pendley, deserves serious scrutiny and is the subject of an OIG probe.
The BLM Wild Horse and Burro program must be held to the “status quo” in the 2019 Appropriations bill. No new funding, programs or authorities until Congress, and the public, have opportunity to scrutinize the BLM Report and the OIG releases findings on the investigation into ethics violations by acting BLM Chief William Pendley.
The current bill before both the House and the Senate for reconciliation, regarding the management of the BLM Wild Hose and Burro Program, sometimes known as “THE PATH FORWARD FOR MANAGEMENT OF BLM’S WILD HORSES & BURROS” is flawed. Before any new program funding is appropriated, I firmly believe that the following facts and accompanying steps should be carefully considered
- BLM decision making is unjustified and unscientific as repeatedly witnessed by The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from 1982-2013.
- BLM should fix the flaws in its fundamental framework (i.e., unjustified boundary lines, AML) prior to any additional program funding or program changes.
- BLM owes the public and their chosen lawmakers a report that accurately characterizes current conditions (i.e., population counts and location, available waters, fence lines, boundaries, presence of mining and livestock) on each legally defined HMA and a comparative report that contrasts the results with those of their original surveys and subsequent targets (population counts and location, available waters, fence lines, presence of mining and livestock). BLM must demonstrate what they are doing to correct habitat loss, the loss of water sources, inaccurate boundary lines and, further, set AML based on a scientific process that includes critical habitat preservation.
- Only after the report is produced and distributed, transparently, should any additional funding be provided for programmatic changes or acceleration.
- Congress should designate an appropriate sum for this data-driven assessment and base any additional funding on the outcome.
There are safe and humane ways to manage the horse and burro populations, and more to the point, public lands, however, it is a gross mischaracterization to directly infer that this species is responsible for the lion’s share of negative impact on the range, its resource, and other species. When animal agriculture controls nearly all of that forage resource, when non-native sheep and cattle outnumber horse and burro populations 50:1, when, in fact, wild horses and burros are only present on less than 15% of public lands having lost 50% of the HMA acreage promised in the 1971 act (thus less and less able to “free roam”), it ought to be obvious to any but the most casual observer that it is animal agriculture (cattle/sheep), from a species perspective, that is degrading public land and, in fact, threatens its diversity and sustainability. And that is not even mentioning extraction industries and their negative impacts. So, in short, the notion that horses and burros are ‘overpopulated” is a false premise, and, further, inferring that they are the major threat to public land is simply wrong.
Degrading habitat is real, but the true causes are, I believe, intentionally obfuscated by business interests that have consistently been unwilling to engage in honest mitigation. Wild horses and burros are convenient scapegoats for these interests as they push to circumvent the legal protections that were awarded by the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses And Burros Act and dominate public land for their own gain. “Overpopulation” becomes a term of convenience, a scapegoating tactic, nothing more. The wild horse is the victim here, purposefully denied access to forage and even water, on a range overrun by non-native, commodified animals.
The current $35M proposal that has now passed the House and the Senate, and is yet to be reconciled, is, in essence, little changed from business as usual, and is a give-away to the real culprits where rangeland degradation is concerned. It is, in my judgement, a toothless deferral to those industries who’d rather not have to deal with horses and burros, or any other species, that hinders their efforts to squeeze every little penny of publicly subsidized profit from our rangeland. I’m sure you’re familiar with the 2013 National Academy Of Sciences report calling out the unscientific processes and corresponding poor quality data used by BLM to “manage” this program (nothing much has changed since that time), the dismal and obstructionist track record of this agency and these industries in implementing the agreed upon animal welfare policy (CAWP) and, in fact, the purposeful undermining of the promising PZP birth control study at Fish Creek in 2016. Why are these interests suddenly trustworthy? Is it because the proponents of this bill are using the HSUS, ASPCA, and RTF to make them look respectable to the public? What leads you to believe that they will suddenly change their behavior?
I encourage you, at the very least, to “hold their feet to the fire”, and regardless of what is included in the final bill, to ensure that any actions required relative to humane treatment, accurate reporting, and science-based management procedures are rigorously enforced and monitored (AML, HMA boundaries are key, for example). And, just as important, I encourage you to take a step back, and take a close look at the formation and promotion of this deal in the first place, one that includes scrutiny of the “backroom” deal-making that brought it forward. This situation will never resolve in a fair and positive way unless we look at the facts, stop the money-driven spin, and stop putting the almighty buck above all the many ethical considerations that are inevitably intertwined with public policy decision-making.
The current proposed budget bill will very likely accelerate the program’s drive to collapse. Meantime, the round-ups continue and the animals suffer.
Again, please consider:
- BLM decision making is unjustified and unscientific as repeatedly witnessed by The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from 1982-2013.
- BLM should fix the flaws in its fundamental framework (i.e., unjustified boundary lines, AML) prior to any additional program funding or program changes.
- BLM owes the public and their chosen lawmakers a report that accurately characterizes current conditions (i.e., population counts and location, available waters, fence lines, boundaries, presence of mining and livestock) on each legally defined HMA and a comparative report that contrasts the results with those of their original surveys and subsequent targets (population counts and location, available waters, fence lines, presence of mining and livestock). BLM must demonstrate what they are doing to correct habitat loss, the loss of water sources, inaccurate boundary lines and, further, set AML based on a scientific process that includes critical habitat preservation.
- Only after the report is produced and distributed, transparently, should any additional funding be provided for programmatic changes or acceleration.
- Congress should designate an appropriate sum for this data-driven assessment and base any additional funding on the outcome.
Sincerely,
your constituent
For more information on why this is so important, read our article here;
https://wildhorseeducation.org/2019/11/06/update-pendley-oig-and-blm-report-to-congress-action-alert/
