BLM's National Wild Horse Adoption Day

From American Herds
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On Saturday, September 26, 2009, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) launched its first annual National Wild Horse Adoption Day with the stated goal of hoping to adopt a total of 1,000 animals during the nationwide event.

Significant funding was awarded to BLM in order to organize, promote and coordinate efforts, both within the National Wild Horse & Burro Program itself as well as through joint efforts with humane animal advocacy groups in hopes of achieving this goal.

A logo was developed, multiple press releases were issued over several months leading up to the event, a National Wild Horse Adoption Day website was established for the sole purpose of promoting and providing information at http://www.nationawildhorseadoptionday.org/, and on September 22, 2009, Congresswoman Dina Titus spoke on the House floor supporting House Resolution 688, which she introduced to support National Wild Horse & Burro Adoption Day on a permanent basis.

Despite large funding for the project, months of preparation, Congressional support and over 30,000 wild horses and burros currently in the adoption pipeline or holding facilities, only about 400 horses were reported as adopted nationwide as a result of all these efforts.

While the “less than hoped for” National Wild Horse Adoption Day results seem to bear out BLMs repeated citations over the last few years that annual declines in adoptions are merely due to a “soft adoption market”, the following facts may reflect significant factors contributing to this reported decline and the lack of success BLM had in reaching their publicly touted adoption goals.

*BLMs Utah’s Wild Horse & Burro website hadn’t been updated since May and contained no reference to the National Wild Horse & Burro Adoption Day at all.

*The National Wild Horse Adoption website referenced above offered a comment section to the public. The few comments found were almost exclusively about the lack of information on where the adoptions would be held. BLM later updated this information but it is not known if this was helpful “after the fact”.

*Of the 24 adoption sites listed on this website participating in the September 26th event specifically, only 8 were organizations independent of BLM. Of the 16 remaining BLM sites, 12 of these were standard holding and/or processing facilities.

*On BLMs own website, which advertised the National Wild Horse & Burro Adoption Day’s nationwide events, there were 19 participating sites listed, none of which presented any photos or information about available wild horses and burros. Additionally, there were no listings for any participating independent partnership organizations nor references or links to the National Wild Horse Adoption Day website established for this specific purpose.

*On BLMs Internet Adoption “On Line Gallery”, which conducts public bidding on showcased animals, only three facilities were found to be participating; Gunnison-UT showcased eight wild horses, Mantle Ranch-WY had four and Burns-OR had twenty-eight for a total of 40 horses.

*With respect to BLMs online “Facility Photos”, the following wild horses and/or burros were found at each site respectively.

Burns, OR:
1 non-descript photo of wild horses on the range and 159 wild horses, many of which had been recently removed less than a month before the event.

Canyon City, CO:
1 non-descript photo of wild horses on the range and 1 wild horse

Delta, UT:
2 wild horses

Ewing, IL:
2 wild horses

Gulfport, MS:
2 non-descript photos of captured wild horses

Gunnison, UT:
2 wild horses

Litchfield, CA:
3 wild horses

Palomino Valley, NV:
5 wild horses

Paul’s Valley, OK:
8 wild burro photos known to have been posted for over a year.

Ridgecrest, CA:
7 wild horses

Rock Springs, WY:
1 non-descript photo of wild horses on the range

Salt Lake City, UT:
2 Non-Descript Photos of Horses in Facility Pens and 7 Wild Horses

Lorton, VA:
4 Non-Descript Group Photos


Additional information that may have relevance includes:

*A volunteer for California based Wild Burro Rescue arrived at the Ridgecrest Processing Facility at 11:30 a.m. to view the available wild horses and/or burros. However, BLM locked the gates and closed the facility down to all public access at 12:00 p.m. The volunteer left without ever getting to view the animals available for adoption but did discover nylon ropes in alfalfa laying around one of the pens, a potentially deadly substance to equine intestinal tracks if ingested.

Photos of ropes in wild burro feed found
at BLM Ridgecrest Facility 9/26/09

*Ann Marini, an attendee of the Lorton, VA September 26th adoption event has publicly stated via affidavit that, “more than fifty wild horses and burros were on site and available for adoption. Of these, twenty-six wild horses and burros were reported as adopted on site and eight by internet adoptions.”

Ms. Marini also stated that she “looked at every single wild horse and burro being offered throughout the grounds and found 3-5 wild horses and 1 burro without freezebrands on their necks”.

A freezebrand is required by law in order to distinguish a wild free-roaming horse or burro from their domestic counterparts as a defensive measure to help ensure they are not sent unwittingly to slaughter. The following photo of an unbranded wild burro was taken at the Lorton, VA Adoption event on September 26,2009.


Photo of a non-freeze branded wild burro available found at Lorton, VA Adoption
Courtesty of Ann Marini.


Despite months to prepare and thousands of potentially adoptable wild horses and burros currently clogging the adoption pipeline at reportedly record levels, based solely on wild horse and burro availability demonstrated throughout BLMs own internet adoption webpages; with only one exception, BLMs internet adoption choices were amazingly “empty”.

Perhaps this unbranded burro and the 3-5 additional reported unbranded wild horses can tell us why.

A call was placed to BLMs Marketing Director, Sally Spencer in order to allow BLM a chance to respond to questions about the National Adoption Event. Ms. Spencer's response is still pending....

On a final note, the photo provided at the top of this post was found on BLMs National Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Day website and as can be clearly seen, it was an official BLM sanctioned flyer.

Notice that wild burros weren't even included in the National Wild Horse Day promotion?