Join Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson & Call for Congressional Hearings on BLM

Sheryl Crow & Willie Nelson shout out for Wild Horses - Take Action!
Read the new People Magazine Article & then call for immediate Congressional hearings on BLM

Dear Supporters, the excellent People Magazine article by Helin Jung starts out: Willie Nelson wants to know: "Why are there more horses asses than there are horses?" The country legend's gripe comes from his concern for the American West's wild horses and burros, which are being rounded up by the thousands and placed into holding corrals by the federal government's Bureau of Land Management. The capture of 2,500 horses started in the Calico Mountains of Nevada last month, but the agency expects to round up a total of 12,000 of the estimated 37,000 horses on BLM land by the end of this year...        

Read the whole article here on the People Magazine website, and then take action!
Protests continue: join the New York City protest on Sunday, the Reno protest on Monday and/or the Sacramento protest on Thursday the 21st! Click here for details.

Call for Hearings on the BLM & For An Immediate Moratorium on Roundups

Take a moment for Wild Ones! We are making a difference
Write your Senators and Congress people, ask that they call for hearings on the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse and Burro program, immediately.

The BLM is laying waste to our American wild herds with our taxpayer money. Saving the American Wild Horse is a matter of importance to the majority of the American public. Follow-up with a phone call. This is a bi-partisan issue! Please be polite and inform the aid you speak with on the great importance of this issue. We are making a difference! Thank you.

Be sure to stress the following three points:

1) The unsustainable fiscal waste of BLM's mismanagement of wild horses and burros (why spend millions to destroy our living western heritage? Wild horses pre date the United States and evolved to completion in North America)a

• The American taxpayers are paying well over $100,000 per day to feed and house the 34,000 wild horses in holding. These horses were living at little to no taxpayer expense on publicly-owned lands- now they cost over $35 million/year
• The BLM said they had a budget crisis and their budget was doubled by Congress in fiscal year 2010 (without spending requirements).
• The BLM is now spending nearly all the extra allocated funds (some $32 million) on ROUNDING UP 12,500 more wild horses and burros living sustainably on public lands.

2) We currently have 34,000+ wild horses in government holding: adding to this number is irresponsible and unnecessary.

• In 2008 BLM proposed killing the healthy wild horses and burros in holding- the public will not allow this to happen to our wild horses and burros.
• Over 24 million acres have been removed from wild horses and burros since the passage of the Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971.
• An immediate moratorium must be placed on what has become a rogue agency. We need independent assessments of range and populations must be made by a credible, independent source such as the National Academy of Sciences. In the meantime the American public can work with Congress to protect our wild herds in a sustainable way.

3) What makes wild horses and burros especially important to your State?

• The ongoing mismanagement is a fiscal burden to taxpayers nationwide
• Or perhaps our national responsibility to preserve and protect what Congress deemed to be "an integral part of the natural system of public lands." (Free-Roaming Wild Horses & Burro Act, 1971)

WRITE, CALL, and FAX your Senators here. Or call the switchboard at 202-224-3121. We need to focus on Senators on the Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee where the ROAM Act (S.1579) sits presently and requires hearings to enter into the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Click here for a list of Senators on the Subcommittee and ask these Senators for immediate hearings on the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program. The Ruby Pipeline's connection to wild horse and burro roundups also must be investigated. And while these hearings are being setup, we need a moratorium on roundups!

Additionally,  please meet with your local US Senators and Congress people's offices and keep them up to date on the issues that matter to you, there may be a local office in your town or city. (Click here to find the offices)

Stay Inspired! Read the complete Humane Observer's report on the wild stallion Freedom's ordeal here

More fact sheets and information on protests at The Cloud Foundation Blog. Read excellent and in depth TESTIMONIALS from roundup observers online at the AWHPC site here.

Be sure to follow up letters with phone calls, visits with letters, faxes with calls...

On behalf of our wild herds, thank you.

The Cloud Foundation

photo: Calico Horses, sweaty in the cold - by Kurt Golgart, courtesy BLM