American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
The day began with a BLM overview of the new strategy, presented by Karla Bird, acting director of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.
At 9 a.m. sharp, the public comment period began. Unlike at previous BLM meetings, this comment period was scheduled before the advisory board voted on its recommendations. Also unlike previous meetings, three full hours were dedicated to public comment, and each speaker was given four minutes to present their case.
About 40 speakers addressed the Advisory Board. The vast majority of speakers were advocates for wild horses.
A handful of ranchers were also present. Several – most notably John Fallon, head of the Public Lands Council – also attended the horse slaughter summit in Las Vegas in January. Mr. Fallon stated in his comments that if BLM goes through with its proposed strategy to remove fewer horses, the Public Lands Council will be forced to explore litigation against the agency.
Speakers advocating a fairer policy for wild horses, including filmmaker Ginger Kathrens, volunteer director of The Cloud Foundation, commented on a variety of issues – from unfair forage allocations to livestock in wild horse habitat areas to the inhumanity of the roundups and some of the tragic incidents associated with them. Comments ranged from specific recommendations for the advisory board to personal accounts of roundup observation and criticism of broader issues related to the mismanagement of the program.
Jill Buckley of the ASPCA spoke about the need to end the inhumane roundups and offered the ASPCA’s help in developing a humane observer program to monitor any roundups that do occur. Timothy Harvey, the new humane advocacy appointee to the Advisory Board, later pressed the BLM to ensure that they responded to the ASPCA’s offer of help, as well as the offers of other members of the public.
On behalf of the coalition of over 40 organizations, including Saving America’s Mustangs, the Humane Society of the United States and the ASPCA, Suzanne Roy and Deniz Bolbol from the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign focused their remarks on requesting specific recommendations from the Advisory Board. AWHPC highlighted the need for BLM to fully and accurately account for the public comments received on the draft strategy document.
BLM is reporting just 9,000 comments received, but AWHPC has confirmed that our coalition partners submitted at least 45,000 comments. AWHPC asked for a full accounting of comments received and a quantitative analysis of their contents. AWHPC has also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all public comments on the strategy document, but BLM has been unable to produce them for four months.
We urged the Advisory Board to recommend that BLM:
• Improve transparency of roundups by installing video cameras on helicopters, at the traps and processing facilities to ensure that all aspects of the roundups are fully transparent.
• Prioritize fertility control and adoption programs over more wild horse removals.
• Actively pursue and cultivate public/private partnership arrangements like Madeleine Pickens/Saving America’s Mustangs proposal to create an eco-sanctuary and the Return to Freedom model program for on-the-range management of wild horses in herd management areas. We stressed the fact that the government has a moral and fiscal responsibility to care for the horses it has removed from their homes on our public lands, and that proposals like Mrs. Pickens’ offer taxpayers a return on their investment, as public funds will be reinvested for the benefit of the horses and the land.
• Avoid reproductive control strategies – such as skewed sex rations and sterilization — that negatively impact wild horse behavior and herd dynamics.
Following the public comments, the Board made six general recommendations to BLM: 1. Fully fund the Mustang Heritage Foundation proposal for adopting out BLM horses.
2. Prepare a fiscal year annual report on fatalities and injuries associated with the roundups, including deaths at the capture site, processing pens and holding facilities.
3. Appoint advisory board members to be liaisons with BLM on different parts of the strategy’s implementation.
4. Review all public comments before preparing a final report to Congress on the new strategy and the public’s response to it.
5. Develop a scientific integrity plan
6. Develop a centralized tracking response system for offers of volunteer assistance.
The board also made some specific recommendations on the strategy document. In terms of wild horse and burro welfare, the most important of these were the recommendation offered by Robin Lohnes of the American Horse Protection Association, that BLM track and document the effects of various reproductive control strategies on wild horse behavior and herd dynamics, and the recommendation by Timothy Harvey that BLM utilize bait trapping whenever possible to preserve band structures and minimize stress to horses.
Ironically, one of the Advisory Board’s recommendations was to review previous recommendations that the board has made over the years to see if they are still relevant.
The fight for our wild horses and burros now goes to Congress, where BLM will present its new strategy and lobby for the funds necessary to move forward with the removal of 32,800 horses over the next four years.
It’s clear to us that real reform will not come from within the agency itself, but from Congress, which must force the BLM to modernize its decades-old and failed policies. We must continue to let our Senators and Congressman know that we want reform of this broken federal program– for the horses and burros, and for the taxpayers – and we must grow the number of citizens willing to speak up for our mustangs, if we are to receive lasting reform. If you have not done so yet, take action here to let your Senators know that you do not want the BLM to receive a budget increase that will be used to remove more horses from our public lands in the West, and spread this alert far and wide to your family and friends.
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