Oppose Latest Assault on Wild Horses: BLM Plans to Replace Wild Stallions with Geldings on the Range

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

Proposed Action for Nevada's Pancake Complex Is a Triple Assault on Wild Horse Populations

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Photo courtesy of Animal Law Coalition

The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is at it again! This time with the three worse-case scenarios included in one roundup proposal:

• the massive roundup of 1,000 wild horses;
  
• the castration of wild stallions and replacement of wild-free roaming mustangs with geldings; and
  
• the zeroing-out of an entire Herd Area (HA), permanently removing all wild horses while leaving hundreds of privately-owned cattle behind.

Making matters worse, the plan also includes sex-ratio skewing of the herds to favor stallions over mares, a strategy that is being implemented in the absence of any scientific justification or review.

It's time to take a stand against this horrific proposal, which shows that the BLM program has gone from bad to worse. The Pancake roundup will have tremendously negative impacts on the wild horses of south-central Nevada, so please take action today!.

BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Meeting Reveals Agency Focus Is on "Population Growth Suppression," Including Sterilization of Wild Free-Roaming Horses

Agency Will Continue to Spend Nearly 70 % of Budget on Roundup, Removal and Warehousing of Wild Horses

BLM director Boby Abbey at Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Meeting

At last week's meeting of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board in Arlington, VA, agency officials stressed their shifting focus to "population growth suppression." Ominously, the BLM is looking to incorporate sterilization of wild free-roaming horses as an integral part of this strategy, and is implementing this devastating policy on a national scale in the complete absence of scientific or environmental review. (See above to take action against BLM implementation of this plan in Nevada's Pancake Complex.)

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Meanwhile, the agency plans to continue to spend nearly 70 percent of its $77 million budget to round up, remove and warehouse wild horses, with nearly 9,000 wild horses and burros targeted for removal from BLM and Forest Service lands in Fiscal Year 2012. Read AWHPC's full report on the meeting by clicking below.

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BLM Begins First MEGA-Roundup Along the California-Nevada Border

For the first time, the BLM has scheduled back-to-back roundups in two adjacent public land areas - California's High Rock Complex and Nevada's Calico Complex - aiming to remove more than 2,000 wild horses and 140 wild burros from this over 1.2 million acre range. The actions will leave behind just 258 wild horses in High Rock and 572 mustangs and 39 burros in Calico.

The High Rock portion of the mega roundup is underway, with BLM reporting 129 horses captured and one death since Saturday, October 15. The Calico roundup will begin in December 2011, just two years after a deadly roundup in the same area claimed the life of at least 150 mustangs. (See AWHPC report on the 2009-2010 Calico roundup here.)

                        

AWHPC Founding Sponsor      Advocacy Sponsor

The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. Supported by a coalition of over 40 organizations, its grassroots campaign seeks:

    * A suspension of roundups in all but verifiable emergency situations while the entire BLM wild horse program undergoes objective and scientific review;
    * Higher Appropriate Management Levels (AML) for wild horses on those rangelands designated for them;
    * Implementation of in-the-wild management, which would keep wild horses on the range and save taxpayers millions of dollars annually by avoiding the mass removal and stockpiling wild horses in government holding facilities.

www.WildHorsePreservation.org

Also of Note...

BLM Closes Inhumane Mustang-Holding Facility in Utah

Photo credit: The Cloud Foundation.

The BLM is closing the Salt Lake Regional Wild Horse and Burro Center in Utah, seven months after The Cloud Foundation released a video documenting the egregious conditions at the facility, including footage of horses standing in and lying upon knee deep mud and muck. The captive mustangs at the center are being moved to two other holding facilities in Utah.
Read More:The Cloud Foundation news release and Salt Lake Tribune article.

You Did It! The White House Petition to Protect Wild Horses and Burros Reaches Signature Goal

Our "Don't Let America's Wild Horses Disappear" petition on the White House's "We the People" website has attained the necessary number of signatures to be considered and responded to by the Obama Administration!
A big thank you to our coalition partner, ASPCA, which helped us get the more than the required 5,000 signatures by sharing the petition on their Facebook page. And a special thanks to all our supporters who persevered in the face of the website's many technical challenges to successfully sign the petition. If you have not signed yet, you can still do so here.The more signatures the better!

Still Time to Oppose Mustang & Burro Roundup in Marietta and Garfield Flat

Photo by Ginger Kathrens, The Cloud Foundation

If you have not done so yet, please register your opposition to the unnecessary and inhumane removal of 223 wild horses and burros from the Garfield Flat Herd Management Area (HMA) and the Marietta Wild Burro Range beginning in February 2012. Comments are due by October 26, 2011.