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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Video Shows Tale of Horse’s Rescue From Florida Sinkhole

Straight from the Horse's Heart


Source: ABC News horse that had been put out to pasture had to be rescued when a sinkholeopened up in the Florida pasture, trapping him.
Nate, a 30-year-old horse, was stuck in the hole for about three hours last Friday before personnel from the fire department in Oxford, Florida, arrived to put straps and harnesses around him and hauled him out.
“He was in the ‘retirement pasture,’ and we believe the ground just collapsed underneath him,” Maryann Marsh, co-owner of TMMA Farms told ABC News. “He was lucky enough to almost be in a sitting position in the hole, which is why he didn’t break any legs.”
Marsh said she recruited a handful of neighbors to try to pull Nate free, but the effort failed, partly because the horse’s feet had fallen asleep. Marsh called the 9-1-1, which brought the help of the fire department. With the additional bodies and straps, Nate was yanked free.
Nate is one of three horses on the alpaca farm, including his “best friend” Hershey, a retired party pony, and more than 40 alpacas.
Marsh said Nate is doing “very well,” and just had a back swollen leg.
“[Hershey] was very concerned through the whole process,” Marsh said.

Equine Protection Gains and Challenges in 2014

Wayne Pacelle Humane Society of the U.S.

Horses are a big part of our agenda at The HSUS, which houses the only national advocacy department focused on protecting horses from commercial exploitation. Our team, unfortunately, has no shortage of issues to contend with, given that there are enormous problems associated with horse slaughter throughout North America, horse “soring” in Tennessee and some other states, the race-day drugging of horses used in the racing industry, and the mismanagementof wild horses and burros in the West. 
Horse
Photo: Jennifer Kunz/The HSUS
This year has not only seen an emerging consensus that we must do something about horse soring and the drugging of racehorses, but it has also seen a stubborn obstructionism on the part of certain industry operatives who don’t want the exercise or the expansion of federal authority in these domains. Working with more reform-minded leaders in the horse industry, veterinary community, and many others in abroad coalition, we amassed an extraordinary roster of cosponsors for anti-horse soring legislation in Congress.  However, just a handful of lawmakers blocked consideration. This was one of my great frustrations, given the impregnable case we made for reform.
On the horse racing issue, compelling hearings were held on good legislation that failed to advance, but there is momentum building inside and outside the industry and in Congress that there must be reform and that it must occur at the federal level.  The Bureau of Land Management’s oversight of wild horses and burros continues to be problematic on so many levels, with the agency continuing to conduct inhumane round-ups and removals and failing to move decisively toward humane on-the-ground population management strategies built around fertility control.  Happily, Congress has directed the agency to focus its attention on this more promising approach.
On horse slaughter, working with many partners, we’ve been involved with important blocking maneuvers and now, just in the last few weeks, some major gains that hold the prospect of turning around the problem of North American horse slaughter. This has been a multi-front war, and several of the “victories” I note below relate to strategic maneuvers made to stymie slaughter in the United States and now in Mexico.  We are especially grateful to Animals Angels for its heroic work to document the horse slaughter trade, and the many advocates who have helped drive this issue into the public eye.
Here’s a rundown of those, and other, key victories for equines in 2014:
  • Blocking Horse Slaughter Through the Courts: When unscrupulous operators announced plans last year to reopen horse slaughterhouses on American soil for the first time in a decade, we went to court. We joined with Front Range Equine Rescue, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Hollywood legend Robert Redford, and New Mexico Governor Gary King to seek an injunction to stop a horse slaughterhouse from opening in New Mexico. The lawsuit staved off the slaughterhouse’s opening long enough for us to get Congress to act through the annual appropriations process.
  • Defunding Horse Slaughter Inspections in 2014: In January, we worked hard to help restore a prohibition on federal funding for the inspection of horse slaughterhouses – a prohibition lifted after lobbying by pro-slaughter forces in 2011. Without federal inspections, horse slaughterhouses cannot legally operate. We helped assemble a bipartisan coalition – led by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Jim Moran (D-VA),  and the late Bill Young (R-FL), with major help from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) – to prohibit USDA expenditures for horse slaughter in the annual spending bill.
  • Prohibiting Horse Slaughter in 2015: We fought off aggressive efforts by the horse slaughter industry to reopen horse slaughterhouses in 2015. We helped pass a new prohibition on funding horse slaughter inspections in 2015 by bipartisan votes of 18-12 in the Senate Appropriations Committee and 28-22 in the House Appropriations Committee. And we continued to build support for the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, which would ban both the slaughter and export of American horses for human consumption.
  • Stopping the Mexican Horse Slaughter Trade: We helped deal a major blow to unscrupulous “kill” buyers, who export American horses to Mexico for slaughter. For years, Humane Society International has lobbied the European Commission to stop the import of horsemeat from several Mexican slaughterhouses that rely almost exclusively on slaughtering American horses for their business. Earlier this month, the European Commission suspended imports of horsemeat from Mexico after its investigators went to EU-certified equine slaughterhouses and documented a multitude of food safety and animal welfare concerns.
  • Securing No-Slaughter Pledges From Horse Breeders: Breeders from across the country signed The HSUS’s responsible horse breeder pledge, with over 1,100 breeders making the pledge in the last two years. Breeders who pledge promise to assist with any horse they have bred who becomes homeless and at risk of going to slaughter. Through our Responsible Horse Breeders Council, we’ll continue to reduce overbreeding, secure no-slaughter pledges, and find homes for at-risk horses.
  • Building Unprecedented Support to Stop Horse Soring: We assembled an incredible bipartisan group of308 Representatives and 60 Senators behind the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act to stop the inhumane practice of “soring” show horses, and sustained funding for USDA’s enforcement of the existing (albeit weak) federal Horse Protection Act. Although a small group of obstructionists in Congress prevented a vote on the PAST Act, their position is clearly untenable. The USDA has already stepped up its enforcement of the Horse Protection Act, and we’re hopeful that Congress will pass the PAST Act in 2015.
  • BURRO
    Photo: Jennifer Kunz/The HSUS
    Shifting to More Humane Management of Wild Horses and Burros on Public Lands: We worked with congressional allies to get language into the 2015 omnibus spending package encouraging BLM to consider humane methods of wild horse and burro population management, so that the agency can move beyond its current inhumane and costly system of round-ups and long-term penning. The omnibus also contains language prohibiting the destruction of healthy wild horses and burros for human consumption.
  • Burro Adoptions: As part of our Platero Project, The HSUS is working to accelerate the number of burros adopted from BLM holding facilities and promote greater protections for these gentle animals. We worked with 40 trainers and placed more than 200 burros in new homes or sanctuaries.
  • Defeating Ag-Gag Bills: We defeated, or stopped the emergence of, 11 “ag-gag” bills (which seek to criminalize recording animal cruelty) in nine states. In 2011, our undercover investigation of famed Tennessee Walking Horse trainer Jackie McConnell’s Whitter stables led to felony charges against the trainer and a national movement to stop horse soring. This year alone, we stopped three attempts at bills in Tennessee that would have made investigations like our McConnell exposé illegal.
In 2015, we’ll build on this year’s momentum to end horse soring and horse slaughter for good. We remain committed to pushing a ban on the export and slaughter of American horses for human consumption – and to defunding horse slaughter inspections until we can pass a ban. We’ll strive to do more to generate reforms on the horse racing front and to expand our efforts on wild horse management. And we’ll be pushing the PAST Act strongly in Congress as we seek to finally end the archaic and indefensible practice of soring horses.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

December Full of Christmas Cheer for American Horses

Straight from the Horse's Heart

Quietly, while most Americans made plans for holiday festivities several major milestones occurred this month that will enhance the safety and security of American equines during the upcoming new year. The activities of salvation seemed to occur unnoticed but we at SFTHH and WHFF want you to be well informed and perhaps even celebrate a bit over what has occurred.
First, Congress passed the Omnibus Bill on December 13th. The bill is a package that includes parts of the fiscal year 2015 appropriations bills and will fund most government agencies and programs until the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, 2015.
The legislation included language that prohibits the USDA from using any funds to provide inspectors at meat processing facilities that slaughter horses, continuing an effective block that has been in place since 2005, except for a brief period in 2012-13.
No horse slaughter facilities are operating in the United States, and the bill will prevent any such facility from opening until Sept. 30, 2015.
The language was included in the omnibus bill because both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees adopted amendments that prohibited funding for inspectors at horse slaughter facilities when they debated and approved their respective versions of the 2015 USDA appropriations bill. Many thanks to those who lobby on behalf of our horses in Washington D.C..
As a bonus the bill also contains a provision that would prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from euthanizing healthy wild horses in its care or from selling wild horses or burros that result in their being processed into commercial products. Small step forward for the wild ones but a move forward none the less.
Secondly, and this may be the final death blow to the predatory business of horse slaughter, the European Commission has suspended the import of horsemeat from Mexico to the European Union (EU) due to food safety concerns. We equine advocates have tried to stay focused on the issue of food safety for years and it appears that such perseverance has finally paid off.
Effective Jan. 15, the commission has suspended a residue monitoring plan that tests for the presence of horse meat in other imported meat products, according to Aikaterini Apostola, press officer for health for the European Commission, during a recent published interview.
“Such suspension results in a ban of the import of horse meat, meat preparations, and meat products from Mexico,” Apostola stated in an email. “The measure has been taken after repeated negative outcomes of the audits carried out by the Food and Veterinary Office of the Commission’s Health and Consumers Directorate General in Mexico, the last of them in June 2014. This last audit also showed that many of the corrective actions that Mexico committed to take following previous audits were not yet taken.”
A key issue for the 28-member commission was inhumane treatment of the horses being shipped from the United States to Mexican slaughterhouses.
Michael Scannell, director of the Food and Veterinary Office, addressed the issue Nov. 30 at a European Parliament Intergroup meeting in Brussels by stating;
“In general, the worst contraventions we know are in relation to transport,” Scannell said. “By way of example, we will publish a report in the next number of weeks in relation to Mexico where we saw animals which arrived dead from the United States or non-ambulatory, i.e., they weren’t even able to stand.”
The transportation problem is also expected to affect slaughter operations in Canada, according to Scannell, who added the commission is close to imposing a “six-month” rule for Canada.
“So, in both cases, this will make it a lot more difficult — impossible in the case of Mexico, difficult in the case of Canada — to continue importing horses from the United States for subsequent export of horse meat to the European Union,” Scannell said.
So as you can see, American equine advocates truly do have something to celebrate this holiday season and we can look forward to the new year with vigor and anticipation as we push towards resolution the outstanding issues which still plague our American horses, both domestic and wild.
By “keeping the faith” we are trotting into a new era for our horses and donkeys…keep up the great works and take a moment to bask in the afterglow of these two great victories.
Thanks to all who work so hard for those who cannot speak for themselves.  You are very special, indeed.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Annual Equine Welfare Report 2014

Equine Welfare Alliance (pdf)



This report is intended to aggregate all available data that is pertinent for assessing
the welfare of US equines. It will be updated annually. Since earlier analysis has
shown that equine welfare is tightly correlated with the price and availability of hay,
this report contains extensive data on hay production, cost and related land use
and land use policy.
The report also contains historical data on the rates of equine abuse and neglect for
those few states that keep such records. Luckily, these states are distributed across
the country, providing something of an insight into regional trends.
Finally, the report contains statistics on the number of US equines registered and
sent to slaughter, as well as recent legal and legislative actions related to equine
welfare.
Executive Summary
The period since 2008 has been one of extreme pressure on horse ownership. The
“great recession”, which began in 2008, turns out to be only one of many
concurrent pressures that have hit horse keepers. These forces are impacting not
only equine welfare, but the entire equine industry as well.
The biggest pressure on horse owners has been determined in an earlier study to
be the often severe increases in the price of hay in many regions. These prices
have been driven by long term land use changes modulated by the short term
impact of weather.
New foal registrations were found to have been in broad and steep decline across
all breeds since approximately 2005, almost certainly because of these same
pressures on horse owners.
This report finds some signs of improvement in the overall environment in 2013,
including reduced neglect rates, increased hay production and declining slaughter.
However, it must be stated that these trends are tentative and at best nascent in
nature.
...

(This is a quite lengthy, detailed report.)
   Click HERE to read it in its entirety.

.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

The Horses Wish You All a VERY Merry Christmas!




Sunday, December 21, 2014

An Equine Christmas Story: “We Were There”

Straight from the Horse's Heart

“Today is the last ‘Feel Good Sunday’ before Christmas 2014; a magical day indeed, and for me the day bears great significance as I am home and will remain here over the holidays as it has been several years since we have experienced such a luxury.  With that said, I have resumed my duties of making dinner for the boys in the barn and feel the warmth that their souls and spirits bring to our lives.  Being that I am still suffering jet lag I have not sat and contemplated their essence but still they have managed to brush a few cobwebs away from my aging brain.  And today, we share with you a story that I wrote some years ago after spending a special evening in our former barn with the same souls, with some sadly departed, that bring us joy today.  You can take this tale with a grain of salt or you may kindly grant me a little bit of literary license but none the less, our equine companions have a story to tell if only we will slow down and shut up long enough to listen.  Enjoy this day my most special and valued friends.  Keep the faith.” ~ R.T.

Pele, Bart and Harley ~ photo by Terry Fitch
Pele, Bart and Harley ~ photo by Terry Fitch
It was like any other evening feeding of the horses, yet it was not; or not quite, as something was different.  The air was crisp and cool as Christmas was only a week away in South Louisiana, but the feeling had little to do with temperature or barometric pressure.  There was an electric buzz in the air; the feeling of white noise just outside the audible range of the human ear.  There was something tangible and moving in the barn that night.
I did not pick up on it at first.  Terry, my wife, was off having an early Christmas with her family in Florida, which means that the barn chores and the feeding of all our four-legged children rests upon me when I return home from my office in the evening.  And, at this time of year, it is already dark.  It’s a matter of rushing home, putting the vehicle up for the night, greeting and playing with Kenny, the white German Shepherd who is so excited to see you that he bounces three feet high, dashing into the house to turn on lights, checking messages, changing clothes, feeding the cat; then back outside to dribble the bouncing dog; and into the barn to cook dinner for the equine boys.   Oops, I missed that while in the house I might fix an industrial strength Wrangler Iced Tea to take out to the barn with me, not a requirement, but a nice reward for all the running around.
I scurried into the tack room, flipped on all of the lights and turned up the radio as Christmas music was the order of the day.  As I carefully measured varied degrees of hoof supplement and rice bran with their normal pelletized feed, the thought crossed my mind that my parents, especially my mother, never had the opportunity to see our equine kids nor experience this very special side to our otherwise very busy lives.  I paused from humming along with the radio and reflected on what a tremendous loss that was.  I resumed mixing and humming with a small pang of sadness in my heart.
I went from stall to stall filling up the appropriate feed bins with the proper amount of food.  Each time I exited a stall and went back to the tack room I asked Kenny how he was doing; he sat so attentively out in the driveway.  This simply inquiry would start the bouncing, again.  I’ll never figure out how a 100 lb dog could bounce so high and he made me laugh.  I was just about finished with the mix of the last meal when the traditional and expected three measured knocks came to the back door.  Terry and I have learned to keep the back “horse” door closed until ready to let the horses in as it is such a pleasure to hear those three distinct and perfectly timed and executed knocks.
We know who it is and he does such a good job at it.  It’s Ethan.  He is the King of Knocking, the Guardian of the Food Gate, and the funniest of them all at feeding time. ,
I hollered back through the closed doors that I was hurrying and would be right with him.  With that, I dumped the last bucket of feed in Apache’s stall, walked to the back, and carefully cracked the sliding doors.  Who was standing with his head pressed to the middle of the doors, Ethan, as always.
“Are you ready?” I asked and a part of me picked up on a gentle nod and smile.
The doors were slid open, the breezy gate was swung out and, as they do every night, they came in the barn in perfect order to eat the dinner that I had labored over in preparation for them.
First came Ethan, then Harley followed by Apache and bringing up the rear is the biggest, the youngest and the most fearful, Bart.  He feels more comfortable when they are all tucked away in their stalls with their doors closed so that no one can stick their head out and attempt to bite him as he walks down the aisle.  He actually stops and looks into each one of their stalls and you can almost hear him say, “Ha, Ha, you can’t get me now”.  Hopefully, one day, he will grow up.
Immediately the barn was full of the sound of relaxed munching and filled with the sweet odor of horses and feed.  I looked back at Kenny who only bounced two feet instead of three feet off the pavement hoping that I might sit down and enjoy this moment.  I went into the tack room to pull out a chair and sit in the center aisle of the barn to commune with the horses. My Brazilian hammock, however, caught my eye.
“Ah ha” I cried and snatched up the hammock with one hand while I grabbed the “tea” in the other.  This could be good!
Two quick slips of “S” hooks into the installed tie rings on to opposing stalls and I had the hammock swinging across the center aisle in a heartbeat.  Kenny lay down, as I eased into the hammock, because he knew that this could be awhile.  I sat down with my back propped up and began to swing while singing along with the Christmas music from the radio.
It did not take long to realize that my singing was not appreciated.  Bart began to pound on the stall wall with his right front hoof and Apache quit eating to urinate, on the clean shavings in the stall, in protest of my singing.  I actually was not too offended by Bart’s signal to quit but for Apache to pee in his stall was pushing the envelope a little too far.  I felt rather hurt so I just shut up, set my drink down on the aisle floor and listened to the sounds of the horses mixed with the sound of Christmas.
The music stirred emotions from seasons long past:  seasons of happiness, hope, disappointment and most recently, pain.  But I am the Captain of my ship and I had no intention to sail into dark and murky waters this night.  I simply wanted to let go and feel the companionship of my friends around me.  That’s when I heard the buzz.
At first I thought that the radio was slipping off from its frequency but the music was still there, clearly playing.  The buzz was overriding the music; the “white noise” was multidimensional and not strictly coming from the tack room.  I did not make a serious attempt to think about it as the sounds and smells were like candy to my senses and the buzz was only the canvas that the painting of the moment was applied to.  I relaxed.
I closed my eyes and continued to rock back and forth.  There was a feeling of warmth in the barn, while all of those equine souls were inside eating and enjoying.  The buzz, on the other hand, continued to grow.  In the beginning it really was not something that I was paying much attention to but now I attempted to tune into where it was coming from and what it was.  I continued to rock.  I could still hear the horses and the music but now the buzz was growing in volume.  As I continued to mentally identify its source, it was becoming ever more evident that the sound, itself, was coming from within.  It was coming from inside of my head and not related to anything outside of myself.  I was aware that I was humming “Away in the Manger”, along with the radio but it was becoming evident that the white noise was music also.  In that music there were whispers, words, phrases and thoughts being conveyed.  Without knowing it I gave in to the music from within and opened up to the whispers and words.  There were many voices with varied depths and pitches although different they all blended together in song and, it was soul stirring.  I listened and listened and listened until I finally made out the words that were being sung to me.  It came as abruptly and as clearly to me as if a sonic boom had just resonated throughout the barn.  In thousands of voices, from deep within my soul, the words being sung in perfect harmony were “We were there!”
I stopped rocking and the singing stopped; there was total silence.  My eyes popped open and I was looking straight up.  Once they focused I could see two small sparrows in the barn’s rafters looking straight down at me.  They were looking directly at me with calm assuredness.  The radio was silent, only my breathing could be heard.  I sat up and looked at the stalls; all of the horses were looking directly at me, calmly, with their heads bowed.  I then gazed out across the moonlit pasture and could see the little donkey and her herd of cows staring directly into the lighted barn.  Not one of them was moving.  I quickly swung around and looked out the other door for Kenny; he was laying calmly with his head between his paws and his big brown eyes starring right at me.
I went to stand and in the silence the words came again, “We were there!”  I froze.
“We were there that night”, the collective voices continued.
“Wait, what, who?” I started to ask.
“Just listen and absorb.  Do not ask, we will tell.” the voice said.  “We were there in the stable, that night.  All of us in one shape or form.  We were there long before human shepherds and nobles came to see.  We were there to see him take his first breath.  We were there.”
“It is important, at this time, for you to know that we were the selected witnesses, the guardians and the companions of the Son of the Light.  You need to understand that we are closer to the source of goodness and purity than all mankind.  You need to know that your fight for our lives is a just and noble one.  All of you humans who guard and protect us walk in a very special light.  You have now been there too; now you know and now you must continue the fight”, the voice ended.
“Wait!  What do you mean I was there too?” I called.  I stood up and turned around because I did not know who I was talking to.  I looked at the horses, the dog, the birds, the donkey, and the cattle.  ”What do you mean?”
Reality had yet to come to me as I stared into the horses’ eyes.
Again, the voice returned, “You were there, too.  When you opened your eyes, just a few moments ago, what did you see first?” it asked.
I stammered for a second and came up with, “The birds; the birds in the barn’s rafters.”
The voice asked, “What did you see next?”
“Well, I saw the horses looking at me from their stalls, the donkey, the cows and Kenny the bouncing dog, all looking at me.”
“Yes”, the voice said, “And what were the first impressions in the life of the Gifted One when he first opened up his eyes in that stable long, long, long ago”?
“I would imagine that when he first opened his eyes, lying in a manager, he saw the rafters in the barn ceiling with the birds looking down…” I stopped talking so quickly that I almost bit my tongue.  There was a warm sensation washing over me and it was more than just the tie-in and realization of what had just occurred.
I could not speak and was about to sit back down when the voice added;
“Yes, you see now.  You have been there too.  We all have been there yet, few humans can remember.  This is our gift to you.  Carry the light and chase the darkness; we love all of you for what you do.”
Hearing those words, there was something else, I could not then nor can I now describe it.  Perhaps a sigh, perhaps it was a catch as if emotion had welled up but there was something there, not spoken, that touched me more than the words.
In a dreamlike state of numbness I began the process of releasing the horses from their stalls to their pasture; this is done in the exact reverse of the entry process.  I moved like a robot as the power of the words and the moment were still within me.  I opened up Ethan’s stall and he walked out and stood in the middle of the back door as he often does.
Harley was next.  I stood at his stall door and allowed my hand to move down his furry side as he calmly walked by me and out past Ethan.
Apache usually flattens his ears when he sees Ethan in the doorway and chases him out; but not tonight.  When I opened up his stall he calmly walked past us both without any notice.
Finally, Bart was freed to return to the beloved round bale and as he exited I asked him to stop and I gave him a hug.  He gently kissed my bald spot and headed out past Ethan.
I then turned my attention to Ethan; I stood next to him in the doorway and gazed out upon what he was viewing.  The donkey and cows had gone back to grazing in the moonlight and the neighbor’s horses were tucked away in their barn with their heads hanging out.  Our three were all drinking from the trough, together, and the sky was fantastic with the moon and stars.  It was picture postcard perfect.
As he stood next to me I put my hand on Ethan’s withers.  He turned to me and put his left nostril right against my heart which placed his left eye at the same level with mine.  I said, “Merry Christmas, my friend.”  He blinked, turned and then stepped out into the night.  As I watched that big Appaloosa butt dwindle from the light of the barn he stopped and turned.  Regardless of what anyone says, he had the biggest smile on his face that any horse could have.
I lowered my head, pulled my glasses off to wipe the tears off the lenses, closed the back door, walked past the still full glass of tea sitting on the floor under the hammock, turned off the lights, walked out of the barn and stood over Kenny who had still not budged.
“Want to go inside, boy?”, I asked.
He bounced five feet high this time and we happily dribbled each other up the driveway to the house like we were two ten year old kids headed for a game of basketball.
The moon cast shadows of us dancing on our way as the horses continued to hum in the pasture,
“We were there”.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

MORE Managing For Extinction?

Straight from the Horse's Heart

Observation by Grandma Gregg
What the ‘ell strategy is BLM using now?  Their internet adoption in the past has been for ADOPTION of wild horses and burros with a minimum bid of $125 and a written promise that the adopter would not sell the wild horse or burro to slaughter for at least a year – but now it appears that they are auctioning off our wild horses online for $25!
We know that in the past, the BLM has sold older sale authority horses and burros for as little as $10 each – with free delivery if you bought a trailer load – and we also know that many of these have gone to disappeared into the BLM’s never seen again pipeline – but now they are auctioning them off online for as little as $25 to prospective kill-buyers?
Below are two examples of older mares captured last summer from Sulphur Utah that BLM just auctioned offto someone in Oregon for $25 with free delivery to misc. sites – including some VERY questionable locations that have been known to have kill-buyers lurking.
Does anyone actually believe that these beautiful older mares are going to find happy, healthy and safe “forever homes”???
Or will it be the same kind of “home” that Tom Davis gave the 1,700 that BLM sold to him and conveniently “disappeared”?

Recent Sales Figures
Fiscal YearMustangsBurrosTotal
2014175875
2013224365
201232071391
201185516871
201052815543
200977219791

The BLM’s sale authority figures have dropped WAY WAY down since the article came out in Sept of 2012 about BLM selling hundreds and hundreds of our wild horses to Tom Davis who could not account for the horses and burros whereabouts or well-being. (see chart)
Did that “discovery” actually slow the sales to questionable buyers way down?
OR
Did that “discovery” just channel the BLM to get rid of them with a different plan?
Such as … selling from LTH by the truck load and not including those in the “sales” chart?
OR
Are they experimenting with selling our older horses on the internet for a mere pittance?
OR
Selling them from Palomino Valley (and Fallon etc.) with no brands? (I have seen them at P/V with no brand or tag#)
Not to mention selling them directly from the range when nobody is looking?
Current Time is Dec 6, 2014 10:39:57 PM Central Time
Bidding is now over.
Category: Delta, UT
PREVIOUS HORSENEXT HORSE

 Mare1Sex: Mare Age: 16 Years   Height (in hands): 14Necktag #: 5350   Date Captured: 08/01/14Color: Dun   Captured: Sulphur (UT)Notes:
#5350 – 16 yr old dun mare, captured August 1, 2014 in the Sulphur HMA, UT (Freezemark:98745350 Signalment:HF1AAAABM).Her foal is #5358, an 7 mo old gelding, that will be weaned and adopted separately.For more information on the Sulphur HMA: http://goo.gl/7qH4On (must copy & paste link into browser).This horse is located at the Delta Wild Horse Corrals, Delta, Utah. For more information please contact Heath Weber athweber@blm.gov or call 435-864-4068.Pick up options (by appt): Delta, UT;Elm Creek, NEPauls Valley, OKPiney Woods, MS.Other pick up options:Brandon, FL (Jan 30); DeRidder, LA (Feb 20).Adoption confirmation for this animal must be finalized no later than Noon Nov 20th.
We will be offering mare #5350 up for adoption at a reduced rate due to her age through the Internet Adoption on Nov 4-18.
Number of Bids: 1
Winning bid: $25.00
High Bidder: OR7783
Category: Delta, UT
PREVIOUS HORSENEXT HORSE
 Mare2Sex: Mare Age: 12 Years   Height (in hands): 14.1Necktag #: 5345   Date Captured: 08/01/14Color: Dun   Captured: Sulphur (UT)Notes:
#5345 – 12 yr old dun mare, captured August 1, 2014 in the Sulphur HMA, UT (Freezemark:02745345 Signalment:HF1AAAAAM).Her foal is #5356, an 8 mo old gelding, that will be weaned and adopted separately.For more information on the Sulphur HMA:http://goo.gl/7qH4On (must copy & paste link into browser).This horse is located at the Delta Wild Horse Corrals, Delta, Utah. For more information please contact Heath Weber at hweber@blm.gov or call 435-864-4068.Pick up options (by appt): Delta, UT; Elm Creek, NE; Pauls Valley, OK; Piney Woods, MS.Other pick up options: Brandon, FL (Jan 30); DeRidder, LA (Feb 20).Adoption confirmation for this animal must be finalized no later than Noon Nov 20th.
If gelding #5345 is not adopted during the November 4-14, 2014 Internet Adoption, she will be available for adoption starting Dec 1st on a first come, first serve basis $125.00 with pick-up ONLY at the Delta Wild Horse Corrals in Delta, Utah.
We will be offering mare #5345 up for adoption at a reduced rate due to her age through the Internet Adoption on Nov 4-18.
Number of Bids: 1
Winning bid: $25.00
High Bidder: OR7783
 Sale Program
Sale ProgramBLM Wild Horse and Burro Sale Information
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Mare1I don’t trust BLM any further than I can throw them.And yet these beautiful wild mares are in BLM’s “protection”! Mare2