Final Days of Freedom for Adobe Town Mustangs Captured on Film

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

This morning the helicopters are descending on the wild horses of Adobe Town, driving these beautiful mustangs out of their homes in Wyoming’s pristine Red Desert. Soon they will be slammed into trap pens, torn from their family members and shipped off to holding facilities far from the lands of their birth. MORE...

Group Lawsuit Filed to Stop Destruction of Colorado Mustang Herd

Straight from the Horse's Heart

Press Release from HfH Advisory Council and The Cloud Foundation

Suit seeks immediate injunction, cites BLM’s violations of four Congressional Acts

New York City, NY (October 7, 2010)— A case filed today against Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar in federal court aims to stop the elimination of wild horses from Colorado’s North Piceance herd area. Plaintiffs Habitat for Horses (HfH), the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), The Cloud Foundation (TCF), Toni Moore and Dr. Don Moore challenge the BLM’s ongoing illegal treatment of wild horses residing on public lands and it’s intention to completely remove all wild horses from this area beginning October 11, 2010.
The Plaintiffs’ attorneys, Bruce Wagman (Schiff Hardin) and Valerie Stanley, are asking the court for an injunction to stop BLM from removing any of these wild horses pending a complete judicial review of the BLM’s conduct. The complaint cites four counts and violations committed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM): violation of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Information Quality Act and the Federal Land Policy Management Act. The suit has been brought against BLM Director Robert Abbey and Field Manager of the Colorado White River Field Office Kent Walter, in addition to Secretary Salazar.
“The BLM’s ‘shoot from the hip’ policy of indiscriminately destroying and removing long standing wild horse herds has to come to an end,” says R.T. Fitch, Volunteer Executive Director of co-supporting organization HfH Advisory Council, “Poor accounting, outdated data and disengagement from the reality of the range is the hallmark of the BLM’s business plan. They must be stopped.”
On September 10^th, 2010 the White River Field office of the BLM issued its final decision to completely and permanently eliminate the herd of wild horses which has lived in partnership with the natural environment in the Herd Area for centuries.
“BLM and other public agencies have eliminated over a third of wild horse herds  designated for protection by Congress in 1971,” explains Cloud Foundation Volunteer Executive Director, Ginger Kathrens. “Colorado has only a few hundred wild horses remaining and the destruction of yet another herd is unthinkable—cruel, costly and completely unnecessary. It is a managing to extinction policy that must stop.”
This action is co-funded by HfH Advisory Council and the ASPCA. A suit filed last week to protect the nearby West Douglas wild horse herd has so far resulted in a one-year postponement of that “zeroing out action.” The case remains in court.
The Cloud Foundation, HfH Advisory Council, ASPCA and over 200 other organizations and tens of thousands of members of the public continue to call for an immediate moratorium on BLM wild horse and burro roundups. To date the BLM has not changed course and plans to roundup and remove a total of 3,295 wild horses and burros before the end of the year. Currently, nearly 40,000 wild horses and burros are held in pens and pastures at taxpayer expense.
Links of interest:
Legal documents filed today: http://bit.ly/d7ePWk
Congress Sends Letter for Wild Herds to Secretary Salazar http://bit.ly/54sign
Roundup Schedule- http://bit.ly/roundupsched
American Herds – “What’s Left?” http://bit.ly/WhatsLeft
Unified Moratorium on Roundups Letter http://bit.ly/MoratoriumLtr
Mestengo. Mustang. Misfit.  America’s Disappearing Wild Horses – A History http://bit.ly/8ZCk8e
Straight from the Horse’s Heart  http://www.sfthh.com
Stampede to Oblivion: An Investigate Report from Las Vegas Now  http://bit.ly/Stampede2Oblivion
Shortlink to this release: http://bit.ly/COmustangSuit
Photos, video and interviews available by request from the Cloud Foundation
The Cloud Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to the preservation and protection of wild horses and burros on our Western public lands with a focus on protecting Cloud’s herd in the Pryor Mountains of Montana. 107 S. 7th St. – Colorado Springs, CO 80905, p. 719-633-3842 www.thecloudfoundation.org
The Habitat for Horses Advisory Council is the “The Legal Voice of the American Equine” and is comprised of like-minded equine welfare oriented organizations and individual advocates. The Council works to progress relevant issues imperative to furthering the safety and well being of horses, both domestic and wild, in the United States. Habitat for Horses Advisory Council is a registered 501c4 non-profit corporation. P.O. Box 213, Hitchcock, TX 77563, p.1-800-974-FOTH  www.hfhadvisorycouncil.org

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was the first humane organization in the Western Hemisphere. Our mission, as stated by our founder, Henry Bergh, in 1866, is “to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States. 424 E. 92nd St New York, NY 10128-6804, p. 212-876-7700 www.aspca.org

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT ASSAULT ON WILD HORSES CONTINUES WITH “ZEROING OUT” IN MORIAH, NV STARTING TOMORROW

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

August 26, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment

Removal of 100 % of Moriah Mustangs Adds to 20 Million-Acre Habitat Loss for Wild Horses and Burros
Ely, Nevada (August 26, 2010). . . Beginning tomorrow, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is scheduled to roundup and remove every wild horse living in the Moriah Herd Area 48 miles north of Ely, Nevada. It will take the agency four days to capture, via helicopter stampede, the estimated 72 horses living in this 55,300 acre public lands area.
The action is part of the most aggressive government roundup effort in recent years, with 12,000 mustangs and burros targeted for removal from the Western range this year. The majority of captured mustangs will join the 38,000+ wild horses already warehoused in government holding facilities, a number that exceeds the population (<33,000) left free in the wild.

“The Moriah Herd Area is just the latest federally protected wild horse habitat to be ‘zeroed out’ by the Interior Department,” said Suzanne Roy, Campaign Director for the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, which is supported by a coalition of 40 public interest, conservation, historic preservation, horse advocacy and animal welfare organizations.
“Over the past four decades, BLM has eliminated more than 20 million acres of federally-designated habitat for wild horses and burros, shrinking the lands available to these Congressionally-protected animals to just 26 million acres,” she continued. “By contrast, livestock grazing is authorized on 160 million acres of BLM lands.”
In Moriah, BLM is claiming that removal of all of the 72 wild horses is necessary to improve rangeland health, yet the agency continues to authorize more than four times as many cattle – over 300 — to graze those same lands.
“In area after area, BLM sets arbitrarily low management levels for wild horses and allocates the majority of resources to livestock,” Roy concluded. “It’s clear that private commercial interests drive BLM policy, but the public is increasingly demanding change in the way our public lands are managed.”
Last month, 54 members of Congress sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging a halt to BLM roundups, citing concern about the trauma, injuries and deaths caused in the helicopter stampedes and raising questions about BLM’s “flawed” and “unsustainable” wild horse management policy.
Ranchers graze cattle on public land for a fraction of the cost of grazing on private land ($1.35 per Animal Unit Month (AUM) on public lands vs. an average of over $15 per AUM on private lands, according to the Congressional Research Service, 2009). Publicly-subsidized livestock grazing — dubbed “welfare ranching” — costs taxpayers in excess of $122 million annually, yet cattle grazed on public lands provide just 3% of the nation’s beef supply.
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign is dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage.
_______________________________

Twin Peaks Roundup Litchfield Corral

Horseback Magazine

Catch 22, BLM Hiding Identity of Landowners

August 5, 2010

By Steven Long, Photo by Terry Fitch
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The federal Bureau of Land Management is hiding the identity of landowners who are providing wild horse trap sites.
Journalist, author, and artist Laura Leigh won a major First Amendment victory in federal court when Reno’s Judge Larry Hicks ruled it unconstitutional for the BLM to bar observers and the press from observing wild horse “gathers.”
But she was barred by local deputies and threatened with if she pursued her recently won right to observe wild horse “gathers.” Why? Because the trap site used by the federal agency was located on privately owned land. Leigh was told the landowner would not allow press and public on his property.
BLM officials told her to get permission from the landowner if she wanted to see the horses.
“In the BLM response to my desire to observe Tuscarora (Owyhee specific) they claim that I should have independently contacted the landowner. How can I do that if they do not provide the trap site locations that are actually in use and the landowner’s information? Are we supposed to trespass and then ask the person listed on the summons?” she wrote to Horseback Magazine.
In a letter to BLM dated July 27^th, the magazine asked for the names and contact information for the landowners. The agency response – a stone wall reminiscent of the classic Joseph Heller anti bureaucracy satire, Catch 22.
The bureau responded through Washington spokeswoman Melodie Lloyd saying “Because of FOIA rules, we are unable to supply the name and contact information of landowners for the Calico and Tuscarora gathers.”
FOIA is government shorthand for the federal Freedom of Information Act whose goal is government openness. BLM is using the law to shield its cozy relationship with local landowners and to prevent observation of its activities.
Leigh had run into a bureaucratic obstacle as stout as the Berlin Wall of bygone days. To outsiders, that wall appears to have been erected for the same purpose as the original – to shield a government agency habitually accused of ham handed treatment of those outside its tight knit circle of ranchers, oil companies, and hunting interests.
Leigh was caught in a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak.
If the government won’t reveal who to ask regarding obtaining permission to step on private property, it’s impossible to step on the property without risking arrest, even though the government told Leigh to ask permission – Catch 22.
Lloyd also responded to another question posed by Horseback Magazine. How much is the government paying to lease the private property it uses? The answer was surprising, and again demonstrated the cozy relationship wild horse activists charge is enjoyed by Nevada ranchers and the federal agency with whom they lease grazing land at the fire sale price of $1.35 per month per cow.
“The BLM, in all the years it has been conducting wild horse and burro gathers in Western states, has never leased private property for use as a trap site or for holding pens. Taxpayer dollars have not been used in the past, and are not used today,” Lloyd responded extolling the Nevada landowner’s generosity.
Despite Judge Hicks’ ruling, the BLM is continuing to make it difficult to observe its activities. It appears determined to continue to take a hard line preventing unfettered press and public access to its secretive roundups according to today’s response from its Washington spokeswoman even though a federal judge has ruled that doing so is unconstitutional.
“When the gather site is located on private property, it is the landowner’s decision whether to allow anyone, including the BLM or contract gather personnel, access to his/her property. The BLM lacks jurisdiction over privately-owned lands and does not have the authority to grant access to the public to enter private lands. When the roundup site is located on public lands, the BLM will make arrangements to provide access to the public, keeping the safety and well-being of the horses and those performing the work as the top priority.”
Leigh has continued to file motions in her case against the government, a case in which government lawyers mislead the judge regarding the availability of easy access to water.
The site is chosen by the helicopter chase contractor, she said.
“When beginning preparations for a roundup, the BLM enters into an agreement with a gather contractor who consults with the Wild Horse and Burro Specialist to look at maps of the HMA and review the locations of previously used roundup sites. The gather contractor then scouts the herd management area by helicopter. Important factors taken into consideration when selecting a site are proximity to where the herds are located at the present time as well as where they normally travel within the HMA, the availability of water, the accessibility of roads and the topography of the land,” she said.
“Oftentimes private land roads, over which heavy vehicles must travel during a roundup, are superior to the BLM roads which can be more primitive. Ultimately, the selected site must be conducive to protecting the health and welfare of the animals being gathered and the safety of those conducting the gather. When the gather contractor identifies a suitable site, he must obtain concurrence from the BLM and then coordinate with the private landowner to secure authorization before beginning any preparations. For the recent Calico and Tuscarora gathers in Nevada, the gather sites used were “historical” sites that the BLM has used for the past 10 – 20 years.”
Finally, Horseback questioned recent reports from local landowners of horses leaving BLM pens in the dead of night. We asked if the agency would request the Justice Department to investigate whether animals were being stolen by department employees.
The BLM animal counts are historically inaccurate and activists have repeatedly called for independent investigations.
Again, BLM threw up its impenetrable stone wall.
“Since the BLM has provided information in answer to the allegations raised, we do not plan to involve the Department of Justice,”
When 54 members of Congress are petitioning for BLM roundups to stop, perhaps agency officials won’t have to ask the FBI to look into matters.

Breaking News:Plenty of Water at Nevada Roundup – And Dead Horses Too!

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/breaking-newsplenty-of-water-at-nevada-roundup-%e2%80%93-and-dead-horses-too/

By Steven Long, Photos by Katie Fite and Cattor Livestock Roundups

Exclusive from Horseback Magazine

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A federal helicopter chase contractor has acknowledged there was plenty of water in an Elko County, Nevada wild horse area, contradicting what government lawyers told a U.S. District Judge last month.

More to this Story ~ Photo by Katie Fite

She said that many of the horses in a large herd management area just didn’t know it was there and were kept in pastures far away.
In an exclusive interview with Horseback Magazine, Sue Cattoor of Cattoor Livestock Roundups, Inc. said the Owyhee River, the border of their most recent wild horse stampede dubbed the “Tuscarora Gather,” has enough water for vacationers to camp and fish, plus multiple trails leading down to water’s edge giving access to thirsty animals including horses.
A disturbing photo of a dead Palomino Wild Horse surfaced on the Internet and in news reports last week. The picture, taken by Western Watershed Project Biodiversity Director Katie Fite shows the horse laying in rocks below a cliff. Wild horse activists say the photo demonstrates the cruelty of a government program wasting millions of dollars that is out of control. Many of them believe that a Cattoor helicopter drove the horse over a cliff.
That is not true.
But a firestorm of outrage has swept across the desert sands of Nevada and the nation at what many believe is a government agency that has turned rogue. U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, (D) La has proposed that her colleagues consider removing the Wild Horse and Burro Program from federal Bureau of Land Management control.
And fifty-four members of Congress have petitioned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to end the capture of wild horses on land controlled by the BLM. They have asked the National Academy of Science to investigate the agency’s Wild Horse and Burro Program. More than 150 horses and foals died in the wake of a mid-winter roundup in Nevada’s Calico Mountains. The congressmen say that 21 horses have died at BLM’s hand thus far during and after the Tuscarora stampedes.
Reno federal Judge Larry Hicks imposed a temporary injunction that had stopped the agency from capturing horses after one day in which 12 horses died after being run eight miles in more than 100 degree July Nevada desert heat. He lifted the temporary restraining order after being told by government lawyers an emergency existed because horses needed to be captured since they faced the prospect of dying of thirst because there was no water in the desert.
In fact, the BLM trucked water into the area rather than driving them, as they are clearly capable of doing,  to a freely flowing river with abundant water.  But she says the bulk of the horses involved in the roundup were in three pastures away from the river.
Cattoor acknowledged that the Owyhee River has running water, and during the roundup an Idaho group was camping on its banks – and even fishing.
“They were just a little ways up from where the horses trail down to the river. It‘s almost like a miniature Grand Canyon. This particular spot of where the trail goes down in the canyon is where the horses go to water,” Cattoor said.
Cattoor also said that there are other trails leading to the river that would have been available to the horses, but “the horses aren’t using those trails. They are only using this one. A lot of those horses didn’t know that trail was there because a lot of the horses we captured in this HMA were young horses.”
Typically, foals follow their mothers to water, so in all likelihood, the young horses whose habitat is near the river had been exposed to the abundant water in the waterway and the riparian area on either side, despite Cattoors comments to the contrary.
But some horses came to the river fir the first time, she acknowledges. How did these lost horses get there? Were they driven there by a Cattoor helicopter, activist are certain to ask.
“After they were down in there, they did not know how to come out,” Cattoor said.
A wide trail leads down a gently sloping river bank to the river shown in a photograph on the Cattoor website http://www.wildhorseroundups.com . Sue Cattoor says the photo is deceptive and the trail is very steep.
Cattoor says that there has been ample water in recent years to sustain horses in the area.
“I find it odd that with all the months of planning by the BLM that occurs before a round-up there was no mention of lack of water for the horses in any of their documentation and then after the lawsuit was filed, it suddenly became an emergency,” said Vicki Tobin, co-founder of the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance.
“The BLM has authority to round-up horses in an emergency situation so if the horses were in such dire straits, they should have dealt with the situation long before the lawsuit was filed.”
Like many in the West steeped in a ranching tradition, Sue Cattoor believes the wild horse are livestock, not wild animals. That tradition views livestock as a commodity, nothing more. Something to be bought and sold. Ranchers have a very pronounced vision of how animals should be viewed, and Cattoor is no different.
“If they are wildlife, then why don’t they issue a license for them to be hunted?” she asks.
Cattoor said campers along the river mentioned that the wild horses were in the area when they first got there, however, there were no campers around during recent visits by others to confirm what the federal contractor says.
Visitors say they found evidence that there were traps set up along the river bottom. Cattoors counters that what they believe were the remnants of BLM pens were actually the abandoned campsites of the Idaho campers who had traveled to fish the river.
There are no witnesses to refute the allegation that horses could have been driven by a roaring helicopter into the area whose rugged features include jagged rocks and towering river banks. The horses also could have injured themselves on the sharp outcrops trying to escape something they feared and had never seen before.
“They climbed up on that ledge looking for a way out and didn‘t know how to get back out of it,” Cattoor said.
In a lengthy note on the company website Sue Cattoor explains her firm’s position in minute detail. The note is also accompanied by a photo of a broad well traveled trail leading to a flowing river filled with plenty of water. Another photo of the river shows steep cliffs. Cattoor denied Horseback Magazine permission to use the photos.
Sue Cattoor acknowledges the horses were injured trying to negotiate the rough terrain.
“They were moving around in those rocks, trying to go up and down to survive and would have gotten the injury in the rocks. Those horses were trying to find a way down”
She said the pocket of possible stragglers from the helicopter chase were discovered after the helicopter pilot and her husband flew over to speak with the campers they had seen along the river.
“When they flew over to talk to these campers, they discovered these horses on the opposite side of the river from where the trail was. They herded those horses that were up there back down to the river because those horses had ledged up there and they did not know how to get back down.”
But after the herd was driven down river, the two severely injured horses remained, Cattoor said. One was the Palomino horse later photographed dead by Fite.

Wild Horse on ledge before shot by David Cattoor from Chopper

The photo of the still living but injured Palomino horse was taken from the Cattoor helicopter and the wound appears to be to the bone. The photo was supplied to Horseback Magazine by Sue Cattoor.
Cattoor says the horse had vision problems and was old.
“There were two horses. One, the horses that she (Fite) took the picture of, and a foal that was caught in the crevasse of the rocks with broken legs that they had to go back and euthanize,” Cattoor said.
Former Horseback Magazine veterinary columnist Dr. Angela Chenault viewed the blown up photo and said the injury was possibly survivable, but “its not likely to have a good outcome on a feral horse. Aftercare is critical and even stalling this horse will be a problem mentally.”
The horse found by Fite was not driven over the cliff to its death by Dave Cattoor, it was shot by him from the helicopter with a high powered rifle.

Injury was NOT fresh but Cattoor still shot and killed Wild Horse from Chopper

“It happens on occasion because when we are out gathering horses, if we see something that has a pre-existing injury or if something is extremely old and needs to be put down, they will euthanize it in the field,” Cattoor said.
Dr. Chenault said the injury was not fresh.
“It’s difficult to say how old by the picture but I would say it is over 24 hours by the way the muscles look,” she said.
Activists will likely continue to believe the worst of the Cattoors and their company. And Sue Cattoor will continue to attempt to spin the image of a company that is compassionately capturing horses, even if some die in the process.
The helicopter contractor said that despite the judge’s ruling that observers be allowed to view the roundups, her company will not allow observers on horseback despite a long standing Horseback Magazine request to the BLM to do so.
“If they are on horseback they are going to interfere with the operation,” she said. “We never allow our wranglers to be on horseback when the helicopter is driving horses to the trap. We can’t have somebody there that might turn the horses back and cause problems.”
Cattoor said she would have no objection to observers who hiked in to the roundup area if they were accompanied by a BLM public relations person. In past “gathers” armed guards have prevented observers and the press from freely walking into the roundup area.
Despite encouragement from Cattoor for Horseback to observe a roundup, BLM has barred press and public in the trap area because recent ones have been located on private property. The agency claims landowners object to media and other observers on their land. However, when the BLM leases property for a site, it falls under federal control much like a post office building does when it is leased by the federal General Services Administration for public use. The landowner relinquishes control of his property to the control of the federal government.
Cattoor Livestock Roundups will not allow the media to fly as passengers in their helicopter citing prohibitions from their insurance company.
“I have no problem with the press coming out and watching if they want to, as long as they are absolutely not interfering with the gather and causing stress for the horses,” she said.
Cattoor also was critical during the interview of media reports of the numbers of horses which died “because of helicopter gathers.”
On the Calico roundup seven horses died in the field out of a total of more than 150 horses and unborn foals who met their deaths in captivity, including two foals who shed their hooves after being stampeded over rocky terrain in the dead of winter by a roaring helicopter.
“In this roundup we didn’t lose any on the actual HMA (herd management area). Others died for lack of water or too much water, or were destroyed for humane reasons,” Cattoor said.
“They are trying to stop roundups saying the helicopter gathers are cruel and inhumane and that’s not a fact,” she said. “The losses from Calico was because those horses were in very bad shape when they were captured because there wasn’t enough food out there.”
Photographs of the captured Calico horses by naturalist Craig Downer and wild horse litigant Laura Leigh show fat healthy horses even in the BLM hospital area.
And 54 members of Congress clearly want to knock Sue Cattoor and her company out of a job, temporarily at least.
And litigation continues in the courts to stop what the BLM benignly calls “gathers.”
_______________________________


_______________________________

Take THAT Debbie Collins -wildhorse@blm.gov ~ R.T.

A Day of Reckoning for the BLM?

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/a-day-of-reckoning-for-the-blm/

Image via Wikipedia

(The News as We See It) by R.T. Fitch
Today, a Federal judge will become fully aware and engaged in the fact that the Bureau of Land Management and their contractor Cattoor Livestock totally ignored the conditions of his order regarding the deadly Owyhee wild horse roundup.  Plaintiff Laura Leigh was denied access to the trap site but did manage to gather valuable information and evidence to prove that the BLM lied in their defense, last week, on many different levels and, as usual, the agency is acting above and outside of the law.
This entire mess begs the question, is any higher authority paying attention?  Here, again, we have a corrupt and dysfunctional government agency that considers congress, the senate, federal judges and the American people to be nothing more than small irritants that can be brushed aside while it breaks the law on a very grand scale.  Who is protecting this group, is it their big boss, cattleman Ken Salazar who everyone wants a piece of these days?  And who is looking out for Salazar and why is he still in office now that he has proven he cannot manage his own business and control his own agencies?  Would that be the President?  Why is Salazar so highly protected?  Why does the Obama administration hold onto such an obvious loser?  Why has the alleged “animal friendly” administration never, ever responded to the destruction of our wild herds?  Why?
The questions are many, the answers are few but one thing is for certain; Ms. Laura Leigh, American Citizen, will be in front of a Federal Judge today and it won’t be a good Monday for the BLM.  Some positive action in the way of controlling this rogue organization may help to bring back some confidence in our country’s future.
Otherwise, we and the horses are doomed.

To donate to the Wild Horse’s Legal Battle please visit http://www.grassrootshorse.com/

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BLM Helicopter Stampede Contractor Out of Control, AGAIN!

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/blm-helicopter-stampede-contractor-out-of-control-again/

Sue Cattoor speaking to her "hurt feelings" on camera 9/9/09 - Photo by R.T. Fitch

Just like a bad dream the wife of Obama’s Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) helicopter, wild horse stampede specialist is back complete with all of her trumped up “look at me” and “I know wild horses” bull crap, or in this case, welfare rancher manure.  Sue Cattoor is now a multimillionaire due to the BLM’s blood lust for wild horses and it is not enough for her just to rake in the millions of tax payer’s wasted money she wants to be an internet sensation, also.  She attempted to grab the spotlight, and was allowed that effort by the BLM, during the needless Pryor Mt. roundup and then attacked the media when the BLM admitted that her company had run the hooves off from foals during the bloody Calico disaster.  17 horses dead, and counting, in the first days of the Owyhee debacle and she is back on the internet highway showing her backside and raising the ire of anyone who has ever made it past the third grade.
Inserted, below, is a comment that the Queen of Dead Horses made to the Elko Free Press listed in its entirety.  The entire mess is there but we have reserved the right to edit/comment in red during her rant.  From the roar of helicopter blades to the flapping of Sue Cattor’s lips, the poor horses just don’t get a break.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am co-owner of Cattoor Livestock Roundup, the contractor doing the Tuscarora roundup. ( Sue, honey, the word is out and even Judge Hicks knows that it is NOT  just one roundup as you and the BLM would like us to believe.  It’s really three different areas that you are raining terror down upon but it’s just more fun to lump it all together so as to confuse the public, ain’t it?)
While Laura Leigh, Ginger Kathrens, Stephanie Boyles and others are sitting in their air-conditioned offices drinking bottled water and filing appeals, contacting news media and calling for a moratorium to stop all roundups, these wild horses that they are so worried about are getting very thirsty. (Here’s the deal, sweetheart, Laura is out in the desert trying to get to your trap site as ordered by a federal judge.  She is going to document your nonsense if the BLM ever follows the law so she is not in any AC wonderland.  Ginger has been camping out doing what you allege she never has done for the past 16 years, observing and documenting wild horse behavior {you ever done that?} Can’t answer for Ms. Boyles but even the likes of myself just spent a day repairing a fence line for the safety of our…what would we call them, er, hmmm,…Horses, you big bag of air and I did enjoy a sip of water from a garden hose.  You really think that you are special, don’t you?)
They say we should not be gathering — foals are too young — it is too hot — lots of acreage for the horses, and so on. They would, I guess, rather just let the horses die of thirst out here on the Nevada desert.  (Maybe we should remove the private cattle that are ruining our public lands, you numbskull.  Overall the average is about 50 cattle to 1 blinking wild horse and in the instance debated here the horses water is fenced off by the welfare ranchers and YOU know it.  So your harebrained idea of rescuing the horses is to stampede the thirsty creatures with one of your idiot helicopters across the desert in one of the hottest months of the year.  What sort of upside down form of thinking is that?  Your ignorance is stunning.)
First of all, let me say on Saturday we gathered 228 head of wild horses, so we saved over 200 head. (Head?  Oh yeah, I would have said horses but you always use the term “head” as horses are considered to be livestock, just like cattle, to you.  So “head” is your primeval term.  Gosh, just think, if you weren’t around there would have been 228 horses that could have seen the sunset last Saturday.  But you sleep well knowing that you ended the lives of more horses in one day than most reputable equine rescues save in a month.  You are just so very sweet, aren’t you?)
Second, the foals are not just newborn, most are early spring foals. (Oh, that’s good to know, thanks.  You aren’t just terrifying newborns but also foals who are only a few months old.  Didn’t 3 of them die last Saturday, Sweet!)
Third, the helicopter pilot did not stampede the wild horses for miles over rough terrain. The pilot slowly herded the horses to the trap. It was early in the morning and cool. (Give me a break, I have seen you in action as has the rest of the free world.  That’s why you are frantically trying to complete this mess before Laura gets there and can document the truth.  Seems that you herded the horses very slowly, right at the end, at the Pryor Mountain’s Press Day but once the press left and you were stuck with just we AC loving, bottled water engorged equine advocates you ran the living crap out of the horses.  Didn’t run their hooves off like you did at Calico but you sure rendered the bulk of the babies lame.  All of that was so very kind of you.)
Fourth, this roundup was originally scheduled to start on July 1. It was delayed mostly because of the actions of the anti-gather people.  (Always have to blame someone else, don’t you.  Not an ounce of accountability resides in your soul, just that craggy, withered index finger pointing somewhere other than at the mirror.  You are a mess.)
So, for 10 days the ponds were quickly drying up and the horses were running out of water. Now the reservoirs and seeps in the Star Ridge and Dry Lake Pastures are all dry. The horses on Star Ridge have access to the Owhyee River but only in one place down a very steep trail. The Owhyee River runs thru kind of a miniature grand canyon. Some of the older bands probably are going to the river but most do not know where it is and are afraid to go down in the canyon.  (Gosh, the horses have been there hundreds and hundreds of years but now they have suddenly contracted a serious case of stupid and can’t even find where water is.  It must be wonderful thinking that you are bringing so much joy to the lives of the wild souls who have been around for centuries without your wisdom.  You sure are smart, Sue…gotta hand it to ya.)
The BLM is hauling water to the reservoir, and we are hopeful that the wild horses will find this water while we wait for the judge to decide if we can gather these wild horses and get them on water. The Dry Lake horses can access the Desert Reservoir. But when wild horses are short of water they tend to band up in large bands. Then they all go to water at once. The lead horses sneak down to the river or reservoir and get a drink. They then come back through the waiting horses and often everyone follows the lead horses and some do not get a drink. I have seen this happen trying to capture wild horses by water trapping. Water trapping is a very cruel way to capture wild horses.  (Why don’t you simply go back home to Utah and then we would have the BLM remove the cattle fencing from around our publicly owned water holes so that the horses can have access just like they have since the beginning of time?  Would that be so difficult?  It would mean that you would not be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of honest people’s money but then again, don’t you have enough of our money already?  Just go away.)
The special interest groups are putting the blame on the BLM and the ranchers and us as the contractor. They got the Calico Roundup delayed last winter for a month and when we gathered we captured some very poor horses that later had trouble adjusting to feed. Now because of this delay we have lost horses from dehydration and water intoxication and the remaining horses are getting very thirsty. (The whining and finger pointing is getting old.  You are really, really digging when you publicly act like you really care about the horses.  How ironic, the very instrument of the wild horses suffering is proporting to be their savior.  I think I am going to barf.)
If only the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Specialist could just do their job, which is to manage the wild horses, there would always be lots of healthy wild horses out on the range. (Give me a break, the BLM could not manage their way out of a wet, paper bag let alone treat wild horses in a humane manner.  Not only can’t they count they are so sold out to big time special interests that they have fully lost sight of their mission and the law.  And you, the contractor, are right there in the middle of the mix violating our constitutional rights while you stuff your pockets full of our money.  That’s what it is all about isn’t it?  Money!  Both with the BLM and with you, neither of you give a gnats ass about the horses and you will concoct lies and untruths just to justify your skewed position and opinion.  All of you lost your way a long time ago and between yourself and the BLM the truth now means what you want it to be on an hourly basis.)
The time for the truth and accountability is now, the public wants to know and you can no longer hide.  We are there because we care about the horses, we are concerned about the future of our public lands and we surely want to have a say over how our money is being spent and one thing is for certain, we do not want our money to be spent on you.  Go home.