In Arizona

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Oppose Wild Horse Roundup in Oregon 265 Wild Horses Targeted for Removal

In Defense of Animals

Quick and easy way to send your comments!

Deadline: Comments Due Friday September 17 by 4:30 p.m. CT

Beginning in November, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) intends to round up – via helicopter stampede – 361 wild horses living in the Warm Springs HMA in Oregon. 265 of these wild horses, including foals, would be permanently removed, which is a 73-percent cut in the herd. The BLM claims this vast, 480,000-acre range can support only 96-187 horses plus 15 burros. Meanwhile the agency blm wild horse roundup helicopter

continues to allocate eight times more resources within this public land area to privately held livestock than to federally-protected wild horses.
The resource management plan (RMP) through which the “appropriate management level” or AML for wild horses was established dates back to 1992. Although AMLs are not supposed to include foals, the BLM is reducing the herd based on including them in the count. Click here for the Environmental Assessment for this proposed capture plan.
We must make our voices heard. The BLM and Congress must understand that Americans feel strongly about protecting our wild horses.

Please personalize the letter below, submit, and then use the "tell a friend" page that will appear to share this action alert with friends and family. Every voice counts. The deadline to submit comments is Friday, September 17 (emails must be received by 4:30 p.m. Central Time or if sent by U.S. mail, postmarked by Friday). Please be sure to include a mailing address so that the BLM does not have an excuse to dismiss your comments.
To send public comments via U.S. postal service or call to see if you can send a fax:
BLM Burns District Office
Attn: William Andersen, District Rangeland Management Specialist
28910 Hwy 20 West
Hines, OR 97738
Phone: 541-573-4400
Submit the form below to send your comments to:

BLM Burns District Office
President Obama, White House
Congress
SEND A MESSAGE! CLICK HERE.
_____________________________

BLM Horse Slaughter Business Gets DC’s Attention

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/blm-horse-slaughter-business-gets-dcs-attention/

Where Have All Your Wild Horses Gone?

Your Protected Wild Horses headed to Slaughter? ~ Photo by Terry Fitch

Wild horses are federally protected and cannot be sold in slaughter auctions. Feral domestic horses are not covered by the same laws. The two groups can look identical.

Animal advocates and Congress want the Bureau of Land Management to explain the criteria they use to determine which horse gets to live and which horse will die.

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Judge rules for Advocates of the West, against BLM in FOIA case

From Advocates for the West

Dear Friends,

On September 13, 2010, the District Court of Idaho granted Advocates for the West a victory in an important case under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and ordered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to disclose to the public basic information on its grazing program - including the names of livestock permittees authorized to grazing the public lands.

For the past 10 years or so, BLM has repeatedly refused to disclose the names of ranchers it allows to graze private livestock on your public lands across the west. BLM claimed that disclosing this basic information would cause an unwarranted invasion of privacy - even though these ranchers are operating on your public lands. And without this information, the public was unable to determine who grazed public lands, on which allotments, and with how many livestock.

In 2009, Advocates sued the BLM, claiming that it was violating FOIA by withholding this information, and Advocates argued that the public interest in BLM's grazing program outweighed any normal privacy interests. On September 13, 2010, the District Court of Idaho agreed, and held that there was "substantial public interest in understanding the scope of the grazing and rangeland program, particularly in light of the environmental impacts associated with grazing and the amount of tax dollars spent on the grazing program itself." This case is an important victory limiting BLM's ability to hide information from the public.

Advocates' Senior Staff Attorney Todd C. Tucci handled this case representing WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project. We would like to thank everyone involved in this case and Mark Salvo of WildEarth Guardians in particular for all his tireless work on this case.

Read the Judge's Order Here.

Thank you!

Todd C. Tucci, Senior Staff Attorney

Rescued Foal Slowly Improving - News Story - KRCR Redding

BLM veterinarian now says he knew Honey Bandit was losing weight in Litchfield corrals - National Equine Advocacy | Examiner.com

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Hot Literature: Who are the unwanted horses?

DVM 360 (veterinary Literature)

In 2007, the last equine slaughterhouse in the United States closed. While this practice continues in Canada and Mexico, the options available for most owners of unwanted horses began to change even before the final closure. North Carolina State University's College of Veterinary Medicine recently published a retrospective study looking at the demographics of horses donated to their Equine Health Center from 1996 to 2008. The goal was to determine the characteristics of horses being offered for donation during this period, including the basis for donation. Medical records for horses accepted for donation were reviewed, as well as telephone records of calls made by horse owners offering horses for donation.

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The Wild Free-Roaming Nature of Wild Horses

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign

There are approximately 30,000 wild horses in North America and approximately 2,000,000 domestic horses in the same area. How are they different? What might change in response to other resource uses? In the Rawlins RMP, the term “wild, free-roaming nature” is used to denote the difference.

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