Mandy
03-08-2005, 03:15 PM
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.wildhorse07mar07,1,3894486.story?coll=bal-opinion-healines&ctrack=1cset=true
Opinion - No home on the range
Originally published March 7, 2005
HALF A century ago, a Nevada woman known as Wild Horse Annie launched
a crusade to protect free-roaming horses and burros being destroyed
or driven so rapidly from the Western range they faced extinction.
The equines mostly descend from those brought to the continent by
European explorers but have a rich heritage in the American West.
Velma B. Johnston, as Annie was more properly addressed, aroused
broad support that eventually led to a 1971 law protecting herds on
public lands and mandating that federal officials look after them.
Now, her romantic notion has gone horribly awry.
Through a combination of bureaucratic mismanagement and congressional
neglect, the horse population has outgrown its space. As many as
8,200 animals could soon be slaughtered and sent overseas as a
diner's delicacy - a drastic response that wouldn't even solve the
problem.
This needless destruction of a treasured national resource must be
prevented. The Bush administration should allow the condemned animals
to remain in their sanctuaries until Congress puts in place a more
effective plan for managing herd population in the wild and for
matching excess horses and burros with adopters able to give them
homes.
And not just for sentimental reasons. Disposing of these picturesque
creatures that Americans have deemed worthy of special protection
rewards a job done badly and punishes its victims. Further, there is
an important role these horses can play in prison rehabilitation and
job training, which more than justifies their keep.
The same forces Wild Horse Annie battled are still working to
undermine political support for her cause. Cattle ranchers complain
that wild horses compete with their herds for forage. Bureaucrats who
oversee public lands complain of conflicting missions requiring them
to accommodate miners, drillers and environmental protectors as well
as horses and cattle. Lawmakers pay attention when there's a public
clamor, but not many seem committed to the wild horse program.
Adoption is the single most important factor in keeping the wild
horse population under control. Yet, as conducted by the Bureau of
Land Management, the adoption program is too unwieldy to meet its
goals. A consultant's plan for a more aggressive marketing operation
has been largely ignored.
The agency has also dragged its feet on using contraception, another
tool that would help control herd size. Thus, when the Western ranges
become too crowded, horses are rounded up and taken to sanctuaries,
where the cost of their care consumes an ever-larger share of the BLM
budget.
Congress effectively threw up its hands last fall and passed
legislation allowing horses 10 or older and those put up for adoption
three times unsuccessfully to be sold for slaughter. The BLM issued a
last-ditch appeal to Indian tribes and animal rights groups, and sold
the first batch of 200 mares last week for $50 each to a Wyoming
rancher who promises to protect them. But there are no guarantees.
A lobbying campaign kicks off on Capitol Hill today urging
reinstatement of the ban on selling wild horses and burros for
slaughter - just the first step lawmakers must take to fulfill their
responsibility as stewards and protectors of animals as much an
American icon as the bald eagle.
Next must follow development of a workable plan for managing the
horse population, including marketing of adoptions through the
private sector, tactical use of contraception and development of more
horse training programs at prisons, for the benefit of the animals
and the inmates.
The task is doable; the tools are available. What's needed are
lawmakers who will live up to the expectations of Wild Horse Annie
when she worked so hard to put the animals under their protection.
NOTE: If you want to know more, do a google search for burns+amendment or wild+horse+slaughter and 2 dozen articles about this issue will pop up.
The facts below may NOT be 100% accurate with regards to numbers and names of individuals or government agencies because these are things I remember reading in various other articles and tried to remember well enough to write here to point out. However, the general statements ARE true.
An important fact they left out was that there are 40,000 wild horses, and 4 million cattle in the same public land. How can the enviroment not sustain 40,000 horses which DO NOT damage the land as much as cattle do (cattle will graze one spot down til theres nothing left, they trample water holes until they are muddy puddles) and can perfectly sustain 4 million cattle?
The equivalent of one third of the BLM budget for the wild horse program is spent on predator removal so that the cattle can graze safely. I can't remember which agency does it but I know it's paid for by tax dollars. The same people who are supposedly trying to protect the environment, are killing natural predators for the sake of farm cattle?
BLM is based in the north-east where they don't even HAVE wild horses.
There are 8,000 wild horses in sanctuaries. The BLM is trying to get rid of these as quickly as possible. The larger your 'order' for horses is, the sooner you get them. If a single kill buyer put in an order for 8,000 horses and 8,000 individual adopters offered to adopt one horse, the kill buyer would get every single horse and they would ALL be sent to slaughter.
An independent group did a study to refute the claim that there are 19,000-some horses in Nevada. They did air counts and counts from the ground and, while they found skeletons, they found NOWHERE NEAR the number of animals the BLM says are in nevada. I think it was something like 6,000.
Opinion - No home on the range
Originally published March 7, 2005
HALF A century ago, a Nevada woman known as Wild Horse Annie launched
a crusade to protect free-roaming horses and burros being destroyed
or driven so rapidly from the Western range they faced extinction.
The equines mostly descend from those brought to the continent by
European explorers but have a rich heritage in the American West.
Velma B. Johnston, as Annie was more properly addressed, aroused
broad support that eventually led to a 1971 law protecting herds on
public lands and mandating that federal officials look after them.
Now, her romantic notion has gone horribly awry.
Through a combination of bureaucratic mismanagement and congressional
neglect, the horse population has outgrown its space. As many as
8,200 animals could soon be slaughtered and sent overseas as a
diner's delicacy - a drastic response that wouldn't even solve the
problem.
This needless destruction of a treasured national resource must be
prevented. The Bush administration should allow the condemned animals
to remain in their sanctuaries until Congress puts in place a more
effective plan for managing herd population in the wild and for
matching excess horses and burros with adopters able to give them
homes.
And not just for sentimental reasons. Disposing of these picturesque
creatures that Americans have deemed worthy of special protection
rewards a job done badly and punishes its victims. Further, there is
an important role these horses can play in prison rehabilitation and
job training, which more than justifies their keep.
The same forces Wild Horse Annie battled are still working to
undermine political support for her cause. Cattle ranchers complain
that wild horses compete with their herds for forage. Bureaucrats who
oversee public lands complain of conflicting missions requiring them
to accommodate miners, drillers and environmental protectors as well
as horses and cattle. Lawmakers pay attention when there's a public
clamor, but not many seem committed to the wild horse program.
Adoption is the single most important factor in keeping the wild
horse population under control. Yet, as conducted by the Bureau of
Land Management, the adoption program is too unwieldy to meet its
goals. A consultant's plan for a more aggressive marketing operation
has been largely ignored.
The agency has also dragged its feet on using contraception, another
tool that would help control herd size. Thus, when the Western ranges
become too crowded, horses are rounded up and taken to sanctuaries,
where the cost of their care consumes an ever-larger share of the BLM
budget.
Congress effectively threw up its hands last fall and passed
legislation allowing horses 10 or older and those put up for adoption
three times unsuccessfully to be sold for slaughter. The BLM issued a
last-ditch appeal to Indian tribes and animal rights groups, and sold
the first batch of 200 mares last week for $50 each to a Wyoming
rancher who promises to protect them. But there are no guarantees.
A lobbying campaign kicks off on Capitol Hill today urging
reinstatement of the ban on selling wild horses and burros for
slaughter - just the first step lawmakers must take to fulfill their
responsibility as stewards and protectors of animals as much an
American icon as the bald eagle.
Next must follow development of a workable plan for managing the
horse population, including marketing of adoptions through the
private sector, tactical use of contraception and development of more
horse training programs at prisons, for the benefit of the animals
and the inmates.
The task is doable; the tools are available. What's needed are
lawmakers who will live up to the expectations of Wild Horse Annie
when she worked so hard to put the animals under their protection.
NOTE: If you want to know more, do a google search for burns+amendment or wild+horse+slaughter and 2 dozen articles about this issue will pop up.
The facts below may NOT be 100% accurate with regards to numbers and names of individuals or government agencies because these are things I remember reading in various other articles and tried to remember well enough to write here to point out. However, the general statements ARE true.
An important fact they left out was that there are 40,000 wild horses, and 4 million cattle in the same public land. How can the enviroment not sustain 40,000 horses which DO NOT damage the land as much as cattle do (cattle will graze one spot down til theres nothing left, they trample water holes until they are muddy puddles) and can perfectly sustain 4 million cattle?
The equivalent of one third of the BLM budget for the wild horse program is spent on predator removal so that the cattle can graze safely. I can't remember which agency does it but I know it's paid for by tax dollars. The same people who are supposedly trying to protect the environment, are killing natural predators for the sake of farm cattle?
BLM is based in the north-east where they don't even HAVE wild horses.
There are 8,000 wild horses in sanctuaries. The BLM is trying to get rid of these as quickly as possible. The larger your 'order' for horses is, the sooner you get them. If a single kill buyer put in an order for 8,000 horses and 8,000 individual adopters offered to adopt one horse, the kill buyer would get every single horse and they would ALL be sent to slaughter.
An independent group did a study to refute the claim that there are 19,000-some horses in Nevada. They did air counts and counts from the ground and, while they found skeletons, they found NOWHERE NEAR the number of animals the BLM says are in nevada. I think it was something like 6,000.