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The Bureau of Land Management plans to Zero Out the Wild Horse population within the Humboldt Herd Area, located in the state of Nevada.The Round-Up will begin as soon as funding & holding space becomes available and take approximately 30 days to complete utilizing the bait/water trapping method.  The Winnemucca District, Humboldt River Field Office (HRFO) has issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Decision Record based on the analysis provided in the Humboldt Herd Area (HA) Gather Final Environmental Assessment (EA). The initial gather will begin as soon as funding and holding space becomes available and take approximately 30 days to complete utilizing the bait/water trapping method.
“The Humboldt HA was not designated for the long-term management of wild horses through the Sonoma-Gerlach Management Framework Plan due to the checkerboard land pattern found within the HA and, therefore, is not currently managed for wild horses or burros,” said Humboldt River Field Manager Vic Lozano. “Since this area is not a Herd Management Area managed for wild horses, these wild horses have been identified as excess.” The Humboldt HA is located about 30 miles south of Winnemucca, Nev. and extends along the east side of Interstate 80 to Lovelock, Nev. The proposed gather area is comprised of 431,544 acres of both private and public lands. There are currently an estimated 185 animals plus the 2014 foal crop on these lands. Some of the animals may have been missed in the gathers conducted in 1985 and 1993. Other wild horses may have migrated into the Humboldt HA from adjacent herd management areas (HMAs) due to overpopulation in those areas. The EA, FONSI, Decision Record and other documents can be found at http://on.doi.gov/1sr6Zme For more information on the background on the Humboldt Round Up Click Here Source: The Examiner, by Vania Maldonado  Carson City, Nev. – Governor Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 264 into law, officially authorizing the Nevada Dept. of Agriculture (NDA) to form cooperative agreements with non-profit organizations and local government agencies for the management of wild horses, or mustangs. The bill also increases criminal penalties for unauthorized capturing, retaining, or feeding of wild horses. While the law mainly affects mustangs, it also extends to any livestock running at large on public or private lands, unowned or with unknown owners, including cattle, equines, swine, goats, sheep, poultry, and alternative livestock (such as llamas or elk).
This law is a major milestone for animal advocacy groups like the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC), who describe themselves as a “coalition of more than 50 horse advocacy, public interest, and conservation organizations dedicated to preserving the American wild horse in viable, free-roaming herds for generations to come.” Since 2011, the AWHPC and other animal advocates have resorted to buying mustangs from NDA to prevent them from being sold at public auctions, where they are usually sold to businesses for slaughter, according to Equine Policy Examiner Carrol Abel. In September of 2012, NDA director Jim Barbee canceled this arrangement, forcing wild horse advocates to compete with other buyers at public auctions to save the animals from slaughter. This policy change “resulted in an overwhelming number of calls” to Governor Sandoval from concerned citizens, Abel reported. The protests finally came to a head last December, after shocking photographs were published on the Internet, of NDA security staff dragging a foal by her neck with a piece of twine. In December alone, the governor “received more than 18,000 faxes, letters and emails urging him to work with wild horse advocacy groups to protect the mustangs,” according to the AWHPC. Bo Rodriguez, the photographer who exposed the cruel abuse, responded to Internet comments on his pictures, “I did not enjoy taking these photos of the three week old foal being drug around by a piece of bailing twine, it was a long and traumatic [ordeal] for both protesters and horses. There has to be a better solution.” That solution began a month later, in January 2013, when Governor Sandoval finally yielded to the immense public pressure, and state officials met with AWHPC and the ASPCA to discuss a cooperative, humane approach to controlling the mustangs. According to AWHPC’s website, this meeting ultimately led to a signed agreement in March 2013 between NDA and Return to Freedom (the parent organization of AWHPC), allowing them to once again buy the wild horses before they are publicly auctioned, and work to place them in permanent homes. “We are pleased to enter into this agreement as a first step in implementing a humane program for the historic and locally-cherished wild horses of the Virginia Range. We look forward to the next step, implementation of cooperative agreements for the range control of the horses. A host of solutions – including birth control, fencing, and diversionary feeding and watering – are available to mitigate public safety concerns,” said Neda DeMayo, Founder and President of Return To Freedom, as reported on their website. Now that AB 264 has become law, the next step can begin, and the mustangs can finally run free. Source: Las Vegas Sun, by Cy Ryan  Despite receiving nearly 20,000 letters and an outcry from horse lovers throughout the county, Nevada Governor, Brian Sandoval, has decided to let 41 wild horses captured on state land go to auction. Sandoval said he received letters from the Hidden Valley Wild Horse Protection Fund, including many from out of state, asking him to stop the state Agriculture Department from auctioning off the horses on Wednesday.
He said he was going to let Agriculture Department "do its job" and "There is no reason not to conduct the auction," he said. The mustangs roamed on state lands south of Reno all the way to Highway 50 east of Carson City looking for food. Agriculture officials said they wander onto roads, causing hazardous situations. The protection fund asked the governor to halt the auction and turn the horses over to it for care of the mustangs and to find them a home. Advocates say the buyers at these auctions will ship them to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/jan/08/despite-activist-pleas-sandoval-permit-wild-horse-/ |
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