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Congressional Democrats are demanding the Interior Department produce an overdue report on plans to manage wild horses roaming federal lands in the West after the head of its public lands agency told reporters it will take $5 billion and 15 years to get overpopulated herds under control.
William Perry Pendley, acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, said last week he's increasingly optimistic his agency will eventually be able to reduce the herd sizes through stepped-up roundups and increased use of fertility control on the range. The department outlined a series of options in an April 2018 report that included those ideas as well as the possibilities of sterilizing horses, paying private parties to adopt them and again reviewing the controversial idea of euthanizing some animals.
Congressman Joe Neguse (D-CO) led a letter to Secretary David Bernhardt at the Department of the Interior requesting an analytical report on the management of wild horses and burros in the United States. This letter follows two attempts by Congress to request a management report from the Bureau of Land Management, the first of which did not provide sufficient analytical data and the second of which has not been provided by the required deadline. Congressman
Joining Congressman Neguse as signatories were U.S. Representatives Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Deb Haaland (D-NM), Ro Kanna (D-CA, Andy Levin (D-MI), James McGovern (D-MA) and Ted Lieu (D-CA).
Wild Mustang Advocates Say $35 Million Population Control Plan Puts Herds on a 'Path to Extinction'9/30/2019
The 10 Years to AML: Path Forward for Management of BLM's Wild Horses and Burros is an agenda of the livestock industry, which aims to eradicate wild horses from America's public lands.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved $35 million last week for the program supported by an unprecedented alliance including the Humane Society of the United States, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and American Farm Bureau Federation. They say it would eliminate the threat of slaughter for thousands of free-roaming horses and shrink the size of herds primarily through expanded fertility controls on the range. Critics say it drops long-held opposition to the capture of mustangs across 10 western states and could allow for sterilization of mares — a hot-button issue with horse protection advocates historically. They had sought a $50 million increase in the BLM’s $80 million annual horse budget, arguing any boost in spending on contraception and other population controls ultimately will save money as herds shrink. “This is a historic moment for our herds, containing the strongest language protecting wild horses and burros we have ever seen in an annual appropriations bill,” Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the ASPCA, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press on Friday. He said it increases “commitments to protect these animals from killing or sale to slaughter.” If implemented, “we’ll see massive round-ups, swelling captive wild horse population and jubilation from cattlemen’s associations that secured political cover from the Humane Society for their long-time aspiration to secure a government-funded wild horse depopulation program,” Marty Irby, executive director of Animal Wellness Action, said after the vote. BLM estimated 88,000 wild horses and burros are roaming public rangelands, more than three times what the agency says the land can support. Another 50,000 that have been removed from the range in recent years were in holding facilities at an annual cost of about $50 million. Horse advocates have argued the animals must be permitted to roam the range in federally protected management areas established under the Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. They say BLM’s population quotas are often outdated and lack scientific data to support roundups to cull herd sizes. Ginger Kathrens, director of The Cloud Foundation based in Colorado, said the new initiative dubbed the “Path Forward” should be called the “path to extinction.” She said it sets population targets to less than 27,000 — the total when federal protections first were enacted nearly a half-century ago. “The extinction-level number is what caused Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Horse and Burro Act,” she said. Source: Time Magazine Today, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a Fiscal Year 2020 spending bill that includes a shocking $35 million in funding to implement a potentially catastrophic mass mustang roundup proposal promoted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the so-called “American Mustang Foundation” and other agribusiness lobbying groups and, shockingly, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the ASPCA, and Return to Freedom, a sanctuary.
It could increase the number of horses to 150,000 maintained in captivity at taxpayer expense with no guarantee of funding for their long-term care. "This scheme is the biggest threat to wild horses and burros in the West in decades, and the American taxpayer is going to finance the whole shebang” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action and a lifelong horseman. “If this ghastly plan is implemented, we'll see massive round-ups, swelling captive wild horse populations, and jubilation from cattlemen's associations that secured political cover from the Humane Society of the U.S., Humane Society Legislative Fund, and ASPCA for their long-time aspiration to secure a government-funded wild horse depopulation program." Background: Key components of the “controversial and dangerous” cattlemen’s proposal includes:
Humane solutions that should be implemented instead:
We might as well call this what it is: “The Path Backward” or “The Path to Extinction,” since they’re reducing wild horses to the number that existed in 1971, stated Ginger Kathrens, Director of The Cloud Foundation. That extinction-level number is what caused Congress to unanimously pass the Wild Horse and Burro Act. This 'plan' will rip tens of thousands of horses and burros from their dedicated land and their families at catastrophic cost to the American taxpayer billions of dollars spent to incarcerate them in cramped corrals for the rest of their lives, except for the few that are adopted. Why? So private livestock interests, (subsidized by the BLM through your tax dollars), can run cattle on public lands. It's time for the American people to stand up and say, 'No more. Not with my tax dollars. There are better programs to spend these billions of dollars on than this.' |
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