Park Service signs deal to round up Death Valley’s wild burros

A wild burro stands in Death Valley National Park. The agency has entered into a five-year agreement with a nonprofit rescue group to remove all burros from the park. (National Park Service)

By Henry Brean
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Death Valley National Park hopes to be burro-free within the next five years.

The National Park Service said Thursday it has entered into a contract with Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue, a Texas-based nonprofit, to round up and remove up to 2,500 wild burros from the park 100 miles west of Las Vegas.

The animals are not native to Death Valley, but they have made themselves at home there, said park Superintendent Mike Reynolds. They damage springs and vegetation, create a safety hazard on park roads and compete for food and water with desert bighorn sheep and other native animals.

“Burros are not part of the natural California desert ecosystem,” Reynolds said in a written statement. “With this partnership, we have created a win-win situation for the burros, the park and taxpayers.”

Starting later this month, Peaceful Valley will lure the animals with food and water or drive them with wranglers on horseback into temporary pens. The burros will then be trucked out of the park to training centers to be prepped for adoption.

“Our main objective is to protect our wild burros. If they must be removed, we want to ensure that it is done safely with as little stress possible,” Mark Meyers, the rescue group’s executive director, said in a written statement.

“This is what they do,” Death Valley spokeswoman Abby Wines said of Peaceful Valley. “Their main mission is to rescue burros and put them up for adoption.”

Wines said the group has agreed to find room at one of its sanctuaries for any animals that can’t be trained or placed in new homes.

Pleasant Valley also plans to remove up to 2,500 wild burros from nearby Mojave National Preserve in California under the same five-year contract.

The operation is being paid for with private donations and grants to the group. Wines said the cost to the federal government is “pretty close to zero.”

Eliminating wild burros from Death Valley has been the Park Service’s stated goal since the adoption of a master plan for the 3.4 million acre park in 2002, but no roundups have been conducted since 2005.

So why now? “They’re multiplying,” Wines said. “We don’t really know what our population is, but we think it’s in the neighborhood of 2,000.”

The largest concentrations of burros can be found in Saline and Butte valleys and in the Wildrose area, she said, but the animals also have recently shown up in the Black Mountains south of Dantes View for the first time since the 1940s.

The National Park Service is allowed to remove them because it is not bound by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which requires the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to manage and maintain the animals on public land.

The wild burros of today are not related to the larger animals used in the 20-mule teams that famously hauled borax out of Death Valley in the late 1800s, but Wines said they may be the descendants of old pack animals once used by prospectors in the region.

“That’s the foundation of the wild population in the West,” she said.

The Park Service doesn’t expect the upcoming roundup to eliminate the burro problem entirely.

For one thing, Wines said, “it will be very hard to get all of them.”

And there is nothing to stop burros from neighboring parts of Nevada and California from making their way into Death Valley some day.

“We’re not going to fence the park,” Wines said.

Madeleine Pickens' losing battle with the BLM

Wild horses of the endangered Mustang Monument ranch property.

By George Knapp, Matt Adams
Las Vegas Now

LAS VEGAS -- A $25 million eco-sanctuary meant to be a tourist attraction for rural Nevada is closed and may never re-open.

The Mustang Monument in Elko County was created as an alternative for the troubled wild horse program, but the Bureau of Land Management has stopped the project from moving forward.

The I-Team has obtained internal documents which show that what the BLM said in public is much different from what it thought in private.

The wild horse program is through by many to be the worst program in the federal government. Bad for the horses, bad for the range, bad for the taxpayers.

Every two or three years, the feds pay for an expensive study, and every study concludes that BLM needs to try something different.

BLM always reacts the same. It ignores the recommendations.

Mustang Monument was going to be a public private partnership -- a radical change good for the horses, the range and the taxpayers.

The public records request shows it never had a chance.

"This is a new batch obviously, these young ones," said Jerry Reynoldson.

At a corral on the Mustang Monument property, veteran wild horse advocate Jerry Reynoldson checks out some new arrivals. For more than 25 years, Reynoldson has tried to work with BLM on solutions to its troubled wild horse program, and he's been a key advisor to Madeleine Pickens in her development of the mustang monument as a model for what could be done, but both now believe BLM was never going to allow it to happen.

An obscure road is an example, Pickens planned to use it to transport tourists from her guest accommodations to deeded property on the other side of her range for cookouts and to see the herd of horses that was living out there, that is, until vandals cut the fences and the horses either died or ran off. BLM won't allow the use of the rarely traveled access road.

"BLM has given her four or five pages of questions about what she would do on the road which include, where would people go to the bathroom? The answer is, it's a short enough drive they wouldn't go anywhere but they don't want to know where, they want to know how many times would they stop, how many times would they need to use a facility. Silly questions," Reynoldson said.

A road that's been trod for a century by cows, sheep and horses can't be used to transport visitors because someone might have to pee.

BLM is making sure they keep putting their foot out and tripping me up every time," said Mustang Monument founder Madeleine Pickens. "I keep getting up, they stop me."

Pickens spent $6 million for two sprawling ranches because she was encouraged to do so by BLM. She offered to get other investors to buy another 2 million acres, and take all 30,000 wild horses the BLM had in storage, a plan which BLM admits would save the taxpayers more than $100 million in just five years.

In public statements, BLM said it wanted to work with Pickens, but privately, it's another matter. Public records obtained by the I-Team show that BLM staff plotted the demise of Pickens plan from the beginning. A 2008 white paper discusses how the law could be used to prevent the project. BLM blacked out the details as being privileged information.

BLM declined to be interviewed for this report, but in a written statement explained why, after seven years, the bureau still has not completed an environmental review. We need more information, the BLM told the I-Team and since there are "unresolved issues" with the Pickens plan, no such analysis would be appropriate.

In one candid memo, BLM admits an unspoken concern that the proposal would be politically perilous in cattle-friendly Elko County.

BLM staffers imposed ever-changing conditions that they knew would stir up opposition, not only from ranchers but also from wild horse advocates, such as forcing the roundup of existing horses on the range, making all of the Pickens horses sterile, and putting fences around the entire public acreage.

In 2015, BLM finally tipped its hand. When Pickens asked during a meeting what it would take to get the necessary permits, bureau staffers issued a startling demand.

"They said, we've had internal discussions. If you'd be willing to surrender your grazing and water rights, we could work with you on the project," Reynoldson said.

Giving up the grazing and water rights would in effect mean giving up the property itself. Pickens was stunned, and decided soon after that the monument would not open in 2016 for visitors, knowing BLM would never allow it.

"The BLM, the Interior Department have blown up stories and created fabricated issues that simply don't exist. The only thing I can say is, it's a failed program. It's a failed agency. I feel sorry for them. Every time I do something, they fine me, or they find a way to come and get me. It's a witch hunt," Pickens said.

The Mustang Monument opened for a period last year and high-end tourists, especially foreign visitors, they loved it. Pickens already had reservations lined up for this year, but she never opened because the BLM wouldn't allow her to move forward and also because of opposition from Elko County officials and residents.

MOJAVE DESERT: Reward offered in burro death

Burros rounded up from public land in the West are held in BLM corrals until adopters can be found. (File photo)

BY David Danelski
Press-Enterprise

The federal government is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever killed and butchered a wild burro on public land in northeast San Bernardino County.

A biologist found the carcass earlier this month in the Ivanpah Valley, near the site of a solar energy project under construction next to Interstate 15 a few miles from Primm, Nevada.

The animal appeared to have been cut up at the site for its meat, said David Briery, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman. Whoever killed the burro left behind its head and ribcage.

Burros are protected under the federal Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. The law makes it illegal to kill them.

“We are working with other agencies to bring the responsible parties to justice and hope members of the public will provide us with helpful information,” said Amy Dumas, a BLM wild horse and burro specialist, in a news release.

Anyone with information about the dead burro can contact Chief Ranger Brad Baron at 760-326-7000.

The bureau regularly uses helicopters to round up wild burros on public land in Southern California and throughout the West when theirs ranges are deemed to be overpopulated. Some of the animals are taken to holding corrals in Ridgecrest and later offered for adoption.

The BLM regularly brings horses and burros to the Sundance Ranch off San Timoteo Canyon Road in Redlands for adoption events.

As of November, about 1,100 burros rounded up in the West were being held in federal corrals, according to a BLM website.

Feds Plan Roundup for 3,500 Wild Horses, Burros

A wild stallion runs for freedom after jumping over the fence of a holding area during a wild horse roundup in the Clan Alpine Range in Fallon, Nev., about 120 miles east of Reno, Nev. (AP file photo)

Paul Foy
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — Federal officials plan to round up thousands of wild horses and burros across six Western states starting today, Monday.

The roundups will take place through February on drought-stricken range lands in Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

Contractors for the Bureau of Land Management will use helicopters plus bait- and water-trapping methods to corral 3,500 wild horses and burros, officials said.

In addition, more than 900 other horses will be captured for birth control injections and returned to range lands.

The government is already holding 47,000 horses, most of them on green pasture in the Midwest. Bureau of Land Management officials said it was a popular misconception that they send horses to slaughterhouses. The animals are protected under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.

A small number of horses are put up for adoption, but most horses are kept until their final days in permanent corrals, officials said.

Owners of adopted horses must swear under the penalty of law that they do not plan to send horses to slaughter, said Heather Emmons, a BLM spokeswoman in Reno, Nev.

The BLM's ability to care for ever-rising numbers of wild horses is a decision left to Congress, she said. The BLM says there are 11,000 more wild horses roaming public lands across the West than belong there.

In all, there are 37,300 wild horses and burros on public range lands across 10 Western states, the government says.

Officials said they have no choice but to cull wild horse herds. With virtually no predators, they say, the herds can double in population every four years.

Horse advocacy groups have been critical of government roundups and what they call the rough treatment of horses gathered up.

"They aren't placing enough wild horses through adoption so they need to put a freeze on roundups," said Anne Novak, executive director of Berkeley, Calif.-based group Protect Mustangs. "Killing them is not a solution. Selling them to slaughter is not a solution. They need to be responsible for their actions and stop the gluttony of roundups at taxpayer expense."

BLM officials say comments suggesting they kill horses are irresponsible.

"We do not send horses to slaughterhouses," said Chris Hanefeld, a BLM spokesman in Ely, Nev. "You can quote me."

Several multi-month roundups will get under way across Nevada starting Monday. Officials plan to hold those horses at pens at Palomino Valley near Reno or at Utah's Gunnison Correctional Facility until they can be prepared for adoption or sent to long-term pasture in the Midwest.

Utah

One 400-horse roundup is planned for the Cedar Mountain herd, known as "Utah's Rainbow Herd" because of its high number of pintos, roans, buckskins and grays. The herd is thought to be related to the mounts that the Standard Horse and Mule Co. supplied the U.S. Cavalry in the late 1800s.

Officials say they will release 250 of the Cedar Mountain horses after injecting them with a contraceptive. Roundups also will take place in two other Utah locations.

New Mexico

Officials say 102 horses will be rounded up — and 66 later released — on the Carson National Forest. Another roundup will take place for 365 horses in the high desert of the Jiicarilla Wild Horse Territory. Ninety of those horses will be returned to the land after fertility injections.

Oregon

105 horses will be removed from the Murderer's Creek management area near Mount Vernon. None will be returned.

Idaho

274 horses will be captured — and 137 released — on national forest land along the East Fork of the Salmon River. The BLM says this herd is comprised of a hardy, genetically diverse stock roaming across more than 240 square miles of mountains.

Wyoming

810 horses will be rounded up — and 580 released — near Riverton. Another roundup is planned for 90 horses in the McCullough Peaks region near Cody. Twenty of those horses will be released to the range.

This is of the government's most widespread roundups. Horse advocates say the practice should be scaled back.

"Rounding up only the number of wild horses they can adopt out is a viable solution that makes fiscal sense," Novak said.

Madeleine Pickens purchases Nevada ranch, hopes to relocate wild horses there

Wild horses run as they are gathered by the Bureau of Land Management in the Conger Mountains of Utah on Sept. 8. (Jim Urquhart / Reuters)

Martin Griffith
Associated Press

RENO, Nev. — Madeleine Pickens, the wife of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has bought a sprawling Nevada ranch to serve as a wild horse sanctuary that would keep mustangs on the range instead of in government-funded holding facilities.

If approved by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the move would mark the first time the government has released a large number of mustangs to such a facility.

Pickens is hoping to initially relocate 1,000 horses to the 14,000-acre Spruce Ranch about 70 miles east of Elko. Eventually, she wants to return all 34,000 horses in government-funded holding facilities and pastures to their natural habitat.

"It's such a huge beginning," Pickens told the Associated Press. "I plan to buy more property out there. There's such an overload of horses in government holding."

Pickens said BLM Deputy Director Mike Pool expressed support for the plan during meetings with her last month in Washington.

BLM officials said they recently received a formal written proposal from Pickens and must review it before taking an official position.

"We're encouraged by the recent meetings with her," BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington said. "We're looking forward to working with her to put the wild horse program on a sustainable track."

Pickens purchased the ranch, which she plans to rename the Mustang Monument preserve, for an undisclosed price. The property comes with grazing rights on 540,000 acres of public land.

Pickens also is negotiating to buy an adjoining 4,000-acre ranch that has grazing rights for 24,000 acres of public land.

Pickens first proposed establishing a wild horse sanctuary in 2008 after the BLM said it was considering euthanasia as a way to stem escalating costs of keeping animals gathered from the open range.

However, the BLM rejected her initial proposal, saying it involved the use of public land where wild horses did not exist when the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was enacted in 1971. Federal law restricts mustangs from such areas.

Jerry Reynoldson, a consultant to Pickens and a former aide of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the latest proposal addresses that issue, and wild horses have historically lived in the area.

"What was always holding this sanctuary up was she didn't own a ranch," Reynoldson said. "Everything changed when she bought the ranch. This moves it from the conceptual talking stage to reality."

Under Pickens' latest proposal, a nonprofit foundation would care for the animals with a government stipend of $500 a head, per year. An education center and lodging facilities would be built, and the preserve would be fenced to confine horses.

"[The] wild horse eco-sanctuary will give them their natural habitat back, along with a place that Americans can come and view the horses and learn about the land and American culture," said Stacie Daigle of Pickens' Saving America's Mustangs group.

About 33,700 wild horses roam freely in 10 Western states, about half in Nevada. The BLM set a target level of 26,600 horses and burros in the wild to protect the herd, the range and native wildlife, and rounds up excess horses and offers them for adoption.

Those that are too old or considered unadoptable are sent to long-term holding facilities, where they can live for decades.

Of the $63.9 million designated for the BLM's wild horse and burro program in fiscal 2010, holding costs exceeded $38 million, BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said. More than 8,000 horses are in short-term holding and 25,700 are in long-term pastures in the Midwest.

"The BLM has a moral and fiscal responsibility to do something because they took the horses off public lands and created this debacle," Pickens said.

BLM approves Nevada wild horse roundup

Wild horses after a roundup at the Caliente Complex near Panaca, Nev. on October 5, 2009. The BLM says as many as 25,000 of the horses need to be removed from public lands because of suffering due to a lack of forage. (AP Photo/Bureau of Land Management, Ben Noyes, File)

By SANDRA CHEREB
Associated Press

CARSON CITY, Nev. — The Bureau of Land Management approved the removal of 2,500 wild horses from the range near Reno on Monday as opposition grows to what would be one of the largest mustang roundups in Nevada in recent years.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is to hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit filed to block the roundup planned for later this month.

The gather is part of the BLM's overall strategy to remove thousands of mustangs from public lands around the West and ship them to greener pastures in the East. The BLM estimates about half of the 36,600 wild mustangs live in Nevada. It wants to reduce the overall population to what it considers an "appropriate management level" of 26,600.

In its decision involving the 2,500 Nevada horses, the BLM said removal of the mustangs is needed to bring population numbers down in the Calico Mountains Complex to prevent habitat deterioration.

The agency estimates that more than 3,000 mustangs roam the five herd management areas near the Black Rock Desert that make up the complex. It wants to reduce the population to about 570 by removing horses and treating others with birth control.

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said the agency in 2000 set what it deemed to be appropriate horse populations for areas in Nevada, and has been working since to achieve those goals. In 2002, about 2,200 horses were taken each from the Calico area and another area near Elko. Smaller gathers have been ongoing.

Horses taken from the range would be placed for adoption or sent to long-term holding corrals, which now hold about as many wild horses as left in the wild.

Mustang advocates counter the planned gather using helicopters is illegal because some of the animals are traumatized, injured or killed.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on a motion to stop the gather. The suit was filed in November by California-based In Defense of Animals and wildlife biologist Craig Downer. Terri Farley, a Nevada author whose books about wild horses target young readers, joined the lawsuit Monday.

"If we allow the BLM to continue to ignore the will of Congress and the America people, then soon there will be no horses left to preserve," Farley said in a written statement.

Horse advocates said the roundup violates the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which Congress passed in 1971 to protect wild horses and burros as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West."

In 2008, the BLM said it would have to consider euthanizing wild horses because of escalating numbers and the cost of caring for them in long-term holding facilities. But earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the agency instead would pursue shipping horses to pastures and holding corrals in the Midwest and East.

Horse advocates call that proposal unnecessary and inhumane. During a hearing last week, they urged the BLM's National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board to press for a moratorium on roundups until an independent audit of mustang numbers can be conducted.

Please, don't feed the burros

Too many treats harm animals, official says


By HEATHER SMATHERS
Mohave Daily News





LOVED TO DEATH? Oatman's burros have long been a draw for visitors, but now the BLM is asking people to stop feeding them because it is affecting the animals' health. (HEATHER SMATHERS/The Daily News)

OATMAN - Give burros care, not carrots.

That's one of many draft slogans the Bureau of Land Management has issued, asking people to stop feeding the Oatman burros.

“The Oatman burros have been fed so much they are sick and fat,” said BLM Public Affairs Officer Mike Brown. “They're being loved to death.”

The BLM is asking Oatman shopkeepers, residents and tourists to stop feeding the wild burros carrots, hay pellets, salt cubes and even water.

“Frankly, the wild burros that live around Oatman are far healthier than the burros that come to town,” Brown said.

Burros can get all the nutrients and sustenance they need from the vegetation in the desert areas around Oatman, Brown added.

With thousands of tourists buying bags of carrots and hay pellets to feed to the burros, Brown said the burros are sick from hoof disease, behavior problems and are extremely overweight.

“One carrot won't harm the burros,” Brown said. “But it's the 10,000 more they are being fed every year that will kill them.”

Judy Love, who owns and operates the Classy Ass, said the health of the burros is her main concern.

“I love Oatman and I love the burros, but their health is the most important thing,” Love said. “I'm glad they (BLM) are taking a stand.”

The Oatman burros are more likely to become ill and to die early than the 300 or so wild burros that stay out of town, Brown said.

Brown said the burros will not suffer from any kind of delirium or other illness if they can not have carrots and hay pellets.

“We've seen this before where we cut off the burros and the only side effect is that they get healthier,” Brown said.

But some Oatman shopkeepers dispute that.

“They are getting aggressive because they are not being fed like they used to,” said John Nowak, owner of the Oatman General Store.

Shopkeeper Jolene Brown, who owns Amargosa Toads, agreed, saying that the burros have practically been “kicking her door in” to get food.

All of the burros are managed by the BLM's Wildhorse and Burro Program, legislation that passed Congress in 1971. All wild horses and burros are under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior and the BLM is responsible for keeping statistics on their numbers, health and safety.

Brown said the BLM has held several town-hall style meetings with the residents and shopkeepers of Oatman. BLM suggested a committee be formed to examine the way the town and the federal government could work together for the well-being of the burros.

“What came out of those meetings is that the townspeople asked the BLM to take the lead and give them guidelines,” Brown said.

What the BLM came up with was an indefinite moratorium on feeding the burros. Shopkeepers have been asked to stop selling carrots and pellets in their stores and to post signs asking tourists not to feed the burros any carrots or other treats they may have brought with them.

Brown said he would not speculate on any possible sanctions shopownwers or tourists would face if they don't comply with the request.

“First, we want to work with people and see what happens. Again, everyone has the same love of the burros and we all have their health in mind,” he said.

Nowak said just because shops will no longer sell carrots doesn't mean people will stop feeding the burros other types of food.

“Part of my shop is a grocery store and I see people buying cookies and potato chips for the burros,” he said. “Is the BLM going to ticket people for feeding them other foods, or food they brought to town?”

He also wondered if the BLM or another agency had the authority to tell stores that they couldn't sell carrots.

“I don't think there is any way to limit our sales of carrots,” he opined.

Jolene Brown said she believes not being able to sell carrots will have an impact on some businesses and the Oatman economy in general.

“I think some businesses, who do a lot of carrot sales, will have to close,” she said.

Changing a culture of many generations of tourists to Oatman won't be easy, Mike Brown acknowledged.

“Think about when the National Park Service asked people to stop feeding the bears at Yellowstone,” he said. “It didn't happen overnight, but people eventually stopped doing it.”

Love said she does not believe the burros will stop coming to town.

“I've been here 21 years, and burros wandered through town before we started feeding them carrots,” she said. “They are wild animals and they will continue to go where they please.”

The BLM's Brown agreed that the burros will still come to town to greet visitors.

“This will not affect Oatman,” Brown said. “People will still come to Oatman to see the burros, just not to feed the burros. People can still come and take pictures, go to the gunfights and shop in the stores.”

But Jolene Brown said she thinks the moratorium will affect Oatman merchants in a negative way.

“The burros are the only reason people come to Oatman,” she said. “Without the burros it's just an old town that sells a bunch of items people can get anywhere.”

House sides with wild horses, burros

GOP criticism of bill may foretell troubles in Senate



The Associated Press







WASHINGTON - Galloping to the aid of the nation's wild horses and burros, the House voted Friday to rescue them from the possibility of a government-sponsored slaughter and give them millions more acres to roam.

But the effort may get penned up in the Senate.

The bill passed the House, 239-185, with Republican opponents arguing that it underscored wrongheaded Democratic priorities by focusing on animals instead of people at a time when the nation's unemployment rate is approaching double digits.

An estimated 36,000 wild horses and burros live in 10 Western states. Federal officials estimate that's about 9,400 more than can exist in balance with other rangeland resources. Off the range, more than 31,000 other wild horse and burros are cared for in corrals and pastures.

The plan aims to reduce the number of animals kept in holding pens awaiting adoption and to reduce the stress on land currently set aside for them.

Supporters mobilized after the Interior Department announced last year that it might have to kill thousands of healthy wild horses and burros to deal with the growing population on the range and in holding facilities.

'Disgrace to our heritage'

Republicans dismissed the measure as welfare for horses, but Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said a majority of Americans would not support slaughtering healthy animals or keeping them in holding pens for years at a time.

"The status quo is a national disgrace," said Rahall, chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources. "It is a disgrace to our heritage."

However, no comparable bill has been sponsored in the Senate, which doesn't bode well for final passage of the measure. Both houses would have to approve the legislation before it could be sent to the White House for President Barack Obama's consideration.

Some lawmakers from Western states said Congress is mismanaging the nation's wild horse population by preventing the Bureau of Land Management from keeping populations at a level that's appropriate for the environment. They said more horses will just make the problem worse.

"This bill is based on emotion and not science," declared Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., saying the bill would elevate wild horses above threatened and endangered species in her state.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that enacting the Restore our American Mustangs Act would cost about $200 million over the next five years. Currently, the wild herds roam over about 33 million acres of Western land.

To comply with the bill, the Bureau of Land Management would need to find an additional 20 million acres, primarily after 2013, at a cost of up to $500 million, according the CBO. But Rahall said those estimates don't reflect new language in the bill that makes adding millions of acres of rangeland a goal rather than a legal requirement.

Rahall said the bill would actually save the government money by reducing the amounts now devoted to caring for the animals in corrals and on pastures. He said slaughtering healthy animals to control their population should not be an option.

"How in the world can a federal agency be considering the massive slaughter of animals the law says they are supposed to be protecting?" he said.

While Rahall said the cost estimates were overblown, Republicans weren't buying it. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said even debating the bill was an insult to people looking for work and small businesses trying to keep their doors open.

"It doesn't make any sense that we're debating a welfare program about wild horses when the American people really want to know, 'where are the jobs?"' Boehner said.

'Animal care disaster'

The bill would give the government authority to enter into cooperative agreements to establish wild horse sanctuaries on nonfederal lands. It also would attempt to bolster an adoption program and sterilize more animals. It would prohibit the killing of healthy wild horses and burros and restrict time spent in holding pens to six months.

The Humane Society of the United States supports the legislation, saying the current program of rounding up wild horses and keeping them in holding pens is a "fiscal and animal care disaster."

"We have got to get off the current treadmill of spending millions of tax dollars rounding up wild horses and caring for them in captivity, and instead make wider use of fertility control as a humane population management tool," said Wayne Pacelle, the organization's president and CEO.

In Friday's vote, 206 Democrats supported the measure and 47 opposed it. Among Republicans, 33 voted for it and 138 against.

Advocates say government should save wild horses

By Oskar Garcia
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS – Federal agencies should change the way they manage wild horses on public lands to prevent the animals from going extinct in five years, advocates said Monday.

Karen Sussman, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, said the group plans to approach Congress within 30 days to plead for the lives of horses that federal officials are considering euthanizing.

“At the rate that the government is reducing these animals, within five years they are going to be extinct,” Sussman said. “Within five years these animals will cease to exist on public lands.”

Wild horse enthusiasts met in Las Vegas over the weekend to discuss solutions to protect the horses and keep them on public lands. Sussman said the groups will suggest lawmakers redistribute federal money to wild horse programs, return wild horses from federal pens to open land and consolidate federal agencies to free up money for wild horses.

“This is our American heritage right here,” she said. “These animals represent the last living symbol of the American west.”

There are an estimated 33,000 wild horses roaming in 10 Western states. About half are in Nevada, with most concentrated in northern Nevada. About 30,000 more horses are in holding facilities, where most are available for adoption.

The federal agency responsible for overseeing the wild horse population has said it may be necessary to euthanize horses to prevent many more from starving to death on overpopulated ranges. The Bureau of Land Management has said it can't afford to keep growing numbers of horses in federal facilities and that budget drain is keeping the agency from other responsibilities.

The agency has set a target number of wild horses at 27,000.

Last year, about $22 million of the agency's entire wild horse $39 million budget was spent on holding animals in agency pens. Next year, the costs are projected to grow to $26 million with an overall budget that is being trimmed to $37 million.

A spokesman for the BLM in northern Nevada did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The office was closed for Columbus Day.

Sussman said wild horses don't get treated fairly by government officials, despite laws meant to protect them. She said that the wild horse population has dropped by half since 1971, when BLM began managing the population.

As Inland residents give up costly horses, U.S. government puts more up for adoption in Norco

By ALICIA ROBINSON
The Press-Enterprise


Terry Pierson / The Press-Enterprise
A burro sounds off during the preview showing of animals available in this weekend's BLM wild horse and burro adoption at Ingalls Park.

Federal efforts to find homes for wild horses may find there's little room in the Inland area, where residents are already trying to get rid of horses they can no longer afford.

The federal Bureau of Land Management rolled into Norco on Friday with 50 horses and burros, but adoptions have been declining -- falling more than 16 percent in 2005 through 2007 -- which the bureau attributes to higher fuel and feed costs. For that reason, at least 30 fewer animals than usual were brought to the annual Norco adoption event.

"There have been less people adopting because they're looking at their bank account," said Art DiGrazia, who heads wild horse and burro operations at the BLM's Ridgecrest office.

If the ads posted on the free Web site Craigslist can be seen as a sign of the times, high hay and gasoline prices are causing tough times for Inland horses and their owners.

The Craigslist Inland Empire page features dozens of listings of horses for sale, often noting that owners must sell "due to financial reasons," "because we need to downsize" or simply "can't afford to feed them all."

Norco boarding stable owner Kevin Bash said he's seen hay prices climb from around $15 a bale in 2007 to $18 or more today, and he hears they may go as high as $25 a bale by this fall.

"It's not just middle-class people (being affected), it's everyone," said Kim Reynolds, who placed several online ads to sell the rescued horses she keeps at her ranch in Murrieta in southwestern Riverside County. "The prices have decreased, and there's not a lot of people standing there wanting them."

Rescues Overwhelmed

While Inland animal control officials said they haven't seen a dramatic increase in horse neglect cases, some rescue operations have seen a spike in need. San Bernardino County Animal Care and Control handled twice as many stray or abandoned horses in the year ending June 30 as it had the previous year, Division Chief Brian Cronin said.

When Cronin's agency can't find homes for horses, it turns to private rescue groups, some of which are swamped.

"The need for helping these animals has far exceeded their ability," he said of the rescues.

Colton boarding stable operator Cheryl Musee has been selling horses whose owners have failed to pay their bills and stopped returning her calls. State law permits this.

"Everybody that was boarding the horses decided that feeding their families was more important than feeding their horses so I kind of got stuck with them," she said.

One customer with five horses gave three of them away because he couldn't afford the board bill, Musee said.

The Bureau of Land Management hasn't resorted to giving horses away, but its budget is being taxed by the 33,000 roaming horses and burros and the 30,000 animals in holding facilities on federal lands it manages in 10 states.

That has put more emphasis on adoptions. Early interest seemed high Friday at Norco's Ingalls Park, where about a dozen people were viewing the wild horses before the scheduled preview event even began. But several of the visitors said they were just looking.

"There's no market for horses of any kind right now," said Cindi Paine, a resident of Pedley in northwestern Riverside County who had stopped by Ingalls Park to see the wild horses but didn't plan to adopt one. "I hope they all get homes but with the recession going (on), I just don't see it."

Some commodities experts predict that development of farmland, drought and growth of grain for biofuels will keep hay prices high in the near future, and other costs of keeping a horse such as farrier and veterinary bills have risen.

But opinions are mixed on the long-term effect on the recreational horse industry.

"I think it's going to go on a straight downhill slide," said Rick Boenisch, a livestock auctioneer in the High Desert community of Pinon Hills. He also helps place unwanted horses for a small fee.

"The average homeowner that just wants to have a horse for their kid, it's just not going to happen," he said.

Others said people who truly want to keep their horses will find a way to do it, regardless of their economic situation.

Corona resident Alesha Watts, a self-described housewife and mother, already has one horse, and she visited Ingalls Park to pick out a mustang to adopt. The expense isn't a concern, Watts said, because she's willing to make sacrifices.

"I'll eat beans and drink water to make sure my animals eat," she said.

BLM plans emergency wild horse gatherings in Nevada

By Sandra Chereb
ASSOCIATED PRESS




Wild horses rounded up by helicopter in Nevada.



RENO, Nev. – The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced plans Wednesday to gather about 1,700 wild horses from the Nevada range, citing ongoing drought, dwindling forage and an over abundance of animals in three herd management areas.

“There is very limited water available for the horses, very little food,” said Susie Stokke, BLM's Nevada wild horse and burro program manager.

On the Nevada Wild Horse Range north of Las Vegas, Stokke said animals are traveling 5-10 miles a day to get food and water, causing some animals to become lame.

“There just isn't any food left within a three-to-five mile radius of water sources,” she said.

To round up the animals from that area, Stokke said traps will be set around the limited water supplies that are accessible by vehicle.

“They're coming in in very large numbers to water,” she said. At times, hundreds of animals congregate at the sites, she said.

BLM expects to start gathering horses from there and at the North Stillwater Herd Management Area near Winnemucca within the next two weeks, Stokke said.

A gather planned for the Fox and Lake area south of Gerlach – about 90 miles north of Reno – likely will be conducted by early August.

That region, Stokke said, is at a higher elevation and received more moisture and cooler temperatures this spring, so conditions are not as critical. But that will change by midsummer, when temperatures climb and water sources dry up, she said.

Gathered horses will be taken to holding facilities and made available for public adoption.

Announcement of the planned roundups comes a day after BLM officials in Washington, D.C., said the agency is seeking bids from people around the country who are willing and able to provide pasture and care for 500 to 2,500 horses taken from the range that are considered unadoptable.

BLM estimates 33,000 wild horses and burros roam the landscape in 10 Western states. About half are in Nevada. Most animals gathered are put up for adoption.

Because the animals are protected under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, those deemed too old or otherwise unfit for adoption are sent to long-term holding facilities to live out their lives.

The three largest holding pens are in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

But those facilities, with a combined capacity of roughly 22,000, are maxed out, officials said.

In all, the agency said about 30,000 animals are in long-term care – about the same amount still on the range.

Henri Bisson, BLM deputy director, said herds of horses and burros can double in size every four years if left unchecked.

“As a result, our agency must remove thousands of animals from the range each year to ensure that herd sizes are consistent with the land's capacity to support them,” he said in a statement.

“The horses and burros that must be removed but for which no adoption demand exists need to be cared for, and that's why the BLM is soliciting bids from contractors who can provide a pasture for these animals on their private lands.”

Direct Reduction

from Preserve the Herds





It was the brutally cruel and inhumane treatment of wild horses through a host of barbaric “solutions” such as mustanging, poisoning water holes, driving them off cliffs, and the bloody road to slaughter that sparked public protest to end this ugly historical chapter of the American West.

The Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act was suppose to close the door on these kinds of “on the range” kills and finally allow our animal brethren the freedom to live in peace after millenniums of domestication and service.

While supporters of the Act have often rallied against the hidden illegal slaughter and treatment of our now supposedly protected equines, the killing of America’s wild burros through “direct reductions programs” have often continued unabated through government agencies armed with the exclusively reserved right to put a bullet in our burros were they stood.

Congress charged the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture with the protection and preservation of our countries wild horses and burros as a response to the public's overwhelming love and desire to end their plight.

Despite this charge, the Secretaries have served at the pleasure of those who exploit our resources, not our laws or their intent, diligently working on ways to circumvent the political process and instead, exercising their authority to “legitimize” the corruption and corrosion of these mandates.

One of the many ways this was accomplished was through the institution of separate agency “missions” place under their jurisdiction that allowed national laws to be divided, segregated and ultimately usurped.

Enter National Park Service (NPS), established through the 1916 Organic Act under the mandate “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations" - that use to cover wild horses and burros as evidenced by the honor they bestowed on the wild burros of the Grand Canyon and elsewhere across the Nation.

Yet new policies - not laws - aimed at promoting “other agendas” began to be instituted, until finally, the Secretary of the Interior successfully shirked their charge of protecting wild horses and burros and their habitat through a total reversal that allowed National Park Service and other agencies to literally shoot them by the thousands if they had the unfortunate luck to reside on the wrong side of the jurisdictional tracks.

It began, at least as far as we know of, with the National Park Services plan to shoot the 577 wild burros then living within the Grand Canyon that the Fund for Animals halted through negotiating their amazing airlift rescues.

In 1984, the China Lake Naval Weapons Center in California began to initiate a “direct reduction program” of 5,900 wild burros in the area. In the beginning, 649 wild burros were shot on the base under this management plan until their deaths were discovered by animal welfare groups who successfully lobbied again for the humane “live removals” of 864 more.

Over the course of the next four years, an additional 4,387 wild burros were then removed by “live captures” until their numbers totaled less than 200 and now “allowed the Naval Weapons Center to reintroduce the native ungulate, the Desert Bighorn Sheep.” (1)

Since 1975, the Sierra Club has also endorses the reductions of wild burros and horses and has developed an extensive policy regarding their “management” that includes: eliminating them from all national parks and monuments, all areas protected by the Antiquities Act, all federal and state lands where rare, endangered, threatened, or endemic species of flora or fauna exist, national recreation areas as well as “eliminating them from key wildlife habitat, including desert bighorn habitat of the American Southwest, from designated natural areas” and supports the “carefully regulated numbers to minimize conflict with wildlife, livestock, and other range values.”

According to Deanne Stillman’s article, The Last Burros of the Mojave Desert, from 1987 to 1994, National Park Service shot 400 burros in Death Valley, CA with plans to accelerate these direct reductions in 1994 when a status change placed Death Valley under NPS sole jurisdiction.

Even today, wild burros remain targets for “direct reductions” as only a few days ago, a news story reported at least 18 burros have recently been shot at Big Bend State Park in Texas to make room for the “native species of bighorn sheep”, who brought in almost $800k in raffle sales by those eager for a chance to hunt the horned ones now being touted as “the future” of management goals for Park.

In a scenario that has played out time and again, a thirty-five year veteran and Big Bends Park manager, Luis Armendariz, began investigations into the burro killings, which resulted in his superiors retaliating against him forcing his resignation on November 30, 2007.

For a glaring expose on what and how “direct reductions” of wild burros are being secretly carried out, visit American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, Death of a Mojave National Preserve Burro by J. & K. Foster.

Wild horses denied free rein

Thousands kept in pens as numbers exceed rangeland capacity

By Electa Draper, Staff Writer
Denver Post

Dove Creek - The notion of wild horses roaming the American West might be more a national delusion than a reality.

Almost 35 years ago, Congress proclaimed that the West's wild horses were an American treasure. It passed a law in 1971 to protect them from slaughter.

But the realities of the Bureau of Land Management wild horse and burro program are different from the romantic images painted then by Congress and still held by many Americans. Roughly 32,000 wild horses and burros roam the range in 10 Western states, but there were, by October of this year, another 24,500 wild horses and burros in holding facilities.

Of last year's BLM wild horse and burro budget of $39.6 million, more than half, $20.1 million, was spent to keep the animals off the range and in these holding facilities.

The problem with wild horses is basically a math problem. It has left the BLM looking for that magic sustainable number.

"It's a question of how you divide the forage pie. It always has been and always will be," says Fran Ackley, who heads up the BLM wild horse training and adoption facility in Cañon City. "There are some who want wild horses to get more and some who don't want them to get any."

With federal protection, wild horses and burros have virtually no natural predators left. Herd sizes can double about every five years, BLM spokesman Thomas Gorey says. As a result, the agency must remove thousands of animals from the range each year to control herd sizes.

Already, about 16,000 wild horses and burros, considered too old or too wild for adoption, are in long-term facilities, typically fenced grassy pastures of 15,000 to 35,000 acres. The BLM calls them sanctuaries. But more than 8,000 other animals are held in small pens.

And even the wild horses and burros on the range are confined to fenced herd-management areas to prevent their intrusion on private lands and their competition with grazing cattle.

Wild horses and burros are managed today in places where they were found roaming in 1971, when their numbers had dwindled to an estimated 17,000 because of their slaughter for profit. With the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act, the BLM began designating 201 Herd Management Areas, 29.5 million acres. By comparison, private livestock grazing is authorized on 160 million acres of BLM-managed land.

Too few adoptions

Since 1973, the bureau has placed more than 207,000 animals into private ownership through its Adopt-A Horse Program. It isn't enough.

"We recognized a few years ago that we can't adopt our way out of the overpopulation problem," Ackley says.

The BLM has determined that the appropriate management level for horses and burros on the range should be 28,000 to keep the land healthy and to create a balance with other public uses, Gorey says. The plan is to round up 4,000 more horses over the next few years.

"I think we're going to be at our magic number in two years," Ackley says. "Then we will just have to remove yearly what can be adopted."

The small pens will be empty. In 10 or 15 years, the older animals in sanctuaries will pass away, Ackley says. It will relieve the American taxpayer of a $400 to $500 bill per horse per year.

"It's on the horizon," Ackley says. "We can do the job as long as the funding stays consistent."

But some wild-horse advocates say the BLM created the adoption backlog in the first place.

Andrea Lococo, a consultant with the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute, says horses are removed from the range to cater to livestock owners hurt by droughts and wildfires. Until 2000, when the BLM decided to halve the number of wild horses and began massive roundups, she says, BLM adoptions could keep up.

Last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the BLM had planned to remove 9,800 wild horses and burros from public rangelands. The BLM actually removed 11,023. The agency placed 5,701 into private ownership through adoption. The rest were "surplus" horses that required relocation to holding facilities.

The average adoption rate is 6,000 to 7,000 a year, but the BLM in recent years has taken about 10,000 animals off the range a year to preserve range health, BLM officials say.

In Colorado, the BLM rounded up 357 horses in 2005. About 700 wild horses remain on five Western Slope ranges.

More in pens than range

In contrast to the state population of 700 wild animals on the range, up to 1,400 at a time have been kept at the BLM's Cañon City training and adoption facility. The average horse's stay there is nine months, Ackley says.

Even if the designated ideal national number of 28,000 is reached and holding pens emptied, gathers will continue as a necessary evil to maintain it. The events are costly to taxpayers (several hundred dollars per horse). And these roundups break up bands and social order and frequently cause injuries and even death among horses.

The BLM also is expanding its use and study of fertility control to keep herd sizes down and delay roundups, but they will still be necessary, Gorey, the BLM spokesman, says.

But wild horses have another math problem. Roughly three- quarters of the herds are already smaller than 150, considered the minimum size at which a herd can maintain genetic vigor, Ackley says. The BLM compensates in many areas by occasionally introducing new blood lines into a herd - by bringing in a few mares from another herd every eight to 10 years.

Despite the problems with the program, Americans' romance with wild horses continues.
Wild-horse advocacy and support groups proliferate. The southwestern Colorado chapter of the National Mustang Association sprang into being in 1997 to help the 35 to 90 horses of the Spring Creek Herd north of Dove Creek. The group has purchased grazing permits, constructed water catchments and replaced hazardous fencing and is trying to talk the local BLM office into letting the group reseed some native grasses and other projects.

"All the BLM ever needs to say is 'help,' and we're right there," says founder Sherwood McGuigan. "But sometimes the BLM is not flexible about accepting help."