Wild Horse and Burro Coalition Letter to Secretary of the Interior Haaland
April 14, 2021Action Alert: Sand Wash Basin Wild Horses Need Your Help To Prevent Huge Roundup and Removal
April 22, 2021Stop the Despicable Roundup and Sterilization Plan for Wyoming’s Five Largest Wild Horse Herds
Action Alert! You can Submit Comments and Make Your Voice Heard to Stop the Bureau of Land Management’s Monstrous Plan by April 30, 2021
By Carol J. Walker
On April 1, 2021 the Bureau of Land Management published their Environmental Assessment for five wild horse herds in the Red Desert of Wyoming, in the public lands that include the Checkerboard: Adobe Town, Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin, White Mountain and Little Colorado. These herds are on 3,436,000 acres. Despite having a new administration and a new Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, the BLM pushed out this plan to remove 3555 wild horses, the largest proposed roundup in history. This brutal plan includes as alternatives for the remaining horses left on the range dangerous spaying of wild mares, putting IUDs in wild mares and gelding stallions. Not only does the BLM want to remove as many wild horses as possible without even doing an actual count of their numbers for the past two years, they want to leave the remaining horses sterilized so that ultimately the wild horses will be eradicated in these areas. Here is the link to the documents: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/1501993/570
If you are asking why, the main reason for this aggressive action is the Rock Springs Grazing Association. They are one of the most powerful grazing associations in the country despite only having about a couple dozen member families, and they are the primary holders of grazing leases in these Herd Management Areas and the primary holders of private land within the Checkerboard. They consider all these 3,946,000 acres of public and private land to be “theirs.”
They will never rest until all the wild horses have been eradicated, and they have considerable influence over the Bureau of Land Management. I have been observing, photographing and documenting wild horses in these areas since 2004 and involved in 5 lawsuits to stop the destruction of these wild horse herds over the past 8 years, and no doubt soon will be a plaintiff on yet another lawsuit. If not for keen public involvement and lawsuits, these herds would have been zeroed out long ago. Under this plan, there will be 1550 wild horses total left on 3,436,000 acres, or one horse per 2216 acres.
Here is the imaginative table that includes population estimates based on made up numbers:
Normally, the Rock Springs BLM conducts an aerial survey in April paid for by the Rock Springs Grazing Association, with one member of the Association on board the plane in which they use a statistical double-count method to come up with their numbers. So it is not an actual count. But this year, things have gotten even more falsely devised. They did not even do a survey in 2020 or in 2021, they just picked “20% increase” and called it good. When making up the figure of 20% they do not consider deaths of older horses and the foal death rate which can be as high as 40% depending upon weather conditions. The actual increase is most likely closer to 8 – 10%. I would like an independent agency not affiliated with the BLM or the Rock Springs Grazing Association to do an actual count using real numbers. How can you possible claim that a herd of wild horses is overpopulated when you do not have reliable data to make that determination? And yet this is how the BLM makes their decisions.
We must keep in mind that this roundup is really a preamble to the future Resource Management Plan for this area. The BLM is in the midst of revising this plan and their ultimate goal is to zero out three of these herds entirely: Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and White Mountain. They will revise the Appropriate Management Level of the Adobe Town Herd downward and virtually sterilize the herd, and keep the Little Colorado Herd at an AML of 69 which is far below the level needed for genetic viability.
The BLM offers 4 alternatives, and their preferred alternative is Alternative II. This would be to remove 3555 wild horses, which in their made up estimation of numbers would equal low Appropriate Management Level for each herd, but in reality since these numbers are inflated, would mean many less horses than that would remain. 842 wild horses will be released back into the HMAs with 420 mares given PZP or Gonacon birth control and 290 of these mares that are not pregnant also having an IUD inserted.
They include Alternative III which is just roundup and remove 3555 wild horses, and then there is Alternative IV. In this alternative 3555 wild horses will be removed, 84 mares will be spayed, 253 will be given Gonacon or PZP and 126 stallions will be gelded. They will also skew the sex ratio from the naturally occurring 50-50 mares to stallions ratio to 60-40 stallions to mares. This Frankenstein’s list of everything you can do to destroy a herd of wild horses is so clearly over the top that I think it is supposed to scare us into thinking that Alternative II is a good deal by contrast. Then, Alternative I is the no action alternative.
The people who prepared this plan and this Environmental Assessment in no way shape or form have the welfare of the wild horses in these 5 herds as any sort of consideration or priority. They go on and on about a Thriving Natural Ecological Balance so often that they have created a new acronym: TNEB. If this was actually true, then the livestock grazing allotments would not look like this:
Putting IUDs in wild mares has only been done once, in 2020 to 8 mares in the Swasey Herd. The study has not been completed so there is not enough data to suddenly decide that it is safe, and it is interesting that they rank putting IUDs in wild mares to be a “temporary contraceptive measure.” I find this hard to believe unless they are planning to remove the IUDs? Nothing was said about this although they think some of the IUDs could fall out. And what about the trauma the wild mares will be subjected to while this procedure is being done? What if there is inflammation of the uterus, brought up as a concern in the 2013 National Academy of Sciences Study Commissioned by the BLM or if the IUD travels to other parts of the body, which can actually kill human women when that happens? What if the mares become pregnant while the IUD is in place? How could they help a wild mare who is in distress when she is in a HMA on hundreds of thousands of acres? Why would they do this to the mares when they are already giving them birth control? Is it because Oklahoma State University got a huge grant and they want to experiment on wild horses?
Then there is the issue of genetic viability. If Little Colorado is brought down to 69 horses and Salt Wells Creek is brought down to 251 and White Mountain to 205 and the remaining horses are given birth control and IUDs? The number of wild horses needed in a herd to preserve genetic viability according to Gus Cothren, the leading wild horse geneticist is 150-200 breeding aged adults in a herd. Well, the BLM blithely suggests bringing in wild horses from other areas if that is a problem. Why on earth would you bring in wild horses from other areas if you are removing 3555? Why not just not remove that many? And then they use the term “metapopulation.” As if the wild horses in all five herds freely move from HMA to HMA so low population in one is not at all a problem. This may be true in Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek, but that is it. Great Divide Basin is across Interstate Highway 80 and 50 miles away. It can in no way shape or form be considered adjacent to the other herds. Horses do not go back and forth between Little Colorado and White Mountain – there are actual physical barriers.
My recommendations which you can use as talking points are the following:
- Use Alternative I, the No Action alternative. The roundup and removal and sterilization plans for our wild horses need to be stopped and at the very least put on hold while our new Secretary of the Interior can work with wild horse advocacy groups and the public, not just grazing associations, to come up with a safe, humane, sustainable and viable plan for wild horse management on our public lands.
2. Grazing Leases should be retired in all 5 Herd Management Areas.
3. Have an independent agency do an actual count of how many horses are in each Herd Management Area. No Grazing Association members in the plane. No statistical double count estimate. Do an actual count.
4. Appropriate Management Levels should be increased for each of the Herd Management Areas, especially Little Colorado which is extremely and dangerously low (69) for a Herd Management Area of 632,000 acres. Do not introduce wild horses from other herds to make up for too few horses to maintain genetic viability.
5. Wild horses should be managed in their homes, on our public lands where they are found. If there are wild horses outside the HMAs they should be returned to the HMA. If the Rock Springs Grazing Association has a problem with wild horses being on the Checkerboard Lands they should agree to do land swaps to consolidate areas of private and public lands.
6. If birth control is needed to keep the population in check it should be using humane, proven methods that are reversible like PZP. No use of dangerous and inhumane experimental procedures such as spaying and inserting IUDs into wild mares should ever be allowed.
7. Wild horses are the safest and the least expensive to the American tax payer if they are managed where they belong on public lands. Stockpiling wild horses in Long Term Holding Facilities such as feed lots is incredibly expensive, costing millions of dollars each year and is extremely detrimental to the horses, when hundreds die from the helicopter roundups and then later in holding facilities.
8. The adoption program is broken and needs to be fixed and the Adoption Incentive is a thinly disguised way to pay the public money to take wild horses off the hands of the BLM and send them to slaughter while being able to deny killing the horses themselves. Stop the Incentive Program immediately.
9. Do not add 3555 wild horses to the already over 50,000 wild horses in holding facilities. The BLM has released 7 Environmental Assessments and is planning to remove at least 10,000 wild horses in 2021. This massive roundup and removal program is cruel, incredibly expensive and completely unsustainable. It must be stopped immediately and new plans must be made for the management of our wild horses.
Please comment on this abominable plan to the BLM by April 30, 2021. Use your own words. You should not submit comments using a form letter or email form letter, all of them get lumped together and counted as 1 comment by the BLM.
The BLM is accepting public comments on this EA through BLM’s ePlanning website for this project here: https://go.usa.gov/xpaEN. If you cannot access this system comments may be submitted by mail to: BLM Rock Springs Field Office, Wild Horse Gather, 289 Highway 191 North, Rock Springs, Wyoming 82901.
If you have trouble with the form please contact the Lead on this project: Jay D’Ewart – Email: jdewart@blm.gov – Phone:(307) 352-033
Please contact the following:
President Joe Biden
Phone: 202-456-1111
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
Phone (with employee directory): (202) 208-3100
FedRelay number: (800)877-8339 (TTY)
Email: feedback@ios.doi.gov
Your Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Your Representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Nada Wolff Culver, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management
Phone: 202-208-2801, Email: nculver@blm.gov
Our wild horses are counting on you. Please get the word out and make your voice heard.
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39 Comments
LEAVE THESE HORSES ALONE , THEY HAVE JUST AS MUCH RIGHT TO HAVE FAMILY’S AS PEOPLE HAVE , MAYBE EVEN MORE SO , AT LEAST THEY FEED , PERTECT , AN LOVE THIER FAMILY AN THEY DO NOT MURDER , BEAT OR SALE THEIR BABYS FOR SEX , IF OUR GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO DO THIS TO AN ANIMAL THEY BETTER DAMN WELL START DOING THE SAME TO PEOPLE
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
You really need to get people who care more for the horses than they do for the cattle. Sterilize the cattle and sheep if you want to sterilize. Leave the horses alone . Why would you try to destroy an animal that has been here longer than you and yet, there aren’t so many they hang out on your backyard
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Please stop the despicable Path Forward (to extinction)
This is ludicrous. The absolute genocide of the ICONIC American Wild Horse. An important part of our American Heritage. This bill is Ludicrous. A collection of LIES and non facts. All in the name of man’s LUST and GREED.
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Who wants to live in a world without wild horses ?
Stop these cruel inhumane round uos Beef production us declining – cattle production is declining The horses can and should remain – they are our living heritage
Don’t do this
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Please stop the Roundups, No surveys were done, BLM is making these numbers up..as a Tax payer why is my money being wasted on unfounded claims, we are all about the science these days same is true about the horses living on public land .it’s all made up and lies..there is a better way…Dont send these Beautiful innocent Horses to pay the price for unfounded claims.STOP THE ROUNDUPS PLEASE
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
The round ups must stop! These horses belong on these lands. Stop giving in to big business. The horses are an Ametican icon. We must pass tge Safe Act and let the horses and tgrir families live wild and free. Stop this inhumane treatment!
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Please stop these horrific roundups by BLM ! These precious wild horses are icons of the west and belong free. These roundups are cruel and inhumane! It’s all about greed between BLM and the cattlemen and it’s wrong!
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
I do not live in an area where I can get to see the wild horses. However I am always watching on Facebook or other media means for photos and videos of OUR wild horses and burros. I want them protected and left alone and let God take care of them. The BLM does not have the right to destroy these wild horses as they don’t belong to the BLM but to all of us. So please will someone with an ounce of sense stop this terrible mismanagement of OUR WILD HORSES AND BURRORS. I love all wildfire but the horses are getting eradicated. IT MUST BE STOPPED.
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
This is shameful murder if beautiful creatures! Stop!
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Why do you have to destroy something of God’s Beauty? They take wild horses away from their homes,their families. They have as much rights as cattle,wild animals,or exotic protected wild animals. Let them stay free. Let them be protected like the other wild animals. They deserve to be free,unblemished,unmarked. Not altered! Leave the stallions in their band of mares,let the mares have their foals & to be left to their families. Horses bond with band members, that is their family! Consintrate on more important actions to take. Domestic violence,human trafficking,child starvation,drug overdose. Leave these beauties to paint the canvas’s of their lands & Leave them BE!!????????????????
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Please before anything happens to these Horses and Burros insist that an aeriel survey together with full pictures of all counted be evaluated before any next step is to be considered.
Stop this useless brutal inhumane criminal and hypocritical nonsense of sterilizing, rounding up, awarding $1,000 from taxpayers money who turn around and send the horses to kill pens!!! Stop it NOW!! It’s destructive to the magnificent surviving descendants of all the wild mustangs. They ARE protected and this is illegal and must stop now. The public tht has any semblance of morality and any moral compass left hates this and despises these practices!!! It has to be abolished. BLM is supposed to NOURISH AND MAINTAIN THE LAND AND WILDLIFE THT LIVE SON THE LAND NOT DESTROY IT!!!!!
Please do use the comment form to submit your comments to the BLM, and do use the contact info I included in the post to give your comments to President Biden, Secretary Haaland and your Senators and Representatives. They do not get sent comment you post here.
Thanks.
Carol
Please stop the round ups of the wild horses. There can be a solution that works for everyone if you just meet in the middle.
Why do you have to destroy the beautiful animals that God gave us to enjoy? They are part of the gorgeous country we were blessed with, leave our wild horses alone!
Hi Carol, Thanks for the comprehensive info that you have just sent through. I have read a lot about what is happening with the Mustangs and it really does look like a nasty ending to these horses unless something is done. I decided to let my brother read your article as he knows little about the Mustang problem. He is however very critical of any articles about anything! His comment was that more clarity was required on the article and that he couldn’t understand why BLM was doing this roundup when the lands are so vast for them to roam. Why the so called coalition of ranchers wanted the horses gone. I did explain that the horses competed for the grazing but he felt that was insufficient as the areas are so vast. Also evidence of this of what is happening. It would also be helpful the find out what the follow up is on horses that are in holding pens. What prices they are sold for and transparency when they are sold on line as to the buyers and where they are going.? Yes I will send a letter to the President and Harland, why is the suggested letter via American Wild horse campaign not of value, also why send a letter to BLM when it is not lightly to go any further?
Thanks
These are large questions and not quickly answered. As to why not submit your comments via the AWHC form, it is because all of those even if it is thousands, get counted as 1 by the BLM. You used to be able to adopt a horse for $125. Now in the Incentive program BLM pays adopters to take the horses and many end up at slaughter once their owners have their money. To get records of how much someone had paid you will need to do a FOIA request. Grazing Associations are driving most of the removals.
As always, Carol, it appears most of the commenters dont read the full article. I sent emails to everyone you mentioned – again. Even the BLM – because , well, they need to hear from the people who pay their salaries!! Maybe now with a new Interior Sec. who I imagine fully grasps what has been going on with the wild horses & burros – maybe NOW some change will happen.
These animals have more right to the land than the greedy humans do. Leave them alone.
This is unbearable. Yes this is a complete eradication of the Wyoming wild horses. Only a superior can stop this like Haaland.
I am here to ask you in power; NOT TO ROUND UP THESE MUSTANGS. Pls evict the livestock which are allowed to graze in these allotments. They can find alternate pastures. The American public values and cherishes OUR mustangs. Don’t allow these greedy cattlemen sound the death knell for these unique and rare geneticly valuable strains of wild horses. They deserve a place on the vast Federal lands, too. Thankyou, Julie H.
Please submit your comments to the BLM and to Secretary Haaland, President Biden and your Senators and Representatives. They will not see them here.
Did everything you requested..am so tired of BLM threatening wildlife every year, and this battle with the Wild horses seems to be never-ending.
Hope it is enough..took a bit of time.
To that end, i am posting one of the letters i sent to my REPRESENTATIVES which can be modified to suit someone severely pressed for time.
DOI-BLM-WY-D040-2020-0005-EA
PLEASE help the wild horses of Wyoming; they are a national treasure.
We want Alternative one for these horses, round up and removal needs to be stopped NOW.
Grazing leases need to be retired.in all five grazing areas.
These are public lands, supported by taxpayer monies,
Horses should be left alone, and if birth control HAS TO be administered to keep the herd in check, it should be a humane, proven method, not one that is irreversible.
Since the taxpayers are paying for these public lands, the horses need to be left in their own lands..not shuffled around to suit the Bureau’s fancy (or the wealthy families who want to graze on that land)
Rounding up of horses and putting them in holding facilities needs to STOP as well as adopting them out as a way to profit.
We are again watching BLM not representing the interest of the American Public.
These Wild Horses are as much a symbol of the American Spirit as the Bald Eagle, Wild and Free..Don’t let them destroy our heritage.
We are watching.
Thank you so much!
We need to protect and save America’s Wild Horses and Burros.. They are part of our American Heritage. They deserve to stay wild and free like they have been for hundreds of years. There is a better way to humanely manage America’s Wild Horses and Burros. Stop the cruel round ups and horrific sterilizations . Save America’s Wild Horses and Burros before they become history forever. Let them be Wild and Free.
Leave them alone plz – they hav every right to this land ,animals were created before mankind – we are suppose to protect all things that is our Purpose
BLM does not care what we say, how many letters we send, how many protest we organize, or “public opinion and input” sessions we attend or respond to. They will NOT stop until the US Government makes them! They will continue to ignore us, slap us in the face, and destroy these horses. Nothing we do matters until the higher authorities step in and put an end to it.