I know so many Americans have no idea about the plight of the Mustang. Most East Coast dwellers don’t even have mustangs on their radar, and the West Coast people believe that all the wild horses are starving or thirsty and have to be rounded up for their own good.
It all makes my heart sick.
MY PLEA TO YOU.
For years now, I’ve been talking about the virtues of the American Mustang, and how they are coming to extinction in the wild – by the hand of the BLM (cattle ranchers, mining and logging are stronger competition with large lobbies in Congress).
The past few months have been increasingly aggressive.
If you do any one thing today, please do one of the below simple gestures to help in the good fight. Please pick any way to show your support in the below two letters. I’m really begging all of you. Please. Now is the time. If you’ve never done this before or do it all the time, PLEASE, now is the time.
FROM THE AMERICAN WILD HORSE CAMPAIGN.
- The BLM has resumed selling wild horses and burros by the truckload. The new rule allows BLM to sell up to 25 horses at a time without specific approval and will attract shady buyers and increase the chances of wild horses and burros entering the slaughter pipeline. Can you help us fight back?
- The House of Representatives passed a spending bil that authorizes widespread surgical sterilization of wild horses and burros on the range using procedures for mares that are too horrific even to describe. Now it’s up to the Senate to stop this cruel plan. Can you help us mobilize grassroots support to convince the Senate to stand strong?
- The BLM is galloping ahead with its plan to remove 44 horses from the Fish Springs range in Nevada against the wishes of local citizens and the business community, who cherish these wild horses on OUR public lands. Can you help us mobilize opposition to this cruel plan?
And that’s not to mention the helicopter roundups that will start in less than two weeks… thousands of wild horses will lose their families and freedom; some will lose their lives. We need to be on the ground to document this barbaric practice and hold BLM accountable. Can you fuel our observation efforts?
FROM THE CLOUD FOUNDATION AND THE WILD HORSE FREEDOM FEDERATION.
Click image to go to website.
Source: The Cloud Foundation
by Ginger Kathrens
This morning while brushing my teeth, I was listening to NPR as I always do. I heard the reporter state that the US Department of Interior is moving the Bureau of Land Management from DC to a western location, closer to “people who understand the land.” This would appear to be code. The “people” they refer to are not the American public but the very few people who use public lands for private profit. They are the public lands ranchers who run cattle and sheep for nearly nothing on lands owned by all American citizens. The “people” they refer to are oil extractors, gold producers and others who make a profit from lands owned by he American people.
The threat to our public lands in the West is real. The Secretary of the Interior sees little value in preservation. Rather he seeks to maximize revenues from ever-expanding oil and gas and mining operations, while propping up the money pit known as welfare ranching.
So where does this leave America’s wild horses and burros and other wildlife who rely on public lands managed by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), long jokingly referred to as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining? (The “joke” has become chillingly real.)
Interior has ordered BLM to empty out wild horse and holding corrals by selling 24 horses at a time with no questions asked to any buyer. These are wild horses who once roamed free at little cost to the public. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to diagnose the outcome for these helpless wild horses who have lost freedom and family and will now make the ultimate sacrifice. They will end up dying a horrific death in Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses.
Despite a prohibition on such cruelty by the Interior Appropriations Committee, the Interior Secretary has mandated that the horses must be sold. All BLM public holding facilities must comply, whether they like it or not.
Why is the Secretary in such a hurry to empty these facilities? The answer is this: ignoring on the range management options, BLM is scheduled to begin massive roundups of America’s mustangs this fall, refilling holding facilities so they can offer them yet again to kill buyers. Ignoring humane management solutions, they will continue the annihilation of these family-loving, freedom-loving animals.
What is happening to America’s democracy when the Interior Department can make
an end run around Congress, intentionally opening the door to the massive slaughter of America’s wild horses? And what is Congress’s response to this atrocity?
-Ginger Kathrens
Humane Advocate, BLM National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board
Executive Director, The Cloud Foundation
PLEASE HELP US GET THIS MESSAGE OUT.
- Call your lawmakers and tell them that you are absolutely not okay with the BLM’s new policy. This policy allows for the sale of so many animals at a time that it is extremely likely they will end up in slaughterhouses.
To call your lawmakers, dial (202) 224-3121 and follow the prompts to enter your zip code. You will be connected to the offices of the lawmakers in your area. - Share Ginger’s message with everyone you can. Share it on your social media pages, and send the link to your local newspapers, radio stations, and television channels. When you click the button below, at the bottom of the webpage there will be several sharing buttons for most social media platforms.
Please help us speak out by spreading this message across the U.S. We can’t save these wild horses and burros from a lethal fate without your help.
Help us speak out now, before it is too late. Thank you for your continued support of wild horses and burros.
WATCH THIS BEAUTIFUL MOVIE FROM SKYDOG SANCTUARY
Watch this movie about true wild mustangs… the family love bonds, the hardships. It will help you articulate the worthiness of these sentient wild horses. Please follow Skydog Sanctuary, if you don’t already (Facebook, website). They are doing great work.
Click image to watch this heartfelt and beautiful movie
I fired my vet because he he told me once that he used to “volunteer” at the BLM corrals in Burns Oregon and he insisted that slaughter was too good for these “invasive species”. Can you imagine a horse vet saying something like this? I recently also fired a long-time client who had expressed the same type of attitude. I could not believe that this client who raised the best horse hay ever and had also switched from grass seed production at the home farm to a more “environmentally friendly” crop had such a vicious condemnation of not only the wild horses but also of wolves, and threatened to shoot every single one of them that might be found on any of the client’s numerous vast ranches east of the Cascades. Sometimes you think you know someone and then you find out that they have these terrible murderous tendencies. Standing up to these kinds of people is the only way to get things turned around – one on one standing up for the right and humane things.
This is awful. Th e BLM will sell them at 25.00 a head and they will end up in horrific slaughter houses.
This has to be stopped. Maybe through Ivanka to her father or KIMBERLY GILFOYLE orMadeline Pickens.to get to the president,
Please this makes no sense and is so cruel.
Someone has to help them.
The BLM must stop this cruelty.
Please Mr. President stop the BLM from this senseless move.
This is all so familiar. The BLM is favoring profit seeking cattle ranchers over wild horses. At some point they must realize that they can’t hide their motives from an enraged public. A beef boycott would shake them up.
Dawn, thank you so much for making the plight of our wild horses known. If this bill is passed, it would mean the extinction of these amazing animals. As you said, many, many people aren’t even aware of the dangers the mustangs are in, or how they are being systematically wiped out by a corrupt agency that is in the pockets of the cattle ranchers. This is their last stand, and we all need to make our voices heard before these magnificent wild horses are gone forever.