Oppose BLM Plan for Another Challis Roundup Three Years After Summer Helicopter Stampede Killed at Least 11 Horses
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Wild Horses in the Challis HMA Before the 2009 Roundup. Photo by Elissa Kline.
Comments Due by March 5, 2012
It's been less than three years since Bureau of Land Management (BLM) helicopters descended on the remote and austere Challis Mountains in Idaho to stampede and capture 366 federally-protected wild horses who had been living peacefully in this 160,000-area public lands area. During the July 2009 roundup, 11 horses were killed, several foals were orphaned, and 225 horses were permanently removed from the range, their freedom and families gone forever.
Now the BLM is proposing to return to the Challis Herd Management Area (HMA) again for another roundup in October 2012. The agency is accepting public comments on the proposed roundup. During this "scoping period," which ends on March 5, 2012, the public can raise issues and suggest alternatives to be considered in the environmental analysis and final plan for the horse-capturing action.
The video below, produced by photographer Elissa Kline, movingly documents the tragedy of the July 2009 Challis roundup.Please take action below to help prevent this tragedy from happening again. Help us generate thousands of letters to the BLM, urging the agency to reconsider its plans to roundup and remove wild horses from the Challis HMA. The BLM must instead manage these beautiful mustangs on the range. The endless cycle of cruel roundups and mass wild horse removals must end.
The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) Yuma, Arizona Field Office is seeking public comments on an Environmental Assessment for a massive burro roundup and removal plan. The agency plans to use helicopters to stampede and capture 400 wild burros in the Cibola-Trigo Herd Management Area (HMA) in southwestern Arizona and permanently remove 350 of them from their home in this remote and rugged region on the border of California.
The BLM allows just 165 burros (and 150 wild horses) to live in this 179,000-acre, or 280-square-mile, public land area. The agency estimates that the current burro population is 711. In developing this roundup plan, the BLM ignored the comments of thousands of citizens who wrote to the agency in May of 2010 requesting that the allowable management level for burros be increased; that the burros be managed with humane and reversible PZP fertility control instead of removals; and that humane alternatives to helicopter stampedes be implemented if roundups occur.
Even worse, the agency has added a controversial new aspect to the plan that involves castrating 50 Jacks (male burros) and returning them to the range. The BLM is proceeding with this radical sterilization plan despite a complete lack of analysis of its impacts and a pending federal lawsuit challenging a similar plan for "managing" wild horses in Nevada.
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.Please take action below to help Arizona burros and oppose this devastating roundup, removal and castration plan!
Agency Targeting Nearly 100 Wild Horses for Removal from Hardtrigger & Black Mountain Herd Management Areas
Click below to watch video of a few of the beautiful horses living in the Hardtrigger HMA.
Comments are due by January 31, 2012.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Boise, Idaho District Office is targeting nearly 100 wild horses for permanent removal from their high desert homes in the Hardtrigger and Black Mountain Herd Management Areas (HMAs).
The BLM has opened a scoping period and is seeking public comments for the proposed roundup. The agency is portraying this action as a Catch-Treat-And-Release (CTR) operation in which horses will be captured and released after mares are treated with the PZP fertility control vaccine.
However, if, as the BLM expects, the populations in the two HMAS are at or over the "Allowable Management Level" (AML) of 190 horses, the agency will remove approximately 94 mustangs. This will leave behind just 30 wild horses in Black Mountain and 66 horses in Hardtrigger. Meanwhile, the agency authorizes hundreds of private livestock to graze this public lands area.
The scoping period is the time during the planning process when the BLM seeks suggestions from the public about what information and alternatives to consider in the roundup plan and Environmental Assessment.
Please take a moment to submit your comments below and urge the BLM to forgo the removal of any horses and to instead humanely manage the herds on the range, leaving these unique mustang herds to live and die on the lands where they were born.
On January 27, 2012, the Nevada legislature's Committee on Public Lands will meet to consider legislative recommendations. On the agenda is a bill -- pushed by a small group of cattlemen and big game hunters -- that would cut off wild horses and burros from their right to access water across the entire state. These ranchers and hunters view mustangs and burros as competition for cheap livestock grazing and big game hunting on our public lands.
In 2011, this legislation -- Assembly Bill 329 (AB329) -- was passed by the Nevada Assembly, and sent by the Senate onto the Committee on Public Lands for further review.
The bill would specifically exclude wild horses and burros from the definition of "wildlife" within the context of Nevada water resource allocation law, thereby depriving them of their right to access this indispensable, life-sustaining resource. Meanwhile, every other free-living animal, whether native or non-native, from mammals to mollusks, would continue to be considered wildlife for the purposes of water planning in Nevada.
As a Nevadan, your voice is critical to counter the cattlemen and big game hunters who want to drive wild horses off the Nevada range once and for all!
Mustang dies of dehydration after being fenced off from water due to livestock grazing.
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What You Can Do
1. Attend the meeting in Carson City, or via video conference in Las Vegas and Elko!
WHEN: Friday, January 27, 2012 at 9 A.M.
(Arrive by 9 a.m.; the wild horse legislation is one of the first items on the agenda.)
In November 2011, the five-year ban on domestic horse slaughter was lifted when Congress passed -- and President Obama signed into law -- the 2012 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that authorized federal funding for USDA inspections of horse meat. This devastating development paves the way for horse slaughter plants to reopen in the U.S. (For more info, please read "A Victory for the Horse Killers," by investigative journalist George Knapp.)
Now is the time to call on the Congress to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S.1176 and HR 2966)!
The bipartisan bill bans the slaughter of American horses on U.S. soil. It also prohibits the transport of horses across the border for slaughter in Canada and Mexico -- a horrendous fate currently suffered by more than 100,000 horses per year. If this legislation is not passed in this session, it will simply die a quiet death in committee.
Commercial slaughter is a threat to all American horses . . . both domestic and wild. So please be a voice for the horses today!
TAKE ACTION
Please make a brief, polite phone call to your U.S. Senators and your Congressperson. The telephone numbers will appear at the bottom of the sample letter below. A call will only take a moment - all you have to say is this:
"Hello, my name is ____ and I'm a constituent of Senator/Representative ____. I'm calling to ask him/her to co-sponsor The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S. 1176 in the Senate and HR 2966 in the House) and to help get the legislation out of committee and on to the floor for a vote. Americans do not eat horse meat and are overwhelmingly opposed to this cruel practice. Thank you very much."
If you own a horse and/or are involved in the horse industry, please be sure to state that as well. If your Senators or Congressperson have already sponsored the bill, be sure to thank them and urge them to work hard for its passage.
Please follow up your call with the form below. Be sure to add your words as well, so your representatives in Congress know how important this issue is to you.
NOTE: To send your message, you may be asked to choose a topic area. For your Congressperson, choose "Immigration" because the bill is in that committee. For Senators, choose "Commerce," "Science," or "Transportation," as the Senate version of the bill is in that committee.
Feds Developing 15-20 Year Management Plan: Your Comments Needed by August 30, 2011
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The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is seeking public input for revision of the Devil’s Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory Management Plan. This plan will establish the short- and long-term management of this wild horse territory for the next 15 to 20 years. The USFS has drafted preliminary intentions for the plan and it is imperative that you submit your comments below.
The Devils Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory is approximately 268,750 acres or 419 square miles in size. The USFS only allows 275 to 335 horses on this Territory that is also used by 10 different livestock grazing permitees. In May 2010, the USFS estimated that the population of horses was approximately 854.
On the positive side, the USFS plans to manage this herd using the PZP fertility control, a reversible, non-hormonal vaccine with minimal impacts on wild horse behavior. Unfortunately though, the USFS's goal for fertility control use in this Territory is merely to extend the time between roundups and removals, rather than to reduce the need for population-wide removals entirely.
This is the scoping period for revision of the management plan, so now is the time to let the USFS know the issues and alternatives the public wants included and evaluated. Please take easy action below to personalize and send your letter. When you click send, your suggestions will be emailed to the USFS.
On June 9, 2011, Senators Landrieu (D-LA) and Graham (R-SC) introduced the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S.1176) to end the cruel slaughter of American horses for human consumption and their transport over the border for that purpose. Every year, approximately 100,000 American horses are crammed onto trailers and shipped across U.S. borders into Canada and Mexico, where they are brutally slaughtered, and then shipped overseas to end up on dinner plates in Europe and Asia.
A June 2011 Government Accountability Office (GA0) report highlights the need for this legislation by confirming that the across-the-border transport and slaughter of American horses is largely unregulated. Read an excellent analysis of the implications of this report here.
Commercial slaughter is a threat to all American horses . . . both domestic and wild. So please be a voice for the horses today!
TAKE ACTION
Please make a brief, polite phone call to your U.S. Senator, urging co-sponsorship of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S.1176). They need to hear from you! Your Senators' telephone numbers will appear at the bottom of the sample letter below.
Then, use the form below to send a follow-up note. Please be sure to add your words as well, so your senator knows how important this issue is to you.
On June 9, 2011, Senators Landrieu (D-LA) and Graham (R-SC) introduced the