In response to the horrific news that 30 horses burned to death in upstate New York while being tranported to a Canadian slaughter plant, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R, C, I-Glenville) has introduced legislation to prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption in New York and to prevent horses from being transported across state lines for slaughter. The bill (A. 3905/S. 4615) is also prime-sponsored by Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick (D-Manhattan) and Senator Kathy Marchione (R,C-Halfmoon).
Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) is circulating our "Step In, Sally" letter on Capitol Hill and we need your help to make sure as many representatives sign on as possible.First, be sure that you've signed the letter yourself! Go to StepInSally.com and add your name.
If you've already signed, then take a few moments to contact your represenatives in Washington and encourage them to add their names as well.
What's this all about? Sally Jewell has been Interior Secretary for one month. So far she has visited national parks and oil rigs, but the wild horse issue doesn't seem to be on her radar.
We're trying to change that by collecting 30,000 signatures on an open letter that calls on her to act to reform the Bureau of Land Management's program. Every name that's added to this letter counts, but we're especially glad to have the support of Congressman Grijalva in helping us send a loud and clear message to the Interior Secretary:
The U.S. Forest Service (FS) is proposing to roundup and remove 45-74 burros, or more than 80 percent of the population, living in the Hickison Wild Burro Territory (WBT) near Austin, Nevada. The agency also intends to set an Allowable Management Level (AML) of just 16-45 burros for this area. The Hickison WBT is managed jointly with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Hickison Herd Management Area, and burros travel freely between the lands managed by both agencies, giving them a total of 110,000 acres. The proposed AML would establish a ratio of 1 burro per 2,444 acres. Both agencies allow cattle grazing on the public lands in question.
Nationally, the government estimates that just 5,800 wild burros survive on federal lands in the West today.
Please sign the petition below to endorse the scoping comments of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, calling on the FS to develop a better plan to protect this historic wild burro herd in central Nevada.
(Photo above by Mike Lorden.)
According to the New York Times, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is planning authorize inspections for horse slaughter plant in the U.S. If given the go-ahead by the USDA, the first horses killed for slaughter on U.S. soil since 2007 will operate in New Mexico.
The USDA is maintaining that it has "no choice" but to authorize horse meat inspections, because language prohibiting the expenditure of tax dollars on horsemeat inspections was removed by Congress from the USDA's budget bill last year.
However, the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsak, has broad discretion in how federal funds are spent for food inspections. In this time of budget cuts, Secretary Vilsak, could easily decide that limited funds for this department should be spent to keep America's food supply safe, rather than on a product that will be shipped abroad for foreign consumtpion.
Americans don't eat horsemeat and overwhelmingly oppose horse slaughter.
Please take one moment to let Secretary Vilsak know that you do not want your tax dollars spent to subsidize the cruel horse slaughter industry!
1. Please call Secretary Vilsak
Senator Mark Manendo of Las Vegas has introduced two important horse protection measures: Senate Bill 72 (SB 72) seeks to ban the inhumane rodeo practice of horse tripping and Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJR 1) expresses support for wild horses and burros in the state of Nevada. The Senate Committee on Natural Resources will hear both measures on Tuesday, March 12, 2013.
Please use the form below to urge the committee members to vote yes on each of these bills. Additional information on the two bills is available below the sample letter.
As several states (New Mexico, Oklahoma, etc.) move closer to opening horse slaughter plants on U.S. soil for the first time in six years, federal legislation to ban the horrific practice of horse slaughter is needed NOW!
Recent revelations that horsemeat accidentally entered the food chain overseas have put a media spotlight on the issue of horse slaughter. It seems that horse slaughterers are incapable of preventing horsemeat from mingling with their other products. If it can happen there, it can happen here. Fortunately, Congress is responding.
Just introduced in both chambers of Congress, The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act will prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the U.S. and ban their export abroad for that purpose. This bill will protect our nation’s horses from the predatory horse slaughter industry and protect the public from toxic horsemeat. The SAFE Act is sponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Representatives Patrick Meehan (R-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).
Your action could mean the difference between life and horrible death for more than 100,000 U.S. horses -- both wild and domestic -- each year. So please take these two easy steps today:
1. Call your Senators and Representative and ask them to co-sponsor this critically important bill. Your legislators' telephone numbers will appear under their pictures below. It's simple and only takes a minute. All you have to say is this:
"Hello, I am a constituent of Sen./Representative ___, and I am calling to ask that he/she co-sponsor the Safeguard American Food Exports Act, S541/HR 1094. Horse slaughter is a cruel and unacceptable practice opposed by the vast majority of Americans. Since horses are not raised for food in the U.S. and are commonly given a variety of drugs, the product produced is unsafe for human consumption." If your Senator or Representative is already a sponsor of the bill, please thank him/her very much.
2. Follow up your telephone call by personalizing and sending the sample email below. Please note that you may be asked to choose a subject or topic area: choose or fill in "Agriculture."
Thank you very much for your support. And thanks to our coalition partners, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the U.S., and the Animal Welfare Institute for their hard work on Capitol Hill to pass this bill.
Congressmen Raul Grijalva, D-AZ, and Ed Whitfield, R-KY, are circulating a letter to fellow members of the US House of Representatives asking for answers from outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about his department's wild horse and burro program, specifically why over 1,700 captured mustangs have been sold to kill buyer Tom Davis.The letter asks Secretary Salazar to respond to the demands of the 25,130 American citizens who signed a petition, which we delivered in person to the Department of the Interior in November 2011. To date, we have had no response from the Department, despite the petition's request that the Secretary respond within ten days.
Your help is urgently needed. It is important that we gain the support of as many members of Congress as possible to make sure that our voice on behalf of wild horses and burros is finally heard within the Obama Administration. We need as many sign ons as possible as soon as possible, since Secretary Salazar is set to retire from the Interior Department at the end of March.
The White House's website says that President Obama is "committed to making this the most open and participatory Administration in history." We haven't found that to be true in our dealing with the Obama Administration's Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
For example, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has refused to respond to a letter signed by 25,130 Americans. And despite receiving over 200,000 public comments against wild horse roundups in 2012, the BLM is implementing a policy to ignore form letters sent in by citizens.
A meeting at the White House will allow us to address these issues face to face with the President's staff and begin to open the constructive lines of communication that we've been seeking to build with his Administration.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=AVBJWGCSXHUJG
Public Comments Must Be Received By Thursday, May 24, 2012.
Despite the small size of the herds, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is planning the massive removal of wild horses from the Buckhorn, Coppersmith and Carter Reservoir Herd Management Areas (HMAs), located in northeast California and northwest Nevada. The roundups are being scheduled for November 2012 (Buckhorn and Coppersmith HMAs), and July 2013 (Carter Reservoir HMA).
The BLM is now accepting public comments during the scoping period. This enables the public to tell the agency what issues should be addressed and what alternatives should be considered when developing an Environmental Assessment on the capture and removal plan.
According to the scoping notice, the BLM may permanently remove more than two-thirds of the estimated 425 wild horses in and around the three HMAs if the agency plans to reduce herds down to the low end of the "Allowable Management Level" (AML) of 140 horses. While AWHPC supports using the safe and reversible fertility control method (PZP) for managing population growth of wild horses on the range, we oppose the proposed removal of horses from within and outside the 259-square-miles of the HMAs.
Please oppose this unnecessary action by personalizing the sample letter below and clicking the "send your message" button to submit your comments. Be sure to include your mailing address so that the BLM does not have an excuse to dismiss your comments, and please submit your comments by May 24th.
Thank you for continuing to take action to protect wild horses and burros.
Ask Congress to Support Legislation to Allow for Voluntary Retirement of Livestock Grazing Permits on Public Lands
In fact, the driving force behind the mass roundup and removal of wild horses and burros from public lands is the commercial livestock industry. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has always allocated the majority of forage and water resources in designated Herd Management Areas to privately-owned cattle and sheep, instead of federally-protected wild horses and burros, and will continue to do so until grazing permits are retired.
The Rural Economic Vitalization Act (H.R. 3432) would allow federal grazing permit holders to voluntarily relinquish their permits in exchange for compensation paid by a third party. The grazing permit will then be permanently retired. There are public lands ranchers interested in retiring their grazing permits under the circumstances offered by this legislation.
Please help restore our public wild lands and protect wild horses & burros by asking your Representative to support and co-sponsor the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (H.R. 3432).
Learn more about this bill by clicking here.
Make Room for Mustangs! Ask Congress to Support Legislation to Allow for Voluntary Retirement of Livestock Grazing Permits on Public Lands
Photo by Terry Fitch, Wild Horse Freedom Federation
Livestock grazing represents the largest single commercial use of federal lands in the lower 48 states. On our public lands across the West, millions of livestock trample and destroy vegetation, damage soil, spread invasive weeds, pollute water, and deprive wildlife -- including wild horses and burros -- of forage and water.
In fact, the driving force behind the mass roundup and removal of wild horses and burros from public lands is the commercial livestock industry. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has always allocated the majority of forage and water resources in designated Herd Management Areas to privately-owned cattle and sheep, instead of federally-protected wild horses and burros, and will continue to do so until grazing permits are retired.
The Rural Economic Vitalization Act (H.R. 3432) would allow federal grazing permit holders to voluntarily relinquish their permits in exchange for compensation paid by a third party. The grazing permit will then be permanently retired. There are public lands ranchers interested in retiring their grazing permits under the circumstances offered by this legislation.
Please help restore our public wild lands and protect wild horses & burros by asking your Representative to support and co-sponsor the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (H.R. 3432).
Learn more about this bill by clicking here.
Please take action:
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. A recent ProPublica expose´ revealed that BLM has sold "truckload after truckload" of captured wild horses to a livestock hauler who operates a horse slaughter business.
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.
Help American Horses - Domestic & Wild!
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.
Comments Needed on BLM Grazing Permit Renewals Affecting
Six Wild Horse Habitat Areas
Wild horses, other wildlife species and American taxpayers are ongoing victims of the federal boondoggle known as welfare ranching. Across the West, private ranchers are allowed to graze their cattle and sheep on our public lands for approximately 1/13th the cost of grazing on private land. This costs taxpayers as much as $500 million per year.
Taxpayers futher subsidize private ranchers and big livestock corporations through a federal program (deceptively named "Wildlife Services) that kills native carnivores like coyotes, wolves and mountain lions, that might prey on privately-owned livestock.
Then we pay again when the federal government conducts multi-million dollar roundups to remove tens of thousands of federally-protected mustangs and burros from public lands in the West, where privately-owned livestock receive the lion’s share of resources. Ironicaly, the feds use the absence of predators (which have been killed by the government for the benefit of the ranchers) as justification for the costly roundups!
It's time to take a stand against welfare ranching and for wild horses today.
The Surprise Field office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting public comments on its pending decision to renew livestock grazing permits in numerous allotments on our public lands, including four that are in wild horse Herd Management Areas (HMAs).
In keeping with standard BLM practices, the majority of resources in these designated wild horses areas are allocated to privately-owned livestock and not our federally-protected wild horses:
Nut Mountain Allotment (63,953 public acres)
Bittner and Nut Mountain Herd Management Areas (HMAs)
Over 5 times more forage allocated to cattle than wild horses
(Equivalent of 815 cattle vs. 75 horses allowed.)
Massacre Lakes Allotment (38,466 public acres)
Includes Massacre Lakes HMA Eight times more forage allocated to cattle than wild horses
Equivalent of 582 cattle vs. 25-35 wild horses allowed
Massacre Mountain (146,097 public acres)
High Rock HMA
5 times more forage allocated to cattle than wild horses
(Equivalent of 485 cattle vs. 78-120 horses allowed)
Tuledad Allotment (165,286 public acres)
Buckhorn and Coppersmith 5 times more forage allocated to livestock than horses
(Equivalent of 600 cattle and 1000 sheep vs. 160 wild horses)
Please take the time to personalize and submit the letter below to demand that our wild horses are given a fairer share of public lands. Livestock grazing is devastating our public lands and our wild horse herds. Take a stand today!
I
BLM TO REMOVE ANOTHER 1,726 MUSTANGS FROM NORTHEASTERN NEVADA
The mustangs need YOU to be their voice.
Please submit your comments by February 7.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting public comments on a Preliminary Environmental Assessment (EA) on a plan to roundup 1,726 wild horses from the Triple B, Maverick Medicine and Antelope Valley BLM Herd Managment Areas and the Cherry Spring Wild Horse Territory, managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The roundup is scheduled for July 2011, in the heat of the desert summer.
The plan will leave behind as few as 472 wild horses in this vast, 1.7 million-acre public lands complex. Meanwhile, the BLM authorizes nine times that number of privately-owned livestock to graze the same area.
Please take the easy action below by personalizing and submitting your comments today.
Special note: Although it may seem tedious to keep responding to these calls for comments on roundups, please be assured that your emails matter! We are building a strong public record of widespread opposition to the BLM's current policies. This will be tremendously important when Congress hears the call and holds BLM accountable for its mismanagement of our tax dollars and our wild horses. So please act today - thank you!
Please share this alert on Facebook.
Deadline for comments: Monday, December 27, 2010
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Cedar City Field Office is seeking comments on the preparation of a new Resource Management Plan (RMP), which addresses the management of wild horses and burros in 10 Herd Management Areas in southern Utah (see map here).
This area accounts for more than 63 percent of Utah’s wild horse population and includes the beautiful Sulphur Springs mustangs, known for their geographic isolation and pure Spanish bloodline.
Under the current management strategies, public lands in Utah are managed to maximize commercial livestock grazing. Over three million acres of wild horse habitat has been “zeroed out” over the past four decades, leaving Utah's mustangs and burros with less than half of the original five million acres set aside for their use. Allowable population levels in the remaining herd management areas are set at arbitrarily, and sometimes ridiculously low, numbers.
The current action will re-write the existing, 24-year old RMP. It will also revise a framework that sets a goal of maintaining wild horse populations within this area at 1971 levels -- a time when wild horse populations had declined so dramatically that Congress passed a law to protect them!
This is the stage of the planning process when the BLM sets management strategies, allocates resources, and sets “appropriate” management levels for wild horses and burros. Now is the time to raise our collective voices to demand change for Utah’s wild horses!
Please use the form below to send a strong message to BLM on behalf of Utah’s mustangs. Thank you for continuing to fight for wild horses and burros.
NOTE for anyone in the vicinity of Las Vegas or Salt Lake City: BLM will be holding three public meetings on this RMP update, and it would be great to have some voices for wild horses in attendance. Meetings are in Utah: Cedar City (2.5 hrs from Las Vegas) on December 7; Beaver on December 8 and Salt Lake City on December 9. Times and locations here.
Read more about roundups in Utah here.
