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Cloud
Foundation Demands BLM Call Off
Massive
Winter Mustang Roundup
Plan
to roundup over 2,000 American Mustangs on
Delaware-
sized range, where thousands of livestock graze, contested
Reno
,
NV
(January 10, 2011)—The Cloud Foundation opposes spending millions of
taxpayer dollars to wipe out
America
’s wild horses. Currently the BLM plans to roundup and remove up to
2,228 alleged “excess” wild horses from the 1.3 million acre Antelope
Complex in northeastern
Nevada
. The Foundation asks that all roundups halt until the National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) completes their study and new Appropriate
Management Levels (AMLs) are set to prevent the American wild horses and
burros from being managed to extinction. This dead of winter roundup is
scheduled to begin January 20, 2011 and last for 40 days.
The Antelope mustangs’ range
(to be managed principally for them in balance with other wildlife) is
larger than the entire state of Delaware at 1.3 million acres, but is
allocated for grazing by a monthly average of more than 7,700 head of privately-owned
livestock. At the same time BLM has set the allowable level for wild
horses in the Antelope
Complex at only 407 animals.
“The Cloud Foundation is
calling for an evaluation and reallocation of forage rights for wild
horses in burros in the Antelope Valley Complex and beyond,” explains
Cloud Foundation Director, Ginger
Kathrens.
In 2007 BLM conducted a deadly
winter roundup in the Antelope Complex, removing 847 mustangs and leading
to scenes like those depicted in a series of disturbing photographs (posted
online here).
Should this action go forward,
the herd will be left with a predominately male sex ratio. More than 200
mares will be given the experimental infertility drug, PZP-22
that should be applied only in late winter or early spring according to
experts. Drugs and sex-ratio manipulation will lead to unknown levels of
social disruption among once-stable wild horse family bands as mares
continually cycle with an unknown number giving birth at the wrong time of
the year.
A new and relatively
inexperienced roundup crew, Sun J, will conduct the roundup as contracted
by the BLM. The roundup is estimated to cost at least $4.5 million and
leave only one wild horse per 3,100 acres.
It is time to re-slice this pie
and give wild horses their fair share of our public rangelands,” states
Kathrens. “In Antelope and beyond they are given only a pitiful
sliver.”
"Lack of forage is not the
issue. Looking at the Antelope Complex you see allotments where 3,500
sheep are allowed to graze—but only 6 horses are allowed to live on
the land,” explains Kathrens. “On another allotment where more than
450 cattle graze year round, only 40 wild horses are permitted. The bias
favoring welfare
livestock is shocking. BLM needs to put this and all other roundups on
hold to develop sustainable policy before wild horses are managed to
extinction."
The Foundation and more than 200
other organizations and celebrities began a unified
call for a moratorium on all roundups more than a year ago. In July
2010, 54
members of Congress sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
requesting a moratorium on roundups alongside a National
Academy of Sciences report. Massive
winter roundups such as the one planned for the Antelope Complex will
leave dozens of American mustangs dead. Last year the winter Calico
Roundup in
Northern Nevada
more than 112 died and at least 40 mares suffered late-term induced
abortions from the stress of the roundup. At least two foals’ hooves
literally separated from their feet, suffering an excruciating pain prior
to their deaths.
BLM repeatedly blames wild horses for range damage while allowing
exorbitant numbers of livestock to graze in wild horse and burro
management areas. Nationwide, “welfare
livestock” are estimated to do up to a billion dollars of damage to
public lands annually. Again and again, healthy wild horses are removed to
allow for public lands grazing leases that do not even recover their
grazing program administrative costs, running in the red by at least $123
million annually. Nearly 40,000 wild horses and burros are currently held
in captivity by the
US
government while less than half that remain in the wild on their rightful
rangelands.
“Our wild horses and burros
are a valuable asset to our public lands ecosystems,” explains Kathens.
“They are clearly not starving, destroying their habitat or in need of
‘rescue’. It is time for the BLM to take a time out and sit down with
the public to re-establish how American treasures are to be managed.”
The
Cloud Foundation
makendra@thecloudfoundation.org
The
Cloud Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to the preservation and
protection of wild horses and burros on our Western public lands with a
focus on protecting Cloud's herd in the Pryor Mountains of Montana.
www.thecloudfoundation.org
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