Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board April 14, 2014
Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board April 14, 2014
Comment sent to Bureau of Land Management, Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting held April 14 & 15, 2014, Sacramento, CA
Dear Advisory Board Members:
I attended the Triple B roundup in August 2011 at the Newark Valley and Butte Valley trap sites which spurred me on to continue observing and reading whatever is available online about the WH&B program and activities.I’m not affiliated with any wild horse non-profit group nor with ranchers. I have some concerns about the BLM Wild Horse & Burro program because I feel it is broken, not to mention a costly program that increases its budget by paying for research and then ignoring the analyses.
- Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board April 14, 2014
The roundups are the first contact with humans and how the horses and burros are treated during the roundups will affect their potential adoptability.
It’s obvious to me that separating them from the family bands does not make them feel safe and appears to agitate and make them fearful of their captors.
- Wild Horse and Burro
- Advisory Board April 14, 2014
It’s time for the WH&B program to review and analyze how first contact with helicopter roundups affect their potential adoption.
Screen shot of Adoption Trends Slide at the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting April 14-15, 2014
I’ve also been to Palomino Valley holding pens where offers of help have been made to build shade and wind protection and help relieve boredom for the wild horses and burros. Many offers of help have been ignored or dismissed from horse advocates and non-profits.
- Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board April 14, 2014
This program seems like it’s more of a good ole boys club – BLM contractors and board members appear to have agendas that include horse slaughter, rodeos or cattle ranching. Is there anyone on the board that has a wild horse or two? Is there anyone on the board that has been to a roundup or to a short or long term holding facility?
Considering the public notices for the roundup of horses in Wyoming last month which had no mention that horses would be the target how were the horse organizations going to find out? BLM WH&B program knew that horses were to be rounded up but only disclosed that to their contractors.
- Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board April 14, 2014
BLM & BLM WH&B knows that there are special interest groups that would have stepped up and found adoptors for horses, yet the BLM continues to not include them in a potential solution so the wild horses were sent to slaughter across the border.
The kill-buyers knew where the horses would be sent… Coincidence? … or a planned slap in the face to those non-profit organizations that would have stepped up?
There appears to be more respect to the contractors and cattle ranchers who the BLM WH&B staff and management listens to more than the people whose tax dollars fund the program and who have nothing to gain except satisfaction that the wild horses and burros are managed correctly and safely and the public lands stay healthy and beautiful as they once were…free of cow pies.
Don’t tell me there is no money to increase the comfort of wild horses in holding facilities since the program continues paying contractors millions of dollars to round them up ‘just to use up the budget’ to give their friends an opportunity to earn a fat living off the WH&B budget. The BLM budget keeps growing yet I see no partnerships with volunteer organizations to help keep that in check and know that various offers of help and materials have been turned down repeatedly.
So now I heard the WH&B Board of Advisers are recommending that there should be a study of the damage or negative impact to range lands by wild horses and burros; will this be another slanted study – studying only the negative impact can not be relevant unless the study includes the benefits. If the study finds that wild horses have none or a minimal impact, will the BLM WH&B program just ignore the report like they have ignored the NAS report?
The wild horses have a legal right to roam while livestock grazing is only one of the permitted multi-uses yet the wild horses and burros always get the short end of the stick. Why?
Sincerely,
afroditi katsikis, a tax payer
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Hippies for Horses 
great comment. i am skeptical of this new “program” as well the “blm foundation” and agency within an agency ? to donate too ? and add to the existing shenanigans !
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Excellent, Afroditi! Pray the listen and heed your message. Good meeting you there. Shared on FAcebook and Twitter
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Hi Afroditi: Thanks for following this meeting and monitoring the BLM. The BLM has always made purely political appointments. People with no expertise or experience litter their panels, consult few experts, and make poor decisions. The horses being denied shelter and stimulation in the early days of March was beyond inhumane. If this gross infraction had been committed by a non-government agency, cruelty charges would have been lodged. Yes, the BLM runs their budget like a bad grant, not spending resources and then being forced to release large streams of funding at the end of the fiscal period. This money usually gets misapplied. There was money to shelter these horses and the refusal of private in-kind donations and other funding to accomplish this task was criminal.
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Thank you, Afroditi! I watched both days of the BLM WH&B Advisory Board meeting, and you have said what has needed to be said. Additionally, BLM, get those 37 horses back from Bouvry!
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The 1990-91 GAO ( Government Accounting Office) study found the millions of cattle on public lands destroy the range and riparian areas and the few wild horses do not. This is ignored. No further study is needed actually. BLM has done studies before and just ignored what cattle grazing does also. Think PEER may have that info or Western Watersheds Project.
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