Urgent Action: Oppose BLM Plan to Capture NV Mustangs Next Month Without Proper Review & Disclosure, and other News
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
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BLM Proposes a Large Wild Horse Roundup in NW Nevada & Gives the Public Less than 2 Weeks to Comment
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is giving the public just 13 days to comment on an Environmental Assessment (EA) for its proposed roundup and removal of 630 wild horses from the Jackson Mountains Herd Management Area (HMA) in northwestern Nevada. While the EA describes and analyzes a "non-emergency" action to take place in July 2012, the BLM has informed AWHPC that, due to an "emerging situation that has the potential to rapidly deteriorate," the agency will begin to roundup horses -- by water trapping or helicopter -- in late May or June. This is the heart of foaling season, yet the impacts of capture on newborn foals and heavily pregnant or lactating mares has not been analyzed, nor has any data describing, documenting or analyzing the "emerging situation" been released to the public.
Reminder: If You Haven't Yet, Please Submit Your Comments on the Carson City RMP
The BLM's Carson City Field Office oversees 21 Herd Areas in a state where over half of the nation's remaining wild horses and burros reside. The Carson City BLM is seeking public comments on revisions to its Resource Management Plan, which sets the land use policy for this area north of Reno.
News
BLM Moves Forward With Madeleine Pickens' Ecosanctuary Proposal
Last week, the BLM announced that it was moving forward with philanthropist and wild horse advocate Madeleine Pickens' proposal to develop a wild horse ecosanctuary in Elko, Nevada. The ecosanctuary would offer a home on the range at Mrs. Pickens' 14,000-acre ranch for 900 captured wild horses currently held in BLM short-term holding facilities. Included as part of the ecosanctuary would be the ranch's 530,000-acre public grazing allotment, which would be converted from cattle to wild horse use. To read the BLM's news release and Mrs. Pickens' reaction to it, please click here or below.
PETA Investigation Uncovers Horrendous Cruelty in Transport & Slaughter of Horses from Iowa Kill Pen
The fine pedigree of Royale with Speed (pictured at left), grandson of the legendary racehorse Secretariat, was not enough to spare him from the cruel fate suffered by over 100,000 American horses a year. Dumped at a killpen in Iowa, he was found by PETA investigators who tracked the plight of 33 horses on a brutal 1,100-mile, 36-hour journey in subfreezing temperatures to a Canadian slaughterhouse.
Royale with Speed was spared slaughter and has since been adopted by celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels, but the other horses, like thousands of others, suffered an unspeakably horrible and cruel end at the slaughter plant in Quebec. Please read more about PETA's investigation here, then take action to ask your Congressperson and Senators to co-sponsor the American Horse Slaughter Protection Act by clicking here.
Your Comments Draw National Attention to Plight of Mojave Desert Burros
Thanks to you, the BLM received over 4,000 comments opposing the removal of burros from the Piute Mountain Herd Area and from outside the Chocolate-Mule Mountains Herd Management Area in southern California. The growing outrage over the BLM's roundup and removal of burros from the Mojave Desert drew the attention of the Huffington Post, which ran an article that featured footage of burro abuse by a BLM helicopter.
Our public comments in opposition to BLM roundups are building a strong public record of citizen demand for change. So, thank you to everyone who took time to help. Please, keep sending in your comments -- they really are important! Read the Huffington Post article by clicking here or below.
The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) is dedicated to preserving American wild horses and burros in viable free-roaming herds for generations to come, as part of our national heritage. Supported by a coalition of over 40 organizations, its grassroots campaign seeks:
* A suspension of roundups in all but verifiable emergency situations while the entire BLM wild horse and burro program undergoes fiscal and scientific reform;
* Higher Appropriate Management Levels (AML) for wild horses and burros on those rangelands designated for them based on a fairer allocation of resources on our public lands;
* Implementation of in-the-wild management, which would keep wild horses and burros on the range and save taxpayers millions of dollars annually by avoiding the removal and stockpiling of wild horses in government holding facilities.
www.StopTheRoundups.com
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6931/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1203015