Mustang roundup moratorium rejected
Courts » Wild horse advocates are considering their legal options.
By Martin Griffith
The Associated Press
Updated: 11/15/2009 07:34:35 PM MST
Wild horses graze near the Carson River in Carson... (AP Photo/Nevada Appeal, Chad Lundquist, File)
Reno, Nev. » Wild horse advocates say they have no recourse but the courts after federal land managers rejected their request for an immediate moratorium on mustang roundups.
The Bureau of Land Management plans to remove more than 30,000 horses from Western rangelands over the next three years to deal with soaring numbers of the animals and the cost to manage them.
The Equine Welfare Alliance, which represents more than 60 organizations, is considering its legal options after the BLM rejected its request to halt the roundups, said John Holland, its president.
The Chicago-based coalition opposes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's proposal to move thousands of mustangs to preserves in the Midwest and East to protect horse herds and the rangelands that support them. Salazar has said his plan unveiled last month would avoid the slaughter of some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control to halt the rising cost of maintaining them.
"The BLM continues to say wild horses are overrunning the range, but they have no scientific evidence," Holland said. "We're going to file everything we can afford to, with what resources we can gather."
BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said his agency thinks there's scientific evidence to justify the removal of 11,500 of the animals from the range over each of the next three years.
The agency has set a target "appropriate management level" of
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26,600 of the animals in the wild, about 10,000 below the current level. An additional 32,000 of them are cared for in government-funded corrals and pastures.
"We're confident that our scientific analysis stands up to scrutiny," Gorey said. "The herd sizes double every four years, so it's untenable to suggest we do a moratorium."
The Equine Welfare Alliance has questioned the BLM's horse numbers and said there was no evidence justifying removal of the romantic symbols of the American West.
Holland said horse advocates now are considering legal action to block certain individual planned roundups, including one targeting 2,500 mustangs near Gerlach in northern Nevada. Nevada is home to about half of the horses in the wild.
"It's very difficult to go after a program like this, and the BLM knows it," Holland said. "You have to go after it piecemeal."
The roundups are coming at a time when there are almost as many wild horses in holding pens as on the range.
The BLM has completely eliminated some herds and left remaining herds genetically unviable as a result of reduced numbers and mares that were given birth control, Holland said.
"The roundups will eliminate the wild herd," he said. "I think they underestimate the feeling of the American people about this wild heritage."
Gorey said some horse advocates' claims that the BLM is trying to "exterminate" the animals is "pure propaganda."
The agency is merely trying to bring horse numbers down to protect rangelands for the mustangs, native wildlife and other resources, he said.
There were 25,000 of the animals on the range in 1971, when a federal law protecting them was passed by Congress.
Salazar's proposal will be considered at a Dec. 7 meeting in nearby Sparks of the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board.
Costs to manage the animals that are expected to jump from $36 million last year to $85 million by 2012 have prompted Salazar to propose his new approach.
The seven preserves would hold about 25,000 horses. Many of the horses remaining on the range would be neutered and reproduction in Western herds would be strictly limited.
Is a TRO in BLM’s Future?
Horseback Magazine
Is a TRO in BLM’s Future?
By Steven Long
Photo by Terry Fitch
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – Activists have been scratching their heads as the federal Bureau of Land Management sweeps America’s wild horses from the Western landscape. Why? Because the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act clearly set aside plenty of room for them almost 40 years ago and the agency appears to be in violation of federal law.
The first paragraph of the law is clear cut.
“It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.”
Helicopter induced stampedes, multiple brands, killing, and capture of the horses are prohibited, yet all happen on BLM gathers - violations that happen now weekly by the thousands.
Yet BLM consistently says there is no room for the animals as it administers almost 260 million acres of largely vacant land and leases whole chunks of wild horse acreage set aside by Congress for wild horses to ranchers for grazing, land that could be returned to Mustang habitat under the law.
Moreover, the agency consistently has sloppy bookkeeping in its wild horse and burro program that appears to be often blatantly misleading yet ignored by congressional oversight.
What has prompted furious head scratching by wild horse lovers is the vexing question of why a smart lawyer on their side hasn’t marched into federal court with a request for a temporary restraining order tucked in his briefcase to stop the so called BLM “gathers.”
Such an injunction could bring the roundups to a screeching halt.
A case in point is the landmark injunction issued by Texas Judge William Wayne Justice who died recently. By his order, the state’s prison system was changed from the “Boss Hog” era to the state of the art correctional system we see today in the Lone Star State. The injunction held for 30 years.
On the surface, such an action against BLM appears clear cut. The 1971 law is written in plain language and to a layman, the BLM is in blatant violation of it.
National organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States who have the wherewithal to file such a lawsuit have been woefully absent in the fight, animal welfare advocates say.
They point to the recent roundup in Montana’s Pryor Mountains where the iconic stallion Cloud and his herd were captured, some mares sterilized, and broken up. They claim the Pryor Mountain horses are no longer genetically viable as a herd.
HSUS was nowhere to be seen during the Labor Day week controversy.
The Pryor horses horses are a recognized breed in the official Horse Breeds Standards Guide, If the activists claims are correct, a federal agency has wiped out a recognized breed of horse by making its only herd genetically bankrupt.
Activists aren’t the only interested parties with an itch. Even lawyers with a specialty in animal activism are scratching their heads at why nobody has sought an injunction.
“I'm not sure either,” said one attprmey who declined to be identified. “It would have seemed the best course a couple of years ago instead of all this piecemeal litigation, but there is a belief among, I guess, most of the lawyers who do this that it is better to challenge each BLM action, keep on top of them that way, because we can't stop the gathers or BLM's role.”
And large scale litigation is expensive and no lawyer willing to work on a huge landmark case for free has come forward.
“I see a basis for a suit,” the lawyer told Horseback Online “If you know of any attorneys who are respected in Washington and licensed to practice in federal court, send them my way.”
POSTED BY BARB AZ AT 10:18 AM
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