Posted on 11/26/2004 5:37:54 PM PST by mommadooo3
Congress Approves Mustang Slaughter
PLEASE HELP, PLEASE PASS ON.......................
Stealthily tucked within a much larger appropriations bill (HR 4818) while no one was watching, Congress approved measures this weekend to end 33 years of Federal protection for an America Treasure, our "Living Legends" - wild free-roaming horses and burros on public lands. This bill seems to have broadsided everyone, including many BLM personnel, who had drafted their own plans to handle the problem, and thought their plan would work. Since both House and Senate have already passed it, the only hope left is to get Bush not to sign it - which he will do tomorrow, unless enough public outcry can be generated within the next less-than-24 hours.
The Wild Horse & Burro Act was signed into law in 1971, after a long campaign led by Velma Johnson, "Wild Horse Annie" and thousands of school children. Congress received more mail about wild horses than about Viet Nam. In today's crisis-weary world, is this the end for America's wild horses?
LINK to bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/Z?r108:H19NO4-0085:e758617:247850 The BLM part is about 1/3 of the way down the page.
I would suggest to EVERYONE you can get hold of, through phone calls, e-mails, chat rooms, equestrian sites, etc, anything......get them to call the president's comment line, fax letters to the fax number, and to e-mail both the president and vice president IMMEDIATELY. Please pass on to everyone for immediate action. Currently there are over 23,000 wild horses in holding facilities within BLM and their contract sanctuaries. 1100 new horses are being gathered from the Calico Mountains this month and next. If this passes, ALL, could potentially be sold to slaughter.
President Bush president@whitehouse.gov
VP Cheney vice.president@whitehouse.gov
202-456-1111 phone 202-456-2461 fax
Calico mountains horses slated to be gathered this month. Will they go to slaughter?
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Congress passes less-restrictive wild horse bill
Measure sparks concern among animal activists who say it opens door to killing
By SAMANTHA YOUNG STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Aging wild horses and those that cannot be auctioned off as pets could be sold for slaughter under a bill that Congress passed over the weekend.
The legislation immediately sparked concern among wild horse advocates who said it could lead to the killing of thousands of healthy horses as the government drives to reduce herds on public lands.
Wild horses older than 10 or those that have unsuccessfully been put up for adoption three times may be sold "without limitations," at local sale yards or livestock facilities, according to the bill.
"If someone under this program can now buy 300 horses and ship them to a slaughter house people will start making money," said Howard Crystal, attorney for the Fund for Animals. "I would expect under this law we're going to have far higher numbers of horses going to slaughter."
The bill strips from federal law a clause that no wild free-roaming horse or burro can be sold or transferred for processing into commercial products.
The provision was tucked into a 3,000-page year-end spending bill that lawmakers largely completed on Saturday.
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Bureau of Land Management, placed the measure into the bill after consulting with Sense. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., Burns spokeswoman Jennifer O'Shea said.
"We've got to get the number of animals down to appropriate management levels and keep them there, but do it in a way that doesn't bankrupt us," Burns said in a statement. "This language is a step in the right direction. It gives BLM another tool to help get this under control."
Lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with the BLM's handling of the wild horse program, whose costs have skyrocketed as more and more horses have been taken off the range and placed into government-run holding fa- cilities.
Giving the BLM the authority to sell those horses could solve the agency's long-standing budget problems while allowing the agency to continue gathering thousands of wild horses from the public lands, a Senate aide said.
For each horse that is placed in a long-term holding facility, the BLM spends about $465 annually, or about $6.8 million a year.
The agency estimates there are about 36,000 horses in the wild, roughly 7,000 more than the government contends the land can sustain.
BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington declined to comment on the congressional action.
"We've not yet reviewed the language," she said.
Unlike the adoption program, in which buyers are limited to four horses and must sign an affidavit promising not sell the horse to slaughter, the new sales would not have such restrictions, Senate aides said.
BLM officials long have contended that adopters don't want to buy older horses, forcing the government to place them at the long-term holding facilities at taxpayer expense.
In fiscal 2004, the BLM adopted out 6,650 horses out of the 9,900 horses it gathered from the range. The rest were sent to long-term sanctuaries in the Midwest.
Crystal said the new law would empower the BLM to round up herds of horses for adoption, knowing that many could later be sold for profit.
"You could have an adoption of year-old horses on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with no advertising, and then sell to people at a yard sale," Crystal said.
Chris Heyed, a policy analyst with the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, called Congress' latest move "a systematic attack on wild horses."
"There is no other real other intent of dumping them into the market and slaughter is the only outlet," Heyed said.
In addition, the bill makes clear that it is no longer a crime to sell an aging or horse for slaughter, Crystal said.
I've read about that. A winning solution all the way around.
Big cats there aren't going to help thin the herd where these horses are. Even if you try to bring them in, they'll ignore the horses. Beef will be what's for dinner.
Amen. And to elaborate: a welfare junky who spends his/her time hanging out in gangs, selling crack, sitting on their free goverment-housing porch, flipping off the cops as they go by, while complaining about how "bad" our country is- all this is what your tax dollars pay for.
OTOH- Why am I not the least bit surprised that with all the problems the federal govt. could work on , they come up with "slaughter wild mustangs and burros" as a priority. Arghhhh :-(
All of mankind can thank the horse for the advance of civilization. It would not have happened with out the horse. And the mustangs and burro's ARE part of our national heritage. Can't they come up with a better solution than this?
Not if they're French cats.
A mare goes into heat every month all summer if she isn't pregnant... You can shoot 3/4 of the stallions and a mare will still run across one a year.
If you want to contol population, seems to me the answer is to bring in and adopt mares, let the stallions go.
Just money, since I don't walk well.
There aren't any French cats. I've got two cats, and French is anathema to their existence.
Have to leave for tonight...time to grain/turn 'dogs' out. Hopefully we can continue the thread in the a.m.
Well, I don't think that's the answer. Perhaps the answer lies in trapping and gelding a few, and then releasing them back on their range.
It is not a pretty sight to see the horses dying of starvation. That said, left alone, their numbers will decrease to a size that their range can handle. The terrible part in this area is that in ten years, they have lost so much of their range.
I think I'm tired, I don't get it.
Where are you going to pen 30,000 horses? That's the approx. number we have on FEDERAL LAND.
Nevada receives only 14 percent of the national budget for wild horse funding, in spite of more than half the herd living in our state.
http://gov.state.nv.us/pr/2004/PR_02-13wildhorses.htm
I don't think there is an appealing answer. We aren't going away, and we'll mismanage them worse and worse the more of us come along. It's not like deer that everyone agrees need to be hunted and controlled that way.
I am not about to agree to horse hunting. So we take the worst route, crowded trucks to an ugly end at the slaughter house. Phooey on us, but they'll go the way of the wolf.... a few kept in preserves as relics of a past we can visit, but none in the wild.
I don't know.... I don't have any answers that can actually work either. See my above.
That's a sad scenario, to be sure.
'Night, all. The letters on the screen are starting to drift.
There's just something oxymoronic about the whole concept of a French predator.
Wolves, Buffalo, and Mustangs.... what will we not have room for next?
Well if any left when I'm ready, I'll take two. 29998 to go.
Don't fret. There are always the slugs, snails and other protected species:')
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