WHE Heartbeat spring/2020 WHE EARTH DAY HEARTBEAT/HOOFBEAT | Page 6

Earth Day and Our

Wild Horses

Our Situation

Open range is a romantic notion, nothing more. Our western landscape is a series of fenced grazing land, fenced open pit mines and very few truly wild places left. Our public lands are being carved up to suit industry, not landscape preservation.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has confirmed that the BLM wild horse program is woefully inadequate when it comes to data based management of wild horses.

Wild Horse Education volunteers document this travesty on the ground. We have witnessed the lack of data inside field offices and listen to memo and personal opinion substitute for substantive information. We have debated the absurd. We have catalogued the absurd from the reality of the ground to the employees that enforce, justify and perpetuate. We have sent that report to Congress.

Earth Day is a time to come together and give thanks and respect to our planet, our public lands, our wild spaces; and now more than ever it the world needs this day.

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