Wild Horse and Burro
Run Down
s we await the the fall/winter roundup schedule we reflect on the events that shape the reality our wild ones live each day.
Throughout the summer we watched the acceleration of targeting our wild ones for removal and the destruction of their environment. The lobby groups (the "Ten Years to AML" backdoor agreement, that began in 2015) devastating influence over policy .
- Removals continue to increase.
- Millions of dollars in new holding facility contracts to accommodate the tens of thousands of horses and burros over the next few years.
- The Adoption Incentive Program is showing itself to be the "slaughter subsidy" we foretold.
Sterilization, in the form brutal surgical spaying, is back in play. Set to begin in Utah's Confusion HMA in November, we are working on our legal challenge.
This summer our teams, once again, documented wild horses suffering and dying from long neglected issues of fence lines and deteriorating water sources. All of this is happening as mining and livestock continue to devastate the natural world and wild horse habitat.
For decades BLM continues to make deals that increase exclusivity of public resources for profit driven interests and neglect wild things and wild horses.
There is hope.
With your help we are making progress educating key legislators. BLM has failed to create management plans that actually focus on protecting wild horses and burros for future generations. This baseline fracture is one of the systemic issues that leaves the entire system open to consistent manipulation and destruction; the program on the verge of fiscal collapse while wild horses face brutality on the range, during capture and slipping into the slaughter pipeline. Legislators are paying attention.
Working in conjunction with a wide range of public lands organizations we are making strides against massive mine expansion threatening the most basic need for all life, water.
Our work against abuse has built a strong legal fame that has begun policy change. Our work is now set to go to the next level soon to gain accountability to the most basic tenet of the Act, humane treatment.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg said “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” What if Justice Ginsberg never took those foundational cases? We have built a solid foundation with more than a decade of field data and successful litigation. We can build the next steps on this path.
As a nation we are facing rapid degradation of our public lands and diminishment our very voices in public process.
Our wild horses and burros have long occupied one of the most neglected spots in the public lands discussion. The revolving door of acting Directors of BLM, that have not faced Senate confirmation hearings, have been a parade of individuals with deep and long standing ties to "anti" wild horse factions.
Good news: The court ruling marking William Perry Pendleys tenure as illegal, opens a potential floodgate to overturn policy changes.
This week we have appealed gazing decisions, documented multiple herds and are set to defend the land they stand against massive mines that threaten critical habitat
Thank you for you support at this critical time.
Onward.
Laura Leigh
Wild Hose Education , founder
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October 2020
October, 2020 3