Wild horses could be sold for slaughter in Pres. Trumps budget plan

[n2doc]

PALOMINO VALLEY, NV (AP) — President Donald Trump’s budget proposal calls for saving $10 million next year by selling wild horses captured throughout the U.S. West without the requirement that buyers guarantee the animals won’t be resold for slaughter.

Wild-horse advocates say the change would gut nearly a half-century of protection for an icon of the American West and could send thousands of free-roaming mustangs to foreign slaughterhouses for processing as food.

They say the Trump administration is kowtowing to livestock interests who don’t want the region’s estimated 59,000 mustangs competing for precious forage across more than 40,000 square miles (103,600 square kilometers) of rangeland in 10 states managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The budget proposal marks the latest skirmish in the decades-old controversy pitting ranchers and rural communities against groups that want to protect the horses from Colorado to California.

more

http://nbc4i.com/2017/05/26/wild-horses-could-be-sold-for-slaughter-in-pres-trumps-budget-plan/

[Kingofalldems]

1. The Trumps hate animals.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Bayard]

3. This argument has been going on for a long time

Its the cattle ranching industry bitching about OUR horses on OUR land.

"BLM ranchers lease land from the government at a bargain-basement rate of $1.69 per “animal unit month” (AUM)—a reference to the forage allotted to an animal unit for one month. This fee stands well below market values, which range from $9 to $23 per AUM in 11 western states (with their average, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, being $18.20), and represents a huge public subsidy to a private industry that produces less than three percent of the nation’s beef. Taken together, the numbers suggest that all the purported horse troubles are really just a bad case of protesting too much.

Plus, the BLM’s grip on rancher autonomy is light. Of all the public grazing land the BLM manages (155 million acres), wild horses are technically allowed to graze on only 17 percent of it. Horses tend to move within their Herd Management Areas, but if they range beyond they become fair game for a BLM round-up. Within that 17 percent, moreover, only 23 percent of the forage is designated for wild horses."

(snip)

“The American people share public lands with private livestock ranchers who, in turn, don’t want to share public land with the wild horses and burros that are owned by all Americans,” Coffey says. “These ranchers seem to take the attitude that public land is their private property.”

https://psmag.com/environment/western-cattlemen-square-off-against-60000-mustangs

[Wellstone ruled]

4. So agree.

Here in the Southwest we live with story every day. The Group behind this Horse elimination Program are a small group based in what we call the Great Basin Area. All seem to be tied together by Family and their Religion..

The Largest Rancher using Public Lands here in the Southwest is the LDS Church through their Non Profit Corporation named FARM.