Wild horses could be sold for slaughter or euthanized under Trump budget

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

The Bureau of Land Management spends about $50 million per year to house and feed more than 46,000 wild horses and burros in corrals. Another 73,000 of the animals roam freely across the western states, producing foals and grazing on public lands that conservation groups say are quickly deteriorating.

It’s an escalating equine-population problem, and the fiscal 2018 budget President Donald Trump proposed this week suggests a solution: using “humane euthanasia and unrestricted sale of certain excess animals.”

The change could lead to sales of wild horses to slaughterhouses in Mexico or Canada, as well as to the culling of herds, to address what the bureau calls an “unsustainable” situation. But it has been condemned by horse and other animal advocacy groups, some of which have consistently resisted efforts to impose limits on an icon of the American West that has been federally protected since 1971.

“President Trump promised to return government to the people, and we trust that he meant it,” Suzanne Roy, executive director of the American Wild Horse Campaign, said. “America can’t be great if these national symbols of freedom are destroyed.”

<more>

Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2017/05/26/news/nation/wild-horses-could-be-sold-for-slaughter-or-euthanized-under-trump-budget/

[StarryNite]

1. The welfare ranchers

The welfare ranchers are one of the forces behind the push to kill the horses. They want all of America's wild horses off our public lands. Wild horses are being managed to extinction due to special interest groups. It's all about greed.

THE WILD FREE-ROAMING HORSES AND BURROS ACT OF 1971
(PUBLIC LAW 92-195)
§1331. Congressional findings and declaration of policy
Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols
of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life
forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these
horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. 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.

[DK504]

15. Oh there you go again stating law and bringing it to light.

We all know the dumb leading the dumber don't know or care about law.

[byronius]

2. Well, gosh, evil evil evil evil evil evil. Oh, and Evil.

I think Republicans should be sold for slaughter or euthanized.

Think of the savings!

[Plucketeer]

3. I don't think horses

are native to North America. Am I right on that?

Beware! Cattle are being slaughtered and processed DAILY (Buffalo too!)! When you look into a steer's eyes, do you see a reflection of yourself or just a Quarter Pounder? And here's a tip to avoid these creatures as dinner fare. They don't sell the stuff as "murdered cow" - they got this code name: Hamburger! FYI!

[Igel]

10. Save the zebra mussels!

Protect the kudzu!

Exactly. They're invasive and destructive, but aren't the object of adoration on teen girls' calendars, whatever the age and biology of the admirer.

Nobody wants to protect zebra mussels or kudzu. But horses ...?

Horses are a symbol of the American West. They're also introductions by colonialist, imperialist invaders and aggressors. First the Spanish, then the Mexicans. (Uncomfortable to remember that the Mexicans were also imperialist aggressors, but there you have it.)

Same with most of the boar roaming around south Texas. People want to defend them, too, mostly because conservative rednecks kill them, and they'd rather fight rednecks at the expense of the environment than admit that something rednecks do might not be pure evil. It's a common enough trick, mostly played on the self.

[Coventina]

23. If we get rid of horses, we should get rid of cattle as well. They are invasive and MUCH

more damaging than anything horses do.

STOP WELFARE RANCHING ON OUR PUBLIC LANDS!!!!

That is the much BIGGER issue.

[StarryNite]

11. Actually North America is where they began their evolutionary journey

Horses most certainly are native to North America.

The Surprising History of America's Wild Horses
By Jay F. Kirkpatrick and Patricia M. Fazio

Modern horses, zebras, and asses belong to the genus Equus, the only surviving genus in a once diverse family, the Equidae. Based on fossil records, the genus appears to have originated in North America about 4 million years ago and spread to Eurasia (presumably by crossing the Bering land bridge) 2 to 3 million years ago. Following that original emigration, there were additional westward migrations to Asia and return migrations back to North America, as well as several extinctions of Equus species in North America.
[link:http://www.livescience.com/9589-surprising-history-america-wild-horses.html|

Reintroduced by the Spanish although some scientists believe the horse never did die off completely from North America.

One of Americas wild horse herds in danger are the Heber Wild Horse Herd in Arizona. Although they live in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests and not on BLM land they are still going to be affected by this tRump budget.

They were almost rounded up and removed back in 2005 but Forest Service was taken to court and a court order prohibited FS from removing any horses until the proper steps were followed by law. Now they are once again at risk with the welfare ranchers in the area pressuring Forest Service to remove them so they can graze more privately owned cattle in our national forest and thus make more money.

Read the speech of Arizona Congressman (D) Raul Grijalva honoring the Heber Wild Horses.

HONORING ARIZONA'S WILD HORSES
SPEECH OF

HON. RAÚL M. GRIJALVA

OF ARIZONA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2007

· Mr. GRIJALVA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Arizona 's wild horses living in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.

· The residents of the State of Arizona deeply value these magnificent wild horses.

· These beautiful wild horses are truly the ``Living Symbols of the West,'' as described by the Wild Horse and Burro Act passed by Congress in 1971 to protect the wild horses of the United States .

· The Rim Country wild horses date back to mounts brought by Father Eusebio Kino, who began his 1653 mission to eastern Arizona by setting out from the lands of my constituency in southern Arizona and traveling across our State northeast to the ``borders of the lands of the Apacheria which border on New Mexico.''

· These original Spanish horses are the great ancestors of the Mogollon Rim country wild horses. They were the mighty Andalusian war horse, whose origins go back more than 28,000 years to the original Iberian horse; the magnificent Spanish Barb; and the graceful and fluid Spanish Jennet, the mount of many of the great kings of Europe; and the strong bloodlines of these original horses appear almost unchanged in our Rim wild horses 400 years later.

· Our Arizona Rim wild horses are the direct descendents of the Spanish horses prized by the conquistadors so highly that the foals were carried in hammocks to protect their legs until they were old enough to travel on the forced marches; and prized by the early cattlemen for their endurance and heart and were the very mounts of the U.S. Cavalry as they rode to protect and expand the American west.

· The Arizona Rim Country wild horses living in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests are a most precious natural resource to be preserved for our children and grandchildren who will be able to see them for generations to come.

[NickB79]

19. They went extinct here 15,000 yr ago

You could argue that naturalized horses (which are a different subspecies) are close enough to the native one, but because of the mass extinction event as the last Ice Age ended, they no longer have most of their natural predators either. We no longer have American lions, cheetahs, short-faced bears or dire wolves to keep the population in check. Hell, there used to be native Columbia mammoths, very similar to African elephants, roaming California, but I doubt most people would accept wild elephant herds charging through the redwood forests.

And it is worth noting that one of their top predators was man for 20,000 years.

[montana_hazeleyes]

4. They are evil. That's the best word in my mind for them!

Evil, a billion times over.

[Ilsa]

5. Contraception is already being used, I think.

I'm not sure how well that is working.

There are horse farms that would like to adopt, I bet, but they need financial help making it happen.

[StarryNite]

12. Some contraception is being used

However, if you read the budget you will see they want to take that off the table.

Budget Overview
– The 2018 BLM budget

" The remainder of the funding decrease
will be achieved by reducing gathers, reducing birth
control treatments, and other activities deemed incon-
sistent with prudent management of the program."

[link:https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/fy2018_bib_bh007.pdf|]

[Nevernose]

6. Many of the horses are already suffering horribly

To the point where the wild horse nonprofits have gone beyond "save the horses!" to physically assisting in the round up of wild herds. They don't even have to chase them anymore, much less use the helicopters (which was awful for other reasons), because the horses are so starved they'll go anywhere for some hay.

It's the drought in the west. It's hit Nevada worse than the other western states, and it's not like Nevada was a swamp beforehand. Something like 95% of wild horses are located in the Silver State.

Selling starving animals is just plain monstrous.

[OnlinePoker]

8. There hasn't been drought in Nevada for 3 months

About 6% abnormal dryness but there should be good fodder for the horses this year. The thing is, the horses aren't a natural part of the ecosystem. There should be no difference in killing them than in other invasive species.

[StarryNite]

14. Don't buy into their justifications

The BLM tries to make it sound like they are doing the horses a favor by removing them. In some cases that may be true but they highly inflate the numbers to suit their agenda. And their agenda is to remove the horses from our public lands to satisfy the welfare ranchers and other special interest groups.

BLM wild horse program slammed in National Academy of Sciences report

An independent report released today by The National Academy of Sciences is critical of the Bureau of Land Management's oversight of free-ranging horses and burros on federal public lands in the western United States and urges changes to its current roundup policies.

snip~

The panel says there are promising birth control methods available to help limit this population growth as well as science-based methods for improving population estimates and predicting the effects of management practices in order to maintain genetically diverse, healthy populations, and estimating the productivity of rangelands.

Greater transparency in how science-based methods are used to inform management decisions may help increase public confidence in the Bureau of Land Management, according to the report.

[link:http://www.carsonnow.org/story/06/05/2013/blm-wild-horse-program-slammed-national-academy-sciences-report|

[applegrove]

7. They are sending Bucky to the GLUE FACTORY!!! This is animal farm.

[Codeine]

9. They're quite environmentally destructive

and are not a native species. I don't see an issue here.

[StarryNite]

16. Horses most certainly are a native species unlike cattle.

The Surprising History of America's Wild Horses

Modern horses, zebras, and asses belong to the genus Equus, the only surviving genus in a once diverse family, the Equidae. Based on fossil records, the genus appears to have originated in North America about 4 million years ago and spread to Eurasia (presumably by crossing the Bering land bridge) 2 to 3 million years ago. Following that original emigration, there were additional westward migrations to Asia and return migrations back to North America, as well as several extinctions of Equus species in North America.

[link:http://www.livescience.com/9589-surprising-history-america-wild-horses.html|

[Codeine]

17. They went extinct a long time ago

and were reintroduced something like twelve thousand years later into a totally-changed environment. They're an invasive species.

[StarryNite]

18. Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife

Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife
by Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. and Patricia M. Fazio, Ph.D. (Revised January 2010)

In 1493, on Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas, Spanish horses, representing E. caballus, were brought back to North America, first in the Virgin Islands, and, in 1519, they were reintroduced on the continent, in modern‐day Mexico, from where they radiated throughout the American Great Plains, after escape from their owners or by pilfering (Fazio 1995).

Critics of the idea that the North American wild horse is a native animal, using only selected paleontological data, assert that the species, E. caballus (or the caballoid horse), which was introduced in 1519, was a different species from that which disappeared between 13,000‐11,000 years before. Herein lies the crux of the debate. However, neither paleontological opinion nor modern molecular genetics support the contention that the modern horse in North America is non‐native.

~Snip~

The fact that horses were domesticated before they were reintroduced matters little from a biological viewpoint. They are the same species that originated here, and whether or not they were domesticated is quite irrelevant. Domestication altered little biology, and we can see that in the phenomenon called "going wild," where wild horses revert to ancient behavioral patterns. Feist and McCullough (1976) dubbed this "social conservation" in his paper on behavior patterns and communication in the Pryor Mountain wild horses. The reemergence of primitive behaviors, resembling those of the plains zebra, indicated to him the shallowness of domestication in horses.

~Snip~

Native status for wild horses would place these animals, under law, within a new category for management considerations. As a form of wildlife, embedded with wildness, ancient behavioral patterns, and the morphology and biology of a sensitive prey species, they may finally be released from the "livestock‐gone‐loose" appellation.

[link:https://awionline.org/content/wild-horses-native-north-american-wildlife|

[NickB79]

20. And humans were their top predator for 20,000 years

So by this line of reasoning, there is nothing wrong with hunting them to control their population, right?

Of course, we'd be a little more selective than running entire herds off cliffs, like the Native American hunters did.

[StarryNite]

37. Wild horses are not overpopulated

What's Wrong with Livestock Grazing on Public Lands?
Animal Rights, Environmental and Taxpayer Issues

Wildlife Issues

Livestock grazing on public lands also displaces and kills wildlife. Predators like bears, wolves, coyotes and cougars are killed because they sometimes prey on livestock.

Only 37,000 wild horses still roam these public lands, but BLM wants to round up even more. Comparing 37,000 horses to the 12.5 million animal units the BLM allows for grazing on public lands, the horses comprise less than .3% (three-tenths of a percent) of the animal units on those lands.

Aside from the general environmental degradation issues, ranchers erect fences that obstruct the movement of wildlife, reducing access to food and water, and isolating subpopulations.

[link:https://www.thoughtco.com/livestock-grazing-on-public-lands-127674|


Keep in mind that even in the BLM HMAs and Forest Service wild horse Territories, there are also grazing allotments for cattle.
The BLM and U.S. Forest Service do not use scientifically base information to formulate a wild horse and burro management plan. Their management numbers are arbitrary and capricious.

[Coventina]

24. The same, only on a much more massive scale, can be said of cattle.

This is being done so that welfare ranchers can continue to profit off of public lands that they are destroying.

STOP WELFARE RANCHING ON PUBLIC LANDS!!

[Codeine]

25. I'm very much against public grazing.

Cattle herds are a nightmare.

[Coventina]

26. In that case, I hope you realize this action is being taken to protect those SOBs.

So that they can run MORE cattle.

The horses are NOT the true problem. They are being scapegoated (if you'll pardon the expression) here.

[Marthe48]

13. Snidely Whiplash line-item

tear-the-heart-and-soul-out-of-American-values budget gutting

[Sunlei]

21. This species is as native to north america as the eagle and heals the lands they live on.

[StarryNite]

27. So true!

And yet they are constantly under assault by the greedy ranchers, BLM, Forest Service, and people who just don't know any better and have eaten the propaganda and lies.

Mark Killian Director AZ Dept of Agriculture inflating the numbers of wild horses at a "rally" for welfare ranchers in Heber/Overgaard, Arizona...

“And the thing that’s most important for the ranchers right now is that the horse numbers go up they’re going to cut the number of cattle off these allotments. And if this continues on, pretty soon there won’t be any ranchers left on these allotments. It’ll be just like it is in Nevada where they’ve got hundreds of thousands of horses running all over the place creating all kinds of problems. And so we’re working with the Forest Service to see if we can’t find a solution. But ultimately in my opinion we’re going to have to go back into court and prove to the court that these horses are not original.”

In 1973 the Heber Wild Horse Territory was dedicated by the U.S. Forest Service in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests for the protection and preservation of this herd in accordance with The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. The information provided to the ranchers by Director Killian was grossly inaccurate. There are not hundreds of thousands of wild horses in the entire United States, let alone specifically in the state of Nevada. The Forest Service is currently working on the Heber grazing allotment to increase the number of cattle in the area.

Here is the video of Mark Killian lying to the welfare ranchers who want all of the wild horses removed from the Sitgreaves National Forest so that they can have even more cattle on OUR public lands and thus increase their bottom line. They are already being heavily subsidized by we the tax payers.

[link:http://

|

[NickB79]

30. Without natural predators, they destroy the land

The only predators that survived the Ice Age extinction event that wiped out the TRULY native horse species in N. America are grizzly bears, wolves, mountain lions and humans. And of those, only one survives today in large enough numbers to check their growth to sustainable levels.

[StarryNite]

35. In order to have a management plan...

you must have accurate data. Without accurate data you cannot even begin to incorporate a management plan. The BLM and Forest Service do not have accurate data on wild horses and burros. FOIA requests to the BLM show highly inflated numbers. For instance in one year in one wild burro HMA they started off with 175 burros. They removed 80 and wound up saying there were 635 left in the HMA. Just to be clear, burros do not have litters. And that is not by any means an isolated case.

[Coventina]

22. If they get rid of horses, they have to get rid of cattle as well.

They are even more of an "invasive" species, and much more harmful to the environment.

STOP WELFARE RANCHING!!!!

[StarryNite]

29. Yes, stop welfare ranching!!!

For those who don't care about America's iconic wild horses, maybe they do care about how their tax dollars are being squandered.


Sustainable Cowboys or Welfare Ranchers of the American West?

Five hundred million dollars[1]. That’s what 21,000[2] ranchers who graze their livestock on America’s iconic western rangelands are estimated to have cost US taxpayers in 2014 — and every year for the past decade. This averages out to an annual taxpayer subsidy of $23,809 per rancher — approximately a quarter of a million dollars each since 2005. So why does this small subset, representing just 2.7% of US livestock producers, protest the “welfare rancher” label?

The public lands grazing program is welfare.

That $23,809 — and it’s a lowball figure — is a form of public assistance similar to other welfare programs. The only difference is, it doesn’t arrive as a check in the mail. It instead represents a loss covered by taxpayers: the very large difference between what public lands ranchers pay in fees to the US government and what public lands grazing costs taxpayers every year. But it’s still a subsidy, as a newly updated economic analysis, Costs and Consequences: The Real Price of Livestock Grazing on America’s Public Lands, makes clear. And the recipients aren’t low income; a large number are millionaires and some are billionaires and multi-billion dollar corporations on Forbes various “rich lists”. Cattle barons, if you will.

~Snip~

States the Western Watersheds Project,

“Public lands ranching is the most widespread commercial use of public lands in the United States. Ranching is one of the primary causes of native species endangerment in the American West; it is also the most significant cause of non-point source water pollution and desertification.

Public lands ranching significantly contributes to climate change by emissions of the global warming gases nitrous oxide and methane; it causes loss of soil carbon reserves by causing erosion and by substantially reducing the landscape’s potential to sequester carbon.”
[link:http://dailypitchfork.org/?p=631|

[NickB79]

31. Agreed. We should do both.

Wipe out the cattle, significantly cull the horses, and reintroduce wolves and bison.

[Coventina]

32. Instead of "culling" they should be managed in a humane manner.

It has been shown to be possible, when there is a will to do it, especially if we stop wasting money on the cattle.

Many people would like to adopt wild horses, if it could be made affordable.

Agree with more reintroductions of wolves and bison.

[StarryNite]

34. Wolves and other apex predators definitely belong.

But you will find it's the same people, the welfare ranchers, who keep pushing to have all the apex predators killed.

"Wildlife Services"
They kill millions of wild animals each year—over 2.7 million in 2016 alone—using methods that endanger humans and kill countless pets. Their methods are also cruel, indiscriminate, ineffective, and funded by tax dollars.


Overview & Kill Data

Wildlife Services is a strategically misnamed federal program within the USDA that wastes millions of dollars each year killing wild animals with traps, snares, poisons, gas, and aerial gunning at the request of corporate agriculture and the hunting lobby. According to their official reports, they have slaughtered over 34 million animals in the last decade. Even worse, we've had whistleblowers tell us repeatedly that Wildlife Services' real kill numbers are significantly higher, just not reported.

In 2016 alone they claim to have killed 2.7 million animals, including the following vital native predators:

76,859 coyotes
997 bobcats
410 bears
415 wolves
332 mountain lions (cougars)

[link:http://www.predatordefense.org/USDA.htm|

Wildlife Services falls within the USAD...no surprise there.

[Paladin]

28. Have the trump sons volunteered to shoot the horses, for "sport"?

Nothing would surprise me anymore.

[StarryNite]

33. That will probably be next.

It takes big men, much like tRump's cowardly sons to shoot burros and horses.

Arizona has the largest number of wild burros. But they are by no means overpopulated, although there are those who keep that lie going and growing.

Mohave County District Supervisor Steve Moss wanted to “Seek legislation authorizing state agencies to issue hunting permits ." Until public outcry made him dodge the bullet, pun intended, and say he didn't really mean it.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

36. On the bright side, it might solve the meals on wheels problem.

[hamsterjill]

38. No. This is America.

Sorry to disagree, but this is still America and we don't eat horses.

I see your point. But I want a few things to remain unique to my homeland. Horses have not been routine food for human consumption in my lifetime and I don't want to see that happen to satisfy a bunch of idiots who don't know how or won't take the time to learn to take care of the land.

Argue away. Flame away. Argue that cattle are raised for food. There is no merit in an argument that says just because one species is slaughtered, it's okay that another be slaughtered.

What's next? Killing dogs for food like China? Where does it stop?

No, thank you.

[StarryNite]

39. I stand with you 110% hamsterjill!

The Facts About Horse Slaughter
The Humane Society of the United States

Is it possible to conduct commercial horse slaughter in a humane manner?
No. Horse slaughter, whether in U.S. or foreign plants, was never and cannot be humane because of the nature of the industry and the unique biology of horses.

Slaughter is a brutal and terrifying end for horses, and it is not humane. Horses are shipped for more than 24 hours at a time without food, water or rest in crowded trucks. They are often seriously injured or killed in transit.

Horses are skittish by nature (owing to their heightened fight-or-flight response), which makes accurate pre-slaughter stunning difficult. As a result, horses often endure repeated blows and sometimes remain conscious during dismemberment—this is rarely a quick, painless death. Before the last domestic plant closed in 2007, the USDA documented in the slaughter pipeline rampant cruelty violations and severe injuries to horses, including broken bones protruding from their bodies, eyeballs hanging by a thread of skin, and gaping wounds.

The answer is not to return to subjecting our horses to abuse and unacceptable conditions at plants in the U.S. but to ban both horse slaughter and the export of horses for slaughter altogether and to provide our horses with decent lives and, when necessary, humane deaths.

[link:http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/horse_slaughter/facts/facts_horse_slaughter.html?referrer=https://www.google.de/|

The roundups of wild horses and burros are also horrific. The BLM guy in this video is still working for the BLM. Your tax dollars at work.

[link:

|

[roamer65]

40. I'd like to pick that blue shirted asshole up by HIS ears.

See how he likes it. God damn fucking asshole

[StarryNite]

41. Yup, I agree.

And there are a lot of those 'good ole boys' working for the BLM.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

42. That was sarcastic.

Not actually advocating feeding the poor and elderly horses.

[hamsterjill]

43. Thank you for clarifying.

Peace.

[Sunlei]

44. wish I could graze my cow/calf pair for $1.25 A MONTH & "landlord" fix ALL trample damage FREE.

Landlord (our federal government) fences for FREE, exterminates wildlife FOR FREE, Lies about NATIVE SPECIES for corporations FOR FREE, fights all the wildfires because of the cattle/sheep ruined lands FOR FREE.

$14+ for ONE T-bone steak, profits are massive for Corporate Welfare.

[StarryNite]

45. Forbes Billionaires Top US Welfare Ranchers List

Forbes Billionaires Top US Welfare Ranchers List

The Koch brothers, Ted Turner, the Hilton family and nine other powerful ranchers share an uncommon privilege: giant public subsidies, unknown to U.S. taxpayers. It’s the other side of the Cliven Bundy story, the other side of the Wright brothers saga—the bronc-riding, ranching family at the center of the New York Times photographic essay published March 11, 2015. It’s also the other side of the ongoing news feed in which ranchers work to remove wild horses from public lands.

That “other side” of those stories is the federal grazing program that enables the Wrights to run their livestock on public lands for cheap; allows ranchers to have thousands of protected wild horses removed from public lands at public expense. It’s also the program that earned Bundy the title of welfare rancher.

~Snip~

Along with that comes all kinds of perks paid for by taxpayers: the USDA’s wildlife services, which killed four million endangered and predator species in 2013 to help livestock operators. The costly and wildly ineffective Wild Horses and Burros Program which operates to the benefit of welfare ranchers.

It’s not an exact science, but one thing is clear: the public is being lulled by stories about bronc riders like the Wright brothers and outliers like Cliven Bundy while missing the big picture: a handful of cattle rustlers—rich ones—whose hands are deep in the public’s pockets, along with all the other smaller permittees.
[link:http://dailypitchfork.org/?p=698|