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Defend Wild Horses from the BLM

The wild horses of Water Canyon in Nevada need your help! Please stand up for them and make your voice heard by commenting before the looming June 15 deadline regarding the wild horses in the Water Canyon area of the Antelope Herb Management Area (HMA) of Nevada. Their lives are at stake!

America’s wild horses are continually under threat and their numbers dwindle yearly. Many of us have seen the photos and videos of the helicopters chasing down these majestic horses in order to round them up and gather them into long-term holding pens. This practice is inhumane and terrifying for the horses who are chased until they can barely stand. Countless horses flee in desperate fear, many of whom become severely injured or killed in the horrific process… and all so that the land they need to survive can be used instead for livestock ranchers and the big business that is the meat industry.

As the number of wild horses continues to diminish, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Ely, Nevada District Office would have the public believe that a “fertility control pilot program” for the horses in the Water Canyon area is of necessity, while the true intent is to remove even more horses from the area in lieu of grazing for sheep.

Under the guise of this program, the BLM’s proposal would only allow 25 wild horses to remain in the area. Those 25 horses would be on the same public lands as Hank Vogler’s “Need More Sheep Company” and his more than 6,000 livestock. The livestock would be left and allowed to graze at embarrassingly low taxpayer-subsidized rates. Unfair? You bet it is!

The BLM and the ranchers would have wild horses eradicated from public lands in favor of sheep and cattle grazing. This grazing is for the sole purpose of fattening up the unfortunate cows and sheep who are then brutally slaughtered and finally consumed. The direct link between cattle and sheep ranching with wild horse roundups is real and will continue until we humans take responsibility for our palates and refuse to financially support the industry. Horse roundups would not be deemed “necessary” if not for sheep and cattle ranchers whose meat businesses bring in the money that allows them to influence policies that are corrupt.

This plan is unacceptable for the wild horses and the public who care for them. The BLM is again outwardly showing preferential treatment for commercial livestock industries while the fate of our wild horses continues to hang in the balance.

Tell the BLM you do not support this program and you want the BLM to discontinue its use of helicopters to capture horses and to only use bait trapping to capture horses or remote darting for application of a humane program using PZP birth control as an alternative to removal, as removal is unacceptable. No additional horses should be removed and relocated to holding facilities where many wild horses languish for years with no hope of adoption.

The BLM must institute the reduction of livestock grazing so that the wild horse population in the area is accommodated equally without removing horses under the guise of a fertility program. American wild horses have just as much right to be on these public lands. Let the BLM know that removing our wild horses in lieu of grazing sheep for the livestock industry is not acceptable!

Thanks to American Wildhorse Preservation Campaign for contributing to this alert.

Click here to read more and to take action.

In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031
idainfo@idausa.org

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