Dear Animal Advocates,
As you may know, Congress is currently trying to pass a federal budget for fiscal year 2011. Unbelievably, although the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program is widely known to be broken and unsustainable, the House of Representatives has approved increasing its funding.
The BLM plans to use this funding to remove another 10,000 wild horses from public lands next year. If this happens, the population of mustangs warehoused for life in government holding facilities would swell to 45,000 — to the tune of $50 million in taxpayer money. Meanwhile, privately owned herds of cattle are allowed to graze on the same land that was “overcrowded” with wild horses.
We do have a chance to stop this: the Senate is still debating the 2011 federal spending bill, but the deadline to make changes and pass it is midnight on Saturday, December 18.
Dear Animal Advocates,
We’ve been updating you all year about the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) efforts to remove wild horses and burros from public lands. Once again, we’re calling on animal advocates throughout the country to speak up on behalf of wild horses — this time, for at-risk herds living on public lands in Utah.
The BLM is required by law to create Resource Management Plans (RMP) for certain public lands and their use. An RMP determines appropriate wild herd management levels, meaning how many horses and burros can remain on the land. It is now time for the BLM’s office in Cedar City, UT, which handles ten Herd Management Areas in southern Utah, to create a new RMP.
Because Utah’s public lands have historically been managed to maximize livestock grazing, we are particularly concerned that this RMP will shortchange the horses who live there. While more than three million acres of designated wild horse habitat have been “zeroed out” over the past four decades, privately owned livestock graze 22 million acres of BLM-controlled lands in Utah.
Dear Animal Advocates,
All year, we’ve been updating you about the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) efforts to remove wild horses and burros from public lands. Now BLM is at it again, and we need your immediate help!
BLM is required by law to create a Resource Management Plan (RMP) for certain public lands and their use, and the federal agency is currently considering an RMP for the Winnemucca District in northwestern Nevada. Unfortunately, this proposal does not adequately protect and preserve wild horses and burros, or alter the BLM’s reliance on inhumane and fiscally irresponsible wild horse roundups and removals.
BLM is accepting comments on its proposal for the Winnemucca District until Monday, October 25. It is critical that BLM hears from you before this date to ensure that wild horses in the Winnemucca District are not eradicated.
What You Can Do
Please take a few minutes to email BLM’s Winnemucca District Office and encourage the agency to adopt a responsible RMP for northwestern Nevada. Your support is an essential step in protecting and preserving wild horse and burro populations. Please visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center to send your letter.
Thank you for taking action for America’s wild horses.
Today we covered Para, the start of vaulting with an early lead by the USA and driving starts tomorrow. Plus, Glenn went on a quest to find adventure at the horse park! Listen in to what happened with that….
2010 Radio Show Episode 121 by SUCCEED – Show Notes and Links:
NEW YORK – On October 5, the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) will unveil “Angels for Horses: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” a historic exhibit featured at the Kentucky Horse Park’s International Museum of the Horse – a Smithsonian affiliate in Lexington, Ky. – and the site of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
Georgina Bloomberg, a world-class equestrian rider and ASPCA Equine Welfare Ambassador, will be joining ASPCA equine experts to officially open the exhibit with a ribbon cutting ceremony during the games, allowing the public access to artifacts that celebrate the history of horse protection in the United States, which began with the ASPCA nearly 145 years ago.
“Many people do not know this, but the ASPCA was established after its founder, Henry Bergh, witnessed the savage beating of a work horse in the streets of New York City,” says Valerie Angeli, Senior Director of ASPCA Equine Events and Special Projects. “The prestigious International Museum of the Horse is the perfect location to exhibit the ASPCA’s long history of horse protection in the United States and educate the public about the needs of our nation’s horses and companion animals.”
Dear Animal Advocates,
There are currently no facilities in the United States that process horses into food for people — the last of them closed in 2007. However, tens of thousands of American horses are still trucked into Canada and Mexico every year to be processed into food. The journeys these horses must endure and the methods by which they eventually are killed are truly horrifying.
For several years, Congress has been considering outlawing the international transport of horses for slaughter (for human consumption). Different bills that would achieve this have come and gone — and even though each one has had strong bipartisan support, none have ever made it to the finish line and become law.
But we have renewed hope this week: in an exciting recent development, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia has taken on the cause. He has composed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking her to allow H.R. 503, the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, to be voted on by the full House of Representatives. Rep. Moran is now gathering signatures of support from members of the House, and he is expected to submit his letter to Speaker Pelosi very soon.
What You Can Do
Tell your U.S. representative that you support H.R. 503 and would like him or her to sign Rep. Moran’s letter of support. The letter must be signed by tomorrow, September 21, so there is no time to lose — we urge you to call your rep.’s office today. Visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center online to look up your representative’s phone number now.
Thank you for being the voice of America’s animals.
Dear Animal Advocates,
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is the agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior that administers America’s public lands, including the animals who call these lands home. As part of its wild horse management program, the BLM periodically rounds up large numbers of wild horses and moves them into long-term holding facilities.
Over the weekend, the BLM began its latest roundup of more than 1,200 federally protected wild horses on public lands in Nevada. The use of helicopters to run the terrified horses over miles of scorching desert resulted in serious injuries and several horse deaths, which led to temporary suspension of the roundup.
This occurred in spite of the fact that the BLM, under intense public criticism, established an open comment period on its plans for wild horses that is not over until August. Instead of waiting to hear what the American public has to say, BLM officials decided to go forward with these cruel and brutal roundups in the blistering heat of summer (several more are scheduled for the coming weeks). This, of course, is funded by your tax dollars.
What You Can Do
Call the White House Comment Line today at (202) 456-1111. The Obama Administration needs to be told — politely! — that the BLM’s actions are underhanded and inappropriate, and that the current roundup and others scheduled this summer must be cancelled immediately.
Please visit the ASPCA Online Advocacy Center at www.aspca.org/BLM to learn more about this issue and to see some tips on what to say when you call.
Funds to Provide Run-In Sheds and Paddocks for More Retirees
GEORGETOWN, KY – MARCH 5, 2010 – Old Friends, the Thoroughbred Retirement Facility and 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, has received a $50,000 grant from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). The announcement was made today by Old Friends founder and president Michael Blowen.
In October 2009, Old Friends was selected by the ASPCA to apply to the “Rescuing Racers Project,” a $1 million granting opportunity designed specifically to support horses impacted by the racing industry.
Old Friends was one of six selected recipients whose mission is to promote equine welfare.
Wellington, FL – In the state of Florida, where the horse industry generates $7 billion in revenue and employs over 250,000 people, most of us never thought horse slaughter would be an issue we need to worry about. But unfortunately, we have discovered it is indeed a concern here. Recently the PBSO has put out a flyer with tips on how to keep your horse and your barn safe, and the ASPCA held a summit during the George Morris clinic regarding horse welfare.
With the recent discovery of horses in a pen on a slaughter farm in Miami, more crimes against horses have been discovered. As if the cruelty of the slaughtering of horses wasn’t enough, there is a new side to this crime that makes it even more disturbing. The demand for lean horse meat from some cultural groups has spurned a new technique that is not so new at all: the horses are being starved before they are slaughtered.
Pure Thoughts Inc. Horse Rescue has taken in 17 of these starved, slaughter-bound horses in the past 12 days. Jennifer Swanson, co-founder of PTHR, stated, “It has been crazy. We have had to work diligently to find foster homes and stalls available because we are full, but the work is worth it. This is what we have been hoping for: the stopping of horses going to slaughter. After years of traveling to kill pens and discovering that many of the horses there were from Florida, in early 2009 we decided that we need to focus on keeping the horses of this state safe. We are working to stop them from ending up in kill auctions; we’re rescuing horses from abuse and neglect, and taking in abandonment cases. The recent uncovering of the Miami slaughterhouses has added an extreme influx, but we can and will do it.”
The responsibility and mission of Pure Thoughts, Inc. has grown exponentially in recent months, are we’re now at a point of desperate need from the public and the community. We are in need of volunteers, foster homes, adoption and donations. Our goal this year is to expand the rescue, to show the great people of the horse industry how wonderful these horses are, and to help them make the next horse they put in their barn, a rescue horse.
Calling all horse lovers to help the ASPCA! On June 30, a grey filly was found roaming the desert near Round Mountain, an isolated mining community roughly 235 miles southeast of Reno, NV, close to the Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA). The two-year-old horse had been the victim of a horrendous act of animal cruelty-the hide of her left hip, where the owner’s brand was located, had been cut off in a six-by-eight inch patch, and the skin removed to make sure the filly could not be traced back to her owner.
NDA officials gently rounded up the horse and transported her to their emergency holding facility, where she was fed, watered and her wound treated by a vet. The mare was later transported to Return to Freedom, a wild horse sanctuary that eventually contacted her new forever home, a horse sanctuary outside of San Diego called Horses of Tir Na Nog. (Both are recipients of the ASPCA Equine Grant Fund.)
Efforts have now shifted from the mare’s rescue to finding the person responsible for her mutilation and abandonment. The ASPCA has joined forces with the Humane Society of the United States in offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrator, bringing the total reward to $5,000.
Says ASPCA President & CEO, Ed Sayres, “Abandoned horses are the result of a struggling economy and the unscrupulous overbreeding of horses around the country. The solution involves educating breeders and owners about responsible horse care.”
Questions regarding this case should be directed to the Nevada Department of Agriculture at (775) 738-8076.
For Twitter Users: What do you think? Tweet on this article. Include @aspca and #AbandonedMare
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On June 30, a grey filly was found roaming the desert near Round Mountain, an isolated mining community roughly 235 miles southeast of Reno, NV, close to the Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA). The two-year-old horse had been the victim of a horrendous act of animal cruelty-the hide of her left hip, where the owner’s brand was located, had been cut off in a six-by-eight inch patch, and the skin removed to make sure the filly could not be traced back to her owner.
