Tag Archives: BLM

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

New Freedom Fund Foal!

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Trigger's mare Evita foaled in August and we've named the newest member of the Freedom Fund bands "Pistol".

Introducing Pistol

One year ago this week the BLM roundup of Cloud’s herd began and 57 wild horses in Cloud’s herd lost what they value most: their freedom and their families. It was only with your help and immediate action that people working with the Cloud Foundation were able to adopt and purchase four family bands after the disastrous roundup. Because of your generosity, Pistol lives with both his mother and his father – growing up as close to wild as possible.

I first filmed Pistol’s father, Trigger, when he was just a few days old for the National Geographic special “Horses”, so it was very special to meet Pistol at this age – he looks very much like his father did! Trigger is the only offspring of the stallion, Challenger, who was struck and killed by lightning in 1999, as portrayed in Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies. With such a small herd now remaining in the wild, the removal of Trigger and his band is especially detrimental to the unique Spanish genetics of the Pryor Mountain herd.

It is my hope that Pistol and his sister will be allowed to return to the wild someday and continue Challenger and Trigger’s legacy.

Many Thanks for your continued support.

Happy Trails,
Ginger

Please continue to support the Freedom Fund horses with your tax-deductible donations. Click here to learn more.

Join the Cloud Foundation on Facebook, Twitter & visit our ever-expanding website & the TCF blog for more news, action alerts, photos & event postings!

Thank you for your continued support!

The Cloud Foundation

107 South 7th St

Colorado Springs, CO 80905

719-633-3842

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Contributors/Press, Rescue/Protection Sources

As Study Begins, the Animal Welfare Institute Calls on BLM to Halt Wild Horse Roundups

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Washington, DC (September 1, 2010) – While the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) welcomes the recent news that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has asked the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council (NAS/NRC) to review its National Wild Horse and Burro Program starting January 1, 2011, we are deeply disappointed with the agency’s blatant disregard for calls to halt wild horse roundups pending completion of the review.  AWI first recommended this outside review along with a moratorium on roundups over a year ago given the widespread problems being reported in the BLM’s management of wild horses.

“While we are grateful that the BLM has finally realized the urgent need for advice from scientific experts, we continue to be disappointed at their stubborn refusal to halt the massive wild horse roundups they are conducting at an alarming rate,” said Chris Heyde, deputy director of government and legal affairs for AWI.

In testimony to the House and Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittees, AWI laid out its reasoning and criteria for an independent study by the NAS, a moratorium on all non-emergency roundups, and the critical importance of maintaining language preventing the BLM from killing tens of thousands of healthy wild horses.  In July, similar concerns were raised with the BLM in a bipartisan letter from House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV), National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and 52 of their colleagues.

Continue reading As Study Begins, the Animal Welfare Institute Calls on BLM to Halt Wild Horse Roundups →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

PZP in the Pryors

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Bolder & Texas, a ten-year-old mare who has foaled only once, PZP'd again last fall in the roundup

Comments on BLM’s Plan to Extend Infertility Drug Use through 2015 Due by September 16th

Dear Cloud Supporters;

Mark your calendars. Comments regarding a five-year plan to continue the use of Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) infertility drugs on Pryor wild horse mares are due on September 16. The initial scoping letter from the Billings BLM was mailed on August 18.

As a result of aggressive infertility applications delivered via shots last fall and dart guns this spring, 52 mares on the mountain are cycling monthly (coming into estrous or heat), being bred, and defended by their band stallions.

Makendra and I were in the Pryors last week for 5 days and I witnessed more societal disruption than I have seen in over 16 years of documenting these horses. Currently, it is a herd in chaos. 60% of the 18 bands we observed have had some kind of disruption. Three band stallions have lost their families all together. Some band stallions have benefitted from the intense competition — like Cloud, who won a new mare. This high degree of disruption has taken place just since our last visit in July.

Continue reading PZP in the Pryors →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

Don’t Fence Cloud’s Herd In, by Ginger Kathrens

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Photos by The Cloud Foundation

The Fight to Save a Legendary Wild Horse Herd

The Custer National Forest awarded a contract on August 6, 2010. It calls for the building of new, bigger, stronger, longer fence to prevent the Pryor Wild Horse Herd from grazing on their mid-summer through fall pastures atop their mountain home. The first question I am always asked is “Why?” To answer honestly, I am not sure what is pushing this kind of expensive and unwanted project. But, to even try to answer the question requires a bit of a history lesson.

The wild horses of the Pryor Mountains, known as the Arrowhead Mountains to the Crow Indians, have been documented as living in this area since the early 1800s. But, they probably have lived here for far longer. The Arrowheads were the sacred heart of Crow Indian country, and the Crow tribe possessed the largest horse herd in the West. The wild horses are likely descended of their treasured war ponies.

It is also likely that they are the descendants of the horses of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The famous explorers had traded for Shoshone and Nez Perce stock and on their return trip from the West Coast in 1806 they put Sgt. Nathaniel Pryor in charge of bringing the horses back to the Missouri River. While camped in the Arrowheads, the Crow Indians stole all the horses. The mountains were subsequently named for the hapless Sergeant.

Continue reading Don’t Fence Cloud’s Herd In, by Ginger Kathrens →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

California’s Wild Horses & Burros Need Your Help

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Photos by Craig Downer

BLM conducting a bloody 2000+ mustang and burro roundup

California doesn’t have many wild horses and very few wild burros left but that, along with a public outcry, has not stopped the Bureau of Land Management from rounding up thousands more of California’s wild equids. The BLM, responsible for managing most of the remaining wild horses and burros in ten Western States, are now running horses ten miles or more over rough volcanic terrain with helicopters. Horses bleeding from their noses in the thick dust, very young foals separated from their mothers, a mare with a broken leg and a colicking mare have been observed by a dedicated team of advocates observing the Twin Peaks roundup.

California has lost 16 of the original 38 wild horse herds designated for protection in 1971 and over 2/3 of the public land tagged for wild horses and burros has been taken away from these celebrated icons of the West. Now BLM is working fast to remove 1855 mustangs and 210 wild burros from the Twin Peaks area, just north of Susanville, California. The roundup is scheduled to last 45-60 days and BLM aims to leave only 450 mustangs and 72 burros on this 1250-square mile range, larger than the state of Rhode Island.  Almost all the mares returned would be given infertility drugs and a mere 72 burros is not a genetically viable population in this beautiful area designated principally for their use.  Over 32,000 privately-owned cattle and sheep are permitted to graze annually on the Twin Peaks area. Revenues generated yearly from livestock grazing fees are estimated at $120,000 while the cost of rounding up/processing of 1,980 wild horses and burros would be 35 times the annual grazing revenues – over $4 million. Over 38,000 wild horses are in government holding while less than half that remain on the range and BLM plans to complete the removal of 12,000 wild horses and burros this fiscal year alone.

Continue reading California’s Wild Horses & Burros Need Your Help →

*Featured/Spotlights, Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

Oppose Massive Roundup of Nearly 1,600 Wild Horses in Wyoming’s Red Desert

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Last week, at least 54 members of Congress wrote to the Interior Department demanding a halt to the wild horse roundups. This important action would not have happened without your voice opposing each of these unnecessary roundups. While the BLM is moving forward with its wild horse roundup schedule, despite overwhelming public and Congressional opposition, we must keep up the pressure.

In October, the BLM plans to remove nearly 1,600 wild horses – 80 percent of the estimated mustang population living in the Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek Herd Management Areas in the pristine Red Desert region of Wyoming. This is another unnecessary roundup to cater to the private livestock industry, which uses the same lands for cheap grazing. Click here to take action to oppose this roundup.

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

Contributors/Press, Rescue/Protection Sources

A Slick in the Night, by Valerie James-Patton

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July 29, 2010 – We keep hearing the upsetting stories from our wild horse advocates living in Nevada near the BLM wild horse holding facilities about wild horses being hauled in the middle of the night and disappearing. We hear it often.

We’ve been told by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), that’s to prevent the horses from getting overheated during the high temperatures in the hot summer months, but that doesn’t fly when we hear of it happening during the cold winter months.

When numbers from BLM reports don’t add up, and large numbers of horses are missing from the charts, all those stories of night-time hauls come to mind.

Continue reading A Slick in the Night, by Valerie James-Patton →

*Featured/Spotlights, Breeds, Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

We’ve Heard You – Get on Board the Pony Express by September 1st!

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Dear Friends, Supporters, and Future Supporters,

We have heard you voice your complaints about the roundups.

We have listened to you share so many of your personal stories about your own adopted mustangs.

We have all sent thousands of letters via fax, email, and USPS to our Government officials, even to the point of their phone lines being unplugged and emails shut down due to the high volume of wild horse supporters on this issue.

We are doing all of these things daily, but there still has been NO change.

It’s time for the PONY EXPRESS!

I will personally hand deliver each and every letter that you write, via the Pony Express (one of our beautiful mustangs), to Washington DC. I am setting a goal of 20,000 individual letters to take with me. Americans, international supporters, animal activists, anyone who would like to tell President Obama, Secretary Salazar, and Bob Abbey that we aren’t going to sit by waiting until these roundups are over is encouraged to write. This is a very important issue to hundreds of thousands of people that have pleaded with our government to stop gathering our wild horses.  This way they cannot unplug their phones, make their website impossible to send a comment to, or delete emails. These are GOING to get to Washington. I promise you that!

Continue reading We’ve Heard You – Get on Board the Pony Express by September 1st! →

Contributors/Press, Rescue/Protection Sources

How Do You Make 2000 Horses Disappear? Let BLM Manage Them.

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July 27, 2010 – CHICAGO, (EWA) – As controversy swirls over the aggressive removal of horses from the range by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a more fundamental question has arisen over what is happening to the horses it already has in holding. Over the past several years, equine advocates have been scrutinizing the BLM’s horse population counts. Once again, the numbers don’t add up to their claims.

The BLM doesn’t make it easy to track horses being removed from the range or residing in short and long term holding. The taxpayers who pay for the removals and the subsequent care are not allowed to view the horses under the well worn excuse that they are being held on “private property”. Consequently, there are no checks and balances to verify information being reported.

It also raises a salient question. With 262 million mostly vacant acres under its control, why on earth is a federal agency such as the BLM wasting taxpayer’s money to lease private property?

Continue reading How Do You Make 2000 Horses Disappear? Let BLM Manage Them. →

Contributors/Press, Wild Horse Sources

Join Congressmen Riding to Rescue of Wild Horses & Burros!

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Adelina, granddaughter of Red Raven & Blue Sioux - June 2010

New Letter Calling on Salazar to Stop the Roundups

Wild horse and burro champions, Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), are currently circulating a letter that will be sent to Secretary Salazar with a cc to BLM Director, Bob Abbey.

Please take time today to ask your Congress person to sign on to this letter and show their support for protecting wild horses and burros on our public lands. Take this opportunity to contact your Congress person – the public’s voices must be heard and Secretary Salazar needs to place an immediate moratorium on roundups and removals of our wild horses! However, please do not contact Congressman Grijalva or Rahall or the House Natural Resources Committee (except to send letters or emails of support).

Find your Congress person’s contact information at www.votesmart.org. Currently this letter is only being circulated in the House but ask your Senators to start a letter on the Senate side as well.

Continue reading Join Congressmen Riding to Rescue of Wild Horses & Burros! →