Tag Archives: Cloud Foundation

*Featured/Spotlights

Urge Park Service to Preserve Horses in Teddy Roosevelt National Park

Teddy Roosevelt National Park (TRNP), located in North Dakota, is dedicated in honor of President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt and his leadership in conservation policy.  While these horses are not protected under Federal law and are referred to as “livestock,” they have been cherished cultural icons for decades. When Teddy Roosevelt was young, he visited the area and experienced the magnificence and beauty of the natural landscape which included wild bison and wild horses exhibiting natural wild behaviors — living in family bands, with stallions protecting their families.

The Park Service is now proposing to either get rid of all of the horses or allow only 35-60 — of the more than 200 horses living in the area — to remain. The Park Service manages the Park for cultural and natural resources and claims to rely on public input for Park management. PLEASE SPEAK UP for these magnificent horses NOW — they truly are cultural icons!

Tell the Park Service the following (in your own words):

  • Preserving the Teddy Roosevelt horses MUST be a cornerstone of the Park’s livestock management plan, since they contributed to President Teddy Roosevelt’s wonder at the natural world, leading to his creation of the very first national parks.
  • Horses have lived “wild” in TRNP for generations and millions of Park visitors cherish these animals as an integral part of the cultural heritage of the Badlands.
  • These horses must be managed to preserve natural behaviors just as Teddy Roosevelt would have experienced. He would have seen stallions protecting their families, foals with their mothers and aunties, and the entire repertoire of natural “wild” horse behaviors.
  • To protect the genetic health of the herd and promote its genetic viability, the minimum population should be 150 or more. By allowing the horses to use additional areas of the TRNP, the herd can and should be managed at a higher minimum population level.

Your voice makes a difference.  Please submit your comments directly to the Park Service by clicking here.

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

One in Four…

Another Year in the Trenches on Behalf of America’s Wild Herds

As the door closes on 2022, the numbers show that BLM rounded up 1 in every 4 wild horses — they lost their freedom and their families!

This fight has become more critical than ever as our work at The Cloud Foundation grows more challenging each year. We are in an uphill battle with a govt. bureaucracy & outside financial interests and a BLM that has the funds and the power to “interpret” the law at the expense of our wild horses and burros.

But victory is NOT impossible when we work together to constantly remind BLM that their responsibility (according to the 1971 WH&B Act), is to ensure the wild horses & burros are “…protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death…”

We invite you to join Ginger and TCF as we renew our commitment to protecting and preserving America’s wild mustangs and burros.

It’s not too late!  Please consider giving a tax-deductible one-time or monthly recurring donation to support this ongoing work in 2023.

Thank you for fighting with us to protect and preserve wild horse and burro families everywhere.

Happy New Year!
The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights, Community/Charity

Stand for Freedom This Giving Tuesday!

Ginger and Cloud’s little brother, Sax. @TheCloudFoundation.

As you know, we’re in the midst of a long, desperate battle to save our wild herds from those who would see them destroyed — and we need your help.

This year has been one of the WORST for wild horse and burro herds in the West, as unprecedented numbers were rounded up and taken from the homes they knew. So many now sit in holding pens. Help us to STOP this from happening.

Your contribution enables us to continue our fight to protect and preserve wild horses and burros on public lands, keeping them WILD and FREE where they belong.

If you can’t donate, please SHARE this message!

Help us spread the word about what is being done to our cherished wild horses and burros — living symbols of freedom and the “pioneer spirit” of the West.

As always, thank you for your incredible support!

Ginger and the Cloud Foundation Team
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

Speak Up for Utah’s Burros

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Urge BLM to Ditch Roundup That Will Promote Inbreeding and Genetic Crisis Facing America’s Wild Burros

America’s wild burros face a genetic crisis due to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) mismanagement of these hardy little animals. The agency keeps most burro populations so small that inbreeding is inevitable.

BLM’s unscientific “Appropriate” Management Level (AML) stands in the way of humane alternatives to roundups. In this rigged “AML” system, any animal over BLM’s arbitrary quota is considered “overpopulation.”  The only way to address this is to reduce livestock grazing and increase the number of burros on the range.

The BLM plans to decimate the Canyonlands wild burro herd — removing 51-91 of the 151 burros. Leaving just 60 to 100 animals in the herd is literally “managing” the Canyonlands burros to a slow extinction, but extinction nevertheless. There are only two burro herds in the entire state of Utah.  Three months ago, BLM Utah make a similar proposal for the state’s other burro herd, known as the Sinbad herd.

Please take action NOW. Call on BLM to 1) ditch this ill-conceived plan 2) reduce or eliminate livestock grazing in order to increase AML and 3) manage these environmentally beneficial animals humanely with PZP.

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

BLM Proposes Livestock Grazing Where Wild Horse Roundup Is Planned

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Photo credit ©TheCloudFoundation.

BLM wants to create new livestock grazing permits in the same area where they propose a massive wild horse roundup in the Stone Cabin Complex. Coincidentally, Tonopah NV BLM also proposes to re-start livestock grazing in two allotments (Monitor and Ralston), which are adjacent to the Stone Cabin Complex.

Ranchers have illegally grazed livestock in these two allotments for 23 YEARS! These allotments have not had any livestock grazing permits for the past 6 years and there is no permittee.

We’re calling on BLM to use Adaptive Management to convert the allotments and permits for wild horse usage. By doing this, the BLM could cancel its proposal to round up nearly 75% of the wild horse population (that’s 689 of the estimated 931 horses) in the Stone Cabin Complex… leaving behind just 242 horses on more than 484,888 acres (that’s 758 square miles).

Your Voice Matters! PLEASE click here and here to take action. You will have the opportunity to personalize our suggested comments before submitting.

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

BLM Targets One of the Last Two Herds in New Mexico

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Photo credit ©GingerKathrens.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) New Mexico has wiped out nearly 75% of the original wild horse habitat in the state. Now the agency plans to decimate one of the last two remaining herds – Bordo Atravesado – by removing 190 of the 230 wild horses living in the area.

PLEASE add your name to the list of people who stand against this systematic destruction of our wild herds.

BLM also plans to use Gonacon as fertility control on mares returned to the range. Studies show that Gonacon is likely permanent after just two applications. It effectively destroys the ovaries and therefore natural hormone production that drives natural, wild behaviors.

We need as many Americans ON RECORD opposing this extermination plan for the Bordo Atravesado horses as possible. Will you join us now? Please take a stand today — it takes less than a minute to add your name to the list of those who stand in resistance to BLM’s plan for our wild herds.

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

Trigger’s Final Surprise, by Ginger Kathrens

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A few short months ago, I got a surprise nighttime text and photos from our Freedom Family caretakers Jaime and Jeremy Wade. Mae West had a newborn foal. Knock me over with a feather.

Our aging stallion Trigger passed away last fall, and I imagined that with his death, there would be no more foals. Before he passed, we had darted Mae West (our only mare to foal in the past few years) with the safe and reversible fertility control PZP. But every once in a while, a mare will not respond to the vaccine. Mae sure fits into that category, but who can be sorry when the result is so beautiful?

Last week, great friends of The Cloud Foundation, Cynthia Smoot, her husband Bill Weller, and their friend Karen traveled east with me to visit our “Freedom Family” mares and our still unnamed filly. She is bold as brass and gave Bill a chance to nearly touch the wild!

Would you help us name her? We want to have a naming contest. When you make a donation of any size to help us support the Freedom Family, you can submit one name to be considered for Trigger’s ‘last surprise.’

With a father named Trigger, mom Mae West, and sisters Josie and Calamity Jane, we hope you have fun coming up with a name for this little filly. As a thank you, we’ll send an autographed 8×10 photograph of her if your name is selected.

It truly takes a village to both keep wild horses in the wild and to keep our Freedom Family horses safe and protected in their Colorado home. Please consider helping us name this new member of the Freedom Family and making a donation to support our important work.

Submit your suggestions by next Sunday, August 21st to be considered.

Happy trails,
Ginger

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

BLM Ends Roundup in Colorado’s Piceance East Douglas HMA

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©GingerKathrens.

The Bureau of Land Management has ended their Piceance East Douglas roundup 190 wild horses short of their planned removal.

Thank you for taking action on behalf of these innocent animals!

According to BLM’s website, they’ve captured 864 wild horses including 166 foals. They returned 41 stallions to the range, and we understand they are treating some mares with fertility control and holding them for release in 30 days.

Hundreds of Piceance wild horses have been spared the trauma of the chase and capture in the sweltering summer temperatures — thanks to YOU.

Thank you for NEVER giving up and for TAKING ACTION on behalf of our wild horses! Without YOU, the helicopters would still be flying.

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

Help Stop BLM Plan to Remove 75% of Utah’s Cedar Mountain Wild Horses

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The situation facing America’s wild horses and burros is dire.

Congress is beholden to the livestock industry and is set to continue increased funding for roundups in 2023. On top of that, they’ve allocated $11 million more for fertility control. This would be a win IF the BLM weren’t using Gonacon, an injection which, based on BLM research, may permanently sterilize mares after just 2 injections.

What can we do to stop this?

There is no easy answer. One thing we cannot do is give up. Most Americans want our wild horses managed humanely on the range. Will you be one who speaks up for them now?

Silence is complicity… and Utah’s Cedar Mountain wild horses need us now. As Americans, we have a right and a duty to voice opposition when the government is wrong. Every Cloud Foundation alert, like this one, gives us an opportunity to say: we will NOT shut up; we will continue to fight for these animals that we love and their right to live wild and free.

Please take 30 seconds to add your name and stand up for them now.  Deadline for public comments: July 28, 2022.

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org

*Featured/Spotlights

What in the World Is Happening with Wild Horses?

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Photo: Cloud’s Pride, Pryor Mountains. Credit: ©ErinPhillips – https://mustangmission.blogspot.com.

In a landmark move, legislators led by the heroic Dina Titus (NV) and Steve Cohen (TN) called for an oversight hearing on the Bureau of Land Management.

Friends, this is something the Cloud Foundation and our advocacy colleagues have been pushing for since 2019 when the hideous Path Forward was first revealed!

Change does not happen quickly (especially when the government is involved). Social Justice movements take time, and they are often a dance — one step forward and two steps back.

But over time movement happens, as long as we NEVER, EVER give up.

In other happy news, the SAFE Act has been given forward momentum out of Committee. It hasn’t passed yet, but this is a big step forward in ending the gruesome equine slaughter trade between US kill buyers and slaughter plants across our borders.

The Cloud Foundation also continues to investigate the situation in the Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area of Colorado. In 2015 we sued to stop the last large removal in this HMA and the zeroing out of the entire West Douglas herd. Unfortunately, the court decided against us.

Colorado Governor Polis, First Gentleman Marlon Reis, and Representative Joe Neguse remain staunch supporters of Colorado’s wild horses. They’re not giving up and neither are we. We are in touch with local advocates who know the range inside and out, and who have the Piceance horses’ best interests at heart.

Thank you for all of your support! Our founder Ginger Kathrens started this work in the 1990s when she first stepped onto the Pryor Wild Horse Range and met a striking black stallion named Raven — father to the indomitable Cloud. Three decades later, her work has expanded to impact the world and her organization has become a leading voice in the fight to save all of America’s wild horses and burros.

We will ALWAYS keep fighting!

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org