Based on the nearly 40-year-old “Framework Plan” created in 1983, the Bureau of Land Management Utah plans to remove more than 750 of the 831 wild horses they claim live in the Bible Springs Complex in southwestern Utah. Of course, BLM continues to authorize livestock grazing in Blawn Wash HMA.
The BLM’s plan leaves behind just 70 wild horses in an area where the agency permits over 8x more commercial livestock grazing. BLM plans to use Gonacon, IUDs, sex ratio skewing, and sterilization on horses left on the range.
If you are SICK and TIRED of BLM’s mismanagement of wild horses, please take action today. Deadline for public comments: June 17, 2022.
Silence is complicity — it is wholly American to voice opposition when the government is wrong.
Every alert, like this one, gives us an opportunity to say: We will NOT shut up; we will continue to fight for what is right.
Please take a moment to say “No.” Please use YOUR voice now — speak up against the inhumane management of Utah’s Bible Spring Complex herd.
The magnificent stallion who taught millions the importance of being wild and free was born 27 years ago.
Today, we celebrate the indomitable spirit of Cloud. His courageous heart and wild spirit made millions fall in love with wild mustangs in Ginger Kathrens’ first documentary: Cloud, Wild Stallion of the Rockies.
This year, perhaps more than EVER, we are very aware of the dangers facing our wild horses and burros. Massive government roundups tear wild families apart; horses are injured and killed, and holding facilities have become breeding grounds for disease.
The Cloud Foundation was created by Ginger to fight for wild families like Cloud’s. It’s a difficult battle against the behemoth that is the federal government, but we won’t EVER give up.
Today, on the magnificent Cloud’s birthday, we’re asking for your help, if you can. For as little as $5/month you can join our herd as a Cloud Foundation sponsor — OR you can choose to give $10, $25, $50, or more.
Legal Action
Lawsuits are often the only way to stop the WORST BLM plans. TCF has won many suits over the years on our own and in collaboration with other groups. In 2017, we sued to stop a roundup in the Pryor Mountains, and more recently, we succeeded in halting the barbaric ovariectomy experiments planned for the Warm Springs mares in Oregon.
Lawsuits are SO expensive. We need to keep our legal fund robust in order to fight future BLM actions.
Educating members of Congress
Most legislators hear only from the BLM and livestock lobby. Congress was sold a terrible plan for mass removals, which is what is now driving the destruction of our wild herds.
We must teach our legislators that wild horses and burros are not overpopulated on public lands, but commercial livestock sure are. We are carrying the message that wild horses and burros deserve their fair share on the range, and we’re NOT giving up.
Cloud and his mother, Phoenix, shortly after he was born. Photo by Ginger Kathrens.
Careful documentation of Cloud’s herd
Ginger Kathrens has worked tirelessly for 3 decades to educate the public about wild horses. TCF takes an active interest in the management of the Pryor mustangs, and fights for them and for all our wild herds.
We fight for fair allocation of forage, humane on-range management, and protecting their wild behaviors, which means no fertility control that would affect natural hormone production.
Rescue Operations and the Freedom Family
TCF provides sanctuary for the “Freedom Family,” a rescued band of Pryor mustangs saved after the horrible 2009 helicopter roundup.
We also partner with our allies in equine rescue to save mustangs and burros in danger when we can. Rescue operations are costly, but every single life is important.
Regular news and action alerts
We work hard to ensure you have the opportunity to speak out against bad BLM plans. As Americans, we have the RIGHT and RESPONSIBILITY to participate in our government. It is one of the most important things we can do to protect our wild horses and burros.
Supporting TCF is easy. If you can’t give monthly, consider a one-time donation. Every contribution quite literally makes a difference.
The Cloud Foundation (TCF) is urging Federal legislators and Colorado State officials to convene an independent investigation into how an illness has now killed almost 150 captured wild horses at BLM’s Canyon City holding facility.
We are calling for a moratorium on ALL wild horse and burro roundups until the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) can ensure the animals’ health and safety off the range.
BLM officials claim the horse deaths are attributable to equine influenza virus H3N8. We are demanding answers as to how the virus entered the facility and ravaged one specific herd – the West Douglas horses – with such devastating effect.
“These are the American public’s wild horses; they don’t belong to the BLM,” stated Ginger Kathrens, Founder and Board President of The Cloud Foundation. “Secrecy breeds suspicion and doubt. Due to a long history of not being transparent, how can we trust the BLM to be unbiased while investigating itself?”
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has so mismanaged America’s wild burros that the hardy little animals are currently facing a genetic crisis.
Despite knowing this, BLM does nothing to address the crisis they’ve created. Instead, they continue to round up our wild burros, knowing full well they’re keeping the burro populations so low that the animals are forced to inbreed.
There isn’t a worse example of their utter FAILURE to adhere to best practices and carry out their responsibility to manage “healthy self-sustaining populations.”
The BLM wants to remove 400 of the 500 burros in this area — 80% of the population! We MUST stop this dangerous, broken cycle of roundups and stockpiling — and that starts with raising our voices to tell BLM we DO NOT support this plan.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Oregon is pushing a management plan that would take effect for 10 YEARS until 2032. NOW is your time to speak up!
The BLM’s plan to round up these horses, leaving just 75 in each HMA, is dangerous. It will threaten the long-term genetic health of these herds, increase the risk of inbreeding and the threat of physical health problems.
Taking these herds to such low levels will severely limit opportunities for the public to view and enjoy the horses in their natural environment.
BLM also plans to use Gonacon on these mares, a fertility control which has been shown to shut down and shrivel the ovaries. In studies, only 30% of mares reversed to fertility within 10 years after 2 shots of Gonacon. The BLM shut down that study, but based on the data, it’s safe to say that Gonacon may cause permanent sterilization after just two injections.
We’re asking you to take a stand against these actions, and to tell BLM to make sure cameras are put on helicopters and trap sites at roundups. As Americans, we have a constitutional right to observe the action of our government, and we’re demanding they provide this opportunity.
We all know that the treatment of wild horses and burros during a roundup is abusive. With video documentation will we be able to change things for these beloved animals.
Lausanne (SUI), 22 April 2022 — The FEI has published Part 2 of the Report into the 2021 outbreak of the neurological form of Equine Herpes Virus (EHV-1) in mainland Europe. This section of the Report focuses on the Return to Competition protocols put in place to ensure the safe resumption of FEI Events after the six-week FEI-imposed lockdown on international sport in Continental Europe.
Part 2 of the Report also focuses on the EHV-1 By-Laws and sanctioning system, and evaluates their effectiveness, along with the elements that were subsequently incorporated into the FEI Veterinary Regulations 2022 approved at the FEI Hybrid General Assembly in November 2021.
The 30-page Report (Part 2), together with over 200 pages of Annexes, has been produced by FEI Veterinary Director Dr Göran Åkerström and Grania Willis, former FEI Communications Director and now Executive Consultant to the FEI.
“It was important to take a really forensic look at the 2021 EHV-1 outbreak itself, and this was the basis of Part 1 of the Report, but it was equally important to review the Return to Competition measures post-lockdown,” Dr Åkerström said. “This is what we have done in Part 2, along with the related By-Laws and the resulting amendments to the FEI Regulations.
“Knowing how busy the members of our community are in their daily lives, we have simplified things to make the Report a more user-friendly experience by adding a dynamic Table of Contents, so that readers can go directly to the elements/sections they wish to read, as we did with Part 1 of the Report.”
Part 2 of the Report is published here, on a dedicated page within the Biosecurity Hub of the FEI website home to all the content related to the investigation into the 2021 outbreak in mainland Europe.
It sits alongside Part 1 of the Report published on 28 February 2021, which provides a comprehensive and factual picture of the outbreak, including the series of events, causes, roles, and responsibilities, and analysis.
Part 3 of the Report, elements of which will be presented at the FEI Sports Forum 2022 (25-26 April), will incorporate further risk mitigation of EHV-1, including conclusions from the scientific EHV-1 vaccination review commissioned by the FEI, and the suggested way forward. This concluding section of the Report, with the Sports Forum presentations incorporated as Annexes, will then be published as Part 3 in May 2022.
Sick and old wild horses and burros and foals are terrorized, injured, and killed in helicopter roundups.
They are chased in extreme heat in the summer and below freezing temperatures in winter. They are driven countless miles — no one knows for sure how many, because no one monitors the helicopters.
Heavily pregnant mares are sometimes pursued so long and hard that they miscarry their foals, sometimes on the run, due to the physical stress caused by the chase.
We know how the Bureau of Land Management uses helicopters is inhumane — and The Cloud Foundation is dedicated to changing BLM policy, to get cameras on the roundup helicopters, trap sites, and roundup holding facilities.
Just like law enforcement cameras, this would help to ensure transparency, accountability, and added protection for our wild horses and burros.
Join the EQUUS Foundation for the live screening of “The Mustangs” on March 30 in Wellington, Florida at 5 pm, presented by the Robb Report. The screening will feature a “Meet & Greet” with the film’s producer and co-director, Steven Latham, and a live Q & A with others involved with the film’s production.
Executive produced by Robert Redford, Patti Scialfa Springsteen, and Jessica Springsteen, “The Mustangs” explores the complicated history and challenges currently facing America’s Wild Horses but also highlights some hopeful solutions and features people who are helping these icons. There are more than 80,000 wild horses on our public lands and more than 50,000 in government corrals.
Wednesday, March 30, at 5:00 pm Movies at Wellington
Wellington, FL 33414
$25 per person
Complimentary to Stepping Out Registrants
Meet & Greet & Live Q&A with Film Producer & Co-Director Steven Latham Mask Recommended for Admittance
“America’s wild horses represent freedom, strength, and resilience. This film takes audiences on an exciting journey throughout the country to understand their plight,” said Latham in first announcing the film at an EQUUS Foundation event in 2019. The EQUUS Foundation is matching the first $25,000 raised during the EQUUS Foundation Stepping Out campaign, which has been extended to run through June 15, to benefit America’s Wild Horses. Learn more and register here.
To learn more about the EQUUS Foundation and their mission, please visit www.equusfoundation.org.
If we had a nickel for every time someone said we should sue the Bureau of Land Management, we’d never need to ask for donations again! The truth is, we WISH we could sue over everything that enrages us about the wild horse and burro program. Unfortunately, the ins and outs of wild horse/burro litigation aren’t simple.
Many of you write to us with terrific legal questions, wanting to understand. So we’re doing something we’ve NEVER done before. On Wednesday, March 30th, our legal team at Eubanks & Associates is joining us LIVE on Zoom to answer YOUR questions about wild horse litigation.
Our lawyers are some of the most successful in this arena. They’ve been on the frontlines for years, fighting relentlessly for wild horses and public lands. Their track record is nearly unparalleled.
We will be LIVE on Zoom Wednesday, March 30th at 3:00pm ET.
Register here to join us for an open discussion on the current state of affairs AND a live Q&A. If you can’t make it on the 30th, no problem. Register and we’ll send you the recording after the event.
You can submit your questions in advance on the registration form OR email them to: info@thecloudfoundation.org.
A recent High Country News article reported that PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) has just released data clearly showing that over 50 MILLION acres of BLM-managed lands fail to meet the agency’s own land health standards.
What is the “primary culprit” responsible for land deterioration?
PRIVATE LIVESTOCK.
Wild equids are outnumbered by millions of commercial cattle and sheep — there’s no way they can be faulted for all rangeland degradation.
This important truth is exactly why we hosted two free webinars (linked here) on effective advocacy featuring award-winning journalists Cynthia Smoot and Vickery Eckhoff. Vickery’s groundbreaking grazing data sheet (linked here) is a valuable asset that shows how the Bureau scapegoats wild horses for rangeland damage while failing to mention livestock at all.
NOW it’s time for Congress to get the message – and we need YOU to send it. Here is your CALL TO ACTION for today —
CLICK HERE to send a message to Congressional Leadership with the facts — livestock, not wild horses, are overgrazing our ranges.
Then, SHARE this action on all your social media platforms.
Add the hashtag #HoldAWildHorseHearing to your posts and call on your personal representatives to hold the Bureau accountable.
The first step in preparing to fight is to get informed. Please visit the GET INFORMED page of our website to learn more about the science behind the wild horse/burro issue. We need all hands on deck, armed with the FACTS, to win for the animals.
