Tag Archives: wild horses

*Featured/Spotlights

EQUUS Film & Arts Festival Presents a TED-like Talk about How Wild Horses Manage Wildfire Fuels

A family band of wild horses naturally maintains a firebreak that protects an old-growth forest and the wildlife that live there.

On Saturday Dec. 3rd at 10:00 AM, EQUUS Film & Arts Festival will present a TED-like talk about Wild Horse Fire Brigade at the historical Guild Theater in Sacramento California.

Wild horse ethologist and researcher William E. Simpson II will speak about how wild horses cost effectively manage wildfire fuels, make trees more fire resilient, and how forest ecosystems, watersheds, and wildlife benefit from the presence of these native keystone herbivores.

William has lived among and studied free roaming wild horses in the wilderness mountains on the California-Oregon border for the past 8 years continuously.

Simpson has logged over 15,000 hours of close observational study, a method pioneered by Dr. Jane Goodall during her 1960s study of the Apes in Gombe, Africa, which Simpson calls the ‘Goodall Method‘ in honor of Dr. Goodall.

Some of Simpson’s research has been published in print and in online journals, such as ReWilding Europe’s wildfire focused journal GrazeLIFE: https://grazelife.com/blog/wild-horse-fire-brigade-lessons-in-rebalancing-north-american-ecosystems-by-rewilding-equids/.

Recently, NPR national featured a story by reporter Stephanie O’Neill, about Simpson’s research on air (and podcast) and in print to its audience of 46 million: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/30/1131042723/preventing-wildfire-with-the-wild-horse-fire-brigade.

The talk begins at 10:00 AM at the Guild Theater in Sacramento California and will last about 45 minutes, followed by a panel Q&A discussion session with board members from Wild Horse Fire Brigade, a California-based 501(c)3 all-volunteer nonprofit organization.

The team from Wild Horse Fire Brigade hopes to see you there!

William Simpson was the local advisor to CALFIRE during the deadly 38,000-acre 2018 Klamathon Fire. Simpson was on the fire line for 9 days assisting CALFIRE and also studying the effects of the wildfire grazing by the local wild horses on the behavior of wildfire and its progression, as well as the benefits provided to firefighters via the natural firebreaks created and maintained by the wild horses.

Please visit www.wildhorsefirebrigade.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

‘Just Doing My Job’ – A Bureau of Land Management Excuse for Mismanaging Wild Horses

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Photo from NBC News video shows BLM contractor abusing a burro during BLM managed roundup.

History is replete with examples of people and agencies causing great harm or that have been caught in the act of some form of wrongdoing, only to offer the excuse, “I was just doing my job…”

On 16 March 1968, First Lieutenant William L. “Rusty” Calley, Jr., and his platoon murdered at least 300 Vietnamese civilians (and perhaps as many as 500) at a small South Vietnamese sub-hamlet called My Lai.

The excuse offered to the military court in regard to that massacre was “I was only following orders.”

Is it ever acceptable for Government agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management (‘BLM’) and the U.S. Forest Service (‘USFS’) or their employees, to engage in wrongdoing as a function of ‘just doing their job’?

Are employees of Government agencies required to follow directives from their superiors even when such directives are highly questionable or fly in the face of common sense, logic, and established policies and law?

Is it reasonable for the BLM and USFS to willfully ignore the best available science that would lead to a more honest, humane, and ecologically appropriate wild horse management model?

Is it fair to American taxpayers for the BLM to knowingly waste over $100 million annually in taxpayer funds mismanaging wild horses when there exists a far more cost-effective and humane method for managing native species wild horses in America?

History teaches many lessons for those who ask the right questions.

Read full article HERE.

*Featured/Spotlights

Preventing Wildfire with the Wild Horse Fire Brigade

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Like a growing number of people in the American West, naturalist William Simpson is intimately familiar with wildfire. He lives in California’s rural Siskiyou County where overgrown grass and brush routinely fuel hot-burning and deadly wildfires. This year, the McKinney fire killed four people and burned more than 60,000 acres.

But it was a wildfire four years ago that posed the greatest risk to Simpson’s home. The 2018 Klamathon Fire burned uncontained for 16 days, sending giant flames toward Simpson’s property.

“The fire just came right up over that ridge,” Simpson tells NPR during a visit to his property. “[It] burned all the trees and destroyed all that conifer forest up there.”

Yet Simpson’s land and much of the local community remained safe. He credits the community’s Wild Horse Fire Brigade.

“It started getting into the area where our local herd of wild horses had reduced the fuel… large areas that were grazed open became safe zones for Cal Fire personnel and equipment that were stationed in front of the fire,” Simpson says. “These horses helped mitigate the Klamathon Fire.”

This local herd is the collective poster child for Simpson’s proposal to re-wild horses rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and placed in government holding facilities.

The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act

The BLM is charged with managing the nation’s wild horses under the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. Congress passed it to protect America’s wild horses and burros that had been hunted to near extinction. Whenever the BLM determines there are too many horses in a given area, it can order helicopter roundups.

But the roundup is controversial. BLM helicopters sometimes swoop down above frightened wild horses, chasing them, sometimes for miles, until they’re funneled into traps on the range.

Read more here.

Also please visit www.wildhorsefirebrigade.org.

by Stephanie O’Neill, NPR

*Featured/Spotlights, Publications/Media

EQUUS Film & Arts Festival Officially Selects New Music Video ‘We Are the Wild Horses’

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California wild horse and burro nonprofit Wild Horse Fire Brigade has produced a new music video for wild horses featuring award-winning singer/songwriter Ginalina

YREKA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, October 26, 2022 /EINPresswire.com — An emotionally powerful music video about wild horses has just been honored by the 2022 EQUUS Film & Arts Festival. This new music video, titled ‘We Are the Wild Horses’, produced by California nonprofit Wild Horse Fire Brigade, has been officially selected by the 2022 EQUUS Film & Arts Festival and will be premiered during the 10th annual EQUUS Film & Arts Festival in Sacramento California.

The EQUUS Film & Arts Festival will be held in Sacramento California and will run from December 2 through December 4th, 2022. Tickets for this event are available online at the Festival website.

The music video ‘We Are the Wild Horses’ is based upon actual events. It tells the story of a young poet-musician (Ginalina) who, upon learning about wild horses, their lives, and their plight after visiting the website of Wild Horse Fire Brigade, was compelled to compose a song about wild horses.

This was the beginning of her odyssey of discovery, which led her to travel over 2,000 miles and into the rugged wilderness of the Cascade Siskiyou mountains on the Oregon-California border in search of wild horses and the truth of their existence.

Upon reaching the wilderness and the wild horse observation station known as Wild Horse Ranch, Ginalina met wild horse ethologists William E. Simpson II and Michelle Gough, who are engaged in a continuous ongoing study of the behavioral ecology of free-roaming wild horses that was started in 2014 by Simpson.

“Uniquely in the study of any wildlife, Simpson has lived among the free-roaming wild horses as an embedded observer for the past 8 years. Simpson has coined the study method he uses as the ‘Goodall Method’ in honor of Dr. Jane Goodall, who pioneered the method of being an embedded observer during her study of the apes in Gombe Africa in the early 1960s,” said Deb Ferns, President of Wild Horse Fire Brigade.

Filming on location in the wilderness with Simpson and Gough presented many interesting challenges. “When some of the talent are wildlife, in this case wild horses, capturing the desired imagery is a tough assignment,” said Gough.

Interview: The making of the new music video ‘We Are the Wild Horses’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMVfBBhj6SA.

For more information, visit: https://www.WildHorseFireBrigade.org.

For more information about Ginalina Music, visit: https://www.ginalinamusic.com.

Information about 2022 EQUUS Film & Arts Festival can be found at these websites:
1) https://filmfreeway.com/EQUUSFilmFestival
2) https://www.equusfilmfestival.net/

*Featured/Spotlights

An Update on the Pokegama Herd from American Wild Horse Campaign

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Due to legal actions taken by the legal team for Wild Horse Fire Brigade at Vermont Law, led by our legal advisor, Professor-Litigator Michael Harris, the DOJ attorney had the BLM in Klamath Falls Oregon temporarily stop the bait and trap at and around the Pokegama HMA on Oct 4th, to give time for the DOJ to consider our lawsuit and potentially file a reply to our legal action filed in Federal Court in Washington D.C.

The press release below cites the lawsuit brought against the BLM by Wild Horse Fire Brigade’s legal team at Vermont Law:

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/596270269/vermont-law-and-graduate-school-files-motion-for-preliminary-injunction-in-federal-court-to-stop-blm-wild-horse-roundup

Now, here comes the American Wild Horse Campaign (‘AWHC’) who sends out an article making it seem like they are somehow involved in stopping the Pokegama roundup, arguably to grift donations via a donation button at the bottom of their article page for simply citing already published news, but actually doing nothing to help in any way: they are not litigating, they have not contributed a dime; they are just watching, just like when they boasted about watching nearly 1,000 mustangs go to slaughter via their so-called ‘investigation’.

This is akin to offering just a part of the total $25,000 reward for the murderers of the Alpine horses.

AWHC full well knows that on average, only about 17% of such rewards are ever claimed. So they get lots of press and limelight for probably not having to fork out a dime.

It’s schemes like these that bring in lots of donations with little money spent that builds massive multi-million-dollar bank accounts funded by good-hearted donations to these BIG nonprofits. HSUS, for instance, has over $100 million in donations sitting in their bank account, while millions of dogs, cats, and other animals suffer and die.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization. We walk the talk.

FACTS:

*Wild Horse Fire Brigade is the only Wild Horse nonprofit that has team members living full time among and studying the free roaming wild horses in the balanced ecosystem of a wilderness area.

*The founder (William Simpson) has been living among and studying wild horses in wilderness full time since 2014.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade is the ONLY organization that filed a lawsuit to stop the BLM Pokegama bait and trap roundup.

The fakery of feigning some kind of involvement with the Pokegama roundup by AWHC is consistent with the last misleading social media post by AWHC crafted to create the impression that Gandhi endorsed them, which he never did.

Here are some things that American Wild Horse Campaign can take credit for:

1. Sitting on millions in their bank account while boasting of their ‘investigation’ that, according to them, showed nearly 1,000 mustangs going to slaughter, as they failed to rescue them from the slaughter auctions.

The average sale price for a mustang at the slaughter auction is about $125/horse. Their last IRS 990 shows they are sitting on over $2 million in donations.

Using just $125,000 (6% of their cash on hand), they could have saved ALL of those mustangs, and then, using $500,000 more, they could have bought some remote grazing lands and rewilded those mustangs, which are now likely in pet food cans at a Mexican-based pet food cannery.

2. Helping the BLM eradicate wild horses from the landscape via supporting a key tactic (using genetic poison) included in the sinister PATH FORWARD: roundups plus genetic molestation via castration of stallions (lost genetics) and chemical treatments of mares with PZP & GonaCon — both are genetic poison, are known toxins, and further result in Genetic Erosion.

Stalking and shooting wild horses with high-powered gas-powered firearms that shoot heavy darts filled with genetic poison PZP is ‘harassment’ and is a violation of the Intent of the 1971 Act to protect wild horses.

The EPA labeling for PZP cites it as a toxin. It also uses ‘disclaimer’ language (terms) like ‘we assume’ and ‘we believe’, and that’s because HSUS arguably got them to waive all the normally required safety studies. So, since there are no studies to cite, the EPA instead uses disclaimers.

The EPA label also suggests there are ‘indirect’ toxic effects for both aquatic and terrestrial threatened and endangered species in areas where PZP is used; a chart of those species is also listed in the EPA labeling.

So, with due consideration to what the EPA labeling was required to state, how reckless is it to shoot that dangerous toxin into any wild animal, let alone our noble and precious American wild horses?

The damage to wild horses via PZP promotion and use doesn’t stop with just genetic poisoning; there’s more!

These two EIN NEWS Press Release cites the other serious issues:

a) https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/550887360/wild-horses-wild-horse-management-non-profit-organizations-wrong-chemical-use-on-wildlife-populations-flawed

b) https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/543923114/can-wild-horse-non-profit-advocates-save-america-s-wild-horses-by-drugging-them

3. Paying themselves handsomely as they live in the lap of luxury, even as they watch their own media showing wild horses being abused in every way.

This EIN NEWS press release cites the questionable behavior of American Wild Horse Campaign:

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/553798287/american-wild-horse-campaign-got-it-wrong-wild-horses-paying-the-price

As we can all now appreciate, American Wild Horse Campaign was so busy heaping praises and kissing the backside of Deb Haaland to get into her good graces, arguably for some of the $48 million in PZP/GonaCon grant money, they didn’t care about her actual agenda for American wild horses.

Hindsight is 20/20, and if advocates cannot start learning from history, then wild horses in America are DOOMED!

Wild Horse Fire Brigade has a credible, natural, cost-effective plan for our government and local authorities to start managing wild horses in manner consistent with the fact that they are keystone herbivores, and with their status as the foundation stones upon which this country was built, and as the native sentient beings that they are.

Wild horses have earned and deserve our utmost respect and support, without compromises!

Our organization may be small, but we truly represent the wild ones, as advocates who literally live among them.

Since we live among them, visit with them daily, and share breath with them, we are inspired by them and informed directly by THEM, the wild ones! That is the essence of the discipline of being an ethologist… in this case, learning directly from the free-roaming wild horses in a natural ecosystem/wilderness as we do.

We do need funding… and urgently.  We need to execute the tactics to implement our solution ASAP!

We are doing all that we can, and smartly applying the little money we do have available.

We have already saved 32 wild horses at risk by rewilding them into Our Herd, and they are now living naturally and happily so.

We are an all-volunteer organization, unlike the big dollar gold plated orgs. like American Wild Horse Campaign, who arguably have a conflict of interest in their mission, because a genuine holistic solution for wild horses, which ends their plight, also ends the need for AWHC and their bloated organization.

In contrast, Wild Horse Fire Brigade, a California-based 501(c)(3)organization, uses all the money we get on working to save wild horses using intelligent strategies for natural conservation, using a multiple of tools, including a focus on educational outreach of our plan to legislators and the public, explaining our research and supporting science, and how we can humanely and cost-effectively rewild and relocate wild horses away from pathetic government holding and away from areas where they are in conflict and subjected to extreme prejudice and grave risk via barbarians.

We can do this with proper financial support.

Please visit our website where we have a ‘Chip In’ button. We accept credit and debit cards or PayPal: https://www.wildhorsefirebrigade.org/chip-in.

Alternatively, we can also accept checks made out and sent to:

Wild Horse Fire Brigade
404 S. Main Street – #162
Yreka, CA  96097

Best Regards,
William E. Simpson II, wild horse ethologist
Founder/Executive Director:  Wild Horse Fire Brigade

*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

BLM Plans Research on Wild Mares

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Gaelic Princess, pictured in her Pryor Mountain home with Cloud’s blue roan son, Mato Ska.

When Ginger first visited wild horses, she fell in love with these magnificent animals and their natural, wild behaviors. Observing the sophisticated herd social structure and intimate interactions in wild horse families fascinates millions of people around the world.

We know and love lead mares, like Gaelic Princess. She was Mato Ska’s first lead mare and helped him understand the job of a good band stallion. Lead mares like Gaelic Princess help organize and direct the family band. They often decide when to head to water, when to rest, when it’s playtime (and when it’s not!).

One of the biggest threats to our beloved wild horses and burros is the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) pursuit of fertility control that is permanent and/or destroys the natural, wild behaviors that make wild horses who they are.

Today we’re asking you to PLEASE add your name to the list of people who stand against sterilizing our wild mares and destroying their natural wild behaviors.

Help us send the BLM a message — that We the People demand that all fertility control used in management of our wild horses be reversible and NOT destroy or interfere with their normal hormone production.

Please take a stand for them now, before we lose them forever.

Deadline for Public Comments: August 22, 2022

The Cloud Foundation
www.thecloudfoundation.org