Update on BLM, Antelope Complex Gather, & Politico Campaign Launch

Dear Friends & Supporters,
We thoughtfully planned out an online and print campaign in Politico to run today, January 18th. It was the best outlet to target the right audience to get the most attention and a solution to the wild horse issues we are facing.

The audience is composed of the country’s innovators and high-end consumers:

  • Thought Leaders and Opinion Influencers
  • Key Decision Makers in Business and Finance
  • Investors
  • Community Leaders and Concerned Citizens
  • Journalists
  • Educators
  • Federal, State & Local Elected Officials and Policymakers

With one click you can reach:

2010 Site stats:
3,723,219 Unique Visitors
10,064,124 Visits
25,230,687 Page views
Source: Google Analytics

Demographics:
18-34 yrs old – 10%
35-49 yrs old – 39%
50+ yrs old – 47%
Male – 73% / Female – 27%
Average HHI 60k-100k – 30%
Average HHI over $100k – 42%
College – 49%
Graduate School – 34%
Source: Quantcast

Please TAKE ACTION today to stop the Antelope Complex gather this January 2011.

Also, please join in on the discussions on our Facebook fan page today. www.facebook.com/mustangmonument and on Twitter: @mpickens.

Thank you for your continued support of our wild horses. Please share this message with your friends and family. Together, we can make a positive change for our mustangs.

Sincerely,
Madeleine Pickens & all the mustangs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Washington, DC (January 18, 2011)

As Congress returns from the holiday weekend, members will be greeted by a full-page ad in Politico blasting the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its decision to proceed with the roundup of more than 2,000 mustangs in northeastern Nevada, despite a cost-effective alternative on the table.

“As costs [of the BLM wild horse program] spiral out of control, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversees the BLM, and BLM Director Bob Abbey pledge reform. But their talk is cheap when opportunities for real action are ignored,” the ad admonishes.

The advertisement was placed by philanthropist and businesswoman Madeleine Pickens, who has purchased two ranches in Nevada and is in the process of creating a wild horse eco-sanctuary in the area. Mrs. Pickens’ ranches are situated amidst the BLM’s Antelope Complex, where BLM intends to conduct the massive wild horse roundup beginning this week.

In early December, Mrs. Pickens and her Saving American Mustangs Foundation had offered to provide state-of-the-art holding facilities for the captured horses on her private lands, and requested the BLM to postpone the roundup by a few months until the ranches were ready to receive the horses.

Mrs. Pickens proposal would prevent the waste of tax dollars incurred by shipping the horses thousands of miles to off-the-range holding facilities. Despite this, BLM rejected the offer.

“For three years BLM has stonewalled our proposal to create a wild horse eco-sanctuary that offers a cost-effective, public/private partnership solution to the government’s unsustainable warehousing of wild horses,” Mrs. Pickens said today. “Today I turn to the Congress and the American people to urge the BLM to heed the call for change before it is too late, and the last of our cherished mustangs is lost forever.”

Last week, a coalition of prominent organizations, including the Humane Society of the United States , the Western Watersheds Project and the ASPCA sent a letter to BLM director Bob Abbey urging him to postpone the roundup in favor of the cost effective alternative plan.

Beginning as early as January 20, the BLM intends to capture up to 2,228 mustangs, or 83 percent of the wild horses living in the Antelope Complex, claiming that the 1.3 million acre public lands area can sustain just 427-788 horses. Meanwhile, the agency annually authorizes the equivalent of more than 2,000 privately-owned cattle and nearly 7,000 privately-owned sheep to graze the same area.

The BLM has been harshly criticized over the past several years for its aggressive policy of rounding up wild horses from public lands in the West and stockpiling them in government holding facilities in the Midwest. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Senate Interior Appropriation Committee, and Interior Secretary Salazar himself have acknowledged that the program is fiscally unsustainable, yet the roundups continue. The BLM now warehouses more wild horses in government holding facilities (40,000+) than are left free on the range.

Saving America’s Mustangs is creating up to a million acre Wild Horse Eco-Sanctuary as a permanent home for wild horses presently in captivity. The “Mustang Monument” sanctuary will be a living museum, where visitors can reconnect with the great outdoors and learn about America‘s wild horses and the important role they play in our culture and our history.

Please watch our video PSA.

Follow Madeleine on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mpickens
Visit her website for up to the minute information: www.savingamericasmustangs.org
Become Madeleine’s friend on the Saving America’s Mustangs’ Fan Page: www.facebook.com/mustangmonument
Also check out the Mustang Monument Wild Horse Eco Sanctuary Page: www.mustangmonument.com
Become a supporter of the wild horse issue: Click here.

Saving America’s Mustangs

2683 Via de la Valle

# G313

Del Mar, California 92014

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