Protect Cloud's Herd: Tell the BLM how you feel about wild horse removal

The end of the year brings many opportunities for you to help wild horses and burros. Write to the BLM about their plans concerning the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd, made famous by filmmaker Ginger Kathrens and the beautiful stallion Cloud.
Last year 7000 wild horses were removed from public lands, with plans to remove 4000 more in the next year. If I'm doing the math right (which might be doubtful) that's nearly half the wild horse population still roaming public lands. It is my belief that wild horses should A) remain wild and B) any necessary roundups should be put off until not only holding but TRAINING and REHOMING facilities can be built to cope with the influx of untrained and often unmanagable wild horses into a world already full of unwanted animals. There are more wild horses in holding facilities across the country than there are roaming the wild.
Another animal which has been let down by laws put into place to protect them is the wild burro of Big Bend State Park, Texas. Park employees have been shooting the animals, a practice apparently sanctioned by the Sierra Club (Sierra Club, por que?) in order to make room for the introduction of Big-Horn Sheep, a species which would increase big game hunting revenues.
If you would like to make your thoughts on any of these subjects heard, go to the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign website and click the links to email officials.

Saving America's Symbols: Mustangs

Saving America's Symbols is a new article series I'm starting, featuring some of the most influential and prominent species in North America, such as Bison, Bald Eagles, and the American Mustang. Many of these animals are the backbone on which our nation was created and as such deserve our respect and continuing protection. I'm starting with the Mustangs because we're coming up on foaling season soon. Its been a strange, hard, changeable winter all over the country this year, and I doubt the Mustangs are fairing any better than the rest of us. For wild horse herds all over the southwest and in their northern ranges of Montana and Oregon and some in Alberta and British Columbia late spring and into the summer is the foaling season. For the Buruea of Land Management and other entities set with 'managing' the mustang herds this is also the height of roundup season.
During the summer of 2006 Front Range Equine Rescue (sister charity of the Cloud Foundation to save wild horses) published heartbreaking accounts of roundups that took place in Utah and Nevada. Chased by helicopters with days old foals running along side, panicked horses stumbled, broke legs, trampled foals, and collapsed from exhaustion to perish in the desert, or be rounded up later and hauled by truck to pen sites. A corraled horse panicked and broke its neck when it crashed into the fence, and another kicked a foal that had gotten mixed up with the adult horses, killing it. Even unborn foals were lost, when stress caused the mares to abort their babies. In 1971, the United States Congress recognized Mustangs as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West [...] that [...] contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.” Is this the way we treat such living legends?
Anyone familiar with horses, wild or otherwise, has heard of the Burns Amendment. This illegal appendix to the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act virtually gutted protections for these animals, as well as impacting the lives of countless domestic horses. Further plans by Mustang management calls for using birth control on mares over 10 years of age to help hold down the population. While this is a less expensive route than the barbaric roundups (conducted at the taxpayers expense, I might add) it will still help to contribute to the downfall of one of America's most recognizable symbols of freedom. Wild Mustangs have been pushed into isolated rangelands in some areas, far seperated from other herds, and birth control would only weaken their already compromised genetic diversity. These beautiful animals, once desenced from Andalusians, Arabians, and some of the most graceful and intelligent breeds in the world would become the 'weeds' that western ranchers have long held them to be.

For more information, or to donate to FRER's campaign to save our Mustangs, visit:
http://FrontRangeEquineRescue.org

http://www.wildhorsepreservation.com/issue.html (Warning, this website contains disturbing photos taken by press and onlookers at Wild Horse Roundups)

When I was 13, a 30 year old adopted Mustang taught me how to jump high, and how to dream. If Bandit is still alive today he'd be in his forties. Where ever you are I still love you, Bandito.