Issues surrounding wild horses are becoming more and more mainstream thanks to people like Madeleine Pickens and Deanne Stillman who work hard to publicize the injustices these animals face.
What They Want To Do
Currently a legislation has been proposed to update the sorely outdated Wild Horse & Burrow Protection Act of 1971 HR 1018.
These amendments were introduced on Feb 2009 and propose updating aspects of the bill that deal with horse handling, preservation, round up, land management and adoption (they are paraphrased below).
Proposed Act Revisions
Requires the Secretary of the Interior (for Bureau of Land Management- [BLM] administered lands) or the Secretary of Agriculture (for Forest Service-administered lands) to:
1. Update the inventory of such animals annually and make it publicly available on the BLM website.
2. Take specified actions to estimate populations of, and establish management levels for, such animals.
3. Identify new rangelands, arrange for supervised protection on private lands, and establish sanctuaries or exclusive use areas for such animals.
4. Implement enhanced surgical or immunocontraception sterilization or other safe methods of fertility control.
5. Exhaust all practicable options of maintaining horse and burro populations in the range before providing for the capture and removal of excess animals for private maintenance.
6. Take specified actions to promote the adoption program.
7. Temporarily remove horses or burros from the range if their immediate health or safety is threatened; and
8. provide specified public information on animal removals, range changes, and treatment.
Revisions Will Prohibit
1. The use of helicopters or other airborne devices to remove such animals.
2. Containing such animals in holding facilities for more than six months while awaiting disposition; or
3. the destruction of such an animal unless the Secretary determines it is terminally ill.
Additional Points
- Requires adopters of horses and burros to affirm that adopted animals will not be slaughtered for human consumption
- Expands the membership of the advisory board on the management and protection of such animals
- Applies criminal penalties to any person who transports a live or deceased horse or burro for processing into commercial products
- Sets forth new reporting requirements on the management of such animals
There You Have It
This is just a summary that I’ve organized in a reader-friendly manner. I encourage everyone to go read the whole thing to see the big picture.
well, you all did it. It passed, now lets see how long it takes fvor this bill to mess things up even more.
brainless and destructive.
I didn’t do anything, but it would be nice to hear why you feel that it will cause more problems. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Honestly, I think some parts of the bill are good (like preventing these horses from going to slaughter [there are already regulations regaurding this, as it is illegal to send a govt owned horse to slaughter])… but there are other parts of it that will do emence damage to the program.
1) they want to stop the use of the contaceptive PZP on mares, which will allow them to breed uncontrollably.
2)They want to stop roundups
3) They want to get rid of many of the HMA bounderies and allow these horses to roam where they like, possibly into public areas once they run out of food from over population.
4) They want to make the euthanisation of wild horses illegal unless they are “terminally ill”. Look, I understand no one wants to see some of these animals put down, but we are running out of options.
5) They want to make it so you can only have horses in holding for 6 months (so what are they going to do? turn them back out?)
6) They want to stop the sale authority of 3 strike horses AND keep adopters from ever actually owning their horses.
I love these horses with all of my heart, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be as involved as I am with the program and getting the truth out there. The BLM has already exhausted every possible option and this bill will only increase the costs associating with the management of wild horses.