U.S. Appeals Court rules against friends of feral horses, but
BLM still failing to contain problem

A federal appeals court has denied a radical activist group’s request to halt the feral horse roundup in Wyoming by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). But the BLM is not out of the woods of controversy yet – as opponents have engaged in civil disobedience to stall the roundup. What is more, others note the agency is not properly following the advice from a federal scientific panel, whose members are appointed by the National Academy of Sciences, to contain the environmental damage caused by the hybrid horses in the American West.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit late last month, in a ruling regarding the 800 horses from the Checkerboard Herd Management Area in Wyoming, said the BLM could proceed with a roundup of horses. The far-left group, Friends of Animals, had sought an emergency restraining order from the bench to stop the BLM from culling the herd, and when it lost in federal court, called for protests to stop the Department of the Interior from rounding up the feral horses off federal land.

“We refuse to allow the BLM to operate without disruption while these sadistic roundups are occurring, so we’re showing up to loudly protest and do civil disobedience actions that will make it impossible for BLM staff to ignore,” said Edita Birnkrant, the campaign director of Friends of Animals. “The heartless roundups occurring right now in Wyoming are ripping families of wild horses apart, terrorizing them with helicopter chases, separating foals from their mothers and imprisoning them in squalid holding facilities where their fates are unknown and where horses can be sent to slaughterhouses.”

Birnkrant, who seems to have a gift for radical rhetoric, further stated that the round-ups of the feral horses were “crimes.”

But the reality is much different. The BLM is authorized under federal law to cull herds of feral horses and burros under the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act (WHBA), of 1971. And the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), whose members are noted scientists, and who are appointed by the President and the Congress to advise on scientific matters, last summer urged the BLM to be even more proactive under the law.

Bureaucratic Incompetence

According to the NAS report, Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward, the herds of horses are growing at a rate of 15 to 20 percent per year and are endangering the “ecosystem” in Wyoming and other western states. Bureaucratic incompetence at BLM is compounding the problem. BLM’s “management practices are facilitating high rates of population growth,” the report stated. “BLM’s horse removals only hold horse populations below levels affected by food limits…allowing population growth, which drives the need to remove more animals.”
The BLM claims it is doing the best it can, but, truly, its best is not good enough. The radicals have file a petition with another federal agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and are asking the 41,000 feral horses roaming the U.S. be named an “endangered species,” even though they are genetic hybrids, offspring from domesticated horses that have escaped, and not true wild animals, indigenous to the country. The horses are an “integral part of the natural system of public lands,” claims Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals. Her colorful colleague, Birnkrant. said there is a “hatred and intolerance” for the horses. Friends of Animals believes that by taking the management of feral horses away from BLM, the horses can be “saved.”

Double Talk

But Neil Kornze, director of the BLM, said “no quick or easy fixes exist to this problem.” He also said his goal was to “increase public confidence” in the BLM’s feral horse management program, through greater “transparency” and finding “additional opportunities for population control” of the feral horses.

The National Academy of Sciences report on feral horses was stinging on the actions thus far of the bureau.

According to the NAS, the BLM does not even perform rudimentary animal science procedures, like recording the “occurrence of disease and clinical signs” of illness and genetic deformities in the horses. “Such data have not been recorded,” the report said. “Surveillance of these mutations would be possible if blood and hair samples are collected during gathers. Over time, regular sampling would reveal whether a particular Herd Management Area has a higher occurrence of genetic mutation that might affect the fitness of the herd.”

What is more, a plan to maintain the genetic diversity of the herds has not been put in place by BLM, and there are potential veterinary problems that are going untreated. “Management of horses and burros as meta-populations is necessary for their genetic health,” the NAS report indicates. “Genetic studies of the horses on 102 Herd Management Areas shows the genetic diversity for most populations is similar to those of healthy mammal populations, although genetic diversity could change over time. Little is known about the genetic health of burros. The few studies that have been conducted reported low genetic diversity compared to domestic donkeys.”
Furthermore, the NAS report indicates that BLM should consider the various herds of burros as one population, and manage them accordingly. “Management options include intensively managing individuals according to their genetic makeup within herd management areas, moving horses and burros among these areas, or both.”

Even More Cutting Remarks

In even more cutting remarks, the NAS said that the BLM’s own, written guide to managers, its handbook, lacked specificity, and was not a good resource for employees of the agency. “The handbook lacks the specificity needed to adequately guide managers on establishing and adjusting appropriate management levels. It does not provide sufficient detail on how to monitor range land conditions. Data and methods used to inform decisions must be scientifically defensible. The public should be able to understand the methods used and how they are implemented and be able to access the data.”

The NAS also stated that the BLM lacked the skills to “resolve conflicts with polarized values” and that continuing this bureaucratic, business as usual approach will be expensive and unproductive for BLM.

“Compelling evidence exists that there are more horses and burros on public range lands than reported at the national level and that population growth rates are high. If populations are not actively managed, the abundance of horses and burros on federal land will increase until animals face food limitation,” writes the NAS. “They would then effect forage and water levels to levels detrimental to themselves as well as for all other animals on shared range lands.”

Additionally, the academy reported that the agency should make more effective use of modeling, better fertility control methods, and application of genetics to herd management. The production of the report was led by Guy Palmer of Washington State University and other experts.

There are some 179 herd management areas for feral horses and burros across the U.S., according to BLM spokesman Tom Gorey. BLM has budgeted about $6 million for contracts for helicopter services to help round up the horses, and budgeted another $1.5 million for sterilization. The helicopters fly close to the group, and encourage the horses to run toward traps, where they are captured.

To add to the troubles of the BLM, the liberal group Friends of Horses has also asked the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Sally Jewell, to collaborate with the wildlife service in naming the feral horses there an “endangered species.”

If Secretary Jewell does not comply with the radicals’ demands, they are promising to go to court once again and seek an order to brand the feral horses as wild horses protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The radicals argue that the horses are wild as they are descendants of horses which were on the plains here in America more than 10,000 years ago. But others say this is nonsense, and the horses are descendants of creatures re-introduced to the Americas by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 15th century, which have mated with other, escaped horses in the hundreds of years since that time. The radicals also believe that the horses could survive on their own without federal intervention. They think federal policy has set the level of feral horses as an artificially low level, and that if the feds stopped “interfering” with the horses they would on their own establish home ranges and achieve a harmonious, natural balance with the local ecology.

Birnkrant said, “If FoA doesn’t get a timely response to our Endangered Species Act petition from Sally Jewell, we will immediately pursue our legal options in court. There is no more time left for America’s wild horses.”

Under federal law, the Secretary of the Interior is mandated to report findings on whether or not a petition like this has merit. If it is deemed worthy, the secretary must then assemble a status review of the species and make a “final listing determination” within a year of the initial petition.

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http://www.doi.gov/whoweare/blm-dir.cfm