Obama Wasting Tax Dollars to Butcher Horses

 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/30/768671/-Obama-Wasting-Tax-Dollars-to-Butcher-Horses

by Enkel

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Sun Aug 30, 2009 at 09:54:01 AM PDT

Ken Salizar and newly appointed BLM Head Bob Abbey are scheduled to begin litterally throwing tax dollars away on Tuesday, September first in an attempt to capture 70 horses from a 1.5 million acre range in Nevada.  Their most likely fate, to be given away (or sold at $10 each) to horse traders who will haul them to the slaughter houses of Mexico for a ten fold profit.  

In 1971, the Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act was enacted to stop “Mustangers” who rounded up wild horses (essentially stealing them from public lands) to haul them to slaughter. Today, BLM are the mustangers and they’re funded by public tax dollars.  It wasn’t long before ranchers were “adopting” BLM rounded up horses in droves, throwing them onto vacant acreage for the one year waiting period until BLM handed over their title, then selling those that lived to slaughter.  

• Enkel’s diary :: ::

By 1988, “a federal district court judge in Nevada, ordered the BLM to withhold title from any adopter who expressed an intent to exploit the horses—i.e., sell them for slaughter or as bucking stock in rodeos. The BLM had admitted to him that on some occasions it knew before granting title that the adopters intended to slaughter the animals.” (reference)  

The Free-Roaming WIld Horse and Burro Act imposes a $2000 fine and 1 year improsonment for any person who “processes or permits to be processed into commercial products the remains of a wild free-roaming horse or burro.”  Over the years, thousands of wild horses have been captured at tax payer expense and basically given away (some even delivered at taxpayer expense) to horse traders who sent them to slaughter, yet none have been prosecuted.

Since 1971, billions of tax payer dollars have been spent clearing ALL wild horses from over 111 horse management areas (over 19 million acres) to make way for beef farmers who lease the land at only a fraction of what is spend by tax payers to maintain it.  The entire state of New Mexico is down from and estimated 6,000 horses in 1974 to 400 horses roaming 76,000 acres.  Yet, the BLM target is to reduce that to just 100 horses, half the number experts estimate are required to maintain viability (due to inbreeding).

Those horses cleared from the land that are not sold or given away are put into holding areas.  Today, BLM is using tax payer money to maintain 30,000 horses in holding pens at a cost in excess of $20 million per year.  Many of these horses in holding are maintained on private property by individuals who receive $500 per year to keep the horses.  In 2006, in an effort to reduce the number of horses in holding, the BLM sent a letter to 15,000 ranchers who lease public lands (at well below market rate) asking them to take the horses.

So to put it simply, the BLM is spending tax payer dollars to capture horses in order to clear them from the land that they rent to ranchers at well below market cost, then offer those same ranchers $500 per year to keep the same horses on the very same land.  In this scenario, the ranchers get what they want (cheap grazing land for cattle) AND get $500/head/year to keep the same horses they asked the BLM to clear in the first place.  OR, they can “adopt” them at $10/head (or even free) and sell them to slaughter at $150 – $200 each.  And WE the tax payer are footing the bill for all of this.

The logical solution would be to charge the ranchers full market value for the leased land and to return at least half of the 19 million acres of habitat back to PUBLIC use (instead of private rancher use).  That would provide more than 600 acres per horse in holding.  Then use the additional funding to initiate a herd fertility managment program.  

It really isn’t rocket science to manage herds (if you aren’t catering to influential beef ranchers).  It’s time for the Federal Government to get out of the Mustanger business, get out of housing and slaughtering wild horses at tax payer expense, for the benifit of a select few who are profiting from the system.

On Tuesday, yet another group of horses are scheduled to be rounded up.  This one is on Obama’s watch.  Yes, he has a lot on his plate, but at a time when his administration is looking to trim wasteful spending, this is a no brainer.  This herd has been documented for nearly a decade by Emmy winning PBS videographer Ginger Kathrens.  You can find more information about the planned round up at The Cloud Foundation website.  

Late last year we saw a last minute stopping of the sale of oil leases because of public out cry.  

It would be a nice miracle if the public would also rally to tell the White House that we don’t want to fund Mustangers any longer.  There ARE viable CHEAPER solutions out there that don’t involve a thinly veiled program to pay to send these horses to slaughter houses.

Contacts:
White House Comment (Complaint) Line
Phone: 202-456-1111 or 202-456-9000
Fax: 202-456-2461

Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar
Phone: 202-208-3100

BLM Director Bob Abbey
Call: 202-208-3801
Fax: 202-208-5242
Robert_Abbey@blm.gov

Read BLM’s Wild Horse Elimination Plan Angers Ecologist for a detailed description of how this current round up is being sold based on false information.

Tags: wild horses, GOP, wasted tax dollars (all tags) :: Previous Tag

 

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