Bill would allow slaughter of wild horses

Even the wild horses are going down ...

WASHINGTON -- In a reversal of three decades of government policy that protected all wild horses, a provision approved by Congress last weekend would allow some of them to be sold to slaughterhouses.

The provision, attached to an omnibus spending bill by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for the Interior Department, requires the sale of wild horses that have been rounded up and are more than 10 years old or have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times. The bill is awaiting final action.

more....

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/201110_horses25.html

that's sad.

Between feeding the wild horses who only live in the Nevada area and cattle who live all over the country, somehow the cattle won. Gee, wonder why...

:cry:

are all assholes.

...

in mail generated to congress.
Wow. Alot of people really care about this issue. Maybe there is hope, I know even more care now then cared then.

http://www.savewildhorses.org/annie.htm

I wonder what "Wild Horse Annie" or Velma Johnston, thinks about this, if she is still among us.

but can this administration worry more about lack of health care or no flu shots this season rather than putting down horses? There is no respect for life with these jerks. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it's all about reducing population of everything so oil demands are lowered.

There it is.

I was just reading a book of letters by Thompson, including one from 5/17/1968 to the Secretary of Interior...

What in the name of a crippled half-mad jesus are you thinking about with this scheme (according to Newsweek 5/13/68) of auctioning off nearly all that herd of mustangs in northern Wyoming for dogfood? If this is the sort of thinking that permeates the Dept. of Interior -- as manifested by the sub-human comments of those BLM functionaries who worry about the grass these mustangs are eating -- then I can't help butwonder if perhaps there is something badly out of focus in the Interior Dept., or at least on that level on which major decisions are supposedly made.

weird...

people, this is one of the most beautiful docs I have seen it's shot over several seasons by a woman vacationing in the summers, she follows his birth and life, and all the lives of the wild horses out there. I get chills just thinking about this film.

here's a link that offers the video:

http://www.savewildhorses.org/cloudbook.html

"In the shadows of the dramatic Arrowhead Mountains, deep in the Montana wilderness, a newborn, nearly-white foal takes his first shaky steps to keep up with his mother. Discovered just hours after his birth by Emmy Award winning filmmaker, Ginger Kathrens, the unusual mustang foal quickly wins her heart and becomes the focus of her camera's eye. Throughout the next five years, the life of this wild colt is captured on Kathrens' film, allowing all to experience the story of Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies.

On the day of his birth, Cloud's wobbly legs must carry him several miles up the mountain side as his family band travels to snow banks in the dense forest for water. Already vulnerable to predators like the mountain lion because of his tender age, Cloud's white coat only makes him more conspicuous. His survival of this dangerous journey, and the perilous days that follow, are testament to the feistiness Cloud exhibits as he grows into a bachelor stallion.


While a free-spirited two year old, Cloud's freedom is briefly stolen when he and his closest bachelor friends are captured in a fall round up. His namesake white coat serves as an ally this time and Cloud is singled out and released back into the wild. Cloud disappears and Kathrens fears for his life. In the spring, however, Cloud is seen racing across the meadows atop the mountain with bachelors who had evaded capture. He begins to establish his leadership role among these young stallions and even dares to spar with older, stronger band stallions.

In the seasons that follow, Cloud's play fighting turns to serious battles as he begins the sometimes brutal ascent to becoming a band stallion. Fear is not an option as Cloud fights his way toward the goal of proudly building and leading his own family group. For Kathrens, there is no doubt that he will succeed..."

Kathrens adopted one of the horses rounded up with Cloud, he was in the group she had been filming for years and couldn't bear to see him shipped off to unknown circumstances. She tames him and the film ends with her taking him back to his herd in Montana for a visit. This is an incredibly moving film.

who want to make huge profits on public lands for mining, corporate ranching, oil drilling, coalbed methane gas drilling, you name it, the Bush jerks will give it away and the US public gets the shaft along with the mustangs and ponies.

Ranchers take them and make a substantial profit.

I've had to have a critically ill horse euthanized. Very sad but humane.

The slaughter house is brutal.

These horses are crammed onto semi trailers and as many as can,are squeezed in there . Often it is a double decker trailer. I f any are too weak to withstand the journey,Often not short,They collapse and are under the feet of the rest.It is horrendous. The screams that come from those trailers are blood-chilling. Most times these horses are trucked into Canada because they fetch a better price there. In the U.S. we don't eat horse meat.

to keep the aging wild horses alive. It is a very expensive luxury with no clear benefit.

it's all in who you know.

The reality is that the ranchers do take care of the horses, and get wealthy at the same time.

That does not make it a worthy endeavor.

what he and his ilk consider worthy has no bearing on my moral code. They better keep taking care of these horses as the one decent thing the do on this earth, so their room in hell will maybe be 400 degrees instead of 500.

I am a horse owner. If the wild horses can't be adopted out or put onto other wild horse ranges then humane euthanasia should be the very last option. There are several wild horse organizations and refuges. My boss owns a rescued mustang.

Last year, Practical Horseman magazine had an article about horse slaughter houses. There are only 3 in the US. And guess what, 2 are in Texas. I saw the pictures. They hit the horse over the head with a metal club to kill them. It is awful. Don't ever sell a horse at an auction. Many of them end up at the slaughter house.

the horses.

With peak oil approaching, or even if not, horses are not bad things.

like transportation, they are old and wild so for the most part they can't be tamed.

That's a good purpose for me. There is plenty of room in NM for wild horses to roam.

They compete with other creatures for resources, if they lose they starve, not a really humane alternative. The reason they are relocated to ranches, where they are well tended (at a huge price) is so that they can be fed in the winter, and receive veterinary care while not causing destruction where they are overpopulated.

so should we stop or start killing them all?

They do not cause destruction, the cattle do, at least in a far larger percentage.

This is ridiculous. Kill the fucking cattle instead. There are too many of those causing destruction to wilderness areas becuase greedy asshole ranchers can graze their cattle at very low rates on public lands, where they don't fucking belong.

I've seen 20 year old horses competing.

And mustangs, like brumbys here in australia, CAN be broken in and trained and sold as riding horses. Yes, we are guilty of slaughtering our wild horses too (sadly last time it hit the news it was shooting them from helicopters) but there are also people who invest the time and energy to turn them into good riding horses.

And lots that lived till about 30 or more.

they can be tamed. I know, I've worked with abused horses, and I've worked with wild horses, and guess which one is easier to handle?? Once rehabilitated, they are hardy, cheap to keep, have hooves like flint so farrying bills are low, and are very loyal.

there isn't much of an alternative even if they could be tamed.

They aren't native to the areas where they graze making them disruptive to the ecosystem.

They have great turnouts to these events. Where do you get your information that no one wants the horses? Or is it that you don't want a horse? Or couldn't care less?

As far as being destructive, that is also bullshit. They actually eat less than most horses because they are limited by the environment. The land is not sparse because the horses ate everything, the horses live in the sparsest land because the cattle ranchers have the better land.

Have you ever seen a herd of wild horses running over open land? It's beautiful. But beauty isn't something the Bush regime cares much for. They care for the beauty of the dollar.

but they do it to do well, not to do good.

See how altruistic they are when the fees are withdrawn.

Not good for human purposes, so off with ya! I'm sorry that you only have the life value that WE HUMANS give you.

the environment where they run wild. They aren't native to that ecosystem making them destructive.

Moving them to ranches is just another giveaway for the rich.

They were driven to extinction by the first Americans who migrated here across the bering strait. Later they were re-introduced here--in effect if not in intention--when they escaped from the Europeans who came here, kind of like the way wolves and other animals have been reintroduced to ecosystems from which they were displaced by humans.

I've been out west, and I've seen the mustangs. They aren't desecrating the environment, not nearly as much as cattle do. Though they are relegated to the most sparse leftovers of American land, the land itself is still beautiful and teeming with other forms of life...deer, elk, bighorn sheep, etc. The diets of deer and of mustangs only overlap by about 10%--the diet of cattle, on the other hand, overlaps with everything else. It isn't the mustangs that are turning the west into a wasteland, it's the cattle.

Horses evolved and developed in this ecosystem, and they can still live harmoniously with it. Their numbers are controlled by a number of factors, particularly the severity of western winters, as well as by predators (whose numbers will also hopefully increase due to reintroduction programs), and by the intervention of the BLM.

But all of this is besides the point. The issue at hand is whether or not we should be slaughtering the older horses who are captured for adoption programs, and the answer is no. It is simply unacceptable. I know a thing or two about the brutality of slaughterhouses, and no creature should be subjected to it, particularly a creature which has already suffered the way that mustangs have suffered at the hands of man (driven off of cliffs, shot from helicopters, and captured in the millions to be used in World War I, a war from which none of them returned).

I'd like to remind you of that comment when you turn 60.

don't want to share the public land with a few horses? Remember, it was the cows from Europe that got preferential treatment in the west when they were slaughtering the buffalo.

to have the guaranteed business in a way to avoid the free market for beef. The ranchers love this old horse shit, it is their gravy train.

I saw a link on the BLM website to a horse that became a very good dressage pony. They take work and time to win their trust and to train them but they are very tameable. And smart.

The main drawback is that they tend to need a lot of care to begin with to get rid of internal parasites, etc. There is also the expense of fencing because you have to have a wooden fence rather than wire.

The adoptions that are held around the country are very popular and draw huge crowds.

The GOP just doesn't want to be bothered.

but nothing they do surprises me anymore. Bunch of bullies picking on wild horses is shameful. I guess the next 4 years is going to be one big letter-writing, phone-calling blitz for me (sigh).



:argh:

finding it hard to keep up the campaign.

Please keep up the fight!

I'm not going down without a fight. I refuse to let these bastards run roughshod over our country and what we stand for.

Hugs to you and yours on Thanksgiving! :hug:

Owned and operated by Belgians. Meat is air freighted to Europe; 70% to Belgium. One located in Fort Worth; the other in Kaufman.

Horses on the East coast are trucked to slaughter houses in Canada for the same purpose. Many are stolen family pets.

This has been going on for decades with the help of American "middlemen" who buy for the foreign slaughter houses.

Unimaginable cruelty is involved in all aspects of this tragedy.

No one does anything to stop this outrage.

Between their hideous racist Vlaams Blok party and eating horses, it's a wonder tehy are stil regarded as a civilized nation! Hey Belgium, I'll have to stop drinking your tasty ales if you insist on eating sacred animals!

there are entire organizations set up to get those slaughterhouses closed.

Here in Texas, lawyers proved that the 2 we have have been operating illegally for decades and so of course the reps in the areas where the slaughterhouses are introduced legislation to LEGALIZE the business.

We fought hard and WON, our congress did not pass that bill and the slaughterhouses were told to shut down, and immediately a court granted them an injunction to wait until the issue is decided at a federal level.

And the one in Illinois that recently reopened did so after being burned down to the ground in an arson, so someone clearly waged their own campaign against that one.

I'll be insulted for saying this, but as long as people insist on eating meat this kind of stuff will happen. Cattle rule all in this country and no one should think their slaughter is any more humane than that of the horses.

... what they condone every time they go to the grocery meat counter.

http://themeatrix.com/

...horses' lives than they do humans'.

stupid bastards. and the comment about worrying about lack of healthcare and flu shots (and lack of jobs, etc. too, IMO) for HUMANS instead of worrying about killing old wild horses - right on!

Several bills to prohibit the interstate transport of equines destined for slaughter for human consumption are stalled in Congress.

I've never seen a wild horse in Montana so I don't know what in the world Conrad Burns is doing putting a bill like this forward in the first place. The only place I've seen wild horses is in Nevada. Wonder what Harry Reid did about this.

Interesting point. We should count on repubs to organize attacks on Reid. He'd probably look good defending against this bill, but it would be a distraction. (if that's what it is. who knows. could be)

for wild horses over corporate profit. He's wedged tightly up the arses of mining with his buddy Congressman Jim Gibbons (R) and they both tried to screw the Western Shoshone out of their treaty rights this summer by paying them off individually over a bad lawsuit they never participated in as a nation. They did this while they had another bill trying to make its way through congress to sell or trade cheaply acres upon acres of land sacred to the Western Shoshone in Crescent Valley, NV to filth rich mining companies. They would screw Indians still and they will screw horses who stand in the way of profit.

http://www.wsdp.org/

Read here about the Dann sisters and read about how the BLM confiscated their herd, sold them at auction to an asshole rancher who starved most of them to death and is now undergoing the sentencing phase of his trial right now.

it's offered at link below, the film-maker goes there every summer and shoots footage of the wild herds there.

http://www.savewildhorses.org/cloudbook.html

Republicans are willing to destroy any form of life as long as they can make a buck off of it. :wow: No overhead either!

Saving these horses is welfare for rich ranchers who, in general, trash the environment. The species is neither endangered nor indigenous so tight federal money could be used to protect the environment, provide health care, or pay down the debt.

And do you really think that the Repugnant-controlled government will use the money saved to "protect the environment, provide health care, or pay down the debt"?

The mustangs do need to be managed, but there is no reason to destroy them in cruel ways.

I do not agree that the best way to put an animal down is to torture it first. I'm of a mind that an alternative method be used which is painless.

And this plays right into the GOP's hands. They want to cut all environmental and social programs except what they deem necessary, such as faith-based programs. They don't mind spending on bombs and guns, but anything that they deem not worthy, such as education, the environment, endangered species, healthcare, etc are expendable.

As Grover Norquist stated so eloquently, the GOP's plan is to cut taxes to the point where all programs have to be cut and eliminated, thereby "drowning big government in a bathtub."

I'm beginning to hate our government.

:puke: This is just like Groppenfurher's plan to cut $15 million to keep animals alive in shelters for a bout a week before euthenasia.

They seriously damage water sources and overgraze scarce food supplies. Notice that most of the wild horses are in Nevada? How much food and water do you think is available to native flora and fauna here? Well, the horses are destructive little beasties, mostly because they are not native to the region -- neither the horses nor the ecosystem is equipped to handle their presence. And contrary to what the article says, it's not just ranchers that have problems with them, as they destroy food and water sources for every wild animal in the West, not just cattle.

These are horses that no one wants. They are already being slaughtered, except the dog food companies and glue factories (or whoever is slaughtering horses these days) currently has to wait a year.

Proceeds from the horses already go to managing wild herds. Perhaps funds could be raised in some other way to spay/neuter horses before re-releasing them, thus eliminating the need, in the long term, for such massive round-ups and eventual slaughter.

I've seen so many newbies called freepers for disagreeing with the majority, that I was afraid to point this out.

Wild horses don't belong in that ecosystem.

kill as many of them also.

It's part of his role as the environmental president.

wanna cull them a bit? I sure would like to start a human spay/neuter campaign for the majority of Nevada! (kidding, I;m not advocating political eugenics...or AM I???)Anyway, if you made 1/10 of a stink about cattle being grazed all over those states maybe I would listen to your argument. Stop eating McDonald's for a year. Stop supporting industrial meat in general. I'm not saying everyone should go vegetarian, but there can be a balance struck where the horses are not looked at as "nuisances" but a treasured part of our cultural heritage. Horses helped human being get where they are, for better or for worse, and have been our trusty companions throughout time. People do want these horses. I've worked rehabilitating wild horses. Tehy are tough, hardy, loyal horses, great for companionship and riding. What a cold heart you must have.

Or about Americans' obsession with beef -- you have an excellent point about not eating at McDonald's. I wish to God the ranchers upstate and in Arizona would learn to raise cattle efficiently, and in some attempt at ecological harmony. Did you know, for instance, that agriculture takes about 90% of the water in Arizona (or at least used to). 95% of the agricultural products in Arizona are fruits/vegetables, and take about 5% of the agricultural water, whereas 5% of the agriculture product produced is beef, using 95% of Arizona's agricultural water.

There's been some success in New Mexico with a partnership between the BLM and ranchers, and it could be a model for the rest of the West -- but NM goes Dem, and the rest of the West goes Repuke.

I don't have a cold heart, at least I don't think I do. Horses may be smarter and cuter than many of the native species, but that does not mean they have the right to destroy habitat for other animals. I have spent days and weeks and months enjoying this desert, what most of the rest of the world thinks of as a desolate hellhole.

One of my most memorable experiences was when camping alone, nothing but me and a sleeping bag miles from the nearest road, near a lonely watering hole. I awoke in the middle of the night to find an enormous white equine face sniffing me, pawing the ground. It was the stallion, inspecting the intruder to his herd's watering hole. The power and intelligence in that animal's eyes -- it was like looking face-to-face with a tiger. Truly majestic.

But on a pragmatic note: what do we do with them? We can't send them anywhere else -- the prairies are taken, and they apparently eat them in Canada. They destroy local ecosystems (like rabbits in Australia or tree snakes in Polynesia). They frequently starve, not because they live in the desert, but because they are not native to the desert. The primary reason for taking them out of the wild is for their own good. We're not talking about young animals or animals that haven't been rejected three or more times -- we're talking about animals that no one else wants. What do we do with them? The best idea I came up in my original post was that we neuter a percentage of each herd, so that they do not reproduce at a destructive level.

In the states we don't eat horsemeat, but they do in parts of Canada.
A full grown horse with average weight on it goes for about $500.00.

They don't destroy the water sources and land anymore than human beings do.

If there isn't enough water and resources in Nevada, then we should be relocating them to where there is food and water, rather than killing them.

It's a speciast attitude like yours that is killing off our planet.

Right, humans are the only ones that really deserve to live. Nothing else matters.

And btw, when I had dogs, I would NEVER feed them horsemeat.

and it is used for gold mining by international mining companies, private ranchers and the military and, let's not forget about Yucca Mtn. What this is really about is the Repuke ranchers and miners who want the land to themselves for their uses to tear it up. The horses are just in the way. These ranchers on your public land would rather let their cattle tear it up for their profit and the hell with all other life, including elk, if you want to get into this deeper. Check out what ranchers do to elk. Cows are not native to this land and they raise hell on it.

I've written to PETA and to Greenpeace and I will be continuing with this cause today to my Senators and to my animail activist friends.

I'm not going to just say, "can't do anything about it".

It's -wrong-. Just like this President.

Thank you!

And where would that be?
If you haven't noticed, nobody wants them now.

(It's a speciast attitude like yours that is killing off our planet.)
Sorry, letting species get out of control is a real problem.

I don't think so.

Actually, someone said New Mexico had lot of land for the horses.

Perhaps it's the human beings that have gotten out of hand.

Everytime we kill off a species on this planet, we help to kill ourselves.

We have no right to kill off herds of horses. None whatsoever. A little kindness goes a long way.

http://www.kbrhorse.net/wclo/whyman1.html

Horses were first reintroduced to the North American continent in the 1600s by Spanish explorers. Over the centuries which followed, countless domestic horses either escaped or were intentionally released and formed into bands where the strongest flourished and multiplied. Thus in the scientific sense, these animals are actually feral horses (domestic horses returned to the wild).

When did you show up on the American continent?

get a real argument, please.

People are the destructive non-native species, and they're the reasons horses went extinct here in the first place.

for the love of Christ...:eyes: :grr:

WILD HORSE ANNIE & HER CAMPAIGN TO SAVE OUR WILD HORSES/BURROS

"If we can learn anything from this noble woman who saved our wild horses and burros from extinction, it is this - one person can truly make a difference and change the world. We urge you to take the time and make a difference in our world. Velma Johnston, known affectionately as Wild Horse Annie, was one of four children born in Nevada. She grew up in an equestrian environment where horses were not "broken" but trained. At the age of 11 years, she contracted polio and became disfigured from being in a body cast for six months. She coped with her disabilities by becoming strong in her academics and spending much time working with the animals on her parent's ranch. Because of the cruelty inflicted by some of the children in her class, Velma's mother instilled a strong sense of honesty within her.

Annie had heard talk of the cruel roundups of wild horses. Wild horses were chased by airplanes until they dropped from exhaustion. Wires closed their nostrils so they could hardly breath and a rope choked their necks as tires were tied to the ropes. Many horses were shot, wounded and left to suffer and die. After capture, the animals were loaded on trucks and trains, packed like sardines with no food or water until they met their untimely deaths.

Annie wrote, "Although I had heard that airplanes were being used to capture mustangs, like so many of us do when something doesn't touch our lives directly, I pretended it didn't concern me. But one morning in the year 1950, my own apathetic attitude was jarred into acute awareness. What had now touched my life was to reach into the lives of many others as time went on."

On a usual day driving to work, a truck hauling horses cut in front of Annie's car. She noticed a stream of blood dripping from the truck. Shocked by the trail of blood, Annie followed the truck to a rendering plant. This day would forever change her life. Hiding behind a bush, Annie noticed a yearling down in the truck who was sandwiched between two stallions. The yearling was being trampled to death by horses packed in too tight to even move. Annie was outraged by this act of cruelty and set out to change the course of America's history preventing eradication of wild horses and burros on public lands..."
(more)
http://www.savewildhorses.org/annie.htm

Kind of like Ashcroft's fear of kitty cats. Maybe the provision to allow the slaughter of horses is a gift to please the Chimperor?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I don't think that these cheap ass jerks are going to sell the meat to the Pet food industry :puke:

-Ranchers are charged only $1.81 per month to graze a cow and calf on our public lands. That's less than it costs to feed a hamster.

-The ratio of domestic livestock to wild horses and burros on the public lands is at least 50 to 1. An estimated 4.1 million domestic livestock graze the public lands compared with approximately 25,000 wild horses and 5,000 burros. BLM cannot substantiate the 40,000 plus wild horses and burros they continually refer to.

-In 1971,when the Wild Horse & Burro Act was passed, there were 303 herd areas where wild horses and burros roamed. Now there are only 184, and that number is steadily declining due to zeroing out policies of the BLM.

-Less than 3% of the beef consumed in the U.S. comes from animals raised on public lands.

more at link:
http://www.savewildhorses.org/facts.htm

First, let me say that not all horses can be tamed nor broken. They are wild. They do forage for food, etc, and some of these horses running wild were released into the wild by irresponsible owners.

Second, many do get adopted, successfully, but many who adopt them have no idea what they are getting themselves into. I compare this to raising or having kids. Some great parents, some that should not be allowed to bare any let alone raise them, and all over the age of 10. Due we knock them in the head? Many years ago, I think they did a better job in placing these animals in the right homes but now, they are desperate to place them, so many more "come back" and unfortunately not in as good condition or with more behavioral problems do to the stupidity of the previous adoptee.

I've seen these animals after round ups, some terribly injured and as a result destroyed. I wanted them to insititute some sort of breed management, vs capture/adoption. Leave them be. But, I could never get anyone to listen. Capture, sterilize, release. That would eventually bring down the heard sizes. On the other hand, 10 yrs old is not old, but harder for successful adoptions as they are set in their ways. I've seen many successful adoptions, but it's in the care they receive and the time spent with them. I really hate to hear that they want to destroy these animals over 10, but the cost to maintain them in captivity pending adoption does cost us all and as the economy continues to go belly up, there are less adoptive homes who can afford that mouth to feed. So, I say do like they do in the feral cat communities, capture/sterilize/release.

Thank you, NVMojo for posting this.

How can we stop this? I'm appalled and really saddened by this. My first love in life are horses. Always has been.

I am going to forward this to PETA, but please let me know what we can do other than that?

I'm so upset. Really topped my awful Thanksgiving Day. :(

This really upsets me

http://www.amnestyusa.org/justearth/indigenous_people/western_shoshone.html

http://www.wsdp.org/

http://www.wsdp.org/horse_defense.htm

http://www.fund.org/library/index.asp?topic=Horses+and+Burros

http://www.animal-law.org/wildhorses/wildhrse.htm


I will keep looking as I know there are groups trying to help. Many were taken completely off guard by this bill...

Millions of Tax Payers Dollars are Being Wasted on Wild Horse Eradication, Due to Pressure from Special Interest Groups

A team of wild horse experts is alerting the public to the fact that America's wild horses are being eradicted from public lands in violation of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Art, which protects wild horses as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West."

(PRWEB) September 6, 2004 -- A team of wild horse experts — under the coalition banner of The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) — is alerting the public to the fact that that America’s wild horses are being eradicated from public lands in violation of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act, which protects wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.”

Special interests have been successful in pressuring the government to systematically remove wild horses from public lands — specifically the cattle industry, which wants the horses replaced with cattle for subsidized grazing. While the aggressive removal policy currently being implemented is costing over thirty million taxpayer dollars annually, in-the-wild management -- as mandated by federal law -- would save millions of taxpayers’ dollars.

Just a hundred years ago, more than 2 million wild horses roamed the nation’s public range. Fewer than 32,000 now remain, outnumbered by private cattle by about 150 to 1 on public lands; about as many -- nearly 29,000 — will be held in government short- and long-term holding facilities by the end of this year, most of them unadoptable. The government plans to capture another 9,300 horses by February 2005, with the removal campaign costing upwards of $5,000 for the capture of a single horse, in addition to the mounting costs of long-term holding. Some Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials have acknowledged that there is talk in Washington of a one-time 'sale' or 'kill' authority to dispose of the tens of thousands of horses currently in holding facilities.

more...

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prweb154955.htm

this will be helpful.

:)

Those in favor of sending wild horses to slaughter argue to herds have become large and unmanageable, and that the cost of taking care of the animals is costing the government millions and millions of dollars:

J.P. Donovan, press secretary for Burns, defended the proposed change in BLM policy. "Right now, the government is spending around $40 million annually to manage these wild herds," he said. "The population levels on public lands are exceeding the ability of the lands to sustain them. Plain English is, the herds are just too big."

The facts state otherwise.

Wild horse advocates have strongly opposed the plan, saying the agency is ignoring its mandate to care for the wild horses in favor of livestock producers and oil and gas interests who want to exploit the public lands where the herds live.

Bush has made no secret about wanting to drill for oil in Colorado and "move" (slaughter) the wild horses in the area to do so. (I think Bush would drill for oil right through the middle of his mother's grave.) Also, Bush lives in the Texas mindset that animals have only been put on the planet for exploitation, with cattle ranchers being closest to sainthood, second only to oil men.

Let's do the math to show the real numbers we are talking it costs to support grazing animals:

$1.42 per acre x 12 months = $17.04 per yr.
(amount charged to rancher for COW to graze on public land)

If there are 37,000 wild horses left in the wild, multiply
that by $17.04 per acre for a year that = $613,440.00

The BLM says if cost $30,000,000.00 from 2001 to 2004 (3years)
That's $10,000,000.00 per year to round up and auction off the wild
horse.

$10,000,000.00 - $613,440.00 if we were ranchers leasing land for
our livestock (wild horses). The BLM would be saving $9,386,560.00
per year.

So do taxpayers have to foot the Bill of $9,386,560.00 per yr. so ranchers can use public land, that is already being paid for by taxpayers, so wild horses may go to slaughter?

Horse slaughter is big business. It doesn't feed the poor or starving. It's shipped overseas where it sells for between $15-25 per pound and is served as a delicacy. The slaughter process itself is brutal, largely unregulated, and inhumane.

This is about MAKING MONEY, it's about CATTLE INTERESTS, it's about FOREIGN MONEY, and it's about the GOP "Exploitation Machine" with nothing standing in its way to prevent this bill from passing unless the public outrage can keep this from being signed.

By the way, Kerry was ANTI horse slaughter, and supported HR 857, the bill to ban horse slaughter for human consumption in the US. Currently, that bill is languishing in Republican Bob Goodlatte's office, and Goodlatte refuses to let it out for vote.

Gee, I wonder why. BTW- Goodlatte was shortlisted as the Bush's new Ag Chairman.

If you look closely, the larger picture becomes painfully clear.

a beautiful and heartbreaking movie.

Shit-eating bastards!!!

They also have loosened the restrictions on tuna fishing so tuna is no longer dolphin-safe.

I f*ucking hate these SOBs.

In every act they show contempt for the environment and god's creatures. I hope they all rot in hell.

I swear, the worse abuses to animals is always when greed and profit are involved. Stupid humans!

The Last of The Wild Horses
http://members.shaw.ca/save-wild-horses/index1.htm

and in chimp's America greed ALWAYS comes out ahead.

even the wild horses are suffering!

bush = naziesque protocols