President’s Budget Proposal Includes Separate $42.5 Million Request for Wild Horse Preserve
February 11, 2010
Circulated by the Sportsmen’s and Animal Owners’ Voting Alliance (SAOVA)
The proposed $75.7 million 2010 BLM budget proposal includes a funding request for a wild horse preserve to be built in the Midwest or Eastern portion of the United States.
CHEYENNE – The federal government already owns 90% of Nevada, 50% of Wyoming, and comparable percentages of every Western state–and yet they are now proposing a massive land grab in the Midwest and East. All to house excess feral horses that they do not have the moral fortitude necessary to control.
The Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program already spends 75% to 80% of its budget on excess horses held in private feedlots and long term holding facilities off of the federal lands they are mandated to manage.
In addition to a $12 million increase from the President’s 2009 $64 million BLM budget proposal, separate funding totaling $42.5 million has been requested to purchase land for a wild horse preserve. The preserve would relocate wild horses to the Midwest or eastern portions of the United States in order to attain the appropriate population levels and remove the wild horses from the western rangelands where the wild horse have caused substantial environmental degradation .
While the intention of the BLM is to better manage the horse population is laudable, spending taxpayer’s money to build horse preserves is not the solution. “The United Organizations of the Horse believes moving the horses to a different geographical area will not solve the problem, but will only spread the environmental degradation and increase an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer,” says Sue Wallis, executive director of the United Organizations of the Horse, “reinstating humane horse processing in the United State is the only moral and ethical solution to management of the growing number of excess wild horses.”
The BLM also intends to use aggressive fertility control measures to slow the increasing number of wild horses, but this will not reduce the current number of wild horses that is already too large. Unmanaged horse herds double in population every four years. The Wild Horse and Burro Management program has been facing decreasing adoptions of wild horses and higher costs associated with the feeding and housing of the horses.
Leaving too many horses on the land will only result in thousands of horses dying of starvation. Dr. Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University has noted that “Mother Nature is cruel.” She has also been heard to say that “Death is not abuse. Abuse is dying of starvation and having your entrails torn out by coyotes because you are too weak to get up.”
The current state of the U.S. economy is already unhealthy and to expect taxpayers and the government to pay for increased costs associated with an issue that has an easy solution is irresponsible. Wild horses have become a political pawn for the animal rights movement and this is not only doing an injustice to the horses, it is causing an increased burden on taxpayers and the United States government. These misguided management practices must be stopped and a practical solution that will actually decrease the number of wild horses and provide relief must be implemented.
“The last thing this country needs right now,” says Wallis, “is a welfare entitlement program for animals that uses taxpayer dollars to line the pockets of so-called animal advocates while exacerbating and prolonging the suffering of horses.”
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Tom
Well done article. I agree with Sue Wallis “reinstating humane horse processing in the United State is the only moral and ethical solution to management of the growing number of excess wild horses.” I would add domestic horses to that also. Lots of horses are being released on BLM land because of the economic crunch and horse owners find they can no longer afford to keep them.
My daughter in Idaho has a few head of horses. Because of the current laws she now has to go to to a lot of expense and work to get rid of a horse carcass. A few years back she could sell her aging horses so it was not a financial burden as it now is. Last summer we found where someone had dumped off a dead horse in a steep canyon south of the Clearwater River.
All too often in dealing with “disposal” items, when regulations get to a point that it becomes too costly for common people, the idea of protecting the environment gets lost and the result is illegal dumping. It become counter productive again. There’s got to be a balance there somewhere.
I know a fellow here in Wyoming that takes six BLM (wild)horses a year to his ranch a pays a guy $3500. a month to train them for six months and them adopts them out to the general public for $200. This equals out to $3500 a horse not including feed or Vet bills. Now that’s a real money maker. Then the people adopting find some of them not suitable for riding and they either end up back on the BLM or at the bottom of one of those canyons.
By the same crowd hating on the rancher no doubt, and the horses are likely suitable to ride it is the rider which is not suitable to be a rider, of ANY horse. And they quit the “worthless” horse, just like they quit on their puppy what grew up to be a dog. The description of our average wolf lover.
Yes how true, Just because the wrangler can ride the horse in a round pen they think anyone can ride it and the horse ends up on the short end of it all.
If they can’t ride it, this usually means it is a damn fine ride. I rode a tough raunchy hot blooded Appaloosa for over ten years, the most dirty tough goer I was lucky enough to own.. Same thing, he was a throw away colt, the folks couldn’t even catch him. Him and I used to do 40 miles in a day in rough country. I wanted to kill him, and he wanted to kill me, it was great. We are both crippled up together now..
I know what you mean. I have a buckskin the same way he is 21 now and still as mean as ever. They say the reason the Indians were always mad was because they rode Appaloosas.