http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Wild%20Horse%20Letter%20to%20Salazar.pdf
Updates: Humane Care, wild horses and the slaughter pipeline
Wild horse Education has been involved in the serious question of “sale authority” and wild horses going into the slaughter pipeline.
- Nevada’s wild horses 2012
BLM and the slaughter pipeline
The article first published in ProPublica written by Dave Philipps is still making a stir in very credible, progressive news media. Here is a link to a Interview with Philipps by Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow:
Please listen to the Interview. This man came out curious about public lands and the volatility of the wild horse issue. He is a journalist, not a wild horse advocate. Please listen to him all the way to the end. He is articulate and intelligent and by the end of the piece you can almost see the birth of an advocate in his eyes. (note: there are several people, even some advocates, that are unhappy with the release of this article, but I implore you to listen to the message. He does quote BLM numbers and other info but he says many of these things to keep the issue folded on the single area he investigated and (as most journalists) he may write on other issues as he investigates further.This journalist should be encouraged to stay on these issues. At every RAC, state and National meeting sale authority is a big topic of conversion with a push to implement all of it’s authorities, we need to raise our voices that this not acceptable, before policy changes again).
WHE assisted investigation brings wild horse slaughter questions to light
Stone Cabin 2/10
Wild Horse Education has been assisting reporter Dave Philips with his research into the question of BLM sale authority horses going to slaughter. Laura Leigh, founder of WHE, spent considerable time with journalist Philips at the Stone Cabin roundup this last winter. Philips is not a “wild horse advocate,” but a journalist interested in the “bigger picture story.” He became intrigued and Leigh and Philips kept in touch. The following is the first section of Philips piece published today in “Propublica.”
Wild horse education needs your assistance to continue their investigations, Court actions and field work. Please help us keep our work alive. Without you we can’t continue.
BLM storage facility in Fallon, 2012
Full article here: http://www.propublica.org/article/missing-what-happened-to-wild-horses-tom-davis-bought-from-the-govt
The Bureau of Land Management faced a crisis this spring.
All the Missing Horses: What Happened to the Wild Horses Tom Davis bought from the Gov’t?
The agency protects and manages herds of wild horses that still roam the American West, rounding up thousands of them each year to keep populations stable.
But by March, government pens and pastures were nearly full. Efforts to find new storage space had fallen flat. So had most attempts to persuade members of the public to adopt horses. Without a way to relieve the pressure, the agency faced a gridlock that would invite lawsuits and potentially cause long-term damage to the range.
So the BLM did something it has done increasingly over the last few years. It turned to a little-known Colorado livestock hauler named Tom Davis who was willing to buy hundreds of horses at a time, sight unseen, for $10 a head.
The BLM has sold Davis at least 1,700 wild horses and burros since 2009, agency records show – 70 percent of the animals purchased through its sale program.
Like all buyers, Davis signs contracts promising that animals bought from the program will not be slaughtered and insists he finds them good homes.
But Davis is a longtime advocate of horse slaughter. By his own account, he has ducked Colorado law to move animals across state lines and will not say where they end up. He continues to buy wild horses for slaughter from Indian reservations, which are not protected by the same laws. And since 2010, he has been seeking investors for a slaughterhouse of his own.
“Hell, some of the finest meat you will ever eat is a fat yearling colt,” he said. “What is wrong with taking all those BLM horses they got all fat and shiny and setting up a kill plant?”
Animal welfare advocates fear that horses bought by Davis are being sent to the killing floor.
“The BLM says it protects wild horses,” said Laura Leigh, founder of the Nevada-based advocacy group Wild Horse Education, “but when they are selling to a guy like this you have to wonder.”
BLM officials say they carefully screen buyers and are adamant that no wild horses ever go to slaughter.
“We don’t feel compelled to sell to anybody we don’t feel good about,” agency spokesman Tom Gorey said. “We want the horses to be protected.”
Sally Spencer, who runs the wild horse sales program, said the agency has had no indication of problems with Davis and it would be unfair for the BLM to look more closely at him based on the volume of his purchases.
“It is no good to just stir up rumors,” she said. “We have never heard of him not being able to find homes. So people are innocent until proven guilty in the United States.”
Some BLM employees say privately that wild horse program officials may not want to look too closely at Davis. The agency has more wild horses than it knows what to do with, they say, and Davis has become a relief valve for a federal program plagued by conflict and cost over-runs.
“They are under a lot of pressure in Washington to make numbers,” said a BLM corral manager who did not want his name used because he feared retribution from the agency’s national office. “Maybe that is what this is about. They probably don’t want to look too careful at this guy.”
Stone Cabin roundup, 2012
There is an investigation confirmed, but no new information.
- young horse in holding tag number one digit off from a horse sold to Tom Davis
Ed Roberson, assistant director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), said today at a meeting of the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board that an investigation is being conducted into the sales by the agency to a known killbuyer are being investigated.
“I can confirm right now that the inspector general of the Department of Interior is investigating,” said Roberson. Roberson declined further comment on the matter to KSL in Utah.
On September 28th journalist Dave Philipps broke the story on his investigation inProPublica. The investigation revealed BLM sold a Colorado killbuyer named Tom Davis at least 1,700 wild horses and burros since 2009, for $10.00 each. The government then paid shipping costs to deliver horses to Davis.
“When you or I can’t go to a long-term facility and adopt a horse but you could buy a truckload, sight unseen for $10.00 you have to ask yourself seriously who does that?” said Lisa LeBlanc volunteer for Wild Horse Education (WHE) an advocate group that assisted in the investigation,”and a red flag does not go up for BLM when they sell someone almost two-thoudsand horses? Not likely.”
Currently BLM claims it does not sell to killbuyers, carefully screens those that purchase and has them sign a written agreement that the horses should not be sold for slaughter.
In 2004 Senator Conrad Burns added a rider to an omnibus spending bill right before Thanksgiving recess. Many Senators did not know the rider making the sale of wild horses to slaughter legal was added to the document they signed.
Since that time public outrage has BLM claiming that it does not sell to slaughter. Congress added a stipulation to the budget that they would use no funding to ship horses to slaughter.
Why BLM sold Davis as many horses as they did and ask no questions remains a mystery. Why the agency used tax-payer dollars to ship horses to Davis is a mystery.
When will this investigation provide the answers? “No comment” from BLM at this time
