Wild horses in the BLM Broken Arrow (Indian Lakes) facility in Nevada

Wild Horse Education (WHE)  is now offering webinars to help answer your questions on wild horse management issues, public land and the current legislative landslide.

On Sunday we offered a webinar on the basics; terminology, jurisdiction, humane handling and today’s greatest threats. We are offering another opportunity to participate this Thursday, March 16, from 4-6 PM Pacific time. A ten dollar ($10.) donation (or more if you want to help us with our vast workload) will hold your seat for the live presentation. The webinar will be recorded with a chance to view later (without the opportunity to engage in the live chat). After you have made your contribution at the button below you will be sent the information you need to join us on Thursday night. Please remember this webinar will be recorded and you can view at a later date. We are expanding the presentation to cover areas that Sundays participants wanted more depth.

We urge you to read the article at the link to understand why we have chosen the webinars to increase individual knowledge to help you become a discerning advocate. We all have time and resource constraints to participate in advocacy. By increasing your knowledge of the spectrum of issues you can determine the path you want to follow. “2.0 is gone, what next?” https://wildhorseeducation.org/2017/03/08/2-0-is-gone-what-next/

We are creating these webinars based on your requests. We are attempting to expand these conversations to cover the topics YOU ask for. This is a link to a “work in progress” page that does not list past webinars we have done in field at roundups to update our supporters. The page is a work in progress and we can repeat or create topics based on YOUR requests. Once you join a webinar you will be placed on a list to get updates and give us feedback. https://wildhorseeducation.org/webinars/

This format is replacing the old “Q&A” video blogs as it appears to be more efficient to address your individual needs.

The video below from 2015 was viewed over 300 times in the last 24 hours. This is a QnA video from 2015. It has recently been placed by another organization on a website that does NOT link back to us. We are doing the webinars to address your questions online with illustrations and visuals on each issue instead of our old “talking head” format.

In the old format we could not delve into each issue specifically to address the flaws. Often answering a question simply can leave the answer out of context. One such distinction is the meaning of “over AML” versus “overpopulated.” Context is crucial, the devils live in the details. These out of context conversations can walk you right into a “deadly trap” of advocacy. Don’t get caught. READ more here: https://wildhorseeducation.org/2017/03/03/deadly-traps-dont-get-caught/

The fight to protect the wild, wild horse is intense. Competing with social media noise that often uses phrases like “Save wild horses” to support efforts that deal with sanctuary or organization building is an increasing problem.

A comment today from one of our readers:

Keith Kuttler I try not to get frustrated with horse advocacy but here is my reality check.. I have over 500 facebook friends. I can post a picture of the inside of my camera lens cap and get 30 likes. I can post a pretty picture of a horse and get 50 likes but I speak about the demise of the wild horse and I will only get 2 likes. Our wild horses are in trouble and no one seems to see the danger. The demise is not only with our wild horses, it is with wildlife in general. You are in the middle of a pot getting ready to blow. The clock ticks..

He’s right.

Another example of how the public is mislead and then frustrated is what is happening in Wyoming on the checkerboard lands. There was a legal win late last year to messed up paperwork (NEPA claim) that had the public believing that win created a change in management. The win was to a roundup that had ended and simply required paperwork to be amended, but the public did not understand that. Today over 1,000 wild horse are slated to be removed from the area and the public feels frustrated, lied to and helpless. So often social media mass forwarding creates a very unrealistic view of reality.

We are not helpless. However for advocacy to be effective we must be engaged in more than creating legal wins that mean nothing in practice, we need to stop being reactive to social media that is often a lie  to get shares and likes (accelerated removals when we were at the lowest rate since the 70’s), sign on letters for pubic comment to planned BLM actions. Those things do nothing to change the reality the horse lives.

An educated advocacy is more important than ever.

This year the push for the slaughter of both our domestic and wild horses is on full steam. The push by states and counties to take over public resources (the land and all that lives there, on top of and underneath the ground) is intense.

Focused and educated engagement has never been more important.

See you Thursday night!

We CAN create a better reality but ONLY if we engage realistically, organized and armed with fact.