5 weekends, 31 days, 744 hours and 2019 comes to a close. The calendar year 2020 is just around the corner. Each weekend until 2020 we will feature one of our “year end” tradition posts. This piece features the most read, watched and commented on items of 2019; the “public top ten.” 

Before the feature article we need your attention to an urgent matter:

We urge you to use a few of the hours remaining in 2019 to contact your representatives as the budget debate goes into it’s final days. This debate may be the most pivotal since the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act was passed; the dangers posed just as great. (You can see an amazing letter crafter by a WHE member/supporter HERE.)

You can make this simple call or use our click and send to shoot off a letter to your reps with a few button clicks HERE. 

But we urge you to call your reps, even if you sent the letter above. We are coming into an election cycle and your voice carries more power than you know. Light up the phones. (find your reps HERE)

Speak out, clearly, before it is too late. 

Sample script:

No new funding or changes to the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program. The BLM Report to Congress is 4 months late and impeding appropriate debate and scrutiny. 

The BLM Report to Congress likely contains serious ethics regulation violations. The delay, under current BLM Deputy Director Pendley, deserves serious scrutiny and is the subject of an OIG probe. 

The BLM Wild Horse and Burro program must be held to the “status quo” in the 2019 Appropriations bill, no changes for 2020. No new funding, programs or authorities until Congress, and the public, have opportunity to scrutinize the BLM Report and the OIG releases findings on the investigation into ethics violations by acting BLM Chief William Pendley. 

Your “Top Ten” of 2019

10: Don’t Blame the Holy Cow (Fire, Sage Grouse, Ravens, Wild Horses).

An article that uses the Owyee Complex to break down the “blame game” on public lands. Blame the consequence and victims of domestic livestock production on public lands, never blame the “holy cow.” https://bit.ly/34DhCI2

9: Information is Power (5 part series).

5 part series on the importance of gaining accurate information to ensure informed public participation in process. A focus on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the attempts by this administration to gut access to information, litigation and site specific challenges. https://bit.ly/33xX9mQ

8. One HMA (Triple B Magazine)

Digital Magazine that breaks down one HMA, Triple B. What BLM calls “management for a thriving natural ecological balance” is actually a highly exploitive mechanism. Predators are killed and wild horses removed for livestock that batters the range. Massive mining expansion with high speed truck travel that mows down wild horses and cuts them off of their HMA. https://bit.ly/2OzlLHq

7. Triple B roundup, one look back. The video below is of a mare that could not keep up as her family was pushed into the trap. She slowly walked away, took one last look back and then headed over the mountain.

6: BLM Report to Congress Countdown (who, why and what you can do)

The BLM report to Congress is now 4 months late. All year we have been anticipating the report. The report is essential to open debate as Congress prepares to pass legislation in the spending bill at the behest of corporate lobby efforts, not informed debate. The “who, why and what” of this report has been a subject of extreme interest to our readers all year. https://bit.ly/33G9Iwx

5: WHE Accuse BLM Deputy Director (Steed) of Illegal Action, File Complaint

WHE filed against Brian Steed, former BLM Deputy Director, for illegal action that included conflict of interest. Steed has since resigned. https://bit.ly/37Stjgg

4: Triple B, Full Circle (the advocate and the judge)

As the Triple B roundup ended our founder, Laura Leigh, was honored by the Reno Portrait Society. Her portrait was hung beneath that of Honorable Howard J. McKibben, the same judge that awarded her the first court order in history against abuse at roundups. It was during a roundup 8 years ago, at Triple B, that the judge made the historic ruling. https://bit.ly/35QguBg

3: What Do We Look Like to the Rest of the World? (DRTV)

Danish broadcasting came to the Fish Creek roundup and broadcast a short documentary on wild horses in the West. https://bit.ly/2OYRGjJ

2: BREAKING! Complaint Filed Against Pendley and “questionable ethics”

Wild Horse Education has filed an ethics complaint against BLM Chief William Perry Pendley. Multiple conflicts of interest exist as Pendley moves the agenda of former clients against wild horses. The investigation is active and critical to stop the flood of corruption intent on washing away our wild horses on public lands and subjecting them to extreme cruelty.  https://bit.ly/2ODk77U

1: Fish Creek Roundup 2019

The top viewed entry on Wild Horse Education were the roundup reports from the tragic operation at Fish Creek. A protocol was set in place to create real management on range. Fixing AML, boundary lines, appropriate monitoring, preserving rare genetics, were all part of a data/fertility control protocol put into place in 2015. Backdoor deals with counties, ranchers and even other “advocate groups” that saw a chance to destroy the work of “competition” created a perfect storm that destroyed this critical protocol for on range management. Years of work is gone and the herd decimated. The concepts can be rebuilt elsewhere, but the herd that was Fish Creek will never be what it was again. We are fighting to expose all the dirty deals and deal makers involved. The real “wild horse problem” has nothing to do with wild horses. The problem is an exploitive and corrupted system. https://bit.ly/34Bqiil

Fish Creek is an example of what “management” will look like as counties and ranchers get all they want in the “corporate lobby Path Forward” agenda. Please take the action at the top of this page.

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