Captured today, 12/18, at the North Hills roundup

This week the House voted to pass a spending bill that is headed to the Senate and expected to pass as early as tomorrow (Dec 19). This bill is expected to be signed by the President to avert the pending shutdown, Friday.

The spending measures for the BLM Wild Horse and burro program are the product of gamesmanship by big money corporate interests. The bill increases the program’s budget from just over $80 million last year, to $101 million for this fiscal year. The additional funding are “contingent on BLM presenting an aggressive fertility control plan” and wont be released until 60 days after it sends the plan to Congress.

The basis of all of this language does not protect wild horses from large scale removals (that increase reproduction, destroy band structure and destabilize genetic preservation), sterilization (including spaying that is not appropriate for wild herds according to the National Academy of Sciences, NAS) and holds a baseline of the fictional “national AML” set in the 1970’s. (The “AML” utilized by BLM is based on myth and politics, not science. That is not an opinion, it is a statement by the NAS.)

However, this will give us an opportunity to debunk the report and it’s justifications. Critical information has been squashed by big money in this political game (HSUS, Cattlemen’s Ass;n, et al divided up the wild horse pie through their paid lobby) to keep the conversation in the realm of the cash cow, not the wild horse. Once the report comes out we can address the deficit. We will need your help. (alert soon)

For the last three years we have filed multiple complaints against corruption, continued to document the manipulations of the range (shutting off water, trespass livestock) and laid an investigative framework to expose the report, and all those involved, to stop the destruction.

Our teams are in the field. The work moves on to protect our wild ones from abuse on and off range. Assessments for large scale roundups, mining and expanding the taxpayer gifts to livestock that have open comment periods, now.

This bill is expected to pass. You helped create the stipulation through the action alerts you took. We did not stop the additional funding, but we did create a narrow window to fight back with fact in the “pay-to-play” of politics.

Our teams are working on it. Our teams are also at the roundup. The roundups that will accelerate as a first step in the disaster created by those that sold-out instead of fighting back. Our teams are also ready to take the legal battle against abuse forward (HSUS, ASPCA, RTF never spent one dime taking BLM to task for abuse, that spent their time creating this debacle with the livestock industry and are trying to sell it as a victory. This is not a victory, it is devastating.)

Our team reports are coming in from the field. The battle in the budget was bought and paid for by million dollar lobby groups. We will fight back.

The work goes on. The fight goes on.

Do not give up. We wont.

Onward…

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24 (aprox) additional wild horses lost their freedom today.

North Hills Roundup UPDATE

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We continue the fight.