There are ten more sunsets left in the year 2019. When the sun rises on the tenth day we enter the next round in the battle to save our precious wild ones.
Sunrise at the North Hills roundup that ended last week in Utah. (see reports HERE)
Over the last 3 years our wild places and wild things have been under an all out assault by corporate greed running roughshod and leaving lasting damage. Mining has expanded rapidly without reform of an archaic 1872 law that leaves you footing bills for clean up. Livestock has been given new gifts as fencing projects expand and the ability to disguise illegal activity (trespass) under new “plans.” Sage grouse “protection” is failing, predator killing is off the charts. Our rangelands are under assault.
At Fish Creek there was a long term strategy to address deficits in data and create actual management. Big corporations helped destroy almost a decade of work and a protocol to keep our wild ones free in their “deal making.” Many of these wild horses have already been sold or shipped to facilities where they will spend the rest of their lives in limbo on the taxpayer dollar instead of free on the range.
In the world of wild horses big, multi-million dollar, corporate machines and their lobby groups, succeeded in bringing their scheme to fruition in the spending package for 2020. In 2015 salesman for HSUS, ASPCA and Return to Freedom entered into agreements with Cattlemen’s Association, Public Lands Council and groups with deep ties to Extremism. They threw real on ground advocates under the bus and damaged years of real work in the field. Your wild horses are now subject to the largest roundups the US has ever seen, surgical experimentation, sterilized herds. Their agenda fixes absolutely no flaw on the range, the core of management. It sells the wild down river for potential government contracts for holding, fertility control drug orders and application.
They did it and they did it dirty. Right into bed with the worst of the worst and sold you, us, the wild horses for a seat at a dirty table. A table so deep with corruption there are ethics investigations flying like popcorn on movie night into the Dept of Interior including former Deputy Director Brian Steed who helped write this agenda as Chief of Staff for Chris Stewart (R-UT).
While multi-species domestic animal orgs were playing “let’s make a deal” on public lands issues, on ground advocates watched years of real work destroyed in their wake.
Wild horses are not in the domestic animal law books, they are managed entirely under public lands law. Those big corporate greed machines never invested one dollar in marathon from roundup to courtroom over abuse. We know that as fact, because we are the ones that went to the range daily, to court, and won the rulings drove the creation of the first welfare policy for wild horses. That fight was all about the law, not a poker game of dirty politics.
Wth your help we did build conditions into the additional funding; BLM must produce a report that we can attack with range data. However, the deal makers are doing all they can to limit the scope of scrutiny to see the funds released with as few strings as possible.
In 2019 we have laid a strong frame to fight back. Multiple complaints were filed against corruption and corrupt officials. Real world data has built the tools to keep fight alive against abuse, destruction of habitat, unjustified removals and more.
The fight is not over. Yet, in 2019 it has become more than obvious to the public that not all that call themselves “organizations” have the same agenda. That is a good thing.
The fight is not over. (More HERE on the chaos of politics)
At sunrise, ten sunrises from now, we stand ready for the fight of our lives, for their lives.
Over the next ten days we will feature issues, events and articles from 2019 that are key to the fight ahead.
An educated, active, advocacy is needed more than ever. We certainly hope that your eyes have been opened; not all of us are fighting for the same thing and some are actively hurting this fight for the wild.
Our wild horses and burros are the only animal in our nation whose legal identity is tied to the land they stand, not biology. This is a public lands issue. Our wild ones need you.
The fight is very much alive.
Our countdown traditions have already begun:
The Most Read WHE Content (2019)
Our Staff Picks, Accomplishments, The Fight Ahead, all coming soon.
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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