One of our holiday traditions at Wild Horse Education is “the letter” written by our founder, Laura Leigh, “to Mom.” These letters began in 2010 with a video message. While fighting for access to roundups and holding, she was embroiled in three different court battles. As a journalist she had been offered “red carpet access” to document a roundup in northern Nevada. There was a catch: she had to go alone, leaving representatives from advocacy behind. She chose to fight for all, not for one.
She was told not to discuss the cases, that it was not appropriate to talk about them, but she could talk about what she was feeling. So she discussed what this journey “felt like.” Writing from the road, edited on a broken old laptop, she wrote home to her mom and made a video. A personal message for the holiday. The response to that type of message seemed to reflect that the public needed to hear her express not simply “the facts of the matter,” but what she felt. (You can view the old video at the bottom of this page).
WHE continues that tradition.
It has become hard to describe what I see in the face of every wild horse I see… free or in holding.
Hi Mom, it’s me.
This is never a simple note to write. Where do I begin?
Fifteen years. It has been fifteen years running this road. I now find it almost impossible to articulate what is seen in each mile, turn and trail. Wild horses I knew at or near birth are now entering their “wise elder” phase. Most have either died or have been captured and disappeared into the black hole of BLM holding facilities where untold numbers have fallen into the slaughter pipeline through the “sales program” or through the adoption program (where BLM now subsidizes the corruption and almost encourages it… as long as it empties pens so they can keep doing things as they always have). The loss I have seen is tens upon tens of thousands of faces I have known. The grief is not theoretical, it is palpable.
Sometimes it feels like “grief” is the only word that can describe the continued misrepresentation, obfuscation and manipulation of events to suit exploitation of the ignorance created by government agencies, big corporate interests and social media. Again, the ability to be able to clearly and concisely articulate is the challenge. The agency has clearly failed in creating a data-based system. They present to media, public and Congress as if they have… but then contradict themselves in court documents by not denying that they are required to create data-based planning, but simply claiming the law fails to say “when” that is required. Apparently they interpret the law as saying they only need to get real data and create planning after all the horses and burros are gone (or at numbers set without any data and through political agreements).
Why can’t any first year journalist see that? Because we live in a world devoted to “ease.” Both the BLM and big corporate regurgitates through press releases or fringe and weird factions bombard without facts and with outrageous falsity that BLM seems to actually appreciate because it gives them some type of “cover.”
For a moment this year we were able to get the focus back onto gaining an enforceable welfare policy. The horrific events at the Antelope roundup this summer where once again, we saw wild ones I know die (some fast like Sunshine, some slow like the old black stallion that survived capture in a record breaking. heat wave, transport in a hot tin can 9 hours, only to finally die a horrific death from dehydration in holding)… once again the public eyes were on the most obvious form of continuing abuse, the roundup.
We pulled up every ounce of fortitude we had and stretched resources nearly to breaking. We have gotten another case against abuse on file. What do you call an absolute refusal to create an enforceable and science based welfare policy? What do you call a stonewall of a refusal to release what BLM claims is data to support a removal? These are abuses of the horse, abuses of the system and abuse of the public right to participate.
Bless our volunteers. You know I used to run roundup to fundraising, to getting reports out to the public, to archiving and declarations, to crafting litigation, to educating an attorney, to court and back, every single day… by myself. You know it almost killed me, literally. This time we were a team, a real team, an amazing team of like minded souls with one purpose.
That case is really important. The case takes the early cases (and the real results) to conclusion. The trial welfare program may have been placed into contracts and, after 5 years, someone hired to head the program, was never taken into “rulemaking” to make it transparent and enforceable. Instead, BLM has turned the program into an “endorse not enforce” exercise and not an enforceable set of rules.
Here, again, the way BLM is arguing the case contradicts. BLM is saying two things: that the law dies not require an enforceable welfare policy (even though they do call program “policy”) and, if it does, that some statute of limitations applies to the beta version (when there was never any comment period to create any “countdown”). When you get through all the legal-ease, this is it in a nutshell. (Oh, and they expect me to do it all alone again because only then is what we say accurate in any type of precedent. BLM can have 50 people, hearsay and contradiction in testimony galore, but WHE can only be 1.)
Do you know I had to contact several journalists that were claiming the case was over? Did they check the docket sheet of the court or read a single brief? No, they listened to press releases by people trying to sell something not even related to a welfare policy! Right now the judge is simply missing the point (I know it is not politically correct to talk about it… but very little in our world follows any semblance of decorum anymore). He has actually called the County Commission declaration (that contains no data) that there is some type of emergency the “public interest” in a case where the County is not even a party. Basically he has said that if BLM violates our First Amendment and welfare issues again, we can file a new motion to stop them as they case moves forward toward judgement… because the County says this is an emergency. If reporters were in the court, they would have heard it. (I also have the transcripts.) We still have a lot of work to do and, as with many of our other cases, the results can take a long time to manifest… but they do manifest if we stay the course.
Why do people want to stop this case from creating the pressure we need to get BLM to actually reform something? The most basic premise of the law is to “manage humanely.” The most basic action associated with that premise is a welfare policy.
Shouldn’t the need for an enforceable welfare policy be the place we can all actually agree? Heck, even if you are one of the people that want horses removed, why do you fight enforceable welfare rules? Boggles my mind.
Removing horses and burros to put them somewhere else (something one group wants) would require a humane policy. Getting to AML and increasing fertility control would require a humane handling policy. Reforming the system of holding would require a humane handling policy. AND, perhaps most critical and overlooked, management planning on the range must include standards that protect resources and herd behavior so our wild ones can simply survive. (I don’t think any horse should be removed until BLM actually discloses how they set “appropriate” numbers, forage, boundary lines and creates an actual management plan, not just a removal plan… and allows public input on all of it as the law actually intended. If this were any other species or industrial interest, they never would have gotten away with this for so long.)
As you can tell from this ramble, although fifteen years has created a grief I cannot articulate, it has not put out the fire. The welfare case is on my mind today. Distinct from other cases we have active that deal with specifics of management and data (or the lack of both), this one should be the easiest for people to grasp… and it gets buried. The work on all the cases has been really time consuming as the year ends and probably the reason for my focus on them in this note.
The dark days of winter always turn thoughts into a review of the last year and years past. A time of reflection. It is not simply true for me, but for so many around the world and this introspection has influenced cultures for millennia. An urging by the natural world to “stop and think.”
I am always struck by how the manmade world always works in stark contrast. This time of year people seem to speed up, to shop and plan and make their lives so completely complicated that too many say they need a “vacation” after the holiday season.
I wonder what would happen if everyone just took time to “get small?” To rest, to reflect, to simply help someone or some being less fortunate? Feed or walk dogs in shelters, give out blankets or volunteer at a food bank… feed the birds. Just make the space we occupy just a tiny bit kinder, quieter, softer… and reflect. Then, as the light begins to return… carry the lesson of reflection and the feeling of gratitude into action?
“Think too much.” I know, mom.
I have a lot of work to get done. One step at a time. The light will return.
I love you Mom.
Thank you for keeping us in the fight!
For those of you that have followed since the beginning of this journey, you know that hawks always show up… usually soaring overhead like in the video above.
This year, one nearly landed on my head. She literally looked into my eyes for over 6 minutes and I think I took 500 frames. I know she was trying to say something… but I’m not sure what it was … yet. I have only been this close to a red-tail in rehab, never simply because one chose to sit with me.
Maybe just to remind me that the strength to survive exists, the natural world has an incomparable beauty and … we are never alone? Or was she looking for an apology from the human race for the way her habitat is being destroyed? Or? LOL.. I know, I think too much. She was simply magnificent and gave me a gift by sharing the wonder of her.
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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