The Bureau of Land Management and their numbers

No(c)~BLM "Wild horses on the range. Look how green the range is"

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) website shows their Gather Activity Reports. Here they show the daily numbers that they are gathering in, the ones that die and the actual number that are entered into the pens upon arrival at the short-term facilities. In their report for 2009 up until October it showed that they stated they gathered 7,608 horses but they only removed into the short-term facility 6,036. Where are the remaining 1,572 horses? The report for October thru December 2009 shows the total horses gathered were 3,647 and the number that died in their care was 38 but they only removed to their short-term facility 2,811. What happened to the other 798 horses? Their records do not add up and there is something going on that the public does not seem to know.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) subjects the BLM records to an audit. They did an audit in June 2009 of their land exchange programs and have found numerous inconsistencies, which have lead to inaccurate numbers of land values and are showing the inability to track their costs correctly. Well if they are having tracking and value issues, then what makes the people believe that they are actually calculating the correct numbers of horses? This so-called counting process lets the BLM know how many they should be removing? The US GAO did an audit in October 2008 on the BLM and the horse management. They have requested and still have not received any clarity on the how they come up with the AML, “the optimum number of animals that results in a thriving natural ecological balance and avoids range deterioration”(as noted in the GAO report). They cannot seem to provide exactly how they manage that number. They were also told to come up with a better means than the long-term facilities that seem to cost more and more each year. There are just so many inconsistencies with the BLM.

Per the BLM reports for what they have at their facilities, they state they have 34,238 wild horses and 492 burros, as of November 22, 2009. Now combined within all of their facilities, they can only hold 37,745 horses. For December and through to February they plan on taking 3,278 more horses. Where will they all go since then they will be 263 over their capacity. They have another 5,438 horses that are scheduled to be removed by the end of 2010. Where will they go? Right now they have more in holding than what are actually in the wild. How is this good? What will it be like in 2011? It needs to stop here. These horses will eventually end up in the slaughterhouses once again if we, the people, do not stand up for the wild horses and burros. There are lawmakers trying once again to legalize horse slaughter in the United States.

Next article: “The wild horses and adoption”
Back to original article “Wild horses should remain free to roam”

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