Wild horses should remain free to roam

No(c) ~ BLM "Wild Horses in Simpson Park area of Nevada being rounded up and taken to a short tern facility"

This is a topic that is not talked about enough and seems to be a topic of great controversy when it is talked about. There are so many views to this story of the wild horses. Wild horses roaming the land, some say they are taking up precious space for farmers, using tax-payer’s money for round-ups to take them, adopting them out, horses having their lives ended too soon, others never seeing their herd-mates again, and taking the land of the horses which the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 prohibited in the first place. In 2004, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) got the Act amended to be able to aggressively remove thousands of wild horses. As stated from Craig Downer, wildlife ecologist and board member to the Cloud Foundation, "there has been a misuse of the Discretionary Authority by the Secretaries of Interior (over BLM) and Agriculture (over USFS)" in the rounding up of these horses. The public never reviewed this amendment and it was kept quiet. Most wonder why?

 There are many main areas to the wild horses and the BLM story:

• The horses and being on their own
• The horses and the BLM
• BLM and their numbers
• The horses and adoption
• The horses’ treatment: Is it cruelty to animals?
• The wild horses movement to save them

The horses have been on their own for thousands of years and they have survived many issues and have proved to adapt to their surroundings. Their history here is a great one from helping us get from place to place when there were no cars, helping us plow our fields with the farmers, and providing us with great companionship. The BLM came in 1971 with the U.S. Forest Services (USFS) to help control the management of these great creatures. Their sole purpose was to help protect these horses from people and to monitor their survival. They were only to intervene if the horses’ numbers were out of control and provide support for them if they needed it. The horses did not need them; they did just fine on their own. The BLM then decided in 2004 that the land was being depleted and started taking the land from the wild horses. The amended Act allowed them to fly helicopters at the horses driving them to holding pens. Then they were sold off to people for adoption or sold for their meat to other countries. Since 2007 the horses have not allowed to be sold to slaughter due to a bill that was passed. This bill made it illegal to slaughter horses in the United States, although it is legal in Mexico and Canada. Often horses are still put on trailers and taken out of the country for slaughter.
 

(c)Barbi Twins "Shane Barbi with her horse putting the halter back up"

In this process of rounding up the horses, BLM did not have much concern for the horses well being. They ran the horses until they were so tired and broke down that some never made it to the holding pens before collapsing and dying on the range. The ones that did make it were so scared in the pens that they became frantic causing stampedes, and in fact causing more to die. Some of these short term holding pens were in horrible conditions that they became diseased and died. Then as soon as the last horse was gone from the round ups, the land was turned over to the farmers for their cattle and some just weeks after. These horses were taken away from their herds and their freedom was taken so farmers would have land for their cattle. The same land that BLM told us, the people, that was deplorable for the survival of the horses and the land had nothing to offer them. By taking the horses they were bettering the land, that how the BLM tells it. How is taking them away from the only thing they know to putting them in pens and having them eventually die and some a horrible death better for them? How is that better than just leaving them alone? How?

(c)Barbi Twins       "Sia Barbi with her horse feeding it some hay"

There are so many people out there that do care for the horses, that do care what happens to them and most are just ordinary people like you and me. Some of these people that are in the limelight like Shane and Sia Barbi or Willie Nelson are being accused of being paid for their voice to protect the wild horses. Sue Wallis stated they get paid for their efforts and they really don’t care about the horses in her recent blog. They just look at these people like they know nothing about horses but want to get in the limelight. Most of these people, like Shane and Sia, just do it from the kindness of the heart and receive nothing in return. They do not get compensation; they just get grief from people out to ruin a good thing. Shane and Sia Barbi have grown up around horses their entire life and trained them as well. They were on the US Equestrian Team and worked with horses so much that now they do not believe in training them. They believe in keeping them as companions and letting them run free on their land. There are good people out there being good from the kindness of their hearts and it goes unnoticed. Everyone thinks people have an agenda, when most just want justice for the horses. They are trying to provide a voice for them and wanting to help protect the little bit of land they have left.

 Next article: The horses and being on their own
 

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