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These links represent the entire archive of the Texas Horse Talk and Horseback Magazine e-magazine. The archive of the print publication from Volume 1, Number 1 until June, 2007 will soon be donated to a major public library.
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August, 2009
July, 2009
June, 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
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Reports Reveal More Deaths and Sloppy Record Keeping by BLM as Groups Call for Investigation
"Wild Horses Do Not Belong on Western Ecosystems" - BLM
By Steven Long
 HOUSTON, (Horseback) - In the sometimes bewildering world of the federal Bureau of Land management, things get confusing – even confounded annoying.
Such was the case when Horseback Magazine began to investigate the deaths of 11 horses we found on a comprehensive report released by the Washington office on fatalities during the agency’s wild horse “gathers” since the beginning of last year.
The report stated the horses died in July, 2009, at a place called Conant Creek, Wyoming when 349 animals were captured by the agency. In fact, officials in charge of the area say that yes, they did have a gather but statistics for what BLM terms the North Lander Complex, which includes Conant Creek, are vastly different from what Washington released..
According to North Lander records released Wednesday, 17 horses died, not the 11 Washington reported. Of the 17 dead equines, seven were foals. A helicopter was used in the roundup.
Besides the dead at Conant Creek, Washington reported that two horses died at Muskrat Basin, and one died at Rock Creek Mountain, while none died at Dishpan Butte. The North Lander report didn’t reveal locations. However, the Washington report only totals 14 horses when those locations are included.
As disturbing as the deaths are, an equally distressing statistic released in the North Lander records was revealed.
Herds captured from July 6, to July 21, at Conant Creek, Dishpan Butte, Rock Creek Mountain, and Muskrat Basis were all but wiped out. According to the records, the pre-capture herd size was 1,175 horses. After BLM wranglers did their work, only 365 horses were left to roam the vast area. The remainder was trucked to BLM holding facilities.
Critics have charged that the BLM captures of wild horses are so all consuming they are leaving the herds genetically bankrupt. Moreover, the agency administers anti-fertility drugs to many of the remaining horses after a capture leaving mares unable to breed for years after, if ever.
And rumors are persistent the BLM is making a concentrated attempt to wipe out wild horses to provide grazing land for western ranchers, a claim the BLM denies.
To add to the confusion sowed by BLM, reports have now surfaced that 11 horses did die in a July gather in Idaho.
In a detailed letter to Horseback Magazine David Rosenkrance, field manager of the Challis, Idaho, office spelled out how the horses ended their lives in a helicopter assisted roundup there. Yet the report released by Washington acknowledged only 1 death this year at Challis when 366 wild horses were captured, a direct conflict with the 11 admitted to in Rosenkrance’ letter.
Activist groups including the Animal Law Coalition, The Cloud Foundation, and the Equine Welfare Alliance have all called for an immediate moratorium on further roundups by the BLM pending Congressional hearings.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former Colorado rancher, has thrown his full support behind the roundups and proposed seven holding facilities for wild horses in the Midwest and East which would serve as tourist attractions spotlighting this remnant of the old west – the wild horse.
Increasingly, according to a report in the Wednesday USA Today, the public is saying no.
Wild Horse Debate Gallops On - USA Today
ALC Calls for Investigation
Now it Gets Political
By Steven Long
When the Bureau of Land Management’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meets on Monday it will face an avalanche of protest relating to the culling of wild horses in the American West.
It will also face an attempt to fill several open slots on the board with wild horse advocates.
A Labor Day weekend “gather” of horses on Montana’s Pryor Mountain and the injury of the iconic Palomino “Cloud” in a stampede by helicopter in an alleged 10 mile run has activists and fans of the PBS series “Nature” talking politics.
Cloud is the star of a PBS series by Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens made a video of him and a very young foal limping after they were released to return to the mountain. Portions of the video were shown Wednesday night on CNN.
The BLM denies the any horses were hurt. BLM policy states that sore feet on a horse do not constitute an injury, contrary to the overwhelming opinion of horsemen and veterinarians
The third program in the series Cloud series is set to air in October on PBS.
The board currently has three vacancies. Activists hope to fill those spots or know the reason why they can’t. The normally placid board which oversees policy making for America’s wild horses has been made up of political appointees, ranchers, veterinarians, and others with special interests in dealing with the bureau, which answers to the U.S. Department of Interior. The board meets twice each year.
No wild horse advocate currently holds a spot on the board, activists say.
The Monday meeting in Arlington VA is set for 8 AM – 5 PM at the Hyatt Hotel, 1325 Wilson Blvd.
Several animal welfare advocates have expressed a desire to fill the three openings.
The board doesn’t make it easy for citizens to express input regarding the national wild horse policy; a policy many now charge is wildly out of synch with the public’s wishes.
In a notice posted on the BLM website, the agency says, “Individuals who want to make a statement should register with the BLM by noon on the day of the meeting at the meeting site. Depending on the number of speakers, the board may limit the length of presentations.” The speakers will be given a short three minute slot to express their views.
Speakers must also submit a written copy of their statement.
Members of the board serve without salary but their expenses are paid by the government.
The BLM manages 256 million acres of land. Currently it holds 33,000 wild horses in captivity and claims it has no available acreage suitable for them to run free.
The BLM also does not class the horses as wild animals.
The Conquest of Conquistador
Aging PBS Star Still Held And At Risk Of Death
By Steven Long , Horseback Magazine
9-20-09
HOUSTON, (Horseback) - Conquistador, a 19-year-old Pryor Mountain Mustang captured during a “gather” by the Bureau of Land Management over the Labor Day Weekend could soon face euthanasia for the crime of being an older horse.
The agency has 33,000 wild horses in captivity, and despite the fact they manage 256 million acres, it has no place to release them where they can run free. What’s more, BLM has so depleted its budget, spending $27 million holding the horses in captivity, the agency last year seriously contemplated euthanizing tens of thousands of Mustangs and burros.
Despite having a leading role in the PBS “Nature” series starring the famed wild palomino Mustang named Cloud, the aging horse known to television fans across the globe as Conquistador is at risk.
Last year documents came to light under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) query by a Phoenix group regarding an equicide plan to destroy healthy horses gathered on public lands and placed in holding pens by the thousands
Ironically, the plan was dubbed “The Conquistador Program.”
The BLM deems natural resources on Pryor Mountain as not being able to sustain the number of horses living off the land there.
Agency policy considers horses such as Conquistador as too old and thus, expendable. Under a 2004 law, the BLM is required to sell horses that are either more than 10 years of age, or which have been passed over for adoption three times “without limitation.”
The law’s mandate to sell without limitation is subject to interpretation, and while BLM vigorously denies that it sells to slaughter plants or to “killer buyers,” scant scrutiny is given to potential purchaser after the sale. Numerous reports have come to Horseback Magazine by observers who allege they saw the distinctive BLM brand on the necks of horses destined for abattoirs across the Mexican and Canadian borders as they were confined to holding pens with a telltale slaughter tag attached to them.
Minutes of BLM discussions of the Conquistador Plan reveal the agency at one point became so desperate to rid itself of the horses it now holds that it considered euthanizing horses more than 10 years old after only one attempt at adoption, not three.
Beginning in July, 2008, managers compiled a 68 page document dubbed Alternative Management Solutions. It detailed methods of dealing death such as barbiturates, gunshots, or the often cruel captive bolt.
The report revealed that it would call upon the agency’s public relations arm to shield those doing the killing from the scrutiny by the public, media, or even members of Congress.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), Louisiana, has said she would consider removing management of wild horses and burros from the BLM..
The plan even contemplated psychiatric counseling for BLM employees or contractors who would do the actual killing of thousands of horses.
While Cloud and members of his herd were released back into the wild, albeit fatigued and depleted of much needed fat fat after as much as a 10 mile stampede by helicopter, Conquistador remains in BLM custody along with two other horses that will be seen in the next installment of the Cloud “Nature” series on PBS. The program by Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens is scheduled to air in October.
The gather, completed September 8, captured 146 horse including 15 foals.
A meeting of the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is scheduled for September 28, in Arlington Virginia.
The agency’s National Adoption Day is scheduled for September 26. The 57 horses, including Conquistador, that were not returned to freedom on Pryor Mountain will be offered for adoption that day at the Britton Springs camp at the base. Pryor Mountain is located in Montana near Billings.
The BLM left 125 horses on Pryor Mountain. The agency claims no horses were injured in the gather despite video of Cloud limping after his release.
A BLM spokesman said sore feet don’t constitute an injury.
Repeated requests for an interview with BLM Director Bob Abbey have been refused.
The High Cost of Lameness on the Mountain, Oops, He’s Not Lame
By Steven Long, Horseback Magazine
9-18-09
HOUSTON, (Horseback) - Employees of the Bureau of Land Management’s Billings, Montana, office hit a windfall as the summer months on Pryor Mountain came to an end. They had to work on the Labor Day holiday, September 7, and by federal regulation received double their regular pay, piling more costs onto an already expensive outing for the agency.
Jim Sparks, field manager of the office, says that the cost of the “gather” which penned the iconic Mustang, Cloud, for a time may run as high as $150,000.
Members of the famed Cloud band of Prior Mountain Mustangs, recognized as a distinct breed in The Official Horse Breeds Standards Guide, will join 33,000 wild horses awaiting adoption in BLM pens or facing euthanasia. The agency lacks the funds to maintain them and last year threatened to kill tens of thousands because of a budget shortfall. After talk of equicide leaked to the general public, a perfect storm of outrage befell the agency as angry horse lovers howled in protest.
Many blame gathers such as the one over the Labor Day weekend that netted Cloud, and the cost of feeding horses that would have otherwise cost the government nothing had they remained in the wild, for decimating the agency’s budget.
“Under normal circumstances, without lawsuits, protests, threats, etc., a gather of this sort will cost $60,000,” Sparks said, blaming a handful of wild horse advocates for the overblown expense of an event that many say should never have happened at all.
Cloud, a yellow Palomino, has been the feature horse in a PBS “Nature” series by Emmy award winning documentarian Ginger Kathrens. A fourth installment is scheduled for October. Two of the horses in that episode did not return to freedom on the mountain with Cloud. They will be put up for adoption, or possibly be euthanized.
Cloud has also been featured twice in the Breyer horse collection of sculptured plastic models. Another installment in the series is scheduled to be released by the company just in time for Christmas.
The high cost of the gather did not prevent Cloud, and others, from being injured in a stampede covering as much as 10 miles down the 5,000 foot Pryor Mountain over rocky terrain. Yet the BLM claims the horse didn’t suffer an injury.
“Sore feet do not constitute an injury,” said BLM spokesman Tom Gorey.
Any damage to a horse’s hoof is courting catastrophe. After hoof injuries horses sometimes suffer from painful abscesses, founder, or even colic.
Critics of the BLM, such as animal welfare advocate John Holland shake their heads in wonder at what they call the callus attitude of the agency. A Mustang owner himself, he quoted the old adage “no hoof, no horse.”
Video shot by Kathrens soon after the release show Cloud limping.
“There’s not a veterinarian in this country, except those employed by the government, that would not consider lameness an injury,” said Jerry Finch, founder of Habitat for Horses, the largest horse rescue in the nation.
The BLM counters with its own definition of what constitutes an injury that seems to serve the purpose of capturing horse by stampeding them over rocky mountain terrain with a helicopter.
Gorey said, “Regulations at CFR 4700.05 define a lame wild horse or burro as meaning a wild horse or burro with one or more malfunctioning limbs that permanently impair its freedom of movement. In accordance with this definition, we definitely do not have any lame horses as a result of the gather.”
Sue Cattoor and her family contract with BLM to catch wild horses at the rate of $100 to $400 per animal per gather. She says the use of her company’s helicopter is a humane way of catching them.
“The only time the helicopter puts pressure on the animals except many to turn them is just as they enter the trap. That is so they will follow the Judas horse,” she told Horseback.
A Judas horse is an animal that has been trained to run for the trap. It is let go just as the horses are reaching the confinement area.
She says the helicopter stays a good distance from the animals as it drove them down the mountain.
“When the helicopter is bringing the animals he stays fairly high and way back
from them. He lets them travel at their own speed. He follows and keeps
the band together. This would not happen if he chased or stampeded the
animals. This Pryor Mountain is not a tremendously rough mountain when it
comes to mountains in other places,” Cattoor said.
Repeated requests for an interview by Horseback Magazine with BLM Director Bob Abbey have gone unheeded.
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Cloud Capture Draws Capitol Attention
By Steven Long, Horseback Magazine
9-14-09
U.S. Senator Eyes Removing Agency’s Mustang Oversight
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The hasty labor day “gather” of the iconic equine star of the PBS “Nature” series, Cloud, has sparked interest and consternation from coast to coast as wild horse lovers rally to put a halt to Bureau of Land Management “gathers” on the nation’s public lands.
Several horses, including Cloud, were released lame after being chased down a 5,000 foot mountain by a low flying helicopter. The famed Mustang’s popular image has been celebrated in two best selling reproductions by Breyer. A third set of the collectables will be released in time for the Christmas shopping season.
Only 120 members of the herd will be allowed by the BLM to remain in this area of Pryor Mountain wilderness encompassing nearly 40,000 acres. The BLM currently claims to hold 33,000 horses captured in gathers in holding pens. No outside agency has been allowed to do a census.
Protests are planned for a meeting of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board in Washington September 28-29.
Louisiana Sen. Mary Landieu, a horsewoman, said that if the BLM doesn’t change its ways and stop the gathers and helicopter stampedes she is considering supporting legislation to remove management of wild horses from the agency.
“She’s really fed up with the BLM right now and she’s thought about maybe possibly moving the (wild horse) program from them to another agency,” the Landrieu aide told Horseback Magazine. “That goes to show her frustration with how this program is mismanaged
“The GAO put out a report last year citing the utter mismanagement of this program,” she said. “They spend three fourths of the BLM budget on this program, and as you know, they run a whole slew of other programs.”
Landrieu serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with provides oversight for America’s public lands.
Key senators besides Landrieu who will influence the nation’s wild horse policy are New Mexico’s Jeff Bingeman, California’s Diane Feinstein, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Navada, the aide said.
Reid, an enabler of the hated Burns Amendment which removed protection from wild horses has expressed concerned regarding the Restoring our American Mustangs Act, or ROAM. In the past the senator, who polls indicate is highly unpopular in his home state, has been no friend of wild horses. He is in a tight race for re-election.
In minutes of meetings of BLM managers secreted out of the agency earlier in the year, discussions of the euthanasia of thousands of horses captured in gathers were held. The talks were prompted by an agency running out of funds to operate its wild horse program. In the discussions, the prospect of psychiatric counseling of veterinarians who would perform the killing of innocent horses was discussed. The disposal of thousands of horse carcasses was also studied by the agency.
When news of the planned equicide leaked it provoked a tidal wave of anger at the agency among horse lovers and the general public prompting the agency to put the killing on hold.
Critics say wild horses have lived off the land just like moose, elk, antelope, big horn sheep, and deer without serious depletion of the herds for hundreds of years because of natural selection. Yet despite their wild status in fact and American lore, the agency doesn’t classify the equines as wildlife which would enjoy protection.
The aide, who declined to be identified, said the likely agency the senator would target for new management responsibilities for wild horses should Landrieu move in that direction would be the National Park Service because of an excellent record handling a limited number of wild horses that agency already oversees.
The BLM, along with the U.S. Forest Service, is currently required by law to manage wild horses on public land.
Video Shows Cloud Limping, Foals Possibly Vulnerable to Lion Attack
By Steven Long, Horseback Magazine
9 -12-09
Despite repeated denials by the federal Bureau of Land Management, horses, including the iconic mustang Cloud were injured in a hasty Labor Day weekend round-up.
Video evidence shot by Emmy award winning PBS filmmaker Ginger Katherens show graphic images of horses limping, including Cloud, immediately after their release.
Members of the Cloud herd were not allowed to leave BLM pens to return to Pryer Mountain and will be sold on September 26.
Repeated queries by Horseback Magazine have all received the same answer from the agency which manages the nation’s wild horses on public lands.
“There were no injuries or deaths resulting from the gather, to the best of my knowledge,” said Washington spokesman Tom Gorey late Friday when he disputed Katherens veracity saying, “The Cloud Foundation is not a credible source for information.”
Jim Sparks, the BLM field manager of the Millings, Montana office also told Horseback Magazine that no horses were injured in a ten mile chase by helicopter down a mountainside and into a trap where they were then herded into pens.
Katherens has spent much of the last decade chronicling the wild horses of Montana’s mountains, a line of animals that is believed to be genetically pure dating back to the 15 th century.
The next installment of the “Nature” series featuring Cloud and the horses of Montana’s Pryer range will be shown on PBS, October 25, 2009. The special is titled “Cloud Challenges the Stallion.”
Two horses featured in the film are now held in the BLM adoption pen.
Makendra Silverman, assistant to Katherens who remains in the field, said some of the horses are now vulnerable to predators because of their inability to move rapidly to escape attack.
“When you have foals run for 10 to 15 miles, they’re extremely foot sore and muscular sore,” she said. “They are much more prone to mountain lion attack.”
Silverman said it is doubtful older horses such as Cloud, bachelor stallions, and mares would fall victim to cougar attacks but very young horses are at risk.
An Exclusive Interview Former Sen. Conrad Burns
By Steven Long
In the world of equine welfare there may be no person subject to derision than former Montana Sen. Conrad Burns. An ardent supporter of horses as a commodity to be sold for whatever reason their owner deems profitable, the former auctioneer lost his seat in the U.S. Senate to a farmer, Jon Tester, after passage of the Burns Amendment. The law was passed in the dead of night after it was attached to an appropriations bill nobody had read. For the first time, in an exclusive interview with Horseback Magazine, Burns how revocation of the law came about.
HORSEBACK MAGAZINE: You’re a lobbyist now, right?
CONRAD BURNS: Well, I’ve only got one client I lobby, but right now I’m doing a lot more international consulting.
HORSEBACK: Well good for you. Who are you lobbying for?
BURNS: The Quarter Horse Association.
HORSEBACK: The AQHA?
BURNS: Yep
HORSEBACK: We support them in every way we can in our little magazine.
BURNS: Yep, that’s right. How’re you doing?
HORSEBACK: Old and fat Sir, old and fat.
BURNS: I can relate to that.
HORSEBACK: I’m working on this story that’s going on up in Montana with the Pryor Mountain wild horses. In my research I obviously ran across the Burns Amendment. Can you tell me how that came about and what prompted it?
BURNS: Well, Harry Reid came to me and said, ‘I’ve got a problem in Nevada.’ And I said I said ‘What kind of a problem do you have?’ because we don’t have a problem up in Montana.
HORSEBACK: So what happened then?
BURNS: So he and I, up in his office, got together and we crafted that amendment because they’ve really got that problem of over grazing down there. That’s how that came about.
HORSEBACK: It was actually Reid’s idea, huh?
BURNS: Yeah, well it was his problem. I just helped him solve it, that’s all.
HORSEBACK: Well, you did a pretty good job of it.
BURNS: I don’t think they’ve sold any or anything like that. It wasn’t really designed for that. The premise of it was to take a strong look at how we manage our resources and how they affect the herd of the horses.
HORSEBACK: One thing I can’t figure out with this BLM stuff for the life of me is if you have millions of acres of vacant land and there’s 100 miles between towns, why on earth can’t they put all those wild horses out there and nobody would ever care.
BURNS: Well, you see, some of that country won’t sustain them year round. You’ve got spring growth, which is fine, but if you are a rancher, then you’ve got the dry season, and you’ve got to save some of your country for pasture and you’ve got to have supplemental feeding. And when you fly over that country and look down there, there’s something down there, you just don’t see it,, There’s sheep herds, and there’s also a few cattle run on that same country. They’re managed because you can’t just graze the whole thing off in the summer and then expect those animals to go through a very tough winter.
HORSEBACK: One more question Senator. What do you think about this EU thing on the slaughter issue? That just kind of stopped everything dead in its tracks, didn’t it/
BURNS: I don’t know a lot about it but I know one thing. We don’t have any slaughter plants here. That seems like that’s a problem Canada and Mexico are going to have to solve. I think they are still accepting horsemeat for human consumption.
HORSEBACK: They are, until April when the EU says horses have to be in quarantine for six months.
BURNS: I think we will probably have some science that will disprove that it takes that long for residue to dispel. I’m not sure, but I’m going to let the veterinarians and the folks who handle horses to make the decision. As you know, we’ve got lots of people who’ve got lots of ideas, but six months is a long time.
HORSEBACK: Well thank you Senator. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.
BURNS: I’m still grazing the green side. |
