BREAKING: House Interior Approps bill is out! The good: The subcommittee rejected the President’s budget request for $15.3 mill in additional funding for the WHB Program. The bill continues to prohibit the slaughtering of #wildhorses and burros. #appropriation#freewildhorses
The bad: the draft bill would result in Congress handing the Bureau $42 mill in additional #taxpayer funds over 2019 budget levels with no hard requirements to prevent the agency from spending all the funds to #roundup and stockpile #wildhorses and to surgically sterilize them.
These are the first installments on the Bureau’s multi-billion dollar proposal to cull #wildhorse populations back to #extinction levels, a plan that will push the program off the fiscal cliff, inevitably resulting in the mass #slaughter of America’s nat'l icons. #stoptheroundups
We’ll continue to encourage the inclusion of lang requested in both chambers to rein in Bureau spending on cruel #roundups and surgical sterilization and require the implementation of scientifically-recommended fertility control to humanely manage #wild herds. #itworksifyouuseit
Finally, we're still waiting on the report lang to determine whether the lang (requiring BLM to spend 10% of its budget on humane fertility control and prohibiting the use of surgical sterilization of #wildhorses on the range) requested by various members of Congress was accepted
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But why the need for fertility control at all? #wildhorses in the U.S. no longer have free-range over vast western rangelands. Instead, pursuant to the Wild Horse Act (1971), they are confined to Herd Management Areas (HMAs) or Wild Horse Territories (WHTs) on public lands.
The fed gov manages these areas for "multiple uses" such as livestock grazing, oil & gas extraction & mining, & recreation. The conditions that America's mustangs live in today are anything but natural. #wildhorse pops also continue to be disrupted by roundups & removals.
Thus, #wildhorses and burros must compete on our public lands with other uses backed by powerful economic interests. Under these circumstances, the idea of natural regulation is just that: an idea that is unfortunately divorced from reality.
This requirement to implement humane birth control to humanely manage #wildhorse & burro pops in the wild as an alt to cruel roundup and removal of #wildhorses from public lands is done in an effort to rein in the BLM’s cruel, costly & ineffective roundup $ incarceration program.
Here is where we need your help: The Rules Committee will decide later today whether to allow the amendment to go to the floor for a vote later this week. This is huge! Please help #wildhorses & burros! One call & one click WILL make a difference! wildhor.se/Amdt6
Roundup (n): The taxpayer-funded gov act of utilizing helicopters to stampede and brutally tear America's #wildhorses away from their homes and into lifelong confinement, resulting in thousands of losing their freedom, and increasingly, their lives. americanwildhorsecampaign.org/reality-roundu…
Science says mass roundups are counter-productive. Mass removals act as a catalyst for a phenomenon called compensatory reproduction. Essentially, after a herd's population unnaturally plunges due to a roundup, biology dictates that birth rates will increase.
The roundup result: mass incarceration. Approx 50k wild horses are currently stockpiled in long-term holding facilities with no place to go. As more mustangs are piled in, the pressure to sell them for slaughter grows. PLUS the Path Forward & BLM Report want to add horses.
"Gov. Mark Gordon’s administration is preparing a bid to Occidental Petroleum for 1 million acres of surface land and 4 million acres of mineral rights" within the Wyoming Checkerboard. rightshttps://www.wyofile.com/governor-preps-bid-for-occidental-land-leaving-lawmakers-out/
Back in April, we submitted comments about the HMAs in the Checkerboard - where the Bureau wants to 0 out & remove many of the horses. A large portion of land within the planning area is owned by the Anadarko Land Corporation, which was purchased last year by Occidental Petroleum
Occidental then placed the land up for sale and WY is considering its purchase. It is clear that any future sale by Occidental to WY or BLM would impact the planning area and Bureau’s claim that private landowners in the Checkerboard demand the removal of the horses.