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TechnoratiWashington Plans Mass Slaughter of America's Mustangs
Pressure from cattle-ranching industry could lead to more than 30,000 horses being 'culled'
Wild mustangs, those quintessential symbols of the American West for hundreds of years, are facing their most deadly predator yet: the pen-pushing civil servants of the US Bureau of Land Management.
![[Washington Plans Mass Slaughter of America's Wild Mustangs ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/wildmustangs.jpg "wildmustangs.jpg")
Growing pressure on the horses' traditional habitat has left officials contemplating a program of mass slaughter to reduce the number of mustangs held captive in government-run pens. More than 33,000 of the animals, almost as many as the number still in the wild, have been rounded up and taken off increasingly barren public land in recent years, to reduce pressure on grazing required by the cattle-ranching industry.
But the increasing cost of keeping them fed and watered has left the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contemplating a program of what it calls "euthanasia" - sending healthy horses to slaughterhouses where they are likely to be turned into steak for export to France.
The proposal sparked outrage from conservationists when it was outlined in a recent Government Accountability Office report, with welfare groups accusing the BLM of holding an unnecessarily high number of mustangs in captivity in order to appease the politically powerful ranching lobby.
"They say there are too many horses left on the range, and that they need to gather them all the time," said Jerry Reynoldson of the Wild Horse Adoption Association. "But there are only 30,000 left in the wild, and they're spread over 10 states. In Nevada alone, the BLM controls 47 million acres. But the ranchers control economic forces and pay lobbyists in Washington, so they give the horses short shrift and convince the authorities that they need to be taken off the land."
Campaigners say slaughter would mark an ignominious end for a creature that arrived in North America with the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, and which once existed in such numbers that maps of Texas from the 1700s marked many areas as simply: "vast herds of wild horses". Deanne Stillman, author of a new book, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, said: "Horses blazed our trails, they fought our wars, they are the greatest icons of freedom. The word 'euthanasia' suggests that the BLM will be putting these horses out of their misery. But they are not in misery in the first place. It's the most cynical thing I've ever heard."
Today, 33,100 mustangs are left in the wild, roaming in 199 herds. Because the animals have few natural predators left and do not provide sport for hunters, government officials say a quota must be taken into captivity each year. Some of the captive horses are adopted by members of the public, but supply has outstripped demand in recent years, and the BLM says drastic action is needed to reduce the number in captivity, which cost $21m (£14m) a year to feed. "We don't want to do euthanasia, but we are up against the wall on our budget," a spokesman told USA Today.
The only hope for many horses may lie with Madeleine Pickens, wife of the Texan oil billionaire T Boone Pickens, who recently announced that she was trying to establish a million-acre refuge where all captive mustangs can be released. Her plan will see private land turned into a rural theme park where Americans can interact with the mustangs. Its announcement persuaded the BLM to grant captive horses a stay of execution until the New Year.
"We will take all the excess horses," Mrs Pickens explained, "and put them somewhere where families can see them and live among them, and camp out in teepees and have bonfires and look up at the stars and get to know this incredible aspect of our heritage."
27 Comments so far
Show AllI had opted for the position to remain silent on so many topics this site posts but this one is different. So I will break my silence.
These Horses represent so much more than what people actually see.
This will be postulated in a different forum.
I proposed a remedy to the problem to the author Deanne Stillman, early this year but received no response. I will make it here.
The problem that I have seen over the years is that the Cattle grazers have political power and the people who wish to see these Horses thrive do not.
This is typical of the mindset of the 'Cattlemen', (I know it well since I grew up on a cattle country). They will "import" an alien species---the Bovine---and then go to insane lengths to remake the land to accommodate that alien species. Horses evolved on this continent and are perfectly at home here.
In fact the Cattle men's argument that the Horses are "destructive to the range" is pure Bullshit----scene Horses are browsers, and cattle are grazers ---the Horses do not "compete" with the Bovine for food------I am ashamed of so many Horse people that they have not come forward to make this argument---but the Horse business in this country is worth well over 100 Billion annually and the "Mustangs" do not figure into the equation.
Without going into great detail I will summarize this -----which may or may not be my last posting----with a simple solution, and at least a begining "place to start" with an email site. Until the proper legal work can be completed this should suffice.
The argument that the Cattle Grazers lobby (and those people graze their cattle on public lands at less expense than on private lands) have postulated is that the "Horses graze and no one pays". This can easily be resolved with one simple move. Have the public pay for those Horses to graze. The best way would be for a non-profit organization to pay for the grazing rights, and collect the money from the members of the non-profit----i.e. charity.
Since I am limited to the number of words here, and have made many enemies (only in the "land of the free and home of the brave" can you make so many enemies by expressing an opinion that is contrary to the majority----go figure!)
It would be a major mistake to allow---- Mr&Mrs. Pickens to gain control of these Horses---they already have control of so much anyway their egos can never be satisfied until they control more...........
If you do not know who Mr. Pickens is-----look up Jed Clampit of Beverly Hillbilly fame for a close comparison----then talk to many where he does "bidness"-----the only good thing I can say about him is "well, he's 80 years old----how much longer can he go on?"
If you are interested in more details----
Go to.
frenchromany@gmail.com----you will be contacted later when details are available.
Native Son:horsemeat is legal in France for consumers, yes?
As an owner of a horse that is too old to use I would love to adopt one of those mustangs that are set to be euthanised but I cannot get rid of the one I have. The problem as I see it (and most of the horse owning community does also) is that unwanted horses cannot be sold for meat anymore, therefore people have to hang on to their old horses until they die and then put them in landfills or taken to a rendering facility. We can't bury them on our own property; Euthanasia and disposal is very expensive; The price of feed has become outrageous; The price of horses has tanked because there are so many; Fix the market and you make room for adoption.
I do not eat horse meat but other cultures do and it solved their problem with a lack of food. It was a good way for old or unwanted horses to be disposed of and made room for the horses in this article to be adopted out. The horse market is flooded with low cost/low quality horses and the number of horses being neglected and abused or turned loose on public lands has skyrocketed since meat buying was outlawed. In my opinion, selling an unwanted horse for meat, therefore making room for healthy mustangs is a viable solution to this problem.
Humans are guests on this planet, indeed in the universe. They know they don't belong and are constantly trying, however feebly, to leave. It is through the human animal that nothingness came into this world.
When we finally commit mass suicide the planet will sigh: "I thought they would never leave."
Well, let's see if I can make sense of all this. A tremendous amount of our best farmland is being paved over for shopping malls and housing developments, not to mention freeways. Meanwhile, cattle and other food animals are being treated with growth hormones, sex hormones, antibiotics, steroids, all to be passed on to the consumer. The same thing is true for the vegetarians. The new trends in GM foods is largely being done to the vegetable species, with often bad effects on the consumers.
The small farmer is a thing of the past, so agribusiness has to run their million acre farms with huge mechanization, tens of thousands of tons of nitrate fertilizers (Which is salinating the soil) thousands of tons of pesticides, herbicides and genetic modifications. The ranchers want to be able to use more (preferably all) public land to graze their cattle before they go into the feed lot chemical state and thence to the slaughterhouses. There is something else on that land that has lived there for hundreds of years. The ranchers have killed off the predators because they might eat a few cattle, so the horses do multiply. The cattle ranchers want all the public land to graze their herds, so the solution is obvious.
Kill all the horses and anything else that exists in nature that might interfere with profit. It is the new American way. Man is the most endangered species on earth because he is just smart enough to overcome for a time, the checks and balances of nature, but he is not smart enough to stop breeding himself off the planet.
You hit the nail right on the head, minitrue.
You have made sense of it.
I would only add that what you describe is hardly the "new" American way.
It only seems that way because these practices have reached critical mass.
These people just aren't happy unless they're digging something up, cutting something down, creating five-million year radiation piles, or killing something living. Disclaiming anything to do with oligarchy, they just roll right into destructive departures easy as pie. Betcha thought of that, too!
America is full of invasive species which consume valuable forage that native species would otherwise consume. Cattle are an invasive species. So are horses.
People are a single species that has been around the Western Hemisphere for a while. I'd no longer call them invasive, although lately they have a million times the invasive impact of any other species. Perhaps we've just become a new species, the hive of corporatist consumer borg.
Haven't we stupid humans meddled in nature enough already?!
What's incredible is that instead of letting the horses just stay where they are and do the common sense thing reduce meat eating, instead they want to put the horses in an amusement park.
There is simply no argument to justify meat eating-whether its chicken farming in factory farms, or steers on open ranges.
The people who advocate the traditional method don't know math. You cant return to the 19 century, and things weren't grand back then either(George Bernard Shaw became vegetarian without ever seeing a factory farm).
How disgusting and anti-life. Let me guess, it's so-called pro-life conservatives backing this slaughter. Life is life. If one life is sacred then ALL life is sacred.
Once again the evils of meat eating shown for the idiots too stupid to see it.
Better send this little article to the http://animalvegfaq.tripod.com site so they can add it to their anti-meat arguments.
Also shows the bs of human supremacist/stewards who claim to regard "work animal slaves" as more precious than wildlife.
Will you PLEASE remove this vacant Comment? Apparently it is only taking up room!!!!
I thought the same thing as FZ NOVEMBER, it shows the soylent green mind set that this administration has. If they condone this needless slaughter of sentients for their profits, what moral force stands in the way of "processing" us lesser sorts next?
This article so upset me that I searched the web for veracity and found:
U.S. Won't Kill Wild Horses -- For Now
National Geographic News
November 18, 2008
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081118-wild-horses.html
Which suggests we have been given one year to find a better way... another item worth the attention of Americans. Lets make some noise locally and make a difference.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
How bloody horrifying. How bloody typical. A WILFUL extermination of yet another beautiful species. As if we haven't YET destroyed enough of the natural world. Yes, cull the damn cow eaters instead.
Mainestay...thanks for the link. A (temporary) stay of execution.
Madeleine Pickens...please succeed in providing a safe habitat for these glorious creatures. Please encourage your billionaire buddies to do the same.
Yummy! Soylent Green.
Thanks Mainstay. These are beautiful animals and they need our protection!
God Bless Mrs. Pickens!
wilmoor:you're against help for students in re loans, but love Mrs. Pickens! If the rich paid their fair share of taxes, like they did years ago, students could go to college for less cost and even for free. Yes, wilmoor, in NYC, for example, the City University system was free in the midst of the Great Depression and into the 1970s. Free. (Of course, gifted young people like my mother, who graduated from high school at age 16 had to go to work and couldn't afford to go to college.)
In that comment you wrote that students shouldn't get help so "they could learn self-reliance", would you extend that to the children of Mr. and Mrs. Pickens? Would you have children of the rich NOT be allowed to be supported by their parents. so they could learn self-reliance in paying for college and school loans, or is that just for children of the poor?
Get rid of all the Muscle Cars.
With your country and your party both occupying the same space in the dirty toilet, why NOT go for broke and kill the horses? What, are Americans going to hate Republicans even MORE? Shoot, they may as well cancel Christmas this year.
Given all the environmental destruction the cattle industry causes
maybe it is the cattle-ranchers that should be 'culled.'
We can make every day a 'meatless Friday' for the War Effort!
Well stated!
Right-wing philosophy at work. Kill Baby Kill.