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Killing the Old West: The BLM's Strange Way of 'Protecting' America's Wild Horses
You learn many interesting things traveling on public lands following the wild horse issue in the American West.
You learn that after standing in sub-zero temperatures, attempting to document winter roundups, that returning to the relative warmth of your parked vehicle can make your glasses crack. You learn that chemical toe warmers are good as wrist, neck and “slip into your coveralls attach to your underwear” warmers as well. You learn that rattlesnakes don’t always rattle.
You learn the maneuvers the federal government will attempt to hide their actions when “managing” America’s wild herds: Maneuvers that range from lying about facility contracts to a roadblock on a remote dirt road operated by armed men who stop three woman from seeing the wild horses being captured.
On June 19, 1971 both houses of Congress passed the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro, act without a single dissenting vote. That act read:
§ 1331. Congressional findings and declaration of policy
Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.
Somehow though, somewhere in the implementation of the Act, something went terribly wrong. In its findings, Congress declared, “These horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene.” However the agency tasked by Congress to protect and preserve these disappearing horses became transformed into a machine that removes more horses from public lands than any other force or man or nature in modern history.
As a journalist and photojournalist, this issue has become my life’s passion. Yet the pursuit of the story has now taken me to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to protect my First Amendment right to document and report the actions of our government in this issue of great public interest.
If there is nothing to hide, why go through such lengths to hide what is being done? This is hardly a matter of national security, after all. ![](/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/doomed.jpg "This doomed wild horse, stampeded for miles by BLM helicopter "cowboys," has literally lost its hooves (photo by Laura Leigh")
This doomed wild horse, stampeded for miles by BLM helicopter "cowboys," has literally lost its hooves (photo by Laura Leigh
This courtroom saga began last summer, when the BLM announced a broad public land closure prior to a roundup in the heat of the July desert. The bureau tasked with humane management of our wild herds was preparing to execute this operation during actual foaling season in the area. My attorney, Gordon Cowan of Reno Nevada, filed suit in the Federal District Court seeking to block the action.
The issue of foaling season was never heard, because the BLM presented a document, dated the day of court hearing, declaring an unprecedented water emergency. They made a claim in the courtroom that 75% of the horses would be dead in three days if the Court granted the relief sought. The court dismissed the motion based on the claimed emergency, so the issue of newborn foals being run in the desert heat unheard.
Yet the Federal District Court Judge, the Honorable Larry Hicks, did order the land closure lifted as a prior restraint to the First Amendment.
BLM contractors use helicopters, flying low to the ground, to frighten and stampede wild horses (photo by Laura Leigh)Traveling overnight to reach the range before the chopper flew at dawn was exhausting. My head throbbed, as I had suffered a concussion from being rear-ended by a drunk driver just a week earlier.
We arrived in the pre-dawn hours to begin a cat-and-mouse game of conversations that claimed compliance with court orders, yet threatened arrest. The district manger for the BLM, Ken Miller, even went so far as to say there “was nothing to see,” after an emergency was declared that was so extreme it topped anything in the district’s history.
When we got near the trap site we were met with a roadblock staffed by armed men. We were told if we went further we were trespassing and subject to arrest. There were no signs and the BLM map did not have private roads listed. We retreated.
Later I discovered the road never actually turns private. The boundary to private property was a considerable distance up the public road. Not a single horse was viewed by members of the public during capture or at the temporary pens. 
Trapped wild horse caught trying to escape its cage (photo by Laura Leigh)
These “access games” are compounded, convoluted and repeated. Discriminatory access was given to members of the press whom BLM felt worthy, even as I was barred access to the same site. Not only was I denied access, but I was ordered to move away from public land when I attempted to photograph a truckload of horses on a public road.
Another suit was filed that addressed the obscenity of the department-wide lack of transparency. Roundups occur without public notice by the Fish and Wildlife service (also under Department of Interior). A facility the BLM closed to the public (with the BLM claiming it was never intended to be open to the public, even as internal emails reveal the closure was because of damage done to the agency’s reputation by the reports that were published after such visits), actually has a rule that allows weekly tours until 2015. Violations of the act, ranging from the most basic management of the range, to actions during capture, holding or during sale, are kept hidden from public view.
Now the court has held off on making a decision on a request for emergency injunctive relief until more than six months after the motion was filed. The court cited “mootness,” because the roundup was over.
“Public debate is vital to any Democratic process,” states attorney for plaintiff Cowan. “If the information utilized in debate is subjected to content control the debate is moot, not the argument.”
Terrified and sweaty from being stampeded, a young wild colt cowers in the trap (photo by Laura Leigh)Amicus briefs have been filed by the Reporters Committee for a Free Press and by the National Press Photographers Association in this landmark case about the public’s right to know.
July 1 roundups are about to begin again during another foaling season. Pregnant mares and newborn foals will once again be run in the desert heat by the agency tasked by Congress to manage them as an integral part of the landscape.
Will the public actually have meaningful access to witness the hands-on management of a National Treasure by our government? We will see very soon.
To learn more about the lawsuit and read pertinent documentation go to: WildHorseEducation.org
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9 Comments so far
Show AllThere is a second good article on this outrage by journalist/photographer Marilyn Wargo, which is run as a sidebar to Laura Leigh's article on our site: www.thiscantbehappening.net
I urge readers interested in this issue to visit the site and read her article too.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
The cruelty and barbarism of this nation never cease to amaze me.
you ain't seen nothin'.
here in alaska, when game animals (caribou, moose) are hunted to such low numbers (often by out-of-state richpigs and wealthy guides) that so-called 'subsistence' hunting is threatened, wolves (and now bears) are targeted to be killed from airplanes in order to boost game animal numbers. got that? kill wolves and bears so that there will be more caribou and moose to be killed. the latest outrage is bear 'baiting' by which goobers with guns put out bacon fat, donuts, etc. to attract bears to be shot by said goobers.
of course, opposing such practices earns one the enmity of 'sporting' circles, and epithets like 'envirofreak' and 'greenie' and 'socialist'. you know, anybody who interferes or even attempts to interfere with their gob-given right to blast any living creature that comes into view. remember sarah's caribou 'hunt'? some eye-opener that was!
i despise these cowards and will do all i can to stop them.
Horse is tasty. Maybe they can give away the meat. I definitely would eat some.....
OMG this is Horrible! It is a distortion of nature which is what I call evil. These humans are unworthy stewards of this land and her creatures and at foaling season. It is no suprise that we torture and kill everywhere "we" go.
Not in my name.
Horses are an invasive species in north America. Like I said they are also very very tasty......
This incindiary comment ignores the point that there was a law passed by Congress (unanimously) requiring that these animals be protected, and the opposite is being done for corporate profits. For that matter, replacing wild horses with cattle and sheep, also "invasive species," is hardly an improvement.
Finally, horses were indigenous to the Americas before the arrival of humans some 20-50,000 years ago, and many paleontologists believe that humans were a major reason for their going extinct, so reintroduction of horses in the last millenium was not such an egregious thing. I have seen no study showing that horses, which crop grass off rather higher above the roots, do ecological damage to the environment. Huge herds of cattle, and especially sheep, which like goats eat grass right down to the ground and can kill it off in dry lands, are another story entirely.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
PS This isn't about carnivores vs. vegans. I've eaten horsemeat and dog, too and, once I was able to get it down while seeing images of my own pet dogs and my pony, I have to admit both tasted great. But then, WTF does that prove? Whale meat probably tastes good too, and rhino and tiger paw. So should we humans just eat everything because we can?
The first thing that came to my mind when I read 'BLM' and the rounding up of horses was "welfare ranching". The BLM has long been a conduit and facilitator of enormous subsidies to welfare ranchers and large farmers. The true cost - both monetary and, more importantly, environmental costs, of such subsidies, despite the occasional exposés may never be known.
Dave Lindorff mentions another article on his site by Marilyn Wargo, that talks about just what I suspected. (I suggest providing a direct link to Marilyn Wargo's piece, even though it is listed as an "Addendum" :)
Anyway, follow this link and scroll down, below Laura Leigh's article:
www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/667
>>Thousands of sheep and cattle, mines and energy projects--all owned by commercial interests that grease the palms of the political machine -- then replace the horses, despite a federal law declaring that the horses are to have priority on their designated rangelands. ...
Some of the cattle that get moved onto the HMAs are owned by the corporations who have leased cattle allotments inside the HMAs where the cattle and sheep can eventually outnumber wild horses and burros by factors of more than 200 to one. ...
Many horses of all ages are killed during these roundups-- especially vulnerable young animals. <<
And here's another article by R.T. Fitch from March 2011 - "BLM Mantra: Private Cattle On, Wild Horses Off":
http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/blm-mantra-private-cattle-on-wild-horses-off
>>"On Thursday, Feb 25th, one day prior to the abrupt cessation of the BLM’s assault upon the Antelope Complex’s wild horses, my wife Terry, Laura Leigh and I had left the mean wild horse trap site in an effort to locate a cell signal suitable to call in, as journalists, to the disappointing press conference by the BLM’s Director, Bob Abbey. As we raced across the HMA we crested a bluff only to run smack dab into one of the biggest cattle driving operation any of us had ever witnessed. Only a few short days before we had stopped on this very same road to shoot photos of distant wild horses living out their lives on their rightful land only to find those same horses being rapidly replaced by environmentally damaging private cattle, while the roundup was STILL going on.
The wranglers stopped us and wanted to know what we were doing out on “their” range as it was so isolated they rarely saw civilians during this time of the year. When told of the unlawful roundup of federally protected wild horses we were met with the singular comment, “Good”. Considering the safety of my passengers and the ratio of cattle wranglers to advocates the issue was not pressed in normal fashion."<<
But what I found disappointing with the actions of **some** of these horse lovers is that they do not question the rationale and the ethics of cattle ranching in the first place. Fitch makes this needless disclaimer:
>>"Now let’s be totally clear, here. I have nothing against cattle or cattle ranchers. Here in Texas my fine neighbors ARE cattle ranchers but they buy their land, pay taxes on that land, maintain the land and are not given a federal government handout as are the “welfare” ranchers of America’s west."<<
Right!
I highly recommend the books "Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture" by Jeremy Rifkin and "Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West" by George Wuerthner and Mollie Matteson.
What's happening to the wild horses cannot be viewed separately from the role of ranching, which in turn cannot be separated from widespread beef eating, which in turn cannot be separated from the history of land grabbing and genocide. A love for wild horses and risking personal safety and comfort as a result is admirable and is not something most people would contemplate. But being politically correct and not talking about the history of ranching, land grab, subsidies to farmers and the role of BLM in all of this is to tell only part of the story, unfortunately.
Yes, there is subsidized "industry" on public land.
Cattle and sheep are an historic issue. But the playing field runs far deeper than that. The cattle issue is on the surface. The real culprit runs right into the White House.
Bush/Cheney did a whole lot to start the engine on the theft of public American wealth. Obama has filled the GAS tank.