American’s Icons The Wild Horses Being Killed for Short Term Profits and Being Managed to Extinction by the BLM

2nd Article in this 3 part Series — As stated in the first article, of this 3 part series, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) no longer has credibility in regard to any management criteria, that is within an honest context, when speaking or making decisions about America’s Wild Horse Herds on Public Lands. There exists no legitimate scientific study or research in regard to the BLMs decisions to roundup and essentially abuse or kill during the roundups or storage of America’s Wild Horses, and eventually send to slaughter America’s Icons, the Wild Horses.

When tracking the reasons why the BLM make the decisions about roundups, we find three things — all of which considered illegitimate reasoning:

1. The Environmental Impact Statements (all) do not contain thorough terrestrial, marine, ecosystem, grazing, or soil research — nor do they contain appropriate and meaningful recommendation toward the ultimate decision making process and in regard to a true impact of the Public Lands involved — rather, some EIS’s are eventually copied from other areas, then the titles changed to appear the EIS completed for the particular area noted, and submitted as such, but most often, that is when new EIS’s do exist, they are irresponsibly inaccurate or untruthful in total;

2. There exists no consistent or honest wild horse head counts, whereas, inconsistency exists and easily observable from tables and supposed previous counts — as their current models and paradigm formulas inaccurate and thereby irresponsible, and are prejudice against wild horses and directly affirmative toward cattle, despite the obvious and plentiful and well referenced science and data available (BLM employees ignore this) stating the invasiveness and harm done by cattle (also see recent court transcripts for Murderer’s Creek, stating cattle the cause of harmful environmental damage, not the wild horses, even though the attempt was made to accuse the Wild Horse Herds roaming that area, the Federal Court Judge perused legitimate science data and research (as mentioned in the Judge’s final statement) to form the final decision — LOREN STOUT and PIPER STOUT, Civil No. 09-152-HA Plaintiffs, OPINION AND ORDER v. U.S. FOREST SERVICE, and U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, et al.);

3. Then the very sad and narrow in scope reasoning for BLM employees keeping welfare ranchers, foreign oil companies, and mining corporations happy, America’s Public Lands and America’s Icons, the Wild Horses are sacrificed, entire environment and ecosystems ruined, America’s Wildlife and vegetation sent to extinction, and all for small but quick profits; and in reality, for example the beef market (i.e. welfare ranchers on public lands contribute only 2.6% of beef to the commercial markets today) has declined 12.8% less Americans actually eat beef or beef products today, and now we sacrifice our Public Lands for welfare ranchers, etc., to sell to foreign countries — this is unacceptable!

Note: Taxpayers pay a lot for the roundups and storage, $Millions, but receive nothing in return! The price is too costly to Americans, and the general American public agree and want horse roundups stopped!

Federal Law and Policy

Federal laws guide the use and management of public-land resources. Some laws are specific to a given agency (e.g. the BLM’s Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 and the FS’s National Forest Management Act [NFMA] of 1976), whereas others cross agency boundaries (e.g., Endangered Species Act [ESA] of 1973; Clean Water Act [CWA] of
1972).

A common mission of federal land management agencies is ‘‘to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands’’ (GAO 2007, p. 12). Further, each of these agencies has ample authority and responsibility to adjust management to respond to public land or federal lands grazing (GAO 2007) and other stressors.

The FS and BLM are directed to maintain and improve the condition of the public rangelands so that they become as productive as feasible for all rangeland values. As defined, ‘‘range condition’’ encompasses factors such as soil quality, forage values, wildlife habitat, watershed and plant communities, and the present state of vegetation of a range site in relation to the potential plant community for that site (Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978).

Quite obvious to many of the general public and concerned taxpayers, this type of aforementioned management or Stewardship and responsibility toward our Public Lands is commonly ignored by these government agencies. Why?

BLM lands and national forests must be managed for sustained yield of a wide array of multiple uses, values, and ecosystem services, including wildlife and fish, watershed, recreation, timber, and range. Relevant statutes call for management that meets societal needs, without impairing the productivity of the land or the quality of the environment, and which considers the ‘‘relative values’’ of the various resources, not necessarily the combination of uses that will give the greatest economic return or the greatest unit output (Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960; Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 [FLPMA] as outlined and discussed in previous article 1 of this series).

Restoration a Simple Matter of getting Rid of the Culprit-Cattle

Because livestock use is so widespread on public lands in the American West, with zero benefits to taxpayers, management actions directed at ecological restoration, to include unlimited cattle removal, needs to be accomplished much sooner than later.

This approach, despite conflict with government agencies that could care less about American’s who are concerned about our Public Lands restoration, should and will be made more aware that they work for us, American’s and taxpayers, and not for corporations or legislators! If government agency land managers and administrators alike, wish to debate the issue of who they work for, then they should be removed from their positions as being irresponsible and unresponsive to their job description and mission statements. The removal of cattle from America’s Public Lands then becomes the most ecologically effective and economically efficient method for recovering altered ecosystems, because it directly involves and addresses the root causes of degradation and allow natural recovery processes to operate, and is based on good science and research as well, see (Kauffman and others 1997; Rieman and Isaak 2010).

This strategy is especially relevant to western ecosystems because removing or significantly reducing the cause of degradation (e.g., excessive cattle use) is likely to be considerably more effective over the long term, in both costs and approach.

For many areas of the American West, particularly riparian areas and other areas of high biodiversity, significantly reducing or eliminating the cattle in total on Public Lands should, over time, result in the recovery of self-sustaining andn ecologically robust ecosystems (Kauffman and others 1997; Floyd and others 2003; Allington and Valone 2010.

Indeed, various studies and reviews have concluded that the most effective way to restore riparian areas and aquatic systems is to exclude cattle on a long-term basis (e.g., Platts 1991;BLM and FS 1994; Dobkin and others 1998; NRC 2002; Seavy and others 2009: Fleischner 2010). Recovering channel form and riparian soils and vegetation by reducing cattle impacts is also a viable management tool for increasing summer baseflows (Ponce and Lindquist 1990; Rhodes and others 1994).

Conclusion

Once again what is shown, by well referenced science, research, data gathering, and just plain American common sense, is a direct conflict with the BLM’s tactics in management.

Even though we have the truth on our side, science and wholesome data on our side, common sense on our side, well referenced biology and research that shows harmful effects of cattle on our Public Lands, an over amount of laws and policies that have been either ignored or consciously broken, many cases of fraudulent behavior by BLM employees and provable, and irresponsible behavior by those who manage America’s Public Lands — and these same government agencies offer nothing to debate these issues other than childish name-calling, as they have been essentially “caught in their bullshit”!

And as American’s what is it we are to do, simply put our hands in our pockets, shrug our shoulders, and then walk away, only to ignore this ever so obvious irresponsible situation? That is not going to happen because being an American is far more important, than allowing bad conduct and the ongoing criminal behavior within our government agencies! It is time to stop the travesty of the BLM, Horse abuse, and sending American Icons, The Wild Horses, to Slaughter!

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