The Pryor Mountain mustangs who were removed from their home by the federal government–that’s you and me–have all been adopted, according to the Cloud Foundation, the non-profit organization that advocates for them. Adoption by humans means the horses are not facing slaughter or euthanasia as a result of being rounded up, or at least not in the near future.
There is no guarantee that mustangs adopted today will live as long in captivity as they might have lived on the range. Some may end up slaughtered or euthanized when the human who owns them decides they are worth more dead than alive. Some may live longer in captivity than they might have lived on the range, where their continued existence would have been subject to weather, disease and injury, and sometimes predators. The only thing certain is that a month or so ago they lived a more or less free life with family members, in the open, finding their way by instinct, wit and sense. Today they live in captivity.
Are the mustangs icons of American freedom? What does it mean to us as a people that we could not prevent their capture and subjugation?
In a recent piece at the Huffington Post, Bill Maher asked
why has America become a nation that can’t make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs – oh, and there’s still 60,000 troops in Germany – and can’t make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure.
I would add “and why can’t America find a way to let horses run free?”
Where were our great leaders while this travesty was playing out in the Pryor Mountains?
On September 4, 2009, Day Two of the BLM’s Pryor Mountain Mustang “gather,” BLM Director Bob Abbey and his boss Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar were all smiles in Lake Mead, Nevada, signing a deal to give $135 million to the state of Nevada for “federal improvement projects.” Happy days and lollipops at Lake Mead for the “good ‘ole boys” while families of mustangs were being driven down the Pryor Mountains in Montana by helicopters in 90 degree heat.
That’s Secretary Salazar, seated with the cowboy hat, Senator Harry Reid standing at the left and BLM Director Bob Abbey standing at the right (that’s not a horn coming out of Abbey’s head or wait maybe it is).
Bureau of Land Management Lied to American Public and Congress–Again
According to the Cloud Foundation weblog and observers on the ground in Montana, the Bureau of Land Management has reversed its earlier published intention to do a “selective removal” of all the horses driven down by helicopter from their Pryor Mountains home. The BLM now says it intends to do a “semi-selective” removal and reduce the size of the remaining herd to 120 horses.
A reduction to this level amounts to genocide. The herd will not be able to sustain itself at these numbers. The BLM is callously disregarding its own published plan in favor of an ad hoc “culling” that will decimate the herd. The national media that was present at the beginning of the “gather” have left and the BLM is accelerating the “processing” of the horses, moving independent observers back and strong-arming people on the ground into signing “Volunteer Employee” agreements that effectively removes the independent status of the observers and makes them federal employees. That guarantees control of images and statements.
Stalin could not have designed a better way to trample individual rights. Why is the administration asleep at the wheel?
Hello, President Obama, officer of the court, professor of constitutional law. WAKE UP!!!
A breezy account by Todd Allen in the “Challis [Idaho] Messenger” publication online describes the deadly outcome of a Bureau of Land Management “gather” in Challis, Idaho earlier this summer.
According to Allen, six horses died in the BLM “gather,” but “just one fatality”–a stallion who ran into a gate and broke his neck–can be “directly attributed” to the action by the BLM. Three of the horses that died “had pre-existing conditions” that may have been “aggravated” by the stress of the “gather” and two horses “had genetic defects and were euthanized.” Allen also reports that
There are nearly three times too many wild horses roaming the Challis Herd Management Area (HMA) south of town, so the Bureau of Land Management has rounded up 364 and hopes to find good homes for two-thirds of them this month.
Absolutely no support is given for the statement that “three times too many” horses were in the Management Area, but the BLM decided 185 is the right number so it must be so. Why 185 and not 186 or 184? Who knows.
Also not addressed by the BLM is why the agency believes the “two-thirds” of horses will find “good homes” when the reported 30,000 or more in BLM holding pens have not.
At any rate, since when did “just one” death become an acceptable number?
Just one stallion runs into a gate in a panic and dies of a broken neck.
Just one foal is orphaned when its mother dies of a “pre-existing” heart condition that killed her when she had to run from a helicopter.
Just one pregnant mare aborts her baby due to the stress of a “gather.”
Just one herd of horses is exterminated slowly and deliberately.
Just one.
A 5:35 p.m. story today by reporter Brett French of the “Billings Gazette” states that the helicopter “gather” of the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd went forward as scheduled.
There is no mention in French’s report of any change to previously announced plans for the herd by the Bureau of Land Management.
