Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

For you folks in Colorado and/or close to Denver:

January 4, 2010

For Immediate Release

Denver Demonstration to Stop Wild Horse Roundups as Calico Roundup Continues

Denver, CO (January 4, 2010) – American wild horse and burro advocates are organizing a protest Thursday, Jan. 7, in downtown Denver. The public will assemble at 12 noon in front of Senator Mark Udall’s office building (999 Eighteenth St., North Tower) asking the senator to help halt the Bureau of Land Management’s massive roundup of wild horses currently living in the half-million-acre Calico Mountain Complex area in northwestern Nevada. The roundup started Dec. 28, and horses are currently being rounded up and several are already injured or dying in the harsh winter conditions.

Despite U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman’s suggestion that the BLM postpone the roundup of more than 2,700 wild horses, the BLM is proceeding with the roundup under harsh winter weather conditions that will most certainly result in many unnecessary injuries and deaths to the wild horses as they are run by helicopters over rough terrain to capture sites.  The roundup is expected to cost the American tax payer over 1.7 million dollars.

On Dec. 30^, the BLM invited members of the national press to view the roundup operations. Photos taken by a BLM contract photographer showed frightened horses in holding pens with sweat-soaked coats generating clouds of vapor in the frigid air.  The photos caused a storm of criticism from horse experts and were quickly removed.  Current photos and a report from the roundup can be found here: http://humanitythrougheducation.com/

Public outcry to stop this roundup has been unprecedented, with the BLM receiving more than 10,000 letters from the public requesting that they refrain from proceeding with the roundup.  But once again the BLM is proving deaf to the American public’s wishes in its plans to reduce wild horse numbers in the wild to an unsustainable level.

Concerned Americans continue to contact the White House and their elected officials with no response.  The protest in Denver, along with others in cities across the country, seeks to bring public awareness to the growing outrage over the BLM’s plan to exterminate our wild horses and burros, and also to the lack of response from our government.

More than 190 organizations including the Cloud Foundation and artists and celebrities from all over the country are calling for an immediate moratorium on wild horse roundups until the American public works with Congress to formulate a sustainable plan that protects and preserves wild horses in their homes on public lands in the West.

Contact: Carol Walker 303-588-4749  email: cwhills@earthlink.net website: www.wildhoofbeats.com

http://blog.taragana.com/science/2009/12/24/sheryl-crow-other-wild-horse-advocates-ask-obama-reid-to-stop-mustang-roundup-in-nevada-1928/

“They said the population in the five Calico herd management areas is three times what the range can handle.”

Too bad the article doesn’t say anything about all the cattle grazing that range.

http://www.americanherds.blogspot.com/

Special report by Peabody award winner George Knapp — A hard-hitting and eye-opening investigation into the wild horse issue and BLM’s management practices. This is a must see! Please circulate far and wide.

Watch the 5-part series (Video Gallery, upper left on the page): http://www.lasvegasnow.com/global/story.asp?s=11285225

The AWHPC Team
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
www.wildhorsepreservation.org

Lots of controversy surrounds the Pryor Mountain gather set to begin soon, but I would urge you to visit the Pryor Wild blog – http://pryorwild.wordpress.com – and click on the link to Matt’s thoughts in the current first post. He might spend more time on that range than anyone, and as director of the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center, it’s his job to spend a lot of time thinking about those horses and their long-term health and well-being.

This statement particularly caught my attention: “Why not work with the BLM when such a relationship is for the benefit of the PMWHR and the herd?”

Why not, indeed? Our Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners group here is trying to do just that, and while the wheels of government turn slowly (enough to frustrate a saint), I think we’re starting to see the benefits of our partnership with the BLM … for the benefit of the – our – herd. I do hope to have a post up soon about last weekend’s visit by Dan Elkins and Karen Herman from New Mexico, who came to visit the herd area for a hopeful contract gather in the future. Dan does the gentle, humane, very successful type of gathering and removing wild horses called bait trapping, and we’re very excited to know him and Karen and encourage a partnership with them and BLM in Spring Creek Basin in the future.

In the meantime, please do read Matt’s thoughts on the Pryor herd.