New Uniform “Vision Cards” Display Images of Oil Rig and Livestock Grazing
Washington, DC — U.S. Bureau of Land Management employees are now under orders to wear “Vision Cards” on their uniforms displaying official maxims, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These cards are little message boards with aphoristic statements about vision, mission, values, and guiding principles of the BLM.
“The person of federal employees should not be used for political messaging,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting the Vison Cards’ similarity to propaganda placards used by totalitarian regimes. “This is supposed to be the Bureau of Land Management not Mao’s Red Guard.”
The two Vision Cards for uniform wear repeat language from the agency website. The cards –
Display the image of an oil rig and what appears to be livestock grazing, in contrast to the official BLM logo which shows a tree, river, and mountain;
Reference serving “stakeholders” and “customers” but do not mention serving the public; and
Declare that the purpose of improving “the health and productivity of the land” is “to support the BLM multiple-use mission.”
It is not clear from where the order to wear the Vison Cards emanates. BLM has no permanent director nor has the Trump White House even named a nominee. During the past year, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and a small band of political appointees in DC have dictated BLM policy. While reports of the mandatory card display have reached PEER from the West, the organization is still trying to determine whether the order is national in scope.
Colorado River Drinking Water Source for 40 Million
2018: 831 Active Uranium Mining Claims Near Grand Canyon
2011: Before Ban, 3,500 Claims
WASHINGTON – If the Supreme Court lifts the moratorium on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, the expected surge in active claims would endanger not only a cherished national landmark, but also the drinking water for 40 million Americans, according to the Environmental Working Group and Earthworks.
Between the current leanings of the Supreme Court and the Trump administration being in power, the mining industry clearly sees an opportunity to open up uranium extraction along the canyon rim for the first time in a decade. There are currently fewer than 900 active uranium claims near the canyon, compared to almost 3,500 before the ban.
Last week two mining industry lobbying groups petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the 20-year moratorium for uranium mining on more than 1 million acres of land along the canyon rim, put in place in 2012 by then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. The mining groups are seeking reversal of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ December ruling to leave the ban in place.
“If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the uranium industry, it could permanently scar a sacred landscape that is the jewel in the crown of America’s natural heritage, and threaten the drinking water of 40 million Americans from Los Angeles to Las Vegas,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “President Trump has shown total disregard for preserving natural resources and protecting public health, and if the court overturns the ban, the Grand Canyon could soon fall victim to his radical agenda.” More
“To destroy them so that oil, gas, livestock, hunting and mining interests can deplete the land without any horses or burros standing in the way is bad for the environment and frankly, un-American.”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has raised red flags for a number of reasons during his short tenure. He seems to care less about protecting America’s national monuments than allowing them to be exploited by special interest groups and has been caught up in one corruption scandal after another. You would think that it’d be difficult for a man like that to do anything else that could make people who don’t bleed money-green to despise him.
Unfortunately, the lives of 50,000 wild horses and burros are in Zinke’s hands, because Congress is preparing to negotiate appropriations for the Interior Department and whether to allow for the unlimited slaughter of wild horses and burros.
It all stems back to the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 a bill that offered protections to the horses and burros that roam the United States — and, of course, was immediately opposed by special interests in Big Agriculture who were determined to erode its protections. The interests’ first major success in doing so occurred in 2004 after Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., attached a provision to an omnibus bill that removed most of the legal protections established in 1971 and privatized the animals themselves.
That’s where Zinke comes into play. In 2009, the Montana State House introduce a bill to build a horse slaughterhouse in the state at a time the country had been two years without one.
“Zinke wanted to bring slaughter back so ranchers and others in the horse business could dispose of their unwanted, unhealthy or inconvenient horses quickly and for a profit,” Susan Wagner of Equine Advocates and Debbie Coffey of Wild Horse Freedom Federation told Salon by email. “The [Montana] bill did not pass but fast forward to today, and now all these animals are facing extinction. The Interior Department’s budget being slashed by more than $1 billion also doesn’t help.”
Wild Family in Salt Wells Creek before being rounded up
Right now, Congress is working on the 2018 Spending Bill that will determine the fate of wild horses and burros in the United States. This wild horse family above which was rounded up in October in addition to the 45,000 other wild horses currently held in holding facilities imminently face possible killing or slaughter.
Your Representatives and Senators, who are supposed to be representing you, need to hear from you right now to make sure that wild horses and burros remain protected from killing and slaughter once the spending bill is voted upon and becomes final.
Please call your Senators and Representatives and tell them:
“Please work with leadership in Congress to make sure that the final 2018 spending bill protects America’s wild horses and burros from mass killing and slaughter. Please protect wild horses and burros and work to humanely manage them on our public lands. Please do not allow horse slaughter plants to be opened in the United States.”
To find out more about Wild Horse Freedom Federation and our work to keep wild horses and burros wild and free on our public lands visit www.WildHorseFreedomFederation.org
If the BLM would raise the livestock grazing fees, even just a little bit, they’d have plenty of money to be transparent. Also, there is little that can possibly “slow down the agency’s decision-making process” since it remains in the dark ages.
“Media requests only make up a fraction of the total requests agencies receive, but the new policy setting an organizational “cap” on requests could severely hamper the work of journalists – and concerned citizens – trying to use FOIA for its intended purpose.”
Recommendations appear to target media requests, and raise the cost of already prohibitive processing fees
According to records obtained by the Washington Post, the Bureau of Land Management is recommending new legislation that would limit the number of FOIA requests individuals and agencies could file with the agency, create stricter criteria for fee waivers, as well as increased fees for “search and redaction.”
For justification, BLM cites the agency’s limited resources, which in turn causes requests to “slow down the agency’s decision-making process.” In Financial Year 2016, the report states, the agency’s FOIA work cost $2.8 million, which was approximately .2 percent of the agency’s total budget of $1.3 billion that year.
As has been written about before, the vast majority of FOIA requests are by commercial entities. For some agencies, the percentage of commercial requests are as high as 95 percent.
Washington, DC — President Trump’s record tardiness in nominating agency leaders may undo months of work inside the Department of Interior, according to a complaint filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The way the Trump administration has filled agency leadership slots with temporary or acting directors violates a law enacted to prevent a president from circumventing the U.S. Senate’s constitutional advice and consent power.
The PEER complaint filed with Interior’s Office of Inspector General charges that the acting directors of the National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) are in blatant violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. Under that act, any action taken by a noncompliant official “shall have no force or effect” nor may it be later “ratified.”
“The law prevents a president from installing acting directors for long periods and completely bypassing Senate confirmation,” argued PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that President Trump has not nominated or even announced an intention to nominate, persons to fil the NPS, BLM, or FWS vacancies.
“Federal agencies are not supposed to be run like a temp service.”
The complaint recounts Vacancies Reform Act violations invalidating the appointments of –
NPS Acting Director P. Daniel Smith, who did not serve in a senior position for 90 days during the prior year, as the Act requires. Nor did Trump appoint him, another requirement of the act;
BLM Acting Director Brian Steed, who also did not serve in a senior position for 90 days and Interior Secretary Zinke, not Trump, appointed him.
FWS Acting Director Greg Sheehan, who not only suffers from these same deficiencies but also now exceeds the 210-day limit the act imposes.
Since the BLM has removed state websites and staff directories from the internet, and they now have only one portal for very limited public information, we thought we’d give you a quick update on who’s running the Bureau of Land Management at national and state levels. Source: BLM
Deputy Director, Programs and Policy, Bureau of Land Management
Exercising Authority of the Director
Brian Steed is the BLM’s Deputy Director for Programs and Policy, exercising authority of the director. Before joining the BLM in October 2017, Steed served as Chief of Staff for Representative Chris Stewart of Utah. Before that, he taught economics at Utah State University and was once a deputy county attorney in Iron County, Utah. Read the full biography
Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah deceived Congress by implying there was a 41% increase in wild horse & burro population in only 5 months, and by showing a photo of one thin horse and claiming that a majority of the wild horse population on the range were starving or dying from dehydration.
Stewart authored the recent Amendment in the House that would lead to 46,000 healthy wild horses & burros in BLM holding facilities and tens of thousands more on public lands being “euthanized” (killed).
Researcher Marybeth Devlin submitted her remarks (below) countering Stewart’s OpEd to the New York Times via its “we want to hear from you” page. However, when I clicked on the link to the “we want to hear from you” page, it was gone (so apparently, the New York Times doesn’t want to hear from anyone). Marybeth also commented on The New York Times Opinion Section on Facebook, where Stewart’s piece is listed (among others, halfway down the page).
Our thanks to Marybeth Devlin for exposing the misinformation opined by this squirrelly politician (my apologies to squirrels). Stewart’s own constituents even booed him in Salt Lake City this year.
“No birth control, no euthanasia, no slaughter: None of them fixes fraud. The problem is fraud – BLM’s fraud – not overpopulation. What is needed is honest management of our wild horses and burros.” – Marybeth Devlin
by Marybeth Devlin
The Bureau of Land Management’s wild-horse fraud: The “overpopulation” of wild horses is a pernicious lie, a concocted “crisis”. The government doesn’t have a wild-horse problem — wild horses have a government problem. More
by Debbie Coffey, V.P. & Dir. of Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation
ACTION ALERT! Public comments are due Jan. 5, 2018.
In the BLM’s rush to drive wild horses to extinction, the BLM plans to remove ALL wild horses from the Caliente Herd Area Complex. The BLM claims that the Caliente Herd Area Complex has an estimated population of 1,744 wild horses (including the 2017 foal crop).
The Caliente Herd Complex Area consists of nine herd areas; Applewhite, Blue Nose Peak, Clover Creek, Clover Mountains, Delamar Mountains, Little Mountain, Meadow Valley Mountains, Miller Flat, and Mormon Mountains.
The 30-day public comment period concludes Jan. 5, 2018.
Please be sure to mail or email your written comments to:
Bureau of Land Management Ely District Office
Attention: Ben Noyes, Wild Horse and Burro Specialist
702 N. Industrial Way
Ely, NV 89301
Not only has the Bureau of Land Management paid Drummond Land and Cattle Co. almost $24 million to warehouse our wild horses on their long term holding pasture, but Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond has used photos of wild horses on most of her Pioneer Woman product packaging and on her blog and has used video of wild horses in the trailer for her Pioneer Woman cooking show. – Debbie
Land barons: In its annual list of America’s 100 largest landowners, The Land Report reveals that as of 2016 the Drummond Family owns an astonishing 433,000 acres of property
Ladd Drummond’s family cattle ranch has earned them the 23rd spot on the list of the 100 largest landowners in the United States
He lives on the family’s massive estate, which is 433,000 acres or just over 675 square miles, with his wife Ree Drummomnd and their four children
Ree has turned her life on the ranch into a multimillion dollar empire thanks to her work as the Pioneer Woman
The family has also made $24 million in the past decade renting land to the US government
Ree Drummond may present herself as a modern day Laura Ingalls Wilder or Willa Cather on her Pioneer Woman blog and TV show, but the self-made entrepreneur has far more in common with the Queen of England than her prairie home companions.
In its annual list of America’s 100 largest landowners, The Land Report reveals that as of 2016 the Drummond Family owns an astonishing 433,000 acres of property.
Drummond, her husband Ladd and their four teenage children make their home just two hours down the road from Oklahoma City in Pawhuska, which is where her husband Ladd’s family put down roots four generations ago.
Ladd is now a key player at Drummond Land & Cattle Co, the notoriously private family-held company that Frederick Drummond started after arriving in this country from Scotland in the late 19th century.
In addition to the money they bring in from their cattle and horse endeavors, Drummond Land also manages to clean up thanks to one deep-pocketed tenant – the US government.
In addition to the money they bring in from their cattle and horse endeavors, Drummond Land also manages to clean up thanks to the US government
We need to find a fix for the unhealthy populations of non-native, domestic cattle and sheep on public lands.
Imagine a proposal to introduce privately owned livestock onto the public lands of the American West. The owners of the privately owned livestock would successfully gain use of 229 million acres of public lands in the West. The livestock would be owned by a politically powerful industry that attracted a passionate following — people who love using public lands for their private profit so much that they influence the federal management of their privately owned animals so that they would rarely, if ever, be restricted by law. Some of them would be so passionate that they would take over and occupy government buildings for 41 days, and end up costing taxpayers at least $9 million, including $2.3 million on federal law enforcement and $1.7 million to replace damaged or stolen property.
The downside of these privately owned livestock would be that they destroy native vegetation, damage soils and stream banks, and contaminate waterways with fecal waste. After decades of livestock grazing, once-lush streams and riparian forests have been reduced to flat, dry wastelands; once-rich topsoil has been turned to dust, causing soil erosion, stream sedimentation and wholesale elimination of some aquatic habitats; overgrazing of native fire-carrying grasses has starved some western forests of fire, making them overly dense and prone to unnaturally severe fires. Not to mention that predators like the grizzly and Mexican gray wolf were driven extinct in southwestern ecosystems by “predator control” programs designed to protect the livestock industry. More
“Every stream on public lands grazed by livestock is polluted and shows a huge surge in E. coli bacterial contamination during the grazing season,” says Marvel. “No wonder we can’t drink the water.”
Marvel, who retired from WWP last year, spent two decades haranguing and suing the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the government bodies that are supposed to regulate ranching on the public domain. “Forest Service and BLM staffers see their job as the protection and enabling of ranchers. They are the epitome of what is meant by agency capture.”
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This is a wild family in Salt Wells Creek that has no idea what is going to happen to them.
Our guest tonight is Carol Walker, Dir. of Field Documentation for Wild Horse Freedom Federation. Carol has been at the Bureau of Land Management’s roundups of wild horses in the Checkerboard area of Wyoming. This roundup will result in the devastation of the three largest remaining herds in Wyoming.
Carol has an important update for the public. The BLM is not giving the public accurate numbers in reports.
Utah State University Wildland Resources Professor Terry Messmer
by Debbie Coffey, V.P. & Dir. of Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation
The National Horse and Burro Rangeland Management Coalition, chaired by The Wildlife Society (TWS), concluded their secretive, closed-to-the-public “Slaughter Summit” co-hosted by the Utah State University and the state of Utah. The organizer of this Summit, Utah State University Wildland Resources Professor Terry Messmer, is heavily associated with The Wildlife Society, an organization that is pushing for the slaughter of wild horses and burros.
“While closed meetings are sometimes considered anathema to scientific debate, Messmer defended the secrecy as a necessary precaution in the face of threats against some of the participants, including filmmaker Ben Masters. Other speakers regarded as anti-horse partisans are Beaver County Commissioner Tammy Pearson and attorney Frank Falen, whose Cheyenne, Wyo., law firm has repeatedly sued the BLM over horse management and other issues on behalf of ranchers.
‘We’ve got over 50 organizations represented, including three leading horse advocate groups that are part of the registration,’ Messmer said. He named the American Mustang Association, the American Mustang Foundation and the Wild Mustang Foundation.”More
by Debbie Coffey, V.P. and Dir. of Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation
Wild Horse Freedom Federation issued a White Paper that has taken years of research, and offers new evidence on the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse & Burro Program that has never been seen by Congress or the public.
The Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, wants to cut the fat from the 2018 Budget by killing up to 46,000 wild horses and burros in BLM holding facilities due to “costs,” and to kill many thousands more on public lands because of a supposed “excess.”
However, Wild Horse Freedom Federation has done on-the-ground investigations of many BLM Long Term Holding facilities, with photos, videos and other evidence, proving that less than half of the horses that the BLM contractors, and the BLM, claimed were on long term holding facilities, were actually there.
One long term holding “pasture” contained a residential development. More
Interior Secretary orders and inventory of wild horses in holding
On Friday morning, June 30, The Cloud Foundation (TCF) received an anonymous tip that Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and/or top Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials have ordered all wild horses currently in short-term holding facilities be categorized by weight and age in anticipation of the approval of the federal budget. The current recommendation for this budget would allow for “sale without limitation” of many or most of the wild horses currently in holding.
This, of course, could eventually lead to the barbaric slaughter of our iconic wild horses. The tipster stated that this categorization was to ensure the BLM was ready to “ship out” horses older than five years of age. The only place to “ship out” these horses would likely be to slaughter. The caller stated that the shipping would start with the smaller facilities so that wild horse advocates would not be able to impose an injunction before the plan was already started. The caller also told TCF that direction has been given to one of the government’s top transportation officials to prepare for shipping.
Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director of TCF said, “Surely Secretary Zinke would not allow for this devious, clandestine and under-the-radar ploy to destroy wild horses when 80% of Americans are against horse slaughter. If only Secretary Zinke and other DOI and BLM officials would have implemented tried and proven on-the-range-management ideas as we have requested for over a decade, we would not be where we are today.” Ms. Kathrens states, “Options such repatriation of older horses in holding to the millions of acres that were designated ranges for these animals is a much more human solution.”
“There are nearly 50,000 wild horses that have been rounded up, torn apart from their families, and corralled at the taxpayer expense because on-the-range-management has not been implemented. Hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep graze at little or no cost,” says Lisa Friday, volunteer Vice President of The Cloud Foundation. “Our indigenous American icons deserve better.”
On the Bureau of Land Management’s new website, on the Program Data page for the Wild Horse & Burro Program (under the Wild Horse and Burro Sales to Private Care tab), the BLM claims “It has been and remains the policy of the BLM, despite the unrestricted sales authority of the Burns Amendment, NOT to sell or send any wild horses or burros to slaughterhouses or to “kill buyers.”
The BLM claims “Wild Horses and Burros Sold to Good Homes” but then includes a total of 402 wild horses and burros sold in Fiscal Year 2012. (In this 402 total, 320 were horses and 82 were burros.)
BLM sale logs obtained by us in Freedom of Information Act requests indicate that in Fiscal Year 2012, the BLM sold 239 wild horses (almost 80% of the 320 horses that were sold) to kill buyer Tom Davis of La Jara, CO. Many, if not all, of these wild horses went to slaughter in Mexico.
Does this look like a “good home” to you?
BLM states it has a policy not to sell wild horses and burros to kill buyers, but: More
After NBC News wrote about the Bureau of Land Management featuring a photo of a coal bed at the top of their website, the BLM changed it… to now feature this photo of an oil & gas pipeline.
The Bureau of Land Management is scrubbing most of its links off of the internet, and in doing so, erasing much of its history from public view.
Many of the blm.gov links that are still remaining on the internet at this point say “page not found,” or the links are no longer cached.
The BLM also suddenly removed state and district websites. Instead, you will now find “landing pages” that direct you to only one main Bureau of Land Management website. (You can look at the new BLM website HERE.)
I called a BLM Public Affairs Specialist to ask some questions about the defunct websites and links. This person said in the past there were about 90,000 pages (and then a bit later stated that it could possibly be only about 60,000 pages) of BLM content on the internet, but that all of these pages couldn’t be maintained or updated, and weren’t centralized. This person said the BLM’s prior content management system was outdated.
Most importantly, this person also said there were now standards to reduce the amount (of pages/content). More
Dadgummit! After John Ruhs, Nevada’s BLM State Director, said that he wanted to round up 4,000 wild horses in Elko County last summer (supposedly in response to the continued lies blaming wild horses and burros for the “deterioration of drought-stricken rangeland”), we’re noting that many mines that will use billions of gallons of water are now on the verge of expanding in Nevada.
Ruhs recently spoke at the Elko Convention Center, and stated that “We are pretty proud of the fact that this last year we have worked with the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association, the Nevada Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and NDOW to provide some public opportunities to talk about sage grouse land use amendments and what they mean to the grazing program. A lot of work still needs to be done.”
The BLM ALWAYS works with the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association. And the National Cattlemen’s Association. Actually, the BLM works FOR them. Notice that the focus of talking about sage grouse land use amendments is all about what they mean to thegrazing program?
Ruhs also lamented that wild horse and burro issues dominate a large part of the Nevada BLM and Ruhs went on to talk about the difficulties in wild horse management.
Wild horse and burro issues dominate? Like, bigger than all of the mines and outnumbering all of the livestock?
And talk about difficulties? How about all those abandoned mines in Nevada, John?
And management? There is only wild horse and burro “MISmanagement.”
Ruhs then said “We are somewhere in excess of 37,000 horses on the rangeland that is a big priority for us and it’s one of the things that I hope in the new administration that we will see some changes that will finally allow us to get some work done on the ground.”
We hope that the work that Ruhs is referring to getting done “on the ground” will include getting an accurate count of the wild horses and burros, rescinding some livestock overgrazing permits and making sure the extractive industries don’t use every last drop of water.
Why even bother to imply that the BLM “manages” anything, except impending environmental damage from the “multiple uses” that make a buck? Don’t stash the truth, John.
This map shows the Gold Bar Mine area, the approximate HMA (in solid red) and HA boundaries(in broken red lines), the approximate Mt. Hope Mine Project area and well field, and the approximate combined Gold Bar Mine and Mt. Hope Mine 10′ water drawdown area (in blue). The 10′ water drawdown (in blue) effects almost the entire Roberts Mountain HMA. The 1′ water drawdown will effect a much larger area. (Streams can dry up with as little as a 1′ water drawdown.) BE SURE TO LOOK AT ALL 8 MAPS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE.It’s best to write comments in your own words so that the BLM counts each comment as one, instead of counting a thousand similar comments/form letter as only one. You can read the joint comments submitted by Wild Horse Freedom Federation and The Cloud Foundation below, and a quick summary on pages 5-41 of the DEIS HERE. Comments are due by April 17, 2017.Some suggested talking points are:
Be sure to ask for the NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE.
The Gold Bar mine project will use over 2 billion gallons of water in 10 years. The BLM needs to take into consideration past (historic), current and likely future droughts and climate change when deciding if they will approve this DEIS.
The Project will negatively impact the water, forage, safety, and “free-roaming” abilities of the Roberts Mountain wild horse herd on the Roberts Mountain HMA, as well as the nearby wild horse herds on Whistler Mountain and Fish Creek Herd Management Areas.
The BLM is minimizing the area of impact by only indicating the 10′ water drawdown, and not the 5′ or 1′ water drawdown. The 5′ and 1′ water drawdown will cover a much larger area of land. A stream can dry up with as little as 1′ of water drawdown.
When the nearby Mt. Hope mine becomes operational, it is proposed that it will use an additional 7,000 gallons per minute for the life of the mine (40-50 years). Mt. Hope mine will use over 3 1/2 billion gallons of water per year and over 36 billion gallons of water in 10 years.
The BLM refers to the Cyanide Management Plan (1992), (noted in Vol. 1A, 1.4.3) and the Solid Minerals Reclamation Handbook (1992), (noted in Vol. 1A, 1.4.4). These are 25 years old and outdated. Ask for updates of this Plan and Handbook for this DEIS.
The area of Gold Bar Mine will be expanded by 40,000 acres or 62.5 square miles, creating more environmental degradation.
The DEIS is available online at HERE. Interested individuals should address all written comments to Christine Gabriel, Project Manager, using any of the following ways:
Fax: (775) 635-4034
In the middle of June, 2014, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) moved 1,493 wild horses from the Teterville Long Term Holding pastures in Oklahoma to the Beef Belt Feedyard in Scott City, Kansas. Over 13% of these wild horses died at this feedlot.
191 of the wild horses died in less than a year (7/7/14 – 6/30/15).
In a BLM “news” release dated 8/15/14 (over two years ago), the BLM announced that 57 wild horses had died at the BLM’s Scott City, Kansas “corral.” In this news release, the BLM stated that it had “launched an investigation” into the cause of deaths, and promised that “Once the investigation is concluded, the team will complete a report that will be made publicly available.”
To date, over two years later, the BLM has not made any report available to the public about the Scott City feedlot deaths.
Wild Horse Freedom Federation (WHFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and found out that 196 horses died at the Scott City feedlot from 6/17/14 – 8/2/16.
Wild burros are in real trouble. In January of this year, Mojave County Supervisor Steve Moss called for issuing hunting licenses to shoot wild burros in Arizona. His claims were that the burros were overpopulated based on aerial count done by the BLM. But, is this true? Are they overpopulated? We know the numbers are vastly inflated. We know the burros are not genetically healthy due to the fragmentation of their habitat. We know that their ranges are severely over-grazed. But, who is doing the damage? And, what are the guidelines the BLM should be following according to law? Why do BLM employees routinely ignore the grazing guidelines they are supposed to uphold?
Listen tonight and find out.
To contact us: ppj1@hush.com, or call 320-281-0585 More
Brian Steed
Michael D. Nedd
John Ruhs, BLM Nevada State Director
The PPJ Gazette 