Legislation that would permanently end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption has reappeared in Congress, according to a press release in PR Newswire dated 06/27/19.  Sponsors of the bill are liberals, every one of them received a failing grade from Conservative Review.

• Bob Menendez, D-NJ, F (6%)
• Lindsey Graham, R-SC, F (31%)
• Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, F (4%)
• Susan Collins, R-ME, F (2%)

Many of their big-name supporters are the same jackals who signed on to the Wild Horse Management Plan announced 04/22/19: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Humane Society of the United States, and Return to Freedom Wild Horse Conservation.

You see, horse slaughter might undermine their sanctuary and fertility control ventures.

It’s okay to force wild horses off public lands so their food can be sold to privately owned livestock, just don’t ship them to slaughter for human consumption.

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of her passing.

The wild horse preservation movement started in this area nearly 70 years ago.

In her first encounter with the horse runners in 1950, Velma Johnston followed a livestock truck into a stockyard in Sparks, NV.  The vehicle contained mangled horses that were forced off their home range, destined for slaughter.

A colt on the floor, trampled.  A stallion with eyes gouged out to subdue him.  Other mustangs with portions of their hooves torn off and hides shredded by buckshot.

When she asked the driver where they came from, he pointed to the hills of the Comstock Lode, the Virginia Range.  (Source: Page 43 in Wild Horse Annie — The Last of the Mustangs, hardcover edition.)

This is the history of cattle ranching in the American west and the basis of the Wild Horse and Burro Act.

The sign at 0:07 says No Dumping but the horses ignore it.

Refer to this guest column, posted today by Deseret News of Salt Lake City.

RELATED: The Big-Name Advocacy Groups Have Lost Their Way.

The spending authorization for the Bureau of Land Management in FY 2020 includes $6 million for a pilot program to remove most of the wild horses from two or three HMAs and administer fertility control to the remaining bands.

It’s the first phase of the wild horse eradication plan pushed by range-fed beef producers and operators of private sanctuaries.  See page 2 in HR 3052.  The program is explained on page 11 of the report that accompanies the bill.

Note the prohibition against returning horses to the range.  This is the handiwork of the public-lands ranchers and their political allies.

The House subcommittee that drafted the legislation has eleven members, presented here along with their grades from Conservative Review.

• Betty McCollum, Chair, D-MN, F (16%)
• Chellie Pingree, D-ME, F (19%)
• Derek Kilmer, D-WA, F (10%)
• José Serrano, D-NY, F (20%)
• Mike Quigley, D-IL, F (12%)
• Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-NJ, F (17%)
• Brenda Lawrence, D-MI, F (17%)
• David Joyce, Ranking Member, R-OH, F (34%)
• Mike Simpson, R-ID, F (31%)
• Chris Stewart, R-UT, F (58%)
• Mark Amodei, R-NV, F (40%)

They all received a failing grade because they’re all liberals.

Could it be that public-lands ranching is an enterprise of the Left, a darling of the Democrat Party?  Sure looks like it.

RELATED: CANA Foundation Throws in with Public-Lands Ranchers.

Refer to this letter in the Desert Independent, posted 06/15/19.  It’s just one example.

Whenever you see a plea for ‘on-range management’ of wild horses (sometimes posited as ‘humane management’), run.

These organizations offer no meaningful resistance to the ranching juggernaut.

Instead, they argue about methods and timing: The range-fed beef producers want the horses gone now, by any means necessary, while the so-called advocates want their numbers to decline gradually, through application of contraceptives.

Consider the situation at Twin Peaks HMA, where the horses get the short end of the AUM stick.  Why aren’t they pushing back against the public-lands ranchers?

Might be a good idea to check their donor list before giving them money.

Adoption event last month at Pauls Valley Off-Range Corral in southern Oklahoma.

Remarks by the woman beginning at 5:11 are false.  The land can support way more than 26,000 horses and burros.  Herd sizes do not double every three years.  BLM forces these animals off their home range (public lands in Western U.S.) so their food can be sold to privately owned cattle and sheep.

Thanks to Camille’s Mustangs for getting this on film.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?

Horse owners don’t have enough options for disposing of animals that aren’t wanted because they’re sick, old, unmanageable or fail to meet expectations, according to a ‘guest column‘ that appeared yesterday in Beef magazine.

Land managers can’t use it as a means of population control for wild horses.

And it’s a damn shame because it’s in the best interest of the animals to be killed, you see.

Just like abortion.  Saves hundreds of thousands of kids from lives of poverty and crime every year.

Legalizing slaughter would alleviate the pain and suffering of horses driven from their home range so their food can be sold to public-lands ranchers.  You know, families torn apart, pregnant mares dropping colts in feedlots and all that.  So unnecessary.

With today’s technology, the process could become highly efficient, opening the door to mass removals from western rangelands, putting an end once and for all to the ‘wild horse problem.’

Call it the Final Solution.

Lawmakers from Montana should endorse the ‘creative’ wild horse management plan announced on 04/22/19, according to an op-ed that appeared today in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.  It’s the only way to stop the endless cycle of roundups.

The alternative, according to the writer, is the use of lethal tools, such as slaughter and mass killings, to manage wild horse and burro populations.

Although she criticizes current management practices, she does not ask why the roundups occur (as if wild horse overpopulation is an established fact, self-evident).

You can’t solve a problem by treating the symptoms, you to have to remove the causes.

The management plan focuses the symptoms (‘excess’ horses displaced from their home range) but ignores the causes (too many privately owned livestock grazing on public lands set aside for the horses).

In 1971 Velma Johnston won protections for wild horses but not for their land.

It’s time to end public-lands ranching, along with the bureaucracy that supports it.

A statement by the Forest Service dated 05/02/19, which coincides with the date that a photographer saw a man shooting at the horses, says “Rumors about possible suspects, gossip about motives, and general misinformation quickly spread throughout social media.”  Are they trying to downplay the incident?

Let’s look at facts:

1. The Heber WHT is composed of, and surrounded by, grazing allotments.
2. Ranchers benefit from reductions in wild horse numbers.
3. Ranchers have a well-established history of taking wild horses off the range.

That they have a motive for killing wild horses is not an accusation, it’s a reasoned conclusion.

RELATED: Group Criticizes Forest Service for Response to Heber Shootings.

It’s a reunion of miscreants and malcontents in the wild horse world, many of them signatories to—or cheerleaders of—the wild horse management plan announced on 04/22/19: public-lands ranchers, beef producers and their allies in government.

How many advocacy groups were invited?  You know, the ones who actually care about the horses?

Probably none.  (Many of them are fraudulent anyway, preferring to see wild horse numbers decline through application of contraceptives.)

So of course you’ll hear the conference billed as a success, a win-win, with so much common ground, when in reality it’s a cesspit of greed and deceit sponsored by the cattlemen and their overlords.

How many wild horses have been hunted down and killed by oil companies?

How many wild horses have been shipped to slaughter by mining companies?

How many wild horse herds have been wiped out by timber companies?

None.

But the ranchers have done all of these things and more, with the blessing of your precious government.

Actually he’s the ‘No Horse Guy’ from Utah, which he’s made clear in recent weeks by his comments and letters.  Refer to this story dated 05/23/19 by the Imperial Valley News of Imperial, CA.

The problem, of course, is too many privately owned cattle and sheep robbing forage from wild horses on public lands in the western U.S.

The solution, according to the story, is to slow or reverse wild horse population growth with contraceptives.

These people are nuts!  Whose side are they on?

There is no wild horse population crisis.  Western rangelands can support way more than 27,000 horses and burros, the figure tossed out repeatedly by the ranchers and their allies at the BLM.

But you’ll never hear that as long as the rent-seekers are in charge of the federal government.

RELATED: Republican Senators Push for WHB Euthanasia, Another Reader Blasts Stewart and Lee’s Letter, Wild Horse Overpopulation?

Eighty lives denied in one month, according to a guest column that appeared yesterday in the Reno Gazette-Journal, a statistic that should please any wild horse hater.

The population density on the Virginia Range is at least ten times higher than what the BLM says land in the Western U.S. can support—evidence that strongly contradicts the anti-horse agenda—and these nutjobs are out there destroying it.

Yep, it’s a win-win for everyone involved, except the horses and those fighting to preserve them.

RELATED: NDA Allows PZP Zealots Back On Virginia Range.

Refer to this letter by a reader of the St. George News, in response to the letter written by Rep. Chris Stewart and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.  The conversions from AUMs to cattle and sheep are not correct but it’s worth the read.

RELATED: Stewart and Lee: Pleaders for the Public-Lands Ranchers.

UPDATE: The AUM conversions would be correct if the cattle and sheep were on the range for one month per year, but six months might be a better estimate.  If that’s true, a cow/calf pair would consume six AUMs annually and the total available AUMs should be divided by six to obtain the number of animals.  Horse and burros are on the range year around and therefore the total available AUMs should be divided by 12 to obtain the equivalent number of animals.  For example, 1.5 million AUMs would support 250,000 cow/calf pairs or 125,000 wild horses.

When will a Congressman come out against America’s wild horses on behalf of the oil and mining companies?

The recent letter by Rep. Chris Stewart and Sen. Mike Lee defending the public-lands ranchers must have been a decoy.  Everybody knows that the greatest threat to wild horses and burros is the mineral extraction industry.

A letter to the St. George News of St. George, UT, published yesterday, says “ranchers are being bankrupted by the cost of hay to replace lost forage for their livestock, and the number of starving and diseased wild horses is rising substantially,” because of a wild horse “population boom.”

It was written by Rep. Chris Stewart and Sen. Mike Lee (both R-UT).

Public-lands ranching is government dependency.

Benefits are not transferred directly.  Rather, they inure through the program itself.

Ranchers don’t own the land (except for the base properties).  Therefore, they pay no property taxes.

The grazing fee, $1.35 per cow/calf pair per month, is so low it can’t even be approached in the private sector.  The government pays about $60 per month to feed a wild horse in long-term holding, removed from its home range at the behest of the ranchers.

Some of those funds are plowed back into the program, to improve rangeland conditions for the ranchers.

If the number of wild horses in an area exceeds the amount the ranchers are willing to tolerate, typically one animal per thousand acres, the government removes them, at no cost to the ranchers.

In exchange, government bureaucrats tell the ranchers what to do and when to do it.

American taxpayers are footing the bill for this.  It’s a racket, a gravy train, a good ol’ boys network.

The authors noted that the Wild Horse and Burro Act was designed to “protect wild mustangs” but did not say from whom: Livestock ranchers, who nearly eradicated them in the middle of the last century.

Nothing has changed since it was signed into law.  The ranchers still despise these animals, because they rob forage from their cattle and sheep—on lands set aside for horses and burros.

It’s absolutely absurd, but we’re supposed to take these men seriously, you know, because they’re in Congress.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?, Republican Senators Push for WHB Euthanasia, Don’t Buy Range-Fed Beef.

Refer to this story, published yesterday by Yahoo Finance.

The problem is public-lands ranching, yet these so-called advocates agree in principle with their opponents, differing only in methodology.

Why aren’t they challenging the constitutionality of FLPMA, which gave the federal government control over vast amounts of western rangelands and preferential treatment to the ranchers?

Why aren’t they pushing for an increase in grazing fees to $60 per AUM, in line with the cost of feeding wild horses in long-term pastures?

Why aren’t they demanding labels on beef, so consumers would know if the item was produced at the expense of America’s wild horses and burros?

RELATED: Co-Signers of WHB Management Plan Try to Save Face.

Refer to this opinion piece posted today in The Hill.  They’re trying to justify a massive tactical error.  Shills for the public-lands ranchers, every one of them.

RELATED: IDA Rejects Proposed Wild Horse Management Plan.

In Defense of Animals, an animal protection group based in San Rafael, CA, released a statement yesterday condemning the wild horse management plan pushed by beef producers and cheerleader groups for the public-lands ranchers.

The proposal would reduce wild horse and burro populations on public lands in the western U.S. by 70%.

Not one wild horse advocate with significant knowledge of the wild horse on-range management issues was asked for input on the proposal, according to the statement.

RELATED: More Criticism of Proposed Wild Horse Management Plan?

A story posted yesterday by The Daily Caller said Utah Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee sent a letter dated May 3 to the Senate Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies urging the removal of a rider that prohibits euthanasia and slaughter of wild horses and burros gathered from public lands in the western U.S.

The rider has been attached to appropriations bills for the Department of the Interior since 2011.

These animals are “devastating the land, negatively impacting other species living in the area and prohibiting an effective multiple-use management of the land,” according to the letter.

What are the odds that it was drafted by one or more special interest groups or was influenced by such groups?  That the senators don’t have a clue about issues affecting western rangelands?

The story did not indicate what the other species were, but the reference in the letter to multiple use almost certainly means privately owned cattle and sheep.

RELATED: Wild Horse Overpopulation?