You are invited to attend the next hearing March 24, 2 p.m., Sacramento, California
Our lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) continues! We won’t give up, and you’re invited to attend the next hearing in Sacramento. We want the Judges to know that there is a large contingent of people who really care about protecting wild horses and burros. And we need you to balance out the BLM people who will be in the gallery, silently willing the Court to rule in their favor.
When: March 24, 2011, 2 p.m. (Note: you should check the Court’s website listed below on March 23, or check with IDA, to confirm the hearing hasn’t been postponed, which does happen occasionally.)
What: Next hearing in the case of IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS; DREAMCATCHER WILD HORSE AND BURRO SANCTUARY; BARBARA CLARKE; CHAD HANSON; LINDA HAY, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; KEN SALAZAR, Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior; ROBERT ABBEY, Director of the Bureau of Land Management; KEN COLLUM, Field Manager of Eagle Lake Field Office, Defendants.
The Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comments on a plan to round up 1,726 wild horses from the Triple B, Maverick Medicine and Antelope Valley BLM Herd Management Areas and the Cherry Spring Wild Horse Territory, managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The roundup is scheduled for July 2011, in the heat of the desert summer.
They will leave behind as few as 472 wild horses in this vast, 1.7 million-acre public lands complex. Meanwhile, the BLM authorizes nine times that number of privately-held, farmed animals to graze the same area. Click here to submit your comments today!
In Defense of Animals is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your donations. Please join today! All donations to IDA are tax-deductible.
In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031 idainfo@idausa.org
In August, the BLM rounded up the entire herd of 198 wild horses living in the Saylor Creek Herd Management Area in southern Idaho, after a wildfire burned a portion of their home range. Now the agency is taking public comments on a release plan. They propose returning fewer than 40 percent of the horses to the range. Meanwhile, grazing of privately-held animals will be allowed to continue at current levels, with 16 times more forage allocated to farmed animals than wild horses.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proposing a roundup of 294 wild horses in Nevada’s Augusta Mountains Herd Management Area (HMA). Unlike other capture plans, the BLM’s Winnemucca District Office intends to treat mares with PZP fertility control and release all horses captured from within the HMA back to the range.
However, approximately 50 horses living outside of the HMA need your help to stay with their families free on the range. The horses are living in an area that was once designated as wild horse habitat but “zeroed out” for wild horses to accommodate grazing of privately-held farmed animals.
So far this year, the Obama Administration has removed more than 10,000 wild horses from their homes on our public lands and the government isn’t done yet. Despite tens of thousands of Americans and more than 54 members of Congress calling for a halt to the roundups, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar – a fifth generation rancher – continues to push forward with the Administration’s plan to remove thousands of additional horses.
Just this week the Interior Department concluded rounding up and removing nearly half of California’s 4,000 wild horses in the Twin Peaks roundup – removing 1,639 wild horses and 160 burros. In Defense of Animals filed a lawsuit to try to stop this ill-conceived roundup; sadly the U.S. District Court ruled against our injunction to delay or stop the roundup and we are now appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Appellate Court decision is not expected for a number of months. We will keep you informed on this legal effort.
Today we ask for your help to protest two Nevada roundups. Public comments on two upcoming roundups are due this Thursday, September 23, 2010. So please don’t delay – click on the two links below to submit comments. Every public comment is so important – while the Interior Department continues business as usual, it is imperative that we have on the record thousands of Americans protesting these unjust, inhumane and unnecessary roundups that destroy wild horse families and remove them from their homes in the wild only to be warehoused in government holding facilities.
Largest Roundup of Wild Horses in California’s History Underway – Act Today to Oppose Other Planned Roundups
On August 11, 2010, the Interior Department began the largest roundup of wild horses in California’s history. Nearly half of the 4,000 wild horses left in the state will be removed from their homes and families in the next few weeks. This devastating and unnecessary roundup began despite a lawsuit filed by In Defense of Animals (IDA) and others. We have a representative on the ground at the roundup and will provide an update on the IDA blog later this week.
Today we are asking you to take three actions to help wild horses. Congress and the Interior Department must continue to hear from you! Together we can change this broken system if we continue to fight the deeply-entrenched special interests which control the Interior Department’s management of our public lands and the wild horses who live there.
Last week, at least 54 members of Congress wrote to the Interior Department demanding a halt to the wild horse roundups. This important action would not have happened without your voice opposing each of these unnecessary roundups. While the BLM is moving forward with its wild horse roundup schedule, despite overwhelming public and Congressional opposition, we must keep up the pressure.
In October, the BLM plans to remove nearly 1,600 wild horses – 80 percent of the estimated mustang population living in the Adobe Town and Salt Wells Creek Herd Management Areas in the pristine Red Desert region of Wyoming. This is another unnecessary roundup to cater to the private livestock industry, which uses the same lands for cheap grazing. Click here to take action to oppose this roundup.
In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031 idainfo@idausa.org
Last week we asked you to submit comments on the Administration’s proposal for the Wild Horse & Burro Program. The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) had refused to accept public comments via e-mail, so we asked you to print out and mail your comments. We complained to the White House and DOI about this blatant attempt to thwart the public’s ability to submit comments.
The DOI has finally responded and is now extending the public comment period by 30 days (new deadline September 3, 2010) and accepting comments via a new email address. Please click here today to submit comments by e-mail on the DOI proposals for the Wild Horse & Burro Program, then use the tell-a-friend link to invite your friends to do the same.
Obama Administration Asks for Public Comments on Reforming Wild Horse Program and Refuses to Accept Public Comments via Email – Please Mail Your Letter Today! Every Letter Counts!
Despite the Obama Administration’s claims that it wants to encourage greater public participation in government, this Administration is creating obstacles for Americans to submit comments on the Wild Horse & Burro program. The Department of Interior released its “Wild Horse & Burro Strategy Development Document” which outlines the Obama Administration’s direction for the program.
Instead of making it easier for Americans to submit comments, President Obama’s Interior Secretary has actually eliminated the public’s ability to submit comments via the traditional e-mail and fax methods – we are forced to submit comments in one of two ways: (1) U.S. postal service or (2) online using a cumbersome and unreliable software program. We have received numerous complaints that people using this online software have had their comments deleted and lost. In Defense of Animals submitted a complaint to the White House about this blatant contradiction, but the White House has been nonresponsive.
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