Lately, there seems to be a lot of attention being paid to the American Mustangs that roam our western plains. A lot of the attention is criticism, and it is directed towards the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and their use of helicopters to roundup and cull the herds. They have actually been “vilified” by politicians and the media in some cases, showing videos documenting the frenzy of the aerial practice that left one foal injured with a broken leg, which had to be euthanized. I must say it was an emotional video and helped seal their deal, in my opinion.
As president of the Georgia Horse Council, I am on an extended distribution list of the American Horse Council and every state horse council across our country. We are always encouraged to collaborate with each other on programs and events. I had received an email from one of them asking that we push a bill to stop the cruel Mustang roundups by helicopter. Representative Dina Titus of Nevada is sponsoring the Titus bill that would ban helicopters in wild horse roundups.
Instead, lawmakers want the BLM to replace helicopters with real-life wranglers and spend more funds on fertility vaccines to manage wild herd population growth. The director of the American Wild Horse Campaign has called an end to planned roundups in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and other states.
This sounds like a very drastic change in the way that things are currently being done and I am curious as to the actual plan to back this up.
I spent many years in the corporate world and that is where I learned that you never implement a change without first doing an impact statement and it was on the list of required documents. One of the things that I noticed after many years of interacting with a government entity and most non-profits is that they never do an impact statement. Unfortunately, politics seems to be involved in decision making these days, not common sense. I went online in an attempt to find an impact statement backing the Titus bill but was unable to find one.
The roundups are a tool to remove excess horses and burros to protect public lands from overgrazing and the animals from starvation, according to the BLM website. I learned that it takes nearly 20 acres of land to feed one mustang for one month. In some areas where rainfall and grass are limited, it takes 50 acres or more. Another fact that can’t be ignored is that one of the Horse Management Areas (HMA) located in Antelope Valley is currently 510% overpopulated. There are photos of horse carcasses surrounding a dried-up water source, just to hammer home the fact that available water is the most limiting factor for most mustang herds.
One of the things that we learned recently from Ann Soulder, our guest speaker at the GERL annual meeting, was some positive points about using the helicopters in the roundups. They have discovered that after they are herded into the holding pens there are less injuries to the horses and less fighting among the horses simply because they are too tired. They are also easier and safer to handle.
I don’t want to get political, but I do want to encourage everyone to do some research before you decide on how you will vote on issues concerning our horses We have already seen what can happen when “good intentions”, backed by emotions, implements a change with huge negative consequences. Such is the case with the closing of US slaughterhouses in 2007 that made everyone think that the bill would actually do away with slaughter. It did not and it left US horses in a much worse position. And, let me say this about that, just ask for their impact statement and you will see that they played on of our emotions, not the facts.