A magnificent paint mustang with that distrusting side ways glance typical of a wild animal of any kind.

NOTE:  This post will be updated.

Today, I sent the most recent chapter in the saga of the Mustang herds in Nevada to a fellow blogger, lisaintx. An expert horsewoman and a citizen of Texas, she knows all about this issue. I was anxious to have her feedback.  She tells things as she sees them – straight up. Her blog (lisaintx.wordpress.com) is one of the most powerful and hard-hitting on the internet and based on good research.

I thought that Lisa would be pleased that the horses would be spared a helicopter roundup in the largest herd in the US. Here is the AP article I shipped over to her:

An animal protection group asked a federal judge Wednesday to block a plan to round up about 2,500 wild horses to remove them from a Nevada range.

The mustang roundup planned for Dec. 28 would be one of the largest in Nevada in recent years. Federal officials plan to use helicopters to force the horses into holding pens before placing them for adoption or sending them to long-term holding corrals in the Midwest.

Mustang advocates say use of the helicopters is inhumane because some of the animals are traumatized, injured or killed.

The roundup is part of the Bureau of Land Management’s overall strategy to remove thousands of mustangs from public lands across the West to protect wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them. The bureau estimates about half of the nearly 37,000 wild mustangs live in Nevada, with others concentrated in Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

Another 32,000 horses and burros are cared for in corrals and pastures in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

A lawyer for In Defense of Animals, a California-based group that advocates on behalf of animal protection, called the roundup plan illegal.

“The BLM’s policy of mass removal and stockpiling of horses was never authorized by Congress when it protected these iconic animals in 1971 as an important part of our national heritage,” said William Spriggs, a Washington lawyer who argued against the roundup plan in court Wednesday.

In Defense of Animals and wildlife biologist Craig Downer sued the BLM last month to block the Nevada roundup. Terri Farley, a Nevada author whose books about wild horses target young readers, joined the lawsuit Monday.

Erik Petersen, a Justice Department lawyer who represents the BLM, said the roundup is needed because more than 3,100 horses and burros crowd the Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada — about five times as many horses as the land can handle.

The 1971 law requires removal of excess horses to ensure they are treated humanely, Petersen said. Removing the animals also will help preserve the “endangered and rapidly disappearing” rangeland where they live, Petersen said.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the mustang roundups in October as part of a new management plan he said would avoid the need to kill any wild horses. Interior Department officials had warned last year that slaughtering some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control might be necessary to combat rising costs of maintaining them.

Salazar said the current program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment or taxpayers.

The BLM’s wild horse program cost about $50 million this year and is expected to rise to at least $85 million by 2012 if the program is not changed, officials said.

Spriggs, the lawyer for In Defense of Animals, said the BLM has only itself to blame for the high costs. At least two-thirds of the costs for wild horses are for long-term storage facilities in the Midwest that he said were nothing more than warehouses.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said he would rule on the case before Christmas.

Lisa’s response was at once a surprise and an education:

The problem is FEW folks can afford to adopt now as the market is flooded with unwanted horses that have NO where to go. Many people are unemployed, struggling under high grain prices caused by bio-fuel stupidity, higher taxes on everything else, now we may be charged for our livestock “Carbon Emissions” aka farts, then the USDA plans to convert some of our pastureland to plant trees or more bio-crops, government is also talking about controlling private water rights, and let us not forget NAIS “national animal identification system”, OR the amount of money owed to China and like countries on our National Debt.

IMO, that money has to be secured by Land and Property—we just have not heard the details yet!

The greater kindness would be to round those precious animals up and just shoot them where they stand—of course that would make the BLM out to be the BAD guys, who IMO, have mis-managed the funds given them and most do not truly care about the welfare of the animals they are paid to care for.
Nope, many of those beautiful animals will wind up in Mexico to be butchered inhumanely because the Radical extremist in the USA, have shut down our own plants. They would rather see the animals suffer and then take owners, who no longer have the option of the slaughterhouses , and can no longer afford to feed them due to the economic downturn, the rising cost of grain from converting it to Bio-fuel, and who also can not afford to pay to have them put down and buried, to court for “Inhumane treatment”, etc….seems they really score more ‘donations’ with those big headlines!
Note: These are some of the same activist that screamed and ranted, until they shut down the slaughterhouses in the USA. Now horse owners are VERY limited to what they can and can not do with their own livestock. The government is attempting now to track sold animals that make their way down to Mexico or up to Canada,  and are planning to hold the SELLERS responsible for the horses taken there for slaughter after they have sold them to another person!

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE HORSES! I’m not an advocate for horse slaughter, but I’m realistic and understand the need for such a plant.

From my research, I have found that in several cases, the BLM has USED the Conservation Management as a shadow to take away private property. Now, like the Human Society, PETA, Planned Parenthood, etc type groups, they are slowly revealing, you can call it “Transparently” exposing the REAL cause behind their agendas. IMO… it has little to nothing to do with saving or conserving the environment, animals, or over-population and unwanted babies..

This is a really sore subject for me….sorry to rant, but damn, it still makes me ILL!!
I’ve watched a video of a horse being stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife in Mexico—I shall NEVER forget it as long as I live. I MADE myself watch the whole thing, so I would never forget the absolute rage over those radical animal haters, shutting down our own HUMANE plants.

Now the average journalist today is not going to go out to see what a real rancher and horse breeder would think so I’ve gone out and captured Lisa for you.  In spirit, she is a lot like those magnificent, independent and oft-time feisty animals she loves. That is to say, she’s pure Texan – a vanishing breed as well.

NOTE: Please visit the comments portion of the post where Lisa has added some spectacular videos relating to this subject.

Competitor in a mustang training program

UPDATE:  December 23, 2009

Judge in Nevada Authorizes Mustang Roundup

By MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration said Wednesday it is going forward with a contentious plan to round up about 2,500 wild horses in Nevada.

A spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said herds in the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada are overpopulated and need to be reduced to protect the horses and the rangelands that support them.

“The current population in the five Calico herd management areas is three times what the range can handle, so this gather will ensure high-quality habitat for the wild horse and burros and other wildlife while protecting the public rangeland from overuse,” said spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff.

She called the dispute over the roundup “yet another clarion call to develop and implement a long-term solution to the challenges we face concerning wild horses and burros on our public lands.”

The Interior Department announcement came after a federal judge on Wednesday denied a request to block the roundup, saying opponents had failed to demonstrate that removal of the horses would violate federal law.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said the agency is obligated under a 1971 law to carefully manage wild horse herds to prevent overpopulation.

The mustang roundup planned for Monday would be one of the largest in Nevada in recent years. Officials plan to use helicopters to force the horses into holding pens before placing them for adoption or sending them to long-term holding corrals in the Midwest. [see remainder of article at My Way News]

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