Let’s start with a keystone. As any administrative law professor will tell you, one basic function of an administrative agency is to generate and disseminate accurate and credible and comprehensive evidence through a rigorous fact-finding process. Designed to be speedier than the judicial process and less cumbersome than federal legislation, federal administrative agencies are supposed to help us make sense of dense, technical, often-scientific information — like why a drilling moratorium is necessary in the Gulf — in a way that then justifies the power and authority granted to the agency and reassures the rest of us, so much as possible, of a fair deal.

Yet when the Interior Department tried last month to justify in court its six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf, the federal judge who heard the case was flabbergasted at the lack of quality, professionalism and integrity in the work of the Minerals Management Service team within Interior. That’s the same division, not coincidentally, from which the department’s 2008 scandal emerged. Evidently these people aren’t very good at what they do even when they aren’t watching porn at work all day.

Among other harsh criticisms of the government’s drill-ban evidence, U.S. District Judge Martin L.C. Feldman noted a disturbing lack of candor in it: “Indeed,” he wrote, “while the government makes light of the fact that several of the experts disagree with the recommendations in the Report by noting that they do not disagree with the findings, of greater concern is the misleading text in the Executive Summary that seems to assert that all the experts agree with the Secretary’s recommendation. The government’s hair-splitting explanation abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue.” And that’s when the judge was being nice.

Much was subsequently made of the fact that Judge Feldman had some oil-related investments when he issued his order denying reinstatement of the drilling ban. Evidently, the judge has now sold those stocks, but he could have increased his shares in and it still wouldn’t have mattered. In fact, Feldman could have channeled Tony Hayward or Philippe Cousteau, but the MMS “report” about the drilling ban still would deserve an F. No perceived conflict of interest on the part of any judge could rescue or excuse such a shoddy work product by an administrative agency. Any judge would have seen it the way Feldman did — and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals promptly affirmed the order, causing MMS officials to go back and try to make right what it should have gotten right in the first place.

The fish, fowl and economic kill in the Gulf would be bad enough if Interior’s credibility problems were merely limited to the MMS. But on Friday, far from the ocean, another Interior Department division, the Bureau of Land Management, hastily forced the roundup of 1,200 or so wild horses, including vulnerable newborn foals, in circumstances that cry out for further explanation and review. As reported locally, the BLM says the Nevada roundup was necessary because “the current wild horse population in these [public lands] is more than three times what the range can sustain. We need to gather and remove the excess wild horses to achieve a thriving natural ecological balance on the land and address the horse populations that have moved outside the [public] boundaries.”

Others are not so sure. Horse advocate Laura Leigh notes that there is plenty of room — 480,000 acres, give or take a few — for the horses. She contends that the BLM is forcing the issue now (instead of waiting until the new foals are assured of being strong enough to be herded via helicopter) because two private developments are slated for the area. One is at the Arturo Mine project, where Interior is undertaking an environmental impact study on behalf of Barrick Gold Exploration, a company that wants to expand open-pit mining to thousands of acres of public and private land. The other industry-fueled development that some say prompted the deadly mustang roundup is the Ruby Pipeline project, which for a while became so controversial that the BLM was forced to explain itself to the media.

It may have to explain itself again. An animal rights group has appealed the timing of the BLM’s roundup to the Interior Board of Land Appeals. The grievance in the case, oddly enough, isn’t the sanctity of the animals or the rapacious development of pristine lands for private gain. It’s the far more modest charge that the BLM has violated its own, longstanding and widely accepted rules about “foaling seasons”– no roundups from mid-January to mid-August to save baby horses. Even if the BLM justification for giving the horses the bum’s rush is twice as strong as was the MMS justification for the drilling ban in the Gulf, it still won’t be strong enough to justify the agency’s departure from the rules protecting foals. Should the sins and omissions of the MMS be impugned to the BLM? Why not? They both answer to the beleaguered secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, don’t they?

Nevada is a long way from the sea. But forgive me for worrying that the same guys who promised me safety in the Gulf are now promising me safety for our nation’s wild horses — or that an agency exposed as besotted with industry influence toward Gulf drilling issues is suddenly going to develop a backbone to stand up to corporate interests in the desert. It’s too late for the Gulf. The damage from a lack of regulatory oversight at Interior is all but done there. I just hope it’s not too late for northeastern Nevada, too.

Andrew Cohen
Legal Analyst
Posted: 07/12/10

Read the entire article, here.

1922 horses were gathered off the Calico Range last winter under quite a bit of controversy. But the story didn’t end there, as a matter of fact, the BLM wanted to show off its brand new facility in Fallon where these horses no reside.

Its called the Indian Lakes Facility privately owned and operated the B-L-M has contracted it as a short term-holding facility.
Click here to find out more!

The 320 acre facility helps doctor horses as they are pushed through a chute to get their vaccinations, blood tests and deworming.

“Eliminate any injuries that they could possibly do. The chute area has rounded corners in it, to initiate good flow of animals. So they don’t get stuck in areas where they can get scared and injuries do happen,” says John Neill with Indian Lakes.

The veterinarian here along with the facility manager and wrangler administer shots, blood tests, deworming and finally a freeze brand on the necks of the horses which help identify them individually–and then, let them go.

Each of the pens holds about 100 horses safely. The mares and babies are separated from the other horses. Mares and geldings are put in separate pens as well. The horses’ ages are also documented. That’s because most won’t stay here. Many older horses will go to other holding facilities in the midwest or east. Other horses will go to adoption facilities in Colorado and Texas.

Deniz Bolbol from “In Defense of Animals” was in her car for nearly two hours waiting for us to exit the facility. She along with others in her group says facilities like these are too expensive to maintain. In her opinion the B-L-M needs to scrap its current methods of maintaining wild herds and start over. Bolbol wanted to make sure we weren’t swayed by what she calls the P.R. spin.

“Range Improvement, fertility control, there are a whole host of options for the BLM. Sadly they ignore all of them and really just fall back on this roundup and removal,” says Bolbol

But these horses are off the range and the next step is to get as many of them as successfully adopted as possible.

The B-L-M says two to four years olds are the most desirable age when it comes to adoptions. And the adoption of some of these horses from the Calico Complex will take place late this spring at Palomino Valley.

If you would like to tour the Indian Lakes facility to get updates on the horses there, you can contact the BLM by going to: www.blm.gov/nv/.

Read the entire article here.

Posted: 10:24 PM Mar 9, 2010
Reporter: Terri Russell

Dr. Elliot Katz, graduate of Cornell Veterinary School, founded In Defense of Animals (IDA) in 1983. “In Defense of Animals’ objectives are to stop the round ups, keep the horses on their home range, end the senseless killing of all equines and do all in our power to return the rounded-up horses to the home range where they truly belong.” – Dr Elliot Katz. Over the past 25 years, under Dr. Katz’s leadership, IDA has been at the forefront of the struggle for animal protection and rights, and has won many precedent-setting victories for the animals. Some of these accomplishments include Closing the infamous Coulston Foundation, once the largest chimpanzee research center in the world, saving hundreds of chimpanzees and monkeys from the horrors of vivisection; spearheading the rescue of hundreds of dogs and cats after a devastating “firestorm” swept through the Oakland/Berkeley hills, destroying more than 3,500 homes; preventing the US Army from breaking the legs of 120 retired racing greyhounds; Freeing 180 beagles scheduled to be dissected by UC Davis veterinary students; saving the lives of hundreds of Catalina Island buffalo scheduled to be sent to auction and arranging and paying for their transfer to a South Dakota Reservation; and ending NYU’s crack cocaine experiments on monkeys, Rockefeller University’s vomiting experiments on cats, and Michael Beren¹s brain cancer experiments on Beagle puppies.

Read the entire press release, and ways you can help here.

Las Vegas -- Federal land managers said Monday they'll delay a roundup of most of the nearly 600 wild horses in a range in eastern Nevada, at least until after the herd's spring foaling season.

Advocates fighting to stop mustang roundups in the West said they think their threat to file a lawsuit stopped the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from beginning a roundup next week of almost 500 wild horses in the Eagle Herd Management Area.

“We’re pleased that the BLM has postponed another ill-conceived, illegal and inhumane wild horse roundup,” said William Spriggs, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer for In Defense of Animals based in San Rafael, Calif.

Spriggs said by telephone that he’s seeking a moratorium on roundups until Congress reviews whether the government should continue removing horses from the range.

But Chris Hanefeld, spokesman for the BLM office in Ely, wouldn’t link Spriggs’ threat to sue in Washington with the bureau decision in Nevada to postpone the Eagle herd area gather. It had been scheduled to begin Feb. 14.

“We’re responding to the many comments we’ve received,” Hanefeld said, citing some 9,000 public comments submitted after the BLM announced that it planned to collect more than 80 percent of the animals in the Eagle herd area.

“We determined it was prudent to defer it to wait until after foaling season,” he said.

Spriggs maintains that the BLM roundups traumatize, injure and kill mustangs and violate a 1971 law enacted by Congress to protect the horses.

Bureau officials say the roundups are necessary to reduce an overpopulation of horses that harms native wildlife and the range, and threatens the herds with starvation.

Ruth Thompson, BLM wild horse and burro specialist in Ely, said officials believe the Eagle herd range from east of Panaca to the Utah state line can sustain about 100 to 210 wild horses.

The bureau last week finished rounding up more than 1,900 of about 2,500 horses from a larger Calico Mountains complex north of Reno. Officials are preparing the captured animals for adoption or transfer to pastures in the Midwest.

Hanefeld said BLM officials are considering what to do about some 50 horses that have moved outside the Eagle and nearby Silver King herd management areas in eastern Nevada and are said to threaten the safety of motorists on U.S. 93 near Pioche.

He said no horse roundups would be conducted without public notice.

ELY - The BLM announced today they would defer the wild horse gather scheduled for mid-February at the Eagle Herd Management Area in Lincoln County.  The gather would have removed approximately 500 horses from the range – including 50 that had wandered off the range and were causing traffic hazards on the highway near Pioche, the BLM said.

“The BLM has determined there is not adequate time to safely conduct the proposed Eagle Herd Management Area (HMA) gather prior to the beginning of foaling season, and therefore will defer issuing a decision on the proposed gather until later this year after the foaling season,” said Chris Hanefeld, public affairs specialist with the Ely BLM District Office.

The gather is the subject of a potential lawsuit from In Defense of Animals, a San Francisco-based animal advocacy organization.  IDA filed notice with the Department of Justice stating their intention to sue to prevent another wild horse gather in Nevada.  The announcement was made in a press release issued last week by the IDA.

A similar effort before a recent wild horse gather in Humboldt County was unsuccessful. However, in attempting to block another wild horse gather, the IDA cited deaths and injuries that occurred to wild horses during the recent roundup in Humboldt County at the Calico HMA.

According to the BLM, seven horses died at the Calico HMA gather site and 32 died at the holding facility in Fallon following the gather.

“Most of the deaths were horses that were in extremely poor body condition because of lack of forage on overpopulated rangelands.  These animals either died or were euthanized by the veterinarian on-site at the Fallon facility,” a BLM press release noted

IDA is being represented in court by William Spriggs, of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

Although Spriggs did not succeed in preventing the proposed gather in Humboldt County, there was a victory of sorts when Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled in December the BLM probably did not have the authority under the WHBA (Wild Horse and Burro Act) to hold horses in long-term facilities.  He ruled the BLM does have the authority to gather and euthanize to prevent overpopulation, but Congress has long refused to fund wild horse euthanization.

Additional Information

From the Bureau of Land Management:

BLM defers proposed HMA gather

BLM seeks public comments on Eagle HMA wild horse gather preliminary EA

BLM concludes wild horse gather

From SPJ:

Wild horse gather goes forward – future of long-term holding facilities uncertain

Commissioners suggest different kind of tour for Sheryl Crow

BLM moves forward with wild horse roundup

Read the original article here.

Friday, January 29, 2010

(01-29) 16:17 PST Reno, Nev. (AP) –

Wild-horse advocates criticized federal land managers after the number of mustang deaths so far in a government roundup on the range north of Reno nearly tripled from a week ago, going from nine to 26.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Friday reported four more deaths stemming from its roundup in the Calico Mountain Complex.

Agency spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said three horses have died at the roundup site and 23 have died at a Fallon holding facility where the horses have been taken since the two-month roundup began Dec. 28.

Another 25 horses are recovering at the facility 60 miles east of Reno after being treated for various injuries and health issues, she said.

Activists said the BLM’s roundup methods are “brutal” and violate the intent of a 1971 law Congress enacted to protect the horses.

“America’s wild horses are protected by federal law as important parts of our national heritage, but they are being brutalized and destroyed by the BLM’s policy of massive roundups,” said William Spriggs, an attorney who represents California-based In Defense of Animals in a lawsuit against the Interior Department over the roundup.

Read the entire article here.

photo credit: Billings Gazette

DAVID GRUBBS/Gazette Staff
Stallions playfully fight, a precursor to more dangerous battles for mares as stallions seek to start their own band and breed. Until then, the males wander in small bachelor groups.

The construction of water sources for wild horses in the Pryor Mountains could begin as early as this spring after a federal judge denied an appeal of the plan guiding management of the horses.

The ruling, issued by the Interior Board of Land Appeals late last week, clears the way for the Bureau of Land Management to implement its 2009 horse management plan for the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. Until the appeal was overturned, the BLM was required to work under its old management plan, written in 1984 and revised in 1989.

“We think this allows things to move in a good direction,” said Matt Dillon of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Center, a nonprofit group in Lovell, Wyo. “We were always very supportive of the (plan).”

Dillon said that with the construction of the “guzzlers,” which capture rainwater, the wild horses will spread out across the 38,000-acre range, lessening damage to wetter areas atop the mountains and possibly allowing more horses to remain on the range.

Dillon said there are now 156 horses on the range, 21 of them less than a year old.

Still fighting

The horse range, about 50 miles south of Billings, has received worldwide exposure through films made by Ginger Kathrens. Kathrens established The Cloud Foundation to help protect and advocate for the herd as well as other wild mustangs.

Kathrens, The Cloud Foundation and Front Range Equine Rescue had appealed the BLM’s horse management plan, as well as last fall’s roundup and auction of some of the Pryor horses. The groups still have a federal suit against the roundup pending; if they win, the BLM would be required to return the captured horses to the range.

Despite the setback, Kathrens said she and other wild-horse advocates are devoted to pursuing improvement of the BLM’s wild-horse program in the Pryors and across the West.

“We’re very committed to making sure the Pryor herd is self-sustaining into the future,” Kathrens said. “We’re hopeful that the public’s wishes will be carried out.”

Hard labor

The nine water guzzlers, most of them in wilderness study areas, will have to be constructed by hand. The BLM’s work will be aided by the Montana Conservation Corps and volunteers from the wild-horse center.

“As soon as it’s logistically possible to install those things, we’re ready to go,” Dillon said. “The sooner they’re in, the sooner the horses will start using the range more uniformly.”

Other work that can continue under the new horse management plan is the repair of a fence along the border of the horse range on Custer National Forest property. The BLM also advocated prescriptive fires, but those would require further study before being implemented, said Jim Sparks, BLM’s Billings Field Office supervisor. The wild horses would also be managed for a population of 120 horses for five years, not including the current year’s foal crop.

In its plan released in May, the agency also called for removing an average of 30 horses a year at a cost of $18,000 to $21,000. The herd would also be managed for an even ratio of males to females to a slightly higher ratio of males, 60 percent, to reduce the need to remove animals.

The 2009 plan is also designed to preserve the horses’ Spanish characteristics, rare colors and bloodlines. The old plan managed for size and conformance.

National attention

In recent months, wild-horse advocates have been successful in raising the BLM’s wild-horse management plans and wild-horse roundups and removals to national prominence with the backing of celebrities including singer Sheryl Crow and actor Viggo Mortensen.

“There have been protests from New York to California,” Kathrens said. “Over 190 organizations are asking for a moratorium on roundups.”

Although Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has moved to create new holding areas for horses that are rounded up and not adopted, the federal government still ends up corralling an estimated 33,000 horses at taxpayer expense.

“The program is clearly broken,” Kathrens said. “It’s a fiscal train wreck for the taxpayers.”

Contact Brett French at french@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1387.

RENO, Nev.—Wild-horse advocates are calling for an independent investigation after the deaths of nine mustangs so far in a government roundup of the animals on the range north of Reno.

San Rafael, Calif.-based In Defense of Animals and Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Cloud Foundation criticized the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s handling of the roundup after two more deaths this past week.

A contractor is using two helicopters under BLM supervision to drive horses in the Calico Mountain Complex to corrals. The horses are then being trucked to a Fallon facility.

Horse activists maintain a colt was run so hard and long during the roundup that the hoof walls of its two hind feet came off. The colt was euthanized Thursday.

BLM officials disputed the groups’ accounts of the latest deaths.

Read the entire article, here.

Congress protected the wild horses as living symbols of freedom and important parts of our national heritage, but for nearly 40 years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has ignored this mandate.

The agency has mismanaged our public lands to cater to livestock and other commercial industries that use public lands for profit. The horses and the American public come out on the short end of this deal.

Each year, ranchers graze livestock on public lands for rock bottom rates, paying $1.35 per month per animal instead of the private-land rate of more than $13 per month per animal. The taxpayers further subsidize private ranchers through government programs that kill predators and remove wild horses and burros.

Sadly, President Obama sided with the special interests instead of the American public when he appointed Ken Salazar, a rancher, as secretary of the interior. What we’ve gotten under Mr. Salazar is more of the same government policies that favor the commercial interests over the public itself.

Absent in the government’s claims about wild horses is the fact that these iconic animals comprise less than one-half of one percent of large grazing animals on public lands, where horses are outnumbered by cattle at least 200 to 1.

The BLM currently authorizes livestock grazing on 160 million of the 256 million acres of public land it manages. Wild horses are allowed on just 26 million acres, land that is shared with livestock. The BLM scapegoats wild horses and burros for virtually all range deterioration, despite the agency’s own data showing that the majority of rangeland deterioration is caused by livestock.

Read the entire article here.

The mustang defenders will gather at noon in front of Senator Diane Feinstein’s office building (One Post Street at Montgomery) asking the senator to help halt the federal Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) massive roundup of thousands of mustangs living in the public Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada.

The roundup is scheduled to begin today, despite a federal court ruling recommending that the action be postponed. It will begin in secret, on private land from which the public will be barred.

What: Protest for America’s Wild Horses
Where: Outside Senator Diane Feinstein’s office, One Post Street, San Francisco
When: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 11 A.M.; News Conference at Noon

“We invite concerned citizens of all ages to join us Wednesday, calling on Senator Feinstein, who has always been a friend of wild horses. We ask her to halt the largest and most controversial BLM mustang roundup in years,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, president of the Marin County-based In Defense of Animals, which is organizing the event in conjunction with the Colorado-based Cloud Foundation.

In a December 23, 2009 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said that the BLM’s plans to stockpile Nevada’s wild horses in Midwestern holding facilities is likely illegal, and consequently suggested that BLM postpone the Calico gather, saying it was an issue for Congress. IDA says that ruling, combined with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) violations cited in IDA’s complaints to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Interior Department, should warrant President Obama’s intervention to stop this roundup immediately.

Read the entire article here.