Sunday: New York City Horse Advocates Hold Rally Against Wild Horse Roundups

Controversy grows over removal of wild horses from public land

New York, N.Y. – Wild horse advocates will hold a rally Sunday at 1 p.m. in Columbus Circle, to call attention to the Obama Administration’s massive roundup and removal of wild horses from public lands in the West. The largest such roundup is now underway in the Calico Mountains public lands complex in northwestern Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is removing 2,500 horses, or 80 to 90 percent of the horses living in the Calico Complex.  Four horses have died in the Calico roundup, which began on December 28 and continues through February.

What:   Demo to protest BLM assault on wild horses
When:  Sunday January 17, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Where: Columbus Circle – 59th St. at the south end of Central Park and Broadway – near the statues.

Participating organizations include The Cloud Foundation, Equine Welfare Alliance, In Defense of Animals, Friends of Animals, The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages, Return to Freedom, and other members of The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.

“The Obama Administration’s decision to continue to spend millions of tax dollars to remove wild horses from public lands in the West to stockpile on private ranches in mid-West is fiscally irresponsible,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, IDA president.

“The BLM mismanages our public lands for one reason: to benefit commercial interests, such as cattle ranchers and other industries that exploit our lands and profit from the removal of the horses,” Katz continued.

Cloud Foundation volunteer Lise Stampfli Torme said “We are outraged that the BLM has proceeded with the Calico roundup under a cloud of controversy and against a U.S. District Court judge’s recommendation. The agency has moved the capture points to private land where public access to observe the treatment of our living legends is severely restricted. An immediate moratorium on all wild horse roundups must be implemented until the BLM’s broken wild horse management program can be reformed.”

“An immense amount of tax dollars are being spent on the removal of wild horses while less intrusive and less costly ‘in the wild’ management alternatives exist,” says Neda DeMayo, founder of Return to Freedom American Wild Horse Sanctuary. “Americans want their wild horses to remain free and protected on the ranges where they currently exist. We are asking that the original spirit and intent of the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act be upheld so that our grandchildren’s children will know the herds, who are a vital link to our western heritage.”

If the Obama Administration’s BLM continues its current course initially charted by the Bush Administration, it will capture and remove nearly 12,000 wild horses in FY 2010 from their Western ranges and place them in Midwestern holding facilities, where they will join the 35,000 horses already stockpiled at taxpayer expense. At that time, the number of horses in BLM warehouses will far exceed those left on the range.

A December 23, 2009 decision by federal court Judge Paul Friedman — in a lawsuit brought by IDA, ecologist Craig Downer and renowned children’s author Terri Farley — found that the BLM’s Midwestern holding facilities are likely illegal, and suggested that the BLM postpone the Calico roundup.

Wild horses comprise a minute fraction (0.5 percent) of large grazing animals on public lands, where they are outnumbered by cattle at least 200 to 1. The BLM manages more than 256 million acres of public lands of which cattle grazing is allowed on 160 million acres; wild horses are only allowed on 26.6 million acres this land, which must be shared with cattle.

For more information, visit www.idausa.org,  www.thecloudfoundation.org, and www.wildhorsepreservation.com.

Contacts:

Jo De George, jo@degeorgedynamic.com, 917-742-8201

Suzanne Roy, In Defense of Animals 919-697-9389, sroy@idausa.org

Makendra Silverman, The Cloud Foundation, 719-351-8187, makendra@thecloudfoundation.org

Neda DeMao, Return To Freedom, 805-588-5105