May Email update

Dear Friends of our Wild Horses;

The Cloud Foundation has long supported the preservation of the West Douglas Wild Horse Herd in western Colorado. BLM wants to totally remove this historic little herd and we have on going litigation to try to stop this action. Please take the time to read my letter to the BLM, which follows below. Then send an email or letter to oppose this awful decision which includes rounding up the horses in the dead of winter!

Comments are due by May 25. Send your email to melissa_kindall@blm.gov. Click here to read the BLM Environmental Assessment.

Thanks so much for helping us preserve our wonderful wild horses.

Happy Trails!
Ginger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 19, 2008
Bureau of Land Management
White River Field Office
Attention: Melissa Kindall
220 East Market Street
Meeker, Colorado 81641

Dear Ms. Kindall;

On behalf of The Cloud Foundation and our thousands of supporters thank you for the opportunity to submit comments on EA CO-110 (WRFO) 4700 entitled “West Douglas Wild Horse Herd Area Removal”. This is an unusual EA. It clearly does not comply with NEPA in that it reveals no data regarding range conditions or herd numbers. It indicates no monitoring of animals or of the forage and no inventorying of anything. Is this data available, and, if so, why was it not presented in this document? At least this EA is somewhat consistent with earlier EA’s for this herd as it remains short on facts supporting a removal of these beleaguered wild animals.

On page 2 you reference the 1997 decision in which horses were to be managed in North Piceance and West Douglas in a range from 0-50 in order to improve range conditions. Yet, where is the data indicating what the range conditions were at a smaller and larger herd size? Is this a contention of this EA—that removing the horses will increase the forage? Forage for what other species? Let me guess. . cattle?

After 1997, I recall that your office chose to manage wild horses in East Piceance only, indicating they would be easier to manage than horses in the rugged West Douglas Creek area. Now, you are anticipating removing the East Piceance wild horses as well due to intense oil and gas development. Your plan is transparent. BLM is systematically doing away with wild horses in the entire area even though the public remains opposed.

It appears you continue to curry favor with the livestock permittees in the area, wealthy and well-placed ranchers and business people who lobby to increase their bottom line at the expense of the hardy little West Douglas Creek wild horses.

The West Douglas Herd has been living free in what is now Colorado long before there was a Colorado. Written documentation of horses in this area exists as a result of the travels of the Fathers Escalante and Dominguez who traveled on foot from Mexico into the area in the 1770’s. The West Douglas Creek mustangs may be one of the oldest documented herds in the United States and for that reason alone deserve preservation as a link to our western heritage. This is a significant reason why Congress unanimously passed the Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971.

The West Douglas horses are noted for their toughness, are dark in color and small in stature. They are known to resist life as domestic horses. Therefore, they are not ideal adoption animals. This is another reason to let them live free rather than subject them to captivity. And, does an adoption demand exist for the West Douglas horses? Doubtful. Removing them then is counter to the intent of the Wild Horse and Burro Act.

Beyond the illegality of the BLM planned removal of all the wild horses in this area, there are clear inhumane aspects to this plan which include rounding up wild horses in winter. Winter is brutal in the West Douglas Creek area and is an inappropriate time to be rounding up wild horses or stressing any wild animals. You allow for running the mustangs “only” 5 miles instead of 10 in a foot of snow or less. Please tell me if you would treat a domestic horse in this way? I doubt that any humane individual would contemplate such a cruel and dangerous act.

Round ups are inherently dangerous. I believe a mare and her foal were killed in 2006 during the last West Douglas round up and this was not in winter. Add the stress of winter and you really have a formula for disaster. You allow for no rounding up when it is 10 below. Horse people know that if it is cold, no horse should be strenuously worked if the temperature is below freezing, let alone 10 below!

Please reconsider this plan and come up with some acceptable alternatives that allow for this hard scrabble little herd to continue their life of freedom. I would appreciate a timely reply to my questions. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Ginger Kathrens
Volunteer Executive Director
The Cloud Foundation
A Colorado 501(c)3