18 November 2009
Dear Friends of the Cloud Foundation,
The Cloud Foundation is a 501(c)3 Colorado non-profit dedicated to the protection and preservation of all wild horses but with a focus on the Pryor Mountain Wild Horses of Southern Montana. Sometimes called “Cloud’s herd,” the Pryor horses are a small and unique population of Spanish mustangs and the only herd remaining in all of Montana. The Cloud Foundation was created in 2005, ten years after Ginger Kathrens first filmed a pale palomino colt tottering out of the trees. She named him Cloud and has followed him through the seasons of his life, documenting his life and his family in the popular PBS Nature documentaries, sponsored by WNET in NYC. Cloud has been rounded up three times and has always been released. Most wild horses and burros in the United States are not so fortunate.
In the September 2009 Pryor roundup, which TCF fought but was unable to stop, 57 wild horses were removed and nearly all the mares given an experiment two-year contraceptive drug. Cloud lost many of his family members and was lame upon his return to the wild. The Cloud Foundation rescued 15 horses after the BLM removed four entire family bands in a plan not disclosed to the public until the first day of the roundup. These bands include one led by the magnificent, Conquistador, who is 19-years-old. Grumpy Grulla, a 21-year-old mare, was also removed with her band. With the support of many we were able to adopt and purchase these horses and put the older members of the bands back together. The horses now live as close to wild as possible, on a large private ranch north of their home. It is our hope that these horses, who represent a whole subpopulation of the Pryors herd, can be returned to their home. The Cloud Foundation has an ongoing lawsuit, brought against the BLM to stop the 2009 roundup that, if successful, could allow for the lawful return of these four bands. It cost the US taxpayers over $150,000 to remove these 57 horses.
According to independent reports based on BLM data, we may have a mere 10,000 to 15,000 wild horses left in the wild. However, BLM leads the public to believe that the range is overrun with mustangs. They report differing population totals even on the same day, stating that there are 33,000 in the wild in a printed press release and 37,000 in their oral press conference. Even taking the inflated number of 37,000 that would mean there are 17,000 fewer wild horses on the range than in a 1974 census taken by BLM!
The simple truth is that the BLM is managing our wild horses and burros on our public lands to extinction. Right now BLM is in the process of removing over 12,000 wild horses and burros from western rangelands at a cost of over $30 million. Most will not find homes (good or otherwise) and the remainder, an estimated 9,000 or so, will go on government welfare and be warehoused in short-term holding feedlot situations or long-term holding pastures in Kansas and Oklahoma. They will join over 32,000 wild horses currently in holding.
In October, Secretary of Interior Salazar proposed to move 26,000 of the west’s wild horses to preserves east the Mississippi that would be purchased at a starting cost of $96 million. While the Cloud Foundation is pleased that the Secretary is publically acknowledging shortcomings in the BLM Wild Horse and Burro program, we are not supportive of plans to strip even more wild horses from western rangelands. These horses would live in sterile, non-reproducing herds – a far cry from roaming freely in dynamic family bands on lands already owned by the American public. Salazar’s announcement is a continuation of BLM’s thinly-veiled plan to zero-out wild horses on their legally designated western rangelands.
What is truly motivating BLM’s massive roundup strategy? It would seem to be a deadly combination of their belief that wild horses do not belong on the range and that the land should be used for extractive purposes: livestock grazing, oil and gas development, uranium mining, siphoning off of water etc. Cameron Bryce, a BLM ecologist, wrote that “wild horses do not belong in western ecosystems,” and “the 1971 Horse and Burro Act was based on emotions, not science.” Unfortunately, the BLM is not operating on science at all. Well over three million head of livestock graze on public lands –outnumbering wild horses 100 to one. And many of these cattle and sheep are owned by huge conglomerates like Anheuser-Busch and the Hilton Family Trust. These are not small family ranching operations. Federal public lands grazing is estimated to be a $123 million/year net loss and some economists have estimated that the true cost is $500 million to $1 billion per year. We would save both money and wild horses by simply paying small family ranchers not to graze.
Coupled with massive removals is the theft of over 20 millions acres set aside for wild horse and burro use with the passage of the Wild Horse and Burro Act in 1971. Congress unanimously decreed and found that wild horses were “fast disappearing from the American scene” and they went on to state: “it is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.”
BLM, simply put, is not following the letter or the spirit of the law. It is time to consider if this agency is capable of managing our wild horses and burros on our public lands. Less than 20% of the herds left are genetically viable and after this year there will be even fewer. The mismanagement of our tax dollars must stop- beginning with a moratorium on the massive roundups now underway.
This is truly the 11th hour for wild mustangs and burros and whether you value them as iconic symbols of the American west, literally “history on the hoof” that pre-dates our own United States, an elegant prey species, or simply a returned native species, it is clear that the Wild Horse and Burro program has gone beyond management and is now overseeing a planned destruction of our wild herds.
We will continue to work for the preservation of all herds with a special focus on Cloud and his herd in the Pryors. But, we will only be successful with your support and action. The Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act was passed primarily because Congress was flooded with letters requesting that wild horses and burros be preserved in their homes on the range. Only mail regarding the Vietnam War outpaced the outpouring of support for saving our American mustangs and burros. With the Act designed to protect them being blatantly ignored, we need to again take the horses’ cause to Washington or resign ourselves to a western landscape devoid of the freedom loving mustangs.
On behalf of Cloud and all our wild horses, thank you.
Help Save America’s Wild Horses & Burros
1. Send your letters demanding an immediate moratorium on all roundups to President Obama. Call your Representatives and follow up with faxes, letters and calls. The roundups must stop in order to allow time for independent analysis on the true numbers of horses remaining and investigations into the true reasons for removing 12,000 wild horses and burros this fiscal year.
2. Sign the Save Our Wild Horses Resolution petition to stop the roundups & join the Cloud Foundation mailing list to stay informed (join us on Facebook & Twitter & check our Blog for frequent updates too).
3. Please watch the investigative report from CBS's George Knapp: "Stampede to Oblivion" and share this online video with everyone (see our website for links).
4. Last but not least, contact media—this story of mismanagement of our mustangs and burros, truly living history, needs to be explored & shared. Write letters to the editor and ask National outlets for better coverage- we are on the verge of losing wild horses and burros before most of America knows we still have them in the wild.
