6 responses to “Letter of Complaint to Senator Ron Wyden; BLM states Federal Law is not for them?”

1. 

   Louie C

   January 14, 2014 at 6:01 am

   LEGAL DECLARATION filed by former BLM Rock Springs and Rawlins area manager, Lloyd Eidenhauer

   In a declaration filed by former BLM Rock Springs and Rawlins area manager Lloyd Eisenhauer
   Katherine A. Meyer
   Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal
   1601 Connecticut Ave., N.W.
   Suite 700
   Washington, D.C. 20009

   (202) 588-5206
   Timothy Kingston
   408 West 23rd Street, Suite 1
   Cheyenne, WY 82001-3519
   (WY Bar No. 6-2720)

   (307) 638-8885
   Attorneys for Defendant-Intervenors

   IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
   FOR THE DISTRICT OF WYOMING

   Rock Springs Grazing Association, Case No. 2:11-cv-00263-NDF
   Plaintiff,

   v.
   Ken Salazar, et al.,
   Defendants,

   DECLARATION OF LLOYD EISENHAUER

   I, Lloyd Eisenhauer, declare as follows:

   1. I live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I am a former Bureau of Land Management
   (“BLM”) official with extensive experience in the Rawlins and Rock Springs Districts in
   Wyoming and intimate familiarity with the public lands under BLM management in those areas.
   I have reviewed the consent decree proposed by BLM and the Rock Springs Grazing Association
   (“RSGA”) in this case and provide this declaration based on my longstanding knowledge of, and
   management of, wild horses and livestock grazing in the Rock Springs and Rawlins Districts.
   – 1

    
   2. I grew up in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming with a livestock and farming background,
   served in the Marines for four years, and then owned a livestock business from 1952-1958. I
   enrolled in college in 1958, studying range management. From 1960-1961, BLM hired me to
   assist with collecting field data for vegetation assessments and carrying capacity surveys related
   to livestock and wild horses. These surveys were conducted in the Lander, Kemmerer, and
   Rawlins Districts. When I graduated in 1962, BLM hired me full-time to serve in the Rawlins
   District in Wyoming, where most of my work focused on grazing management involving sheep,
   cattle, and wild horses. From 1968-1972, I was Area Manager of the Baggs-Great Divide
   Resource Area in the Rawlins District. In 1971, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act
   was enacted, and in the spring of 1972, on behalf of BLM, I conducted the first aerial survey of
   wild horses in Wyoming, recording the number of horses and designating the Herd Management
   Areas (“HMAs”) for the Rawlins District. After a stint as an Area Manager with BLM’s
   Albuquerque, New Mexico office, in 1975 I took over as the Chief of Planning and
   Environmental Analysis in BLM’s Rock Springs District for three years. I was the lead on all
   planning and environmental assessments. During that time, I also served as the Acting Area
   Manager of the Salt Wells Resource Area, which is located in the Rock Springs District. In
   1979, BLM transferred me to its Denver Service Center to serve as the Team Leader in creating
   the agency’s automated process for data collection. I received an excellence of service award
   from the Secretary of the Interior commending me for my work as a Team Leader. In 1982, I
   became the Head of Automation in BLM’s Cheyenne office, where I managed and implemented
   the data collection and processing of various systems related to BLM programs. I retired from
   BLM in 1986, and have stayed very involved in the issue of wild horse and livestock
   management on BLM lands in Wyoming, and have written articles about the issue in local and
   – 2

    
   other newspaper outlets. I have won various journalistic awards, including a Presidential award,
   for my coverage of conservation districts in Wyoming. Along with a partner, I operated a tour
   business (called Backcountry Tours) for six years, taking various groups into wild places in
   Wyoming – without a doubt wild horses were the most popular thing to see on a tour, in large
   part due to their cultural and historical value. I also served six years on the governor’s non-point
   source water quality task force.

   3. Based on my longstanding knowledge of wild horse and livestock management in
   the Rawlins and Rock Springs Districts, and in the Wyoming Checkerboard in particular, I am
   very concerned about BLM’s agreement with RSGA, embodied in the proposed Consent Decree
   they have filed in this case, under which BLM would remove all wild horses located on RSGA’s
   private lands on the Wyoming Checkerboard.
   4. The Checkerboard is governed by an exchange of use agreement between the
   federal government and private parties such as RSGA. However, due to state laws, property
   lines, and intermingled lands, it is impossible to fence the lands of the Wyoming Checkerboard,
   which means that both the wild horses and the livestock that graze there roam freely between
   public and private lands on the Checkerboard without any physical barriers. For this reason, it is
   illogical for BLM to commit to removing wild horses that are on the “private” lands RSGA owns
   or leases because those same horses are likely to be on public BLM lands (for example, the Salt
   Wells, Adobe Town, Great Divide, and White Mountains HMAs) earlier in that same day or
   later that same evening. Essentially, in contrast to other areas of the country where wild horses
   still exist, on the Wyoming Checkerborad there is no way to distinguish between horses on
   “private” lands and those on public lands, and therefore it would be unprecedented, and indeed
   impossible for BLM to contend that it is removing all horses on RSGA’s “private” lands at any
   – 3

    
   given time of the year, month, or day, considering that those horses would only be on the strictly
   “private” lands very temporarily and intermittently on any particular day .

   5. Another major concern with BLM’s agreement to remove all horses from the
   private lands of the Wyoming Checkerboard is that BLM is undermining the laws that apply to
   the Checkerboard, and wild horse management in general, which I implemented during my time
   as a BLM official. Traditionally, BLM officials (myself included) have understood that,
   pursuant to the Wild Horse Act, wild horses have a right to use BLM lands, so long as their
   population numbers do not cause unacceptable damage to vegetation or other resources. In stark
   contrast, however, livestock (sheep and cattle) have no similar right to use BLM lands; rather,
   livestock owners may be granted the privilege of using BLM lands for livestock grazing pursuant
   to a grazing permit that is granted by BLM under the Taylor Grazing Act, but that privilege can
   be revoked, modified, or amended by BLM for various reasons, including for damage to
   vegetation or other resources caused by livestock, or due to sparse forage available to sustain
   livestock after wild horses are accounted for. BLM’s tentative agreement here does the opposite
   and instead prioritizes livestock over wild horses, by proposing to remove hundreds of wild
   horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard without reducing livestock numbers – which, in my
   view, is contrary to the laws governing BLM’s actions as those mandates were explained to me
   and administered during the decades that I was a BLM official.
   6. While I do not agree with every management action taken by BLM over the
   years in the Rock Springs District, I can attest – based on my longstanding employment with
   BLM and my active monitoring of the agency’s activities during retirement – that BLM has
   generally proven capable of removing wild horses in the Rock Springs District, including by
   – 4

    
   responding to emergency situations when needed and removing horses when necessary due to
   resource damage.

   7. Considering that wild horses exhibit different foraging patterns and movement
   patterns than sheep and cattle, and also than big game such as antelope and elk, no sound
   biological basis exists for permanently removing wild horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard
   at this time. In particular, wild horses tend to hang out in the uplands at a greater distance from
   water sources until they come to briefly drink water every day or two, whereas livestock
   congregate near water sources and riparian habitat causing concentrated damage to vegetation
   and soil. For this reason, the impacts of wild horses are far less noticeable on the Checkerboard
   than impacts from livestock.
   8. In addition, because livestock tend to eat somewhat different forage than wild
   horses (horses tend to eat coarser vegetation such as Canadian wild rye and other bunch grasses,
   whereas cattle and sheep mostly eat softer grasses), there is no justification to remove wild
   horses on the basis that insufficient forage exists to support the current population of wild horses.
   Also, because cattle and sheep have no front teeth on the front part of their upper jaws, they tend
   to pull and tear grasses or other forage out by the root causing some long-term damage to
   vegetation, whereas wild horses, which have front teeth on both their front upper and lower jaws,
   act more like a lawnmower and just clip the grass or forage (leaving the root uninjured), allowing
   the vegetation to quickly grow back. These differences are extremely significant because if there
   were a need to reduce the use of these BLM lands by animals to preserve these public lands, it
   might be cattle and sheep – not wild horses – that should be reduced to gain the most benefit for
   the lands, and which is why BLM, during my time as an agency official, focused on reducing
   livestock grazing.
   – 5

    
   9. BLM’s agreement with RSGA states that RSGA’s conservation plan limited
   livestock grazing, primarily by sheep, to the winter months to provide sufficient winter forage.
   This is a good example of “multiple use” management, since wild horses and sheep have very
   little competition for the forage they consume and the seasons during which they use parts of the
   Checkerboard. During winter, sheep use the high deserts and horses utilize the uplands and
   breaks (i.e., different locations) for forage and protection. During the summer, when sheep are
   not present, wild horses use various landscapes on the Checkerboard. This multiple use should
   continue for the benefit of the livestock, the wild horses, and the public and private lands
   involved.
   10. I am also very concerned about BLM’s agreement with RSGA to permanently
   zero out the Salt Wells HMA and the Divide Basin HMA, leaving no wild horses in those areas
   that have long contained wild horses. I have been to fifteen of the sixteen HMAs in Wyoming,
   and to my knowledge none has ever been zeroed out by BLM. It is my view, based on
   everything I know about these areas and the way these public lands are used by wild horses and
   livestock, that BLM has no biological or ecological basis for zeroing out a herd of wild horses in
   an HMA that existed at the time the wild horse statute was passed in 1971, as is the case with
   both the Salt Wells and Divide Basin HMAs. And, again, because the wild horses have a
   statutory right to be there, whereas livestock only have a privilege that can be revoked at any
   time by BLM, there also is no authority or precedent, to my knowledge, for the agency to zero
   out these two longstanding wild horse herds simply to appease private livestock grazers.
   11. The zeroing out of wild horses in the Salt Wells and Divide Basin HMAs is also
   concerning because it would mean that, in those two longstanding HMAs, there would no longer
   be the “multiple use” of these public lands as required by both the Wild Horse Act and the
   – 6

    
   Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Currently, while there are other uses of this public
   land, such as by wildlife, hunters, and recreational users, the two primary uses in those HMAs
   are by wild horses and livestock. If BLM proceeds with its agreement with RSGA to zero out
   wild horses in those HMAs, the only major use remaining would be livestock use, meaning that
   there would be no multiple use of those BLM lands. Not only will that potentially undermine the
   laws that BLM officials must implement here, but it has practical adverse effects on the
   resources – multiple use is very beneficial for the environment, and particularly for sensitive
   vegetation, because different users (e.g., livestock, wild horses) use the lands and vegetation in
   different ways. When that is eliminated, the resources are subjected to an unnatural use of the
   lands which can cause severe long-term damage to the vegetation. As a result, zeroing out these
   herds would likely be devastating for the vegetation in these two HMAs, because livestock
   would be by far the predominant use in this area.

   12. Turning the White Mountain HMA into a non-reproducing herd, as the agreement
   between BLM and RSGA proposes to do, is also a farce, and violates the meaning of a wild and
   free-roaming animal. This is essentially a slow-motion zeroing out of this HMA, and is
   inconsistent with any wild horse management approach I am familiar with that BLM has
   implemented on public lands.
   – 7

    
   Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true
   and correct.

   Lloyd Eisenhauer

   Reply

    
2. 

   Louie C

   January 14, 2014 at 6:04 am

   How can these roundups possibly be legal or lawful?

   http://wildhorsepreservation.org/media/blm-ignores-tens-thousands-public-comments-gallops-ahead-wyoming-wild-horse-wipeout

   BLM Ignores Tens of Thousands of Public Comments; Gallops Ahead with Wyoming Wild Horse Wipeout
   Posted on January 13, 2014 at 10:13 AM
   Rock Springs, WY (January 13, 2014)…. As of Friday’s deadline, more than 12,000 citizens had submitted comments opposing the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) plan to conduct a wild horse roundup in the Great Divide Basin Herd Management Area (HMA) this summer.

   Over the past 13 months, the BLM”s Rock Springs Field Office has received over 40,000 comments from American citizens opposing the agency’s plan to wipe out wild horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard, a two million-acre swath of public and private land in the southern part of the state.
   The Divide Basin roundup is a part of the massive wipeout plan.
   “The BLM is blatantly ignoring tens of thousands of public comments while galloping ahead with its plan to destroy nearly half of Wyoming’s remaining wild horse populations,” said Suzanne Roy, director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC), a national coalition of more than 60 organizations. “The public overwhelmingly supports wild horse protection. But, the BLM is taking its marching orders from the Rock Springs Grazing Association, a special interest group whose members view mustangs as competition for cheap, tax-subsidized livestock grazing on public lands.”

   Reply

    
3. 

   Louie C

   January 18, 2014 at 6:15 am

   ROCK SPRINGS HOLDING FACILITY CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC

   http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/info/news_room/2014/january/07rsfo-facility.html
   Release Date: 01/07/14
   Contacts: Shelley Gregory
   307-315-0612

   Rock Springs Wild Horse Holding Facility Temporarily Closed

   The Bureau of Land Management’s Rock Springs Wild Horse Holding Facility is temporarily closed until sometime in late spring.
   The facility is closed while wild horses from the recent Adobe Town/Salt Wells gather settle into their new environment. The wild horses will be examined by a veterinarian, vaccinated and freeze marked in preparation for adoption. No public tours or adoptions will be conducted during the closure; however, the public viewing kiosk will remain open.
   Approximately 700 wild horses are housed at the facility and available for adoption. Adoption requirements and an application are available at http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/programs/Wild_Horses/adopt.html. An adoption schedule is available at http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/programs/Wild_Horses/schedule.html.

   The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s multiple-use mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. In Fiscal Year 2012, activities on public lands generated $4.6 billion in revenue, much of which was shared with the States where the activities occurred. In addition, public lands contributed more than $112 billion to the U.S. economy and helped support more than 500,000 jobs.
   –BLM–
   High Desert District 280 Highway 191 North Rock Springs WY 82901

   Reply

    
4. 

   EponaSpirit

   January 18, 2014 at 1:08 pm

   Reblogged this on Pass the SAFE Act!.

   Reply

    
5. 

   Louie C

   January 21, 2014 at 7:39 pm

   NEVADA

   http://protectmustangs.org/?p=6069
   Nevada farm bureau, counties sue over wild horses
   Posted on January 13, 2014 by Protect Mustangs
   Cross-posted from the viral Associated Press article published in the San Francisco Chronicle for educational purposes: http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Nevada-farm-bureau-counties-sue-over-wild-horses-5136697.php

   “They argue the BLM should “destroy” horses that are deemed unadoptable,”

   RENO, Nev. (AP) — Two Nevada organizations have sued the federal government, alleging mismanagement of wild horses led to excessive damage to rangelands and the animals themselves.

   The Nevada Farm Bureau Federation and the

   Nevada Association of Counties

   named Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the Interior Department and the Bureau of Land Management as defendants in their lawsuit filed Dec. 30 in U.S. District Court in Nevada.
   BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington declined to comment on Sunday. “It’s under review,” she said.

   The groups accuse the government of failing to comply with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which requires the BLM to protect the “natural ecological balance of all wildlife species” on public lands and to remove “excess” horses and burros from the range.

   They argue the BLM should “destroy” horses that are deemed unadoptable,

   the Elko Daily Free Press reported (http://bit.ly/1eNObmf ). The BLM has opposed the sale of horses for slaughter.
   The agency has removed nearly 100,000 horses from the Western range over the last decade, citing the requirements of the 1971 federal law. Horses passed over for adoption are sent to long-term facilities in the Midwest.

   But the number of horses gathered last year declined as the BLM deals with budget constraints and a lack of capacity at short- and long-term holding facilities.
   In addition to damaging public land and threatening private water rights, the government’s wild horse program is “first and foremost” detrimental to horses, according to the lawsuit.
   “Free-roaming horse and burro herds in Nevada are frequently observed to be in malnourished condition, with the ribs and skeletal features of individual animals woefully on view and other signs of ill-health readily observable,” the complaint states.
   Anne Novak, executive director of the horse advocacy group Protect Mustangs, said most wild herds are “healthy and fit,” and the groups’ claim that they are in poor condition appears to be a “skewed effort” to justify killing them because they don’t want to share water.
   Some 1.75 million head of livestock grazing on public land outnumber wild horses by more than 50-to-1 and cause most of the range damage, she added.

   “The plaintiffs have an arrogant sense of entitlement,” Novak told The Associated Press. “I’m grateful the American public will see how the plaintiffs allegedly intend on denying native wild horses the right to water and are requesting BLM destroy the majority of the roundup survivors. Their lawsuit will rally more voters to fight for wild horses to remain wild and free for future generations.”

   Representatives of the two groups did not immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment Sunday.
   ___
   Information from: Elko Daily Free Press, http://www.elkodaily.com

   Reply

    
6. 

   Louie C

   January 24, 2014 at 3:04 am

   http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/mammals/modoc-county-coyote-killing-contest-being-kept-under-wraps.html

   Modoc County Coyote-Killing Contest Being Kept Under Wraps

   For the eighth consecutive year, a general store in the far north part of the state is sponsoring a contest that awards prizes for hunters who shoot the most coyotes. This year’s contest is a little different, though: organizers are trying to keep opponents from finding out about it.

   The annual Big Valley Coyote Drive, centered in Adin, CA, is scheduled for February 7-9. To enter, hunters must pay a $50 registration fee that covers a team of two and includes a Saturday dinner and a T-shirt. They then fan out across several Northern California counties — and possibly into Oregon and Nevada — to kill as many coyotes as they can by the morning of the 9th.
   If the rules and regulations for the Drive resemble previous years, prizes will be given to the teams that bring the largest haul of dead coyotes back to Adin, with special prizes awarded to young hunters. But confirming those details about the 2014 Drive is difficult, because its organizers have clamped down hard on publicity.

   Adin Supply Company, an area general store that’s the lead organizer of the Coyote Drive with the Pit River Rod and Gun Club, has apparently gone so far as to let its domain name registration lapse: the website had formerly been the company’s main venue for distributing drive guidelines and registration forms. Instead, the organizers are attempting to spread the word of the hunt among hunters’ communities on Facebook and in other social media.
   Participants in the Drive are bound by state hunting laws regulating how and when animals can be shot, which in the case of coyotes don’t amount to much. Anyone with a valid hunting license can pretty much shoot as many coyotes as they want at any time of year in California, provided they’re in an area where they’re allowed to discharge firearms. Coyotes are one of the least-protected wild animal species in California, and sympathetic write-ups of previous years’ Drives have made references to “eradicating coyotes from Northern California.”

   When I attempted to talk to Adin Supply Wednesday morning to confirm details of the Drive, the woman who answered the store’s phone asked whether I was “pro or anti.” When I identified myself as a reporter and mentioned my relationship with KCET, she said “okay, thank you” and hung up.
   In his story, Stellar quotes the area’s chief CDFW officer on the justification, or lack thereof, for the Drive:

   “In my opinion, coyotes are really not a problem up there,” Banko said, referring to Lassen and Modoc counties. “We get a few complaints about coyotes, but it is a sparsely populated region. Besides, the more coyotes are killed, the more they breed, so this event is not controlling the coyote population.”

   Reply

    

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