“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” ― Thomas Jefferson
It is just not America’s Wild Horses in jeopardy from the Bureau of Land Management, but everything this government agency does is mismanaged and ruined, from wildlife to entire environmental areas being destroyed. This is a government agency run by, and ordered by a few corporations in the timber industry and Big AG. Whereas, everyone in America suffers from these few, because most American’s simply want to make a living, pay their taxes, and live their life freely. Corporate and government criminals do not allow this.
Once again we ponder the Bureau of Land Management and its methodology, this time in collateral, at best unorthodox and certainly questionable, use of America’s Public Lands. What you will read is not so much surprising as it is shocking; that these situations are allowed to go on and on by our current legislator’s holding office, remains and has been irresponsible at best. The cost? Billions bilked by welfare ranchers, logging companies, legislators, and Big AG, an undeniable fact when researched properly.
From the Horse’s Mouth
James White – Timber Inspector and Purchase Executive: To be honest, I could not believe my eyes and what stood to my front. I went out to an area in southeastern Idaho to obtain pricing estimates in regard to an available timber stand. I stood in the exact spot their map highlighted, and BLM had recently legally recorded such, with current P-line marked survey for log road installation and landings. The Bureau of Land Management not only marked the sale of lumber as available, complete with current Environmental Impact Assessments, but also current reports that the timber on the land healthy and suited for commercial use.
Journalist: So BLM Management provided a comprehensive report, thorough, and what they termed as Standard Practice?
James White: They refer to them as “Sustained Yield Units” which is a misnomer. By law BLM is to practice sustainable forestry. The fact is, I was looking at what was once a BLM forest, turned into a cow pasture. There exist no records of the land being logged what so ever, and yet no trees! Heavy cattle use prevented any future forest regeneration, or much of anything else within that area. The Public Land is of no use to anyone any longer, yet far enough away for the general public and taxpayer’s not to see — and the fact is no one would know or really find out at all what had happened there.
“Based upon review of their timber inventories the Bureau of Land Management is misnamed. The BLM information base about the forests the agency supposedly manages is so bad as to border on pulp fiction.” Boise Cascade Executive, Portland, Oregon
Journalist: Are there any more timber stands, slated for commercial use that apparently welfare ranchers had gotten into the area and grazed their cattle – obviously unknown to many?
James White: Abundant. These are situations that most of us in the private sector use to ignore, as it was so criminal in nature, no officials were doing a thing about it. Our career’s had to come first, as I had a large family and responsible to them. I would be willing to bet no one still does anything about it. But the areas are there to see for themselves.
Journalist: Your saying the timber sales illegal or they simply did not exist?
James White: We can again go to southeastern Idaho. The BLM marked a Tree Stand as “Healthy” and reforested (a ten to 15 year previous clear-cut recorded) and ready for commercial use within their Inventoried Commercial Timber Stands for Sustainable Yield. I looked for further documents and found an EA from the 1970’s, nothing else. It wasn’t until a couple months later I was driving to another Timber Sale, and passed the road to the supposed reforested area. Curious, I stopped and took the road. What I found was terrible. The area was totally devastated by cattle grazing. It was basically turned into sagebrush and small amounts of grassland. I say this as in the late 1970’s the area was documented by a thorough environmental analysis, to be targeted for the re-establishment of a “Healthy” forest stand of timber.
Journalist: This land is still in their Inventory as future sustainable yield?
James White: Absolutely.
BLM and Their Planning Decisions
The fact is and upon more data recovered, we find the BLM does not update their inventory of Public Land what so ever. Time after time testimony is given that their records, by policy should be updated every ten years or less, but is not done – in Reality, the files contain information from the 1960’s and 1970’s, with no updates at all. America is losing the battle for Public Land, yet paying a premium price for supposedly quality Public Lands, but is not quality what so ever, but mostly land destroyed from over-grazing of cattle, or Fracking. Both destructive!
In some cases plans and decisions were developed from aerial photography taken in the 1950’s. It is your taxpayer money at work here, and costing in the millions. And to the taxpayers, more insult to injury – some BLM District Offices lack inventories all together. And yet other District Offices misclassify marginal timber producing areas, as productive. This is the Lie ongoing in Oregon currently, and you’d better believe that your taxes that you pay within an honest perspective are going to be used dishonestly.
Then we go to the necessity for the removal of Wild Horse Herds, ethically questionable and costing taxpayers now in the billions of taxpayer dollars – and BLM does NOT acknowledge the Reality, the Wild Horses destroys nothing on our Public Lands (BLM provides no tenable or quality data for reference, and never have as yet for their Wild Horse Herd removal from Public Lands), and certainly not even close to the destruction that this government agency, the BLM, has already imposed and forced upon America’s Public Lands — Simply out of Incompetence and directed misinformation to the public and taxpayers.
Journalist: Is there more areas we can discuss here?
James White: Oh yes, many more. . . A part of the Garnet Resource Area in Montana that was clear-cut back in the 1970’s, still has regeneration problems, and remains baron. Cattle, placed there after the clear-cut, destroyed much of it. But the BLM allows rancher’s to place cattle in very environmentally sensitive areas – why, I do not know – but many of these areas are away from the public-eye and any type of public scrutiny.
Journalist: Anymore?
James White: Well, we can also go and see in that same area, Public Lands listed as Sustainable Yield by the BLM, and is nothing more than open-grassland for grazing cattle . . . These areas, to include riparian and creek or stream ecosystems have already been destroyed and very neglectfully. The environmental systems in many of those areas throughout that region can be used for nothing else but cattle grazing, and probably for not much longer, as it is also ruined land for rotational purposes as well.
Journalist: I am a little awed by this, to say the least. . .
James White: It gets worse. I had a friend go over to Baker City, Oregon BLM Office. He asked about a particular area in Oregon, and was led to a file cabinet drawer where the entire resource data, dating back to 1964, was filed. . . Wait, it gets worse. He asked a few specific questions about the area of interest, and the BLM employees that knew were either retired, not in the office at the time, or on sick leave. We can discuss as many offices as you wish, but all, even the few I have never been to, still carry the stigma of others in my profession that had haunting experiences similar to mine – and quite often.
Conclusion
This Journalist found James a straight forward and honest individual. He had 44 years in the logging industry, as a Planer and Timber Purchase Executive, with a Master Degree from the University of Washington. I should add as well, that he had an Attorney sitting next to him, who limited what he could say, should say, or expand on what he had already stated. James White is not his real name, as the logging industry remains defensive, to say the least, and quite similar to Big AG and their Lobby Groups.
But never the less it becomes quite obvious the data, the reference material, the records keeping, the decision making process, the faulty and often manipulated science, and the erroneous and destructive end-results become quite obvious, and expensive when the BLM is involved. When one considers that the only purpose for such a government agency should be termed – organized criminality, because nothing else would make sense. Even the term organized makes no sense, as they are not close to having any organization at all. The BLM is one government agency that should be shut-down. America cannot afford such trivial pursuits and dishonest behavior from such an enormous and quite costly agency.
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Photojournalist - Journalist 
Barbara Warner
September 9, 2014 at 10:58 am
Yes, shut down the BLM.
Karen Sussman
September 9, 2014 at 1:43 pm
We need an independent agency of the government that monitors, inventories, and assesses the land and the impacts upon it. It must have legal authority to shut down operations when it is harmful to the environment and must not be influenced by lobbyists or government
Louie C
October 12, 2014 at 5:00 am
Princeton teams up with ISPMB
Study shows wild horse herds with functional social structures contribute to low herd growth compared to BLM managed herds
Click to access ISPMB_newsletter_June_2013.pdf
Posted on January 12, 2014 by Protect Mustangs
International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros (ISPMB)
As we complete our thirteenth year in studying the White Sands and Gila herds, two isolated herds, which live in similar habitat but represent two different horse cultures, have demonstrated much lower reproductive rates than BLM managed herds. Maintaining the “herd integrity” with a hands off management strategy (“minimal feasible management”) and no removals in 13 years has shown us that functional herds demonstrating strong social bonds and leadership of elder animals is key to the behavioral management of population growth.
ISPMB’s president, Karen Sussman, who has monitored and studied The Society’s four wild herds all these years explains, “We would ascertain from our data that due to BLM’s constant roundups causing the continual disruption of the very intricate social structures of the harem bands has allowed younger stallions to take over losing the mentorship of the older wiser stallions.
In simplistic terms Sussman makes the analogy that over time Harvard professors (elder wiser stallions) have been replaced by errant teenagers (younger bachelor stallions). We know that generally teenagers do not make good parents because they are children themselves.
Sussman’s observations of her two stable herds show that there is tremendous respect commanded amongst the harems. Bachelor stallions learn that respect from their natal harems. Bachelors usually don’t take their own harems until they are ten years of age. Sussman has observed that stallions mature emotionally at much slower rates than mares and at age ten they appear ready to assume the awesome responsibility of becoming a harem stallion.
Also observed in these herds is the length of time that fillies remain with their natal bands. The fillies leave when they are bred by an outside stallion at the age of four or five years. Often as first time mothers, they do quite well with their foals but foal mortality is higher than with seasoned mothers.
Sussman has also observed in her Gila herd where the harems work together for the good of the entire herd. “Seeing this cooperative effort is quite exciting,” states Sussman.
ISPMB’s third herd, the Catnips, coming from the Sheldon Wildlife Range where efforts are underway to eliminate all horses on the refuge, demonstrate exactly the reverse of the organization’s two stable herds.
The first year of their arrival (2004) their fertility rates were 30% the following first and second years. They have loose band formations and some mares are without any harem stallions. Stallions are observed breeding fillies as young as one year of age. Foal mortality is very high in this herd. Generally there is a lack of leadership and wisdom noted in the stallions as most of them were not older than ten years of age when they arrived. In 2007, a decision to use PZP on this herd, a contraceptive, was employed by ISPMB. This herd remains a very interesting herd to study over time according to Sussman. “The question is, can a dysfunctional herd become functional,” says Sussman who speculates that the Catnips emulate many of the public lands herds.
In 1992 when Sussman and her colleague, Mary Ann Simonds, served on the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, they believed that BLM’s management should change and recommended that selective removals should begin by turning back all the older and wiser animals to retain the herd wisdom. Sussman realizes that the missing ingredient was to stop the destruction of the harem bands caused by helicopter roundups where stallions are separated from their mares. “Instead, bait and water trapping, band by band, needed to be instituted immediately,” says Sussman. Had this been done for the past twenty years, we would have functionally healthy horses who have stable reproductive rates and we wouldn’t have had 52,000 wild horses in holding pastures today. BLM’s selective removal policy was to return all horses over the age of five. When the stallions and mares were released back to their herd management areas by the BLM, younger stallions under the age of ten fought for the mares and took mares from the older wiser stallions. This occurs when there is chaos happening in a herd such as roundups cause.
Sussman also believes that when roundups happen often the younger stallions aged 6-9 are ones that evade capture. This again contributes to younger stallions taking the place of older wiser stallions that remain with their mares and do not evade capture. She is advocating that the BLM carry out two studies: determining the age of fillies who are pregnant and determining age structures of stallions after removals.
Currently Sussman is developing criteria to determine whether bands are behaviorally healthy or not. This could be instituted easily in observation of public lands horses.
Taken from BLM’s website: “Because of federal protection and a lack of natural predators, wild horse and burro herds can double in size about every four years.”
White Sands Herd Growth: 1999-2013 – 165 animals.
BLM’s assertion herds double every four years means there should be 980 horses or more than five times the growth of ISPMB’s White Sands herd.
Gila Herd Growth:1999-2013- 100 animals.
BLM’s assertion herds double every four years means there should be 434 horses or nearly four times the growth of ISPMB’s Gila herd.
Sussman says that BLM’s assertion as to why horse herds double every four years is incorrect. The two reasons given are federal protection of wild horse herds and lack of natural predators. ISPMB herds are also protected and also have no natural predators, but they do not reproduce exponentially. She adds that exponential wild horse population growth on BLM lands must have another cause, and the most likely cause is lack of management and understanding of wild horses as wildlife species. Instead BLM manages horses like livestock. “According to the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971, all management of wild horse populations was to be at the ‘minimal feasible level’,” Sussman says. “When the BLM’s heavy-handed disruption and destruction of wild horse social structures is the chief contributing factor in creating population growth five times greater than normal, than the BLM interference can hardly be at a ‘minimal feasible level.’”
Sussman concludes that ISPMB herds are given the greatest opportunity for survival, compared to the BLM’s herds which are not monitored throughout the year. “One would assume,” Sussman says, “herds that are well taken care of and monitored closely would have a greater survival rate. Yet, even under the optimum conditions of ISPMB herds, they still did not increase nearly 500% like BLM herds.”
Karen Sussman has been riding horses since the age of four. She has spent the last thirty-two years working with wild horses and burros and has been involved in every aspect of the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro program including: assisting in the development of a consistent training program for the prison training program, development of a volunteer compliance program for adopted wild horses and burros, a catalyst for the increasing fines from $2,000 to $100,000 for the death of wild horses or burros, monitoring fee-waivered animals in Montana. Sussman received the prestigious Health of the Land Award serving on the BLM’s Black Mountain Eco-team developing a gold-standard model for managing wild burros. She served on the National Wild Horse and Advisory Board in 1990-92
Barbara Warner
September 10, 2014 at 1:58 pm
John and All, hay is needed now at http://www.ISPMB.org Please donate.
Louie C
September 26, 2014 at 6:56 am
FRIENDS OF ANIMALS
FoA Protests BLM Wild Horse Roundups in Wyoming
http://friendsofanimals.org/news/2014/september/foa-protests-blm-wild-horse-roundups-wyoming
September 24, 2014
On Monday, as two helicopters ripped 20 stallions, 11 mares and five colts from their families at the Bar X District Line Trap in the Great Divide Basin Herd Management Area of Wyoming, Friends of Animals and supporters protested these criminal actions against America’s wild horses at the Rock Springs Holding Facility.
As the organization waited for supporters from Kansas, Wyoming and Utah to arrive, members could see and hear foals whinnying to their families who they were cruelly separated from in the holding pens. A man on horseback chased one group of horses from one enclosure to another, trying to break their spirit and make them more “adoptable.”
Fueled by the scene in front of them, around 10:30 a.m., 13 protesters marched from the public viewing area of the facility to the main gate leading to the holding pens carrying banners and signs and chanting, “Stop the roundups, stop the pain, BLM is to blame,” “Let them be, wild and free,” and “BLM lies, horses die” as BLM staff and local sheriffs looked on.
Protesters also put up crime scene tape across the gate and used a megaphone to shout facts about why the roundups in the Checkerboard Herd Management Area of Wyoming are blatantly violating federal laws.
The group then descended upon the BLM’s Rock Springs Field Office—where staff members engineer the horrific roundups happening in Wyoming—and entered the main lobby of the building with banners and posters, chanting and again making speeches through the megaphone. Edita Birnkrant, campaigns director for FoA, laid crime scene tape across the floor and on the front desk, before reading off more than a 100 names of people from all over the world who wanted to attend the protest but were not able to.
Birnkrant asked if there was a BLM representative who would be willing to come out and speak with protesters but didn’t get a response.
After leaving the field office, protesters went back to the holding facility to document the horses who had been rounded up that day, but waited until 4 p.m. and none of the 36 horses arrived. FoA did learn that in addition to rounding up 36 horses that day, two horses died.
Sadly, as FoA was returning to the East Coast Tuesday, two helicopters gathered 30 more stallions, 35 more mares and 12 more colts at the Bar X District Line Trap in the Great Divide Basin Herd Management Area.
Last week in Wyoming 179 wild horses had been ripped from their families due to the Bureau of Land Management’s criminal reign of terror. Hundreds more are set to be brutally removed off the land and imprisoned in barren holding facilities where many are then “adopted” and end up in slaughterhouses.
FoA will continue to spread the word that endangered species status is only hope for Wyoming’s wild horses.
Sept. 15 marked the deadline for when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had to respond to Friends of Animals’ petition to list North American wild horses on public lands as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the best hope for the survival of wild horses in Wyoming and other states since the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act (WHBA), which was passed in 1971, has failed to protect our wild horses.
Listing wild horses, which the BLM claims are non-native despite scientific evidence, as either threatened or endangered under the ESA would provide needed regulation to halt further exploitation of this species, particularly roundups removing the animals from their range.
Louie C
October 9, 2014 at 6:35 am
From HORSEBACK MAGAZINE
http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/32680
Noted Humanitarian Dr, Ann Marini Catches BLM in Lies With Photo Evidence
October 8, 2014
Dear Mr. Lucero,
Several years ago, I requested information about the rationale and sound science regarding the Calico wild horse round-up. I sent this letter to my Senator, Senator Barbara Mikulski. Senator Mikulski, in turn, sent my letter to Bob Abbey, the director of the Wild Horse and Burro program at the BLM at the time. Mr. Abbey sent me a letter stating that the reason for the round-up was because the wild horses were starving and emaciated. Unbeknownst to Mr. Abbey, I had a friend who was in close proximity to the short-term holding facility for this round-up. He took many photos of the wild horses from that cruel round-up where many horses died; two foals who were captured on video and couldn’t walk because their hooves were in the process of sloughing off also died from the helicopter-induced stampede over long distances of treacherous volcanic rock. I had all of the photos processed and blown up to 8.5 x 11 so all of the horses (about 100 in total) could be clearly seen. All of the horses were healthy and none were emaciated or starving.
Just a short summary about my background. I received my Ph.D. degree in Medical Biochemistry from Georgetown University and received my M.D. from the same institution. I am a physician-scientist and have been conducting scientific research since the late 70’s. I do know the basic principles of sound science and I certainly know the difference between lies and the truth. To get at the truth of course, the reporter would have to do a serious investigation into the BLM propaganda and the newspaper would have to commit some serious resources to discover the truth.
The fact is that the BLM doesn’t know how many wild horses there are on public land and because they don’t know the true number of wild horses on public land, there is no way for them to conclude that there are “excess” wild horses which is one criteria for possible round-up.
A serious effort of acquiring a broad factual knowledge base (background and current information) would lead one to question the integrity and real intent of the Wild Horse and Burro Program at the BLM. This is an important point because the BLM will do anything and everything to dupe all of us silly Americans who don’t know anything about horses or science.
If the New York Times believes everything they read and/or obtain from the BLM about the wild horse and burro program, the paper will be hopelessly duped. The facts are that horses are emotional animals and helicopters terrorize them and induce a huge stress response. The fact is that the BLM has consistently REMOVED public land over the years that you and I as taxpapers provide to the wild horses and burros that has amounted to over 19 million acres. There was never any explanation from the BLM. The land just disappeared from the original map where wild horses were allowed to roam free. The fact is that Congress designated that public land was given to wild horses and burros wherever wild horses were found. The BLM is continuing to remove public land, land that all Americans pay to allow the wild horses to live on with their families. The fact is that there are 100 cows to 1 wild horse despite the fact that it is only a privilege for welfare ranchers to graze their cattle on public land. So, why is it that the BLM leases public land to ranchers to graze 1 million cows but whatever number of wild horses (I seriously doubt 40,000 as there are more in long-term holding than free on the range) that are roaming free on public land is too many (Remember, Congress passed the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 which allowed wild horses and burros to roam free on public land and live out their lives with their families)? The fact is that the National Academy of Sciences report urged the BLM to conduct a formal and accurate count of the wild horses on public land. Has the BLM made the effort to accurately count the number of wild horses on public land? The fact is that the National Academy of Sciences indicated in their report that when you remove horses from a parcel of land, there are fewer horses and the horses will reproduce at a higher rate. Has the BLM used this sound science to manage the wild horses? No, it is business as usual….round them up and eradicate them off the face of the Earth.
Let’s remember that there are 248 million acres of public land. Surely, the BLM can think “outside the box” and manage these icons of American heritage and freedom on public land, land that was designed to them by an act of Congress.
Select publications (out of 70):
Hu Z, Yu D, Almeida-Suhett C, Tu K, Marini A, Eiden L, Braga M, Zhu J, Li Z. 2012 Expression of miRNAs and Their Cooperative Regulation of The Pathophysiology in Traumatic Brain Injury. PLoS One 7(6):e39357
Pan H, Hu X-z, Jacobowitz DM, Chen C, McDonough J, Van Shura K, Lyman M, Marini AM. 2012 Alpha-linolenic acid is a potent neuroprotective agent against soman-induced neuropathology. Neurotoxicology, 33:1219-1229.
Lilja AM, Luo Y, Yu Q-s, Röjdner J, Li Y, Marini AM, Marutle A, Nordberg A, Greig NH. 2013 Neurotrophic and neuroprotective actions of (-)- and (+)-phenserine, candidate drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. PLoS One, 8(1):e54887.
Martinez-Llordella M, Esensten JH, Bailey-Bucktrout SL, Lipsky RH, Marini A, Chen J, Mughal M, Mattson MP, Taub DD, Bluestone JA. 2013 CD28-inducible transcription factor DEC1 is required for efficient autoreactive CD4+ T cell response. J Experimental Med 210:1603-1619.
Almeida-Suhett CP, Zheng L, Marini AM, Braga MFM, Eiden LE. 2014 Temporal course of changes in gene expression suggests a cytokine-related mechanism for long-term hippocampal alteration after controlled cortical impact. J Neurotrauma, 31(7):683-690.
Almeida-Suhett CP, Prager E, Pidoplichko V, Figueiredo T, Marini AM, Li Z, Eiden L, Braga MFM. 2014 Reduced Gabaergic inhibition in the Basolateral Amygdala and the development of anxiety-like behavior after Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. PLoS One, 9(7):e102627
Chen J, Pan H, Chen C, Wu W, Iskandar K, He J, Piermartiri T, Jacobowitz DM, Yu Q-S, McDonough JF, Greig NH, Marini AM. (-)-Phenserine attenuates soman-induced neuropathology. PLoS One, 9(6):e99818.
Kind regards,
Ann M. Marini, Ph.D., M.D.
Louie C
October 15, 2014 at 7:04 am
The article posted above has since disappeared from HORSEBACK MAGAZINE
http://horsebackmagazine.com/hb/archives/32680
Noted Humanitarian Dr, Ann Marini Catches BLM in Lies With Photo Evidence
October 8, 2014
Barbara Warner
October 9, 2014 at 11:41 am
There have been a total of 14 animal deaths during this removal: 7 due to chronic/pre-existing conditions, 7 due to acute/sudden conditions/circumstances. You can find causes here: http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/programs/Wild_Horses/14cb-removal/dailyreports.html