Author: Photographer — Journalist

White Paper by John Cox

The objective of a conservation program for non-game wild life should be exactly parallel [to that of game management]: to retain for the average citizen the opportunity to see, admire, and enjoy, and the challenge to understand, the varied forms of birds and mammals indigenous to his state. It implies   each community.  – Aldo Leopold

Time for the truth about Welfare Ranching.  The superficial nonsense of not discussing such a situation involves continued scams for taxpayer money, continued complacency toward the difference of what is wrong and what is right, and the issues of incompetent government combined with special interest groups forcing themselves into large subsidies of taxpayer money – for unnecessary situations.

Our natural surroundings, our environment, is in danger today.  It is in danger and involves, specifically, Welfare Ranching (ranchers who graze their cattle on Public Lands) on America’s Public lands. The ranchers ignore truth and good conservation land management; which is replaced by arrogant and ignorant government agencies and Welfare Ranchers, who falsify their information to the taxpayer’s and general public.  Make no doubt, America’s Public Lands is mismanaged, but mostly out of sight to the average person or taxpayer, so it continues unchecked, unregulated, and undeniably criminal within many aspects . . .

The fact is laws were created to protect our Public Lands from these ongoing situations, and discussed here.  Unfortunately, the people the laws were to protect the Public Lands from, the welfare ranchers and large corporations, actually populate the Bureau of Land Management and other Oversight Boards and Committees – the actual lands management situation is simply not there at all, and mismanagement, misinformation to the public, and bad science the norm.  For those of us who see this daily, we wonder constantly why there is not an investigative situation exploring such obvious and criminal conduct.

There is a lot the Welfare Ranching community would like us Not to See . . . As they certainly will not mention the following, or want especially American Taxpayers to know the true facts . . .

But what are we talking about?  Well, Welfare Ranching, ranchers who run their cattle on Public Lands, America’s Lands, via Grazing Permit from the Bureau of Land Management, are a big problem.  BLM does not manage them appropriately what so ever.  Corruption and criminal conduct abundant by both.

Welfare Ranching, or cattle run on Public Lands, do not have a good record:

1. Commercial Domestic Beef from Public Lands sales receipts (GAO, Comm. Spec. Stats, DOI Reports, et al.) show less than 1% in commercial domestic sales from 2009 to 2015;
2. Welfare Rancher’s numbers are merely 2.7% of overall commercial cattle ranchers domestically;
3. Due to Welfare Rancher paranoia and demands for more cattle on Public Lands, America’s wildlife is being eradicated at 1.2 million wildlife-animals per year to 5.8 million wildlife-animals per year (i.e. Wildlife Services a subordinate of USDA, continues eradication of animals from 2000 to 2014 and mostly from Public Lands at the request of Welfare Ranchers) in the pretense of protecting cattle and sheep – but remain unchecked by regulatory situations, as they violate regulations and laws as well, constantly;
4. Public Lands is mismanaged by the BLM, and the amount of cattle and sheep on Public Lands is far too many, an overabundance, and destruction of Public Lands ongoing, but hidden by “bad-science” as conducted by the BLM (i.e. Rangeland Reports do not contain information of cattle presence on Public Lands, thereby, left unobserved by legislators and they assume everything is okay – but it is not);
5. Unnecessary wild horse herd roundups, demanded by the Welfare Ranching community, are predicated on falsified wild horse overpopulation counts done by BLM, on falsified competition factors with cattle and sheep, costing taxpayers $75.4 million yearly – rounding up and storage (i.e. per government and private contractor invoice, vouchers, receipts, and government Procurement Process authorizations and payments)
6. Wild Horses, as well as other wildlife, are killed or driven from Public Lands, to place more cattle and sheep onto Public Lands – and at the demands of Welfare Ranchers, who indeed remain coercive and threaten BLM consistently, on a constant basis;
7. American Taxpayer’s support this situation unknowingly, and kept very quiet, at an abundant amount of overall subsidies and other situations noted below at $1.2 Billion yearly;
8. Welfare Ranching is unneeded in America (we simply want them to compete in the open-market and not subsidized any longer), but a lot of fraud, a lot of criminal conduct, wild horse theft, many $150,000 water tanks which are nothing more than 55 gal. oil drums with a garden hose on top, and the list is vast;
9. Disposal/throw-away situation from beef markets remains at 28% -plus domestically (i.e. USDA Statistics 2005 to 2015), gives an even more unbiased and confirmed fact that the amount of beef being produced in America, on our Public Lands right now is unnecessary, and Public Lands do not need to be sacrificed for common sense and obvious reasoning;
10. Much of Public Lands beef is shipped to Japan, China, and Russia at a reduced cost – and why not, because American Taxpayer’s are paying the price to raise it – Welfare Rancher beef at an average cost to Taxpayer’s, via Subsidies, are from a low of $145,000 to $375,000 per year to $2.8 million dollars yearly – ironically, many welfare ranching situations are corporate owned or filed as a Trust Ownership (info via Gov. and Commercial Receipts, Procurement Invoices, Subsidy Procurement . . . et al. ;
11. The fact stands out that Welfare Ranching is unneeded in America, and not of heritage, nor do taxpayers receive any benefits what so ever from their presence on Public Lands, and a way over abundant amount of cattle per acre.

Welfare Rancher entitlements from Heritage?

One might ask about western ranching heritage?  Well, when we peruse deeds and family ownership, within the Welfare Ranching (those who qualified for Public Lands Grazing Permits, who have not enough private land/graze for the amount of cattle owned – yet another conflict in common sense) community, we discover a majority of ownership to be corporate, or Trusts with assured tax write-offs.

Something else we found rare, interesting to say the least, was no family-owned ranches have existed over a 40-year time period, and ironically, the 2% that did there is nothing to show (family relationships, et al.) beyond the 1950’s.  So heritage?  Not really, although some families will state heritage, but it simply does not exist – at least in accord to property deeds and titles.

So why do many Welfare Rancher’s today feel entitled, when in reality no entitlement deserved . . .  One can suppose, and be correct, that their entitled mentality to taxpayer money and Federal Lands be given them is “illusory superiority perceptions” at best.  Because they have gotten away with corruption on Public Lands, and break laws that anyone else would go to jail for, is not an appropriate qualification toward entitlement and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money yearly.  And this one of so many reason they would like to take-over Public Lands – Money!  And a lot of it!

One can say in truth that Welfare Ranching is a taxpayer supported industry, subsidy-driven, even though undocumented and unknown to many American taxpayers.  Subsidies, within Welfare Ranching, abound with other questionable situations; which, almost all are illegal situations.  The Problem here?  Often all of this is ignored or left unenforced by the oversight and regulating government agencies.

So where do we go from here?

BLM Indulges Welfare Ranchers

Here exists one example of many, how the BLM backs down form what is nothing more than a Welfare Ranching epidemic that should be discontinued – and more recent examples abound of Welfare Ranching conduct, and over the years costing taxpayers vast fortunes – so yes, they want Public lands for themselves, and supported by taxpayer money to continue.

But remember, in no way is this unique, as a book could be written about Welfare Ranching improprieties, dishonesty, and criminality.  BLM, because it is family-religious-oriented in their hiring practices, and a government agency packed with rancher-connections (i.e. family and neighbors alike, et sl.), the illegal activities are allowed, so to speak.  Federal and state laws apparently do not apply to neither Welfare Ranchers or BLM employees, with many simply ignored, or bought-off (i.e. the history of BLM and wild horses going to slaughter only one of many examples).

And keep in mind, the Taylor Grazing Act was designed to “Protect” Public Lands from rancher impropriety and misuse and overabundance of cattle placed on Public Lands, as it was perceived, and foreseen even then – yet ignored in total.

Welfare Ranching Scam (one of many)

One can say in truth that Welfare Ranching is a taxpayer supported industry, subside-driven, even though an unknown to many American taxpayers.  Subsidies abound with other questionable situations.  Undeniable that almost all are illegal situations, and also ignored or left unenforced by government agencies.

Here is an example of collecting money by Scam (excerpt from Newspaper Article). 

So why the anti-government rebellion?  Nothing more than a smoke-screen, and the rebels will leave you with a lack-of-facts – because if you knew of these facts, they would appear very much as petty criminals, or some state like little children trying to pull a fast one on their parents.

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Collecting drought money and stating no drought . . .

“In June, tough-talking ranchers in remote Battle Mountain, Nevada, defied the federal government, herding cattle onto public rangeland that had been closed to grazing to protect it during the West’s scorching drought.

That act of defiance capped two years of protest against grazing restrictions imposed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which manages thousands of square miles of arid federal land in Nevada.

In the end, the federal government backed down from the confrontation in Battle Mountain. The BLM canceled the drought closures and opened the range, just as the cattlemen wanted.

By denying the severity of the drought – and by claiming that “rogue” federal bureaucrats threatened them with economic ruin – the ranchers won the day. But even as the conflict played out, some of these same ranchers were collecting drought subsidies from the federal government.

On one hand, they denied the drought. On the other hand, they embraced it.

According to records obtained by Reveal, two ranching families at the center of the Battle Mountain protests received $2.2 million from a federal drought disaster relief program.

Don Filippini, the protest leader who turned hundreds of cattle loose on the closed range, was paid $338,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program in 2014, records show.

Another $750,000 federal payout went to a trust and corporation associated with the Filippini family, which long has been active in ranching in Nevada.

Meanwhile, significant payments also went to the family of Battle Mountain cattleman Peter Tomera, who with his wife and sons rode on the Grass March Cowboy Express, a 2014 horseback ride to Washington, D.C., to protest the government drought restrictions. The records show that the government paid $250,000 to a Tomera family trust and another $360,000 to a family corporation.

An additional $540,000 was paid to other members of the extended Tomera family and to a related corporation, records show . . .

. . . Rather than moving against Dan Filippini for trespassing – and risking a prolonged Bundy-style confrontation – the BLM quickly negotiated a settlement. Under its terms, the closed range was reopened to grazing. In exchange, the Filippinis agreed to drop further appeals of the prior closure orders.

Environmentalists complained that the BLM rewarded the ranchers for violating the law, allowing them to run cattle on a drought-stressed range that they said already was battered by decades of overgrazing.

“The livestock industry enjoys heavily subsidized grazing privileges,” said Kirsten Stade of the Washington-based group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “But (it) acts as if it has an entitlement to the public’s lands.”

In all, the USDA’s livestock disaster program paid out more than $204 million to Nevada cattle and sheep ranchers in 2014, records show. The payments were for losses claimed in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

To get relief, ranchers were required to fill out applications reporting the size of their herds and verifying they were pastured in a county where the U.S. Drought Monitor declared that drought conditions prevail.” — Credit: Sandra Chereb/Associated Press”

Conclusion

This inclusion, which many more similar situations exist, shows us these are not the honest ranchers of decades past, and part of America’s Heritage – Nope, these people are a different situation entirely, and money, not ranching or heritage, is their motive, their priority, and they really do not care how they get it, but they want it – and deception is their game . . .

Frankly, between the taxpayer money and other wildlife and wild horses, for example, that are killed yearly, and among the criminality involved and other questionable conduct – the sacrifice to America, and American’s, is simply to great – especially for a situation that is totally unnecessary.  The fact is we can do without welfare ranching, and not even notice it has been discontinued.

Yes, we could then go out to our Public Lands, enjoy not only the healthy environment, but seeing Wild Horses and other wildlife, and drink the water from the creeks in the areas we visit.  Right now Public Lands is being destroyed, and American Taxpayer’s have no idea they are paying for the destruction and killing of wildlife.  And that’s the bottom line entirely!

In the matters of so much evidence, that wild horses are indeed Indigenous to North America, it becomes an imperative that roundups stop. As well, the cattle-only paradigm is an insufficient excuse to allow further roundups, as we potentially are speaking about an Indigenous Species to North America, which due to recent information, may be significant in events toward our natural environment. The actual reduction of populations of wild horses, in order to place more and more cattle on public lands, is of questionable standards and ecology, which equates to no Conservation or Ecological efforts what so ever, made toward America’s Public Lands.

The extinction of particular species, by human’s and climate, have been the topic of much scientific debate today. Ironically, the Ice Age may not have been as devastating to many mammals as we were led to believe. There is a majority of evidence, and more accumulating almost weekly right now, that supports the hypothesis of “Pleistocene Overkill” (Martin and Wright 1967, Flannery 2001), or events similar to this same situation, perhaps not as dramatic within a population-kill context.

What we are finding currently is this:

1.  Pleistocene Horse Bones are being found at Pre-Columbian archeological dig sites in the west;
2. Pleistocene Mammoth bones are being located in huge bone-piles, with human-made spear tips throughout their skulls and bodies, and within several Pre-Columbian dig sites, as well as Pleistocene Horse Bones — in grassy meadows sites in the west.

What does this mean?  That Wild Horses in the west are Indigenous Species and require protection under the Endangered Species Act — it also means that such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Interior have been lying all along in the matters of the wild horses not being an Indigenous species.

What is required here?  That a MORITORIUM be imposed on further wild horse roundup and/or birth control and/or sterilization situation be accomplished immediately!  If not, then the present Administrators and Managers of the BLM and DOI will be held accountable, and taken to task for such poor attention to factual science, and their incompetence —

Wildlife Overkill Events

If not in total, it then becomes a significant link to a combination of Ice Age and Pleistocene Overkill – which leads many of us to believe that wild horses did survive, and current overlooked evidence, from the past attests to this situation. The fact is many archeologists and paleontologists of the past, simply took the non-debatable route (career oriented) of non-inclusive animals from Ice Age survival.

The fact is questions are easily answered, in the matters of so many wild horse bones being found along side — of and with – Dwarf Woolly Mammoth bones, as both fed on similar vegetation, and existed pre-ice age as well as post ice-age – as shown at many modern-day archeological sites.

This hypothesis of Pleistocene-Overkill suggested that as humans spread across the two continents, they preyed upon the large herbivores, such as mammoths, ground sloths, etc. Such large animals are more vulnerable to extinction than smaller ones because they cannot hide as easily, and because their lower reproductive rates cannot compensate for the losses due to hunting. Horses are within this categorical situation as well, but being smaller at that time, the question does arise, were all wild horses killed, or were there many left to breed, that is, once the larger prey-animals become extinct?

Before humans entered the picture, North America had an impressive assortment of large mammals and birds. The herbivores of this megafauna included 3 species of elephants (woolly mammoths, giant mammoths, and mastodons), horses, camels, giant bison, giant ground sloths, giant armadillos, tapirs, giant beaver, giant tortoises (roughly the size of Volkswagen bugs), and a peccary as large as the wild boars of Europe.

They also may have had a fearlessness of humans, somewhat like the dodo bird, because these animals evolved without human presence. When the large herbivores disappeared, their natural predators, such as saber-toothed tigers and short-nosed bears, became extinct as well. The large scavenger bird species, adapted to eating the remains of large animals, then followed into extinction. The California condor may have held on because it had access to the carcasses of marine mammals, which did not suffer high extinction rates at that time.

Questions Abound in Realistic Horse Extinctions

Some researchers propose that North American caballine horses did not become extinct, and instead persisted until historical times (Clutton-Brock 1981). This hypothesis has not been previously generally accepted because: (1) No horse bones from the late pre-Columbian era have been found to support the idea, and (2) no indisputable images of horses have been found in late pre-Colombian American Indian “art” — That is, until the Nevada find, the Oregon finds, the New Mexico finds, numerous Alaska finds, the substantial Northwestern Canada finds, etc. All of these archeological finds reported not only late pre-Columbian horse bones, but images on horses within nearby caves, some were considered overlooked in the past, and some misidentified as other than late pre-Columbian America Indian “art.”

Furthermore, when the Spanish arrived with their horses to Mexico in the 16th century, the Aztecs and other educated peoples of that region did not initially understand what horses were. All horses found today in North America are thus believed to be descended from horses brought to the New World from the Old World after the year 1492. Misidentification had plagued proper identification of the horse throughout history, many times, which only now is being questioned as well.

After over 55 million years of evolution and residence in North America, horses became extinct, supposedly. This extinction occurred either in the late Pleistocene or early Holocene. (The Holocene is the period of time we live in now. It began after the Wisconsonian glaciers melted, roughly 10,000 years ago.) But in reality, were they simply left unseen, or around so much perhaps taken for granted? Well, we remain unsure – for example even in the old west, even though not mentioned in many history books or records, we know horses played a part in not only transport, but farming, ranching, building of cities, trail building, surveys, roadwork, et al.

Were the hunters/gatherer’s distracted by other wildlife, more palatable, so the horse neglected in total, or shoved aside? Because explanation still needs to be developed in horse bones next to the Dwarf Woolly Mammoth bones, late pre-Columbian era, that are currently being found at archeological sites throughout the western United States.

Horse Species Survival

When horses became extinct in the New World, some species of Equus still survived in the Old World (e.g. zebras, wild asses and caballines) that portray a hypothesis that wild horses from the Pleistocene era more than likely survived as well. Their ancestors had dispersed there years earlier via the Bering Land Bridge, which connected Alaska to Siberia during periods when sea levels were lower. Many of these horse species are still living, however most surviving species are now endangered. But one significant problem — we have no sense of confirmation, acceptability of how many species were at that time or remain alive today —

The Bering Land Bridge, also known as the central part of Beringia, is thought to have been up to 600 miles wide. Based on evidence from sediment cores drilled into the now submerged landscape, it seems that here and in some adjacent regions of Alaska and Siberia the landscape at the height of the last glaciation 21,000 years ago was shrub tundra – as found in Arctic Alaska today.

And the mystery becomes much more, well, let’s just say either short-sighted or confused, as some questions are answered — The vegetation, i.e. throughout Beringia, was first believed would not have supported the large, grazing animals – woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, Pleistocene horses, camels, and bison.

These animals lived on the vegetation of the steppe-tundra which dominated the interior of Alaska and the Yukon, as well as interior regions of northeast Siberia. Although, the shrub tundra, found up to this point, would have supported elk, perhaps some bighorn sheep, and small mammals. But problems with both the finding of Woolly Mammoths as well as Dwarf Woolly Mammoths later, and throughout the western United States, places this information into serious questions categorically.

“Permafrost horses and what they tell us —- Horses depicted in cave art are generally stocky, mostly tan or yellowish with a white belly, and usually shown with a stiff, dark mane*. They thus resemble Przewalski’s horse of modern Mongolia. Corroboratory evidence that Ice Age horses of some populations looked like this comes not only from living wild caballoids but also from the Selerikan horse (or Selerikan pony), a Pleistocene stallion preserved in Siberian permafrost, discovered in 1968, and extensively described in works largely unknown in the west (Guthrie 1990, Ukraintseva 2013). * It should be noted that not all ancient horses were like this – we have evidence that some Pleistocene horses in North America (and maybe elsewhere) had long, flowing manes.”

Throughout the Holocene, wild caballine horses continued to range across the grasslands of Europe and Asia. Approximately 5,000 years ago, wild caballines were captured at numerous locations in this vast geographic area and domesticated by diverse peoples, as the knowledge and technology for capturing, taming and riding horses spread (Vilà et al. 2001; Bendrey 2012).

Horse’s Today Perhaps Misidentified?

Thus, the domestic horse of today originated not from one local population of wild horses, but from numerous populations spread across Eurasia (Vilà et al. 2001; Bendrey 2012). Only one of these original wild caballine populations still exists. It is known as Przewalski’s Horse – or is it simply the only one we want to accept, because it is the easiest to explain? The fact is we are also finding, through DNA as well as Bloodlines, Pleistocene era attributes . . . in horses across the United States, Spain, and other European areas, i.e. France as well . . .

The supposed extinction of North America’s horses occurred during a time period when many other large mammals throughout the world also became extinct. Was it more comfortable to simply attest to the extinction of wild horses to be included, as a fact; or, just comfort because no explanation available, and who cared about this upstart country called America?

But yes, more problems — It is hard to find agreement in the literature about terminal dates. Kurtén and Anderson (1980) reported a dating of 8,000 years ago for horse fossils from Alberta, Canada, but MacFadden (2005) writes that North American horses became extinct roughly 10,000 years ago. Oh, there is so much more confusion, and this just the tip of the iceberg (pardon the pun) so to speak.

In Alaska, stilt-legged horses became extinct about 31,000 years ago, while caballine horses became extinct about 12,500 years ago (Guthrie 2003). Interestingly, Alaskan caballines showed a precipitous decline in body size before extinction, and vanished 1,300 years before woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) became extinct in the same area (Guthrie 2003). But once again, the Dwarf Woolly Mammoths being found throughout the western United States, turns the theories above into highly questionable information – confused at best.

Because climate change often causes alterations in the abundance of many other organisms, such as food plants, disease vectors, predators and competitors, extinction scenarios involving climate change can be diverse and involve many different mechanisms.

Although still unproven, the “overkill hypothesis” is a plausible explanation and should be given serious consideration. However, the reader needs to be wary of the political agenda of both some of its supporters, and the dubious conclusions that they derive from it, as well as the detractors, and simply not wanting to toss confusion into the game of horse breeding or authenticating blood-lines.

Conclusion or A Beginning

The modern-day American, like humans everywhere, are passionate horse lovers. The fossil record’s revelation to us all, that our very own continent is the ancient motherland of horses, has deepened the already strong emotions that we all feel toward horses, and strengthens Our-Bonds, that we indeed have with these extraordinary animals.

One example is the recent interest we Americans show for saving various species of Old World horses from extinction. This is developed to authenticate and bring concerns that such species occurred in North America, are closely-related to horses that existed centuries ago.

Some people, such as myself, strongly suggest introducing these species back into America, and to set all the wild horses in captivity, back onto America’s Public Lands – and for legitimate reasoning of not only historical nature, supported via current fossil records, but of value to All American’s, and the Iconic principles that do exist, whether or not our government reaffirms such situations or not. It is indeed a controversial proposal that is being studied more closely and debated (Donlan 2005; Oliviera-Santos and Fernandez 2010; Cox 2014; Cox 2009; Simson-Cox 2008; Stenson 2006).

There is no doubt we see a soul mate, a natural symbol of our own love for freedom, with deep and ancient roots in our own America – We are the Owners of America and the Wild Horses, and not the government nor any others that represent our behalf, and certainly not just the ranchers.

At the same time, the older fossil records are sobering, make no doubt of this situation. They had created revelation of the horse’s extinction in North America eight thousand years ago, and certainly reminded us today of the vulnerability of all nature and the need to make environmental protection a high priority. Even though current fossil records are showing us something different, extinction did not take place, even more sobering is the fact of how misinformation played such a roll within the current attempted demise of the wild horses on Public Lands.

Currently, this priority still exists, but now the priority of not only Humane Conduct, but developing the truth out of current Fossil Records, in a time when our own government in America has turned against the very people they are supposedly representing, and pay them to do so – thereby, throwing legitimate science, fossil records, and truthfulness into the wind. True American’s will not allow this façade to happen much longer . . .

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