Terri Farley

Saturday, October 24, 2015

BLM Cares Really, Truly, Deeply About Wild Horses

BLM 2008: Killing captive wild horses “magic bullet for budget problems"

BLM 2015: Killing captive wild horses sold to Tom Davis in 2008 was "deceitful"

BLM helicopter round-up of wild horses, Melissa Farlow photo

Three years after the public demanded an investigation of Bureau of Land Management sales of wild horses to Mexican slaughter houses via known kill-buyer Tom Davis of Colorado, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Inspector General issued a report confirming the deal.

According to the Associated Press ”Steven Ellis, the BLM’s deputy director of operations, lamented Davis’ ‘deceitful actions.’”

I mean, BLM had absolutely no idea what Davis had done with 1,794 federally-protected wild horses.

Really?

It’s been almost 7 years to the day since my op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal quoted then-BLM Deputy Director Henri Bisson who suggested killing captive wild horses might be a “magic bullet for budget problems".

At the same time, Susie Stokke, then Nevada’s Wild Horse and Burro Program Manager, told KUNR that though BLM spends millions on many programs, “aggressive management of wild horses is the magic bullet for BLM budget shortfall.”

2008: Sally Spencer, director of program which sold wild horses to Davis:

“BLM hasn't yet exerted its full powers” over mustangs.

I mean, it almost sounds like a policy had been born.

Still, after the publication of the Op-Ed and a longer blog on the same topic, I heard from Spencer who asked why I’d turned on the BLM. I responded that I was tired of lies, and never heard from her again.

The Denver Post quotes the report : “Between 2008 and 2012, Davis spent $17,940 on horses from the BLM... “ and “BLM spent more than $140,000 delivering the horses to Davis…”

If this wasn't an attempt to balance the BLM budget on the backs of wild horses, what was it?

Before this report came out, I asked BLM questions about Tom Davis and other wild horse policies. They never answered, so I turned to government websites.

BLM’s Myths and Facts page often lags behind current events and modern science, but it's never sounded with such hollow irony as it does now.
"Myth #2: It is the BLM's policy to sell or send wild horses to slaughter.
Fact: This charge is absolutely false. The Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management care deeply about the well-being of wild horses"

But they sent them to slaughter, just the same.
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Author's Note: Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt pushed back its publication deadline to give the agency over a year to respond to inquiries about wild horses, but BLM chose not to answer a single question on the record for my recent non-fiction book, Wild At Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them

Labels: BLM, Department of Interior, Henri Bisson, horse slaughter, kill buyers, mustangs, Office of the Inspector General, Sally Spencer, slaughter, Steven Ellis, Susan Stokke, Tom Davis, wild horses

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Posted by Terri Farley @ 1:13 AM

Comments: Did all them horses get killed then??

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Posted by

nvcowgrrl : 5:13 AM

All evidence leads to the conclusion that all of the horses were trucked to slaughter houses nvcowgrrl and the Federal report indicates BLM didn't do very good research in determining he was a kill-buyer

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Posted by

Terri Farley : 9:49 AM

Whens the November Newsletter coming out? And when when will you start 'Sam's blog'? I've been dying for it to come out already, Oh and I've ordered 'Wild At Heart' and its coming sooooooon and I can't wait to read it.......

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Posted by

nvcowgrrl : 4:20 AM