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Saturday, September 10, 2016
Wild Horse Science vs Feral Horse $cience in the American West
If you're interested in decisions being made with your money for your wild horses, Elko, isn't a convenient venue. Not to worry, says BLM. Meetings are (sorta) streamed online and the Wild Horse Advisory board includes folks to speak for all "...from advocacy groups, wild horse and burro research institutions, veterinarians, natural resource organizations, humane advocacy groups, wildlife associations, and livestock organizations." I'd assume by his email address that "cowdoc75" represents veterinary or livestock interests, but no. He's the Natural Resources expert. This board is clearly skewed toward cash cows and what they can do for ranchers, not what they can do to the environment. For that, they blame wild horses. The vote to kill mustangs was 7-1. Ginger Kathrens, Humane representative, was the lone vote for life. These horses belong to all Americans and this vote doesn't represent them. My letter to the Board and BLM follows. Please use the email addresses to convey your opinions.
TO: drfred@gmail.com,
cowdoc75@infowest.com
, mustangs@infowest.com
, jweileldvm@yahoo.com,
suemcd@vet.upenn.edu,
Jen.sall@gmail.com , benmasters88@gmail.com
, Steven.leslieyardley@yahoo.com
CC: dbolstad@blm.gov, nkornze@blm.gov, whbadvisoryboard@blm.gov
Advisory Board Members:
BLM was once so valuable
to me as a writer that I included staffers in dedications to my PHANTOM
STALLION book series. I even named a main character after BLM's Bryan Fuell of
Elko because he was so helpful.
BLM employees used to meet advocates at Bruno's for coffee before round-ups. We often disagreed, but we asked and answered questions and listened to each other. Now, advocates are met in the same Gerlach parking lot by armed rangers. And, when I asked questions for my non-fiction book on wild horses, BLM stonewalled for over 13 months, until my publisher finally sent the book to press without updated comments from the Interior Department. After 20 years of observing BLM, I thought I was beyond shock over wild horse mismanagement.
I was wrong. The
advisory board's choice of wild horse slaughter, based on willful ignorance of
science and finances, sucker-punched me.
BLM has wasted millions of dollars on rounding up and warehousing wild horses despite the availability of cheap on-range solutions to man-made problems. In fact, the Humane Society of the United States' analysis of BLM's budget documents indicated that the more money Congress appropriated to BLM's "reform," the more expensive the wild horse programs became. Only one thing changes from year to year: money going to independent contractors. BLM’s job is to protect and manage wild horses and the range, but BLM's Don Glen and Dean Bolstad made it clear at 2009 Wild Horse Advisory Board meetings that another priority was "keeping our contractors happy." And have they ever, with ever-increasing amounts of tax dollars. As an author for young readers, I know many students use the Interior Department's websites to search for factual information. The dissemination of '70s era science skewed toward merchandisers of Western resources amounts to malpractice of the sleaziest kind -- lying to kids for political gain. Board members, I urge you to retract this emotional response to BLM's cry for more money for further mismanagement. Instead, listen to non-vested scientists who've proven the environment's been turned upside down by man's replacement of native species (including equines; check the fossil record) with livestock. Listen to those with no financial stake in destroying the range. Years from now, will you have helped save the last wild places? Or will every book and Google search list you as an accomplice to the death of West?
Sincerely,
Terri Farley Labels: BLM, BLM adoption, BLM Advisory Board, BLM round ups, Bruno's, cattle, contractors, Dean Bolstad, Elko, Gerlach, Ginger Kathrens, long-term holding, mustangs, Neil Kornze, Nevada, slaughter, wild horses Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 11:47 PM 1 comments  
Thursday, February 06, 2014 WILD AT HEART: I love my job Dear Readers, I've been especially slow posting on my blog because I'm researching and writing my non-fiction book WILD AT HEART: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them, but I don't want to keep all of the fun to myself. Let me introduce you to some of the people I've interviewed so far: Dr. Jessa Madosky is a professor of biology and I know her best from the time we spent together on Shackleford Island off the coast of North Carolina. She's been wonderful
Ginger Kathrens has wider knowledge on wild horses than anyone I know. She's won two Emmys for her documentaries on wild places and animals and her CLOUD documentaries are the only continuing chronicle of a North American wild animal from birth to maturity. Ginger is not only a citizen-scientist on wild horses, she is their advocate in many ways.
Dr. Eric Scott is the curator of paleontology at the San Bernardino County Museum and a lead researcher at Tule Springs fossil beds in Southern Nevada. Someday soon, he hopes to see the living descendents of the ancient equines he's digging up & the good news is that the Cold Creek herd is just a short drive away.
Labels: Beth Shapiro, Cloud, DNA, Eric Scott, Ginger Kathrens, Jessa Madosky, paleontology, Shackleford Island, Yukon horse Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 6:44 AM 0 comments
Monday, March 04, 2013 BLM Chief's Disconnect with Reality
Who: Joan Guilfoyle, chief of the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Division Where: BLM's Wild Horse Advisory board met in Oklahoma City What: "corrected" public perceptions of BLM's mustang management. Why should you care? Some of Guilfoyle's comments, see below, show a disconnect from what really happens on the range. Instead, she believes what she sees in in BLM publicity photos. Read Guilfoyle's comment, and then watch Anatomy of a Roundup a short documentary on the Swasey round-up by Ginger Kathrens, protector of the wild stallion CLOUD.
"Finally I'll say the Wild Horse and Burro people I work with and encounter, they love the animals too. And they do their best to take good care of them. I have seen this over and over but you have to remember they're a wild animal and when they come in off the range, they're a wild animal and they're frightened and just alarmed and uncertain and we do our best if we have to gather them for any of those purposes, we do our best to calm the fears and I guess if any of you looked at the gather reports from the Swasey gather, which is the last one we did in Utah, you will see the footage that these animals were brought in trotting calmly, there were no incidents, that is our model. I will say too if you'd been here this morning, you would have heard that soon you can go to our Web site an pull off all the public domain footage, B roll stock footage, et cetera so you can see some of this for yourselves." See, listen and feel for yourselves what it was really like at the Swasey round-up. Anatomy of a Roundup Labels: BLM, Cloud, Ginger Kathrens, Joan Guilfoyle, Oklahoma City, Wild Horse Advisory board Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 7:11 PM 1 comments
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Press Release on Nevada Wild Horse Killings  For Immediate Release Naturalist Filmmaker Ginger Kathrens along with Authors Deanne Stillman and Terri Farley Release Statements about the Nevada Wild Horse Killings and BLM’s Reward 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act Must Be Upheld Reno, NV (December 22, 2009)—The Cloud Foundation along with authors Deanne Stillman and Terri Farley release statements to the press about the killing of six American wild horses in Washoe County, NV discovered during the recent unannounced Buckhorn roundup during the first week in December. These concerned citizens comment on the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) responsibilities to protect American wild horses as well as their recent $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers. "I am heartened that Director Abbey is offering this large reward. Wild horses and burros are valuable members of our western ecosystems and whoever committed these crimes should be brought to justice." —Ginger Kathrens, Naturalist and Emmy-award winning filmmaker- creator of the popular PBS Cloud Wild Horse Documentaries "I'm saddened by the mustangs' deaths and hope BLM stands up for our remaining mustangs in the wild" —Terri Farley, author of the "Phantom Stallion" wild horse series "These killings have been going on for decades and are all about our ongoing war against the mustang. The question we must ask ourselves as Americans is this: why are we, a cowboy nation, destroying the horse we rode in on? Now, in this holiday season, the question is more urgent than ever, as we recall the 34 wild horses that were gunned down outside Reno at Christmas of 1998 and once again, mourn the martyrdom of yet more mustangs in their homeland—the West." —Deanne Stillman, author of "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West"
Labels: BLM reward, Cloud, Deanne Stillman, Ginger Kathrens, mustang, Nevada, phantom stallion, terri farley, Wild horse killings Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 8:43 AM 1 comments
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