Sunday, December 27, 2009
Judge allows wild horse roundup in Nevada
The Obama administration said Wednesday it is going forward with a contentious plan to round up about 2,500 wild horses in Nevada. A spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said herds in the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada are overpopulated and need to be reduced to protect the horses and the rangelands that support them. "The current population in the five Calico herd management areas is three times what the range can handle, so this gather will ensure high-quality habitat for the wild horse and burros and other wildlife while protecting the public rangeland from overuse," said spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff. She called the dispute over the roundup "yet another clarion call to develop and implement a long-term solution to the challenges we face concerning wild horses and burros on our public lands." The Interior Department announcement came after a federal judge on Wednesday denied a request to block the roundup, saying opponents had failed to demonstrate that removal of the horses would violate federal law...read more
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
My clarion call on this problem is to reinstate federal meat inspectors, reopen the processing plants and do what needs to be done. My new quote is. "If it can't pull a plow or turn a cow eat it!!" I said before I would no longer offer suggestions but things are just to goofy to ignore.
Dr. John, yes, do what should have been done years ago. Remove the millions and millions of privately owned livestock and move them to their welfare rancher’s privately owned land. The livestock are decimating the ranges, particularly the riparian areas – read the GAO report. They’ve turned the public lands into a giant private feedlot. By all means, never, never mention the millions of livestock or the fact that the welfare ranchers can use the leases to secure private loans. I bet all Americans would love to use public lands to secure loans and pay pennies for the use of the land. They don’t even pay enough to cover the cost of an EA or EIS. But you guys just keep pushing it and soon, nobody will be eating beef. Then what are you going to do with your millions of cows? Perhaps you can use them as fertilizer to repair all the damage they’ve done to the ranges.
The only thing that gives me comfort is the knowledge that, eventually, all unenlightened, selfish, cruel and hateful people will die off. That is, assuming mankind is progressing along the evolutionary road. If our efforts on behalf of other creatures can accelerate this process of spiritual evolution, I'm willing to keep working at it. Catherine Ritlaw. Journeys End Ranch Animal Sanctuary.
AMEN!
Wow...this one sure brought out the whackjobs now, didn't it? Ever wonder why this country is going to hell?
Letting nature run its course has a real romance to it for some people. Tell you what...next time you get a serious bacterial infection, don't take anything for it and let nature run its course! You can be your very own contribution to help reduce overpopulation, perhaps.
Brett, the wild horses have lived for thousands of years without man’s intervention. It wasn’t until the cattle ranchers took over the lands that all of a sudden had an over population of horses. Cattle grazing was increased 300% last year at Calico. Why are horses now being removed? That’s not romantic and it’s not emotional. It is question that none of you will answer.
It is unfortunate that the slaughter issue, public lands use problems, and the Wild Horse program are all in one infmammatory mess here at the moment. At this point, there are a multitude of problems to address here. I will try my best, and try to avoid dragging anything else into it.
I am disappointed that those of us who do not square perfectly with the opinion of some advocates are typecast as unenlightened, selfish, cruel and hateful people. The notion of sainted advocates in white hats doing mighty battle with the dark-hatted cattle barons might make a great Western, but I think it is too manichean to square with reality.
I have never heard tell of anyone securing loans by virtue of a grazing permit. The loans in question will be secured with the herd itself as collateral. That in and of itself is not what I would term sound business, but this isn't about how I would run things. Pulling cash on the speculative value of a grazing lease, though? Perhaps such things are going on and I am not aware of it. Most of my activity with public lands type ranching are of the rosin jawed variety. I thank God for that, as I would never have the patience to handle that kind of paperwork and the continual jerking around of allotments. I would much rather handle the farming/water end and wrangle horses, personally.
The history of the horse on this continent is a fascinating study. Most things I have read on horses suggest that the horse evolved here, after which they migrated across a land bridge to Asia. Most believe that the herds in North America more or less died out, and that the creatures that took their spot in the ecosystem were bovines, specifically bison. It was not until the 1500s that horses returned courtesy of the Spanish. The Spanish deliberately turned horses loose in an effort to placate natives and reduce horse theft. The Vaqueros turned their surplus horses loose to the feral herds as well. The feral herd was seen as a resource, and it was still seen that way long after the United States gained control of what we know today as the West. It was that way right up to 1971, when the Wild Horse program started up. Ironically, the program started to preserve the legend, but the true history of the herd is dying.
The question was asked as to why nobody noticed the so-called horse population issue until ranching arrived in the area. There are probably several ways to tackle that. One way would be to point out that ranching is not exactly new in the West, having long predated the Wild Horse program's inauguration in the late twentieth century. Prior to the program, Mustangs were just another type of livestock competing for resources. Nobody gave it much more thought than that. Today, the regulations force them to. No matter. Ranchers are not averse to managing the range to accomodate competing species. A few outfits literally run both cattle and sheep.
The other approach I can think of is a bit more basal. If not for the ranchers, who are directed to manage their allotment, who exactly would notice a problem with the balance of grazing and grazing animals? They're the ones that are out there. Once again, they are caught in the middle. If it were only as easy as the stereotype suggests it is...
I hope more people from both sides comment on this situation. There needs to be a better dialogue on it, and I am not equipped to do it any better. I do know, though, that our food supply, and the health of both the dmoesticated and feral herds, depend on efficient management of the rangeland.
Post a Comment