The nation's wild horses would be protected from slaughter and given millions more acres to roam under legislation moving toward passage Friday in the House. Supporters of the bill mobilized after the Interior Department announced last year that it may have to kill thousands of healthy wild horses and burros to deal with the growing population on the range and in holding facilities. Republicans complained the bill underscores Democrats' misplaced priorities by focusing on animals instead of people, at a time when the nation's unemployment rate is approaching double digits. They also said the measure would place the protection of wild horses and burros above other animals that rely on the rangeland. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that enacting the Restore our American Mustangs Act would cost about $200 million over the next five years. Currently, the wild herds roam over about 33 million acres of Western land. To comply with the bill, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management would need to find an additional 20 million acres, primarily after 2013, at a cost of up to $500 million, according the CBO...AP
According to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wa), this bill would create a "$700 million welfare program for wild horses and burros" by doing the following:
- a wild horse census would be conducted every two years
- it provides “enhanced contraception” and birth control for these horses
- it would acquire or move 19 million acres of public and private land for the specific purpose of giving these horses more places to roam around. 19 million acres is roughly the size of the distinguished Chairman’s state of West Virginia.
- five million dollars a year will then be spent to repair the damage that horses cause to these lands
- and there are new mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before Americans can adopt a wild horse.
2 comments:
ROAM bill opponents are calling it "wild horse welfare," ignoring the fact that it saves money and brings BLM into line with public wishes and fiscal responsibility.
Last month I attended the national Wild Horse and Burro advisory board meeting in Sacramento, CA.
Meeting minutes aren't available to the public until September, but these details are from my notes:
- BLM continues to say wild horses reproduce at a rate of 20% per year "Because horses are an introduced species, they have few natural enemies..." In fact, wild horses' population boom is relatively recent, because natural predators and their territories have been reduced by man.
- BLM's suggested alternative to contraception is upsetting the gender ratio in wild horse herds to 70% stallions. Not only would many stallions be injured in fights, mares might not survive. If that's a population reduction plan, it's a pretty inefficient one.
-Despite BLM staff protests that the U.S. can't afford wild horses, they turned down Federal stimulus funds
-BLM "zeroes out" historic grazing ares (HMA/ herd management areas), forcing wild horses to crowd contiguous rangelands, then complains of over-grazing
- BLM places captive horses with the costliest independent contractors instead of volunteer sanctuaries or less expensive land owners. Asked why, they offered no explanation except they wanted to "keep" those contractors
- BLM places captive horses with the costliest independent contractors instead of volunteer sanctuaries or less expensive land owners. Asked why, they offered no explanation except they wanted to "keep" those contractors
-BLM hasn't made an "annual report" to Congress since 2004, but estimates one should be ready in 2011
Terri has an interesting blog...here
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