Thursday, July 08, 2010

Feral burros compete for dollars, habitat

What is it about burros that causes otherwise intelligent people to lose their objectivity and capacity for rational thought? And, where in the world are the environmental groups? Where is the Sierra Club? Where is the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, besides stopping badly needed thinning projects? Why have they not been calling for, yelling for, ecological balance? In mid-June, Arizona Game and Fish Department Director Larry Voyles told the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board that federal proposals to change how wild horses and burros are managed must have a goal of ensuring a thriving ecological balance between horses and burros and wildlife, and include the involvement of state wildlife agencies. Seems like a no-brainer, but the burro program is totally out of whack. The BLM spends millions of dollars on burros in corrals waiting adoption and in rounding up more burros to put in those corrals. By some counts they spend more on burro management than they do on native wildlife. Would you believe that the BLM 2011 budget lists horse and burro management as one of their top six priorities -- costing $76 million -- an increase of $12 million over their 2010 budget. This does not include $42 million to purchase land for a wild horse preserve...more

1 comment:

Brett said...

The program has been out of whack from the beginning, just like the Mustang program. The truth is that these "advocates" hate agriculture, specifically the people who own and work the farms and ranches, more than they will ever care for the animals. It's more about "F--- them rednecks" than it is about "save the planet." Their progressive masters simply want to punish rural conservatives for thinking differently than they do. If they can concoct myths about a feral equines that serve their endgame, so much the better.

I would also point out that these same "enviromentalists" are mostly AWOL on the environmental destruction taking place in the borderlands. Once again, kissing up to their urban progressive masters and means more than the flora and fauna.

To Arizona Game & Fish's credit, either they or a closely related group (memory is failing me here) came out against the ROAM act.