Feds may euthanize wild horses

[swissgrl]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25465974/

[vadnaisarabians]

I just read that! I am so mad! And they call it euthanizing. They don't, they chase them in the helicopter till they have a heart attack or shoot them. The Feds are A%@#oles. Yuck.

[bridgetah]

This is a horrible situation. I don't believe for a minute that there is no other solution. We can squander billions on a war but we can't find a way to protect our wildlife, including the horses.

[beejoyfulmk]

I remember seeing a story where deer had over run a town and they started feeding a birth control laced grain. Why can;t that work here?

[bridgetah]

IMO, the BLM as acting for the cattle industry.

We need to speak truth to power to the cattlemen, which is the essence of this problem. Somehow, 37, 000 or so wild horses scattered over several states, is too much for the cattlemen who graze millions of cattle for a pittance on our public lands.

The director of the Dept. of Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, (of which the BLM is a part) has done his best to grease the skid for commercial interests. Posted below is some info on him that I took from Wikipedia. I know it's long, but it's worth reading.

IMO, the urgency behind this sort of behavior on the part of government agencies, is prompted by the prospect of a new administration taking power and re-instating some of the environmental laws and protections that this present administration has gutted.

If all but a few of those captive horses are killed, then the cattlemen can continue on their merry way and eventually, there will be no wild horses to bother them. I doubt that either presidential candidate would want to be party to something as grotesque and extreme as the mass deaths of all those mustangs. We must demand that the BLM wait until after the new president takes office before killing all these horses.

This sort of thing is going on w/oil leases on public lands as well.
__________________________________________________________________

From Wikipedia:

During his six years in the Senate, Kempthorne scored a "0" on the League of Conservation Voters' legislative scorecards every year except 1993, when he scored 6 percent on the basis of one vote against funding a rocket booster for the space program that environmentalists judged harmful to the environment. His overall LCV score for that period was less than 1%.

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Aug. 27 -/E-Wire/-- The Center for Biological Diversity presented Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne with the first annual Rubber Dodo Award on Friday.

Since his confirmation as secretary of interior on May 26, 2006, Kempthorne has not placed a single plant or animal on the federal endangered species list. The last listing (12 Hawaiian picture-wing flies) occurred on May 9, 2006 - 472 days ago. The previous recordholder was James Watt, who listed no species for 376 days between 1981 and 1982.

Upon Kempthorne's appointment as Secretary of the Interior, environmental groups characterized him as someone who has "almost always favored changing laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to make them more favorable to commercial interests."

As Secretary of the Interior, Kempthorne has come under criticism for not placing any plants or animals on the federal endangered species list since his confirmation on May 26, 2006. As of September 2007, Kempthorne holds the record for protecting fewer species over his tenure than any Interior Secretary in United States history, a record previously held by James G. Watt for over 20 years.

[swissgrl]

Thanks for sharing this info, very interesting and very scary. I'm not a big fan of politicians to begin with, and seeing that this guy is in an environmental position, yet does absolutely squat for the environment, just makes the blood start to boil.
I wonder if Tock would know more about if there is anything going on in the Mustang world to fight against this?