PRESS RELEASE : Secretary Salazar a Slaughter Czar ? On what basis?
SKY PROTEST OF SECRETARY SALAZAR CONTINUES IN COLORADO ON 12/30/09
--STOP THE ROUND UPS--
Secretary Salazar said "no slaughter of Wild Horses", But ...
While many Americans work around the clock to keep America's Wild Horses in the West, Secretary Salazar continues his quest to cleanse the West of anything that even appears to interfere with cattle. Today, in solidarity with the Cloud Foundation and most Americans, WHOA is flying this Banner for not only the Wild Horses but also the Bison, Wolves, Mountain Lions, Bears and the millions of others wild animals killed on our public lands by sodium cyanide, round-up, slaughter, and shooting, apparently as collateral damage of a policy to promote the cattle industry.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE -
Purpose of Secretary Salazar's Policy - To protect 4 million cattle on public lands, temporarily, as they are also destined for slaughter.
Americans are losing their Wild Wild West through collateral damage.
- Although there are less than 30,000 wild horses left in the wild American tax payers are paying $39 Million/year to harrass and remove wild horses from their homes and families. Most of this is consumed by round-up costs and feeding costs in holding pens. This rather than managing horses populations responsibly by allowing for natural predators or utilizing safe and cheap dartable birth control. Few wild horses get to live their entire lives in the wild with these round-up schedules and many horses die during the round-ups. Those wild horses that are safely round-up find themselves on their way to an uncertain future, as Secretary Salazar's proposed plans are vague and incomplete. This is gross mis-management and harrassment.
- The government is also allowing chemical warfare on 13,000 wild animals and predators per year, using sodium cyanide (Compound 1080). Under attack are any wild animals that may interfere with cattle ranching on public lands including ecologically important predators like coyotes, wolves, bears, bobcats, and foxes. (per NRDC/Natures Voice)
- Wildlife Services, a division of the Department of Agriculture kills millions of other wild animals at a cost of $100 million dollars per year on our public lands. More than the entire Wild Horse Budget of any recent year. (per NRDC/Natures Voice)
- Add the slaughter of Bison from Yellowstone park to this grisly count. Neighboring ranchers fear the Bison may give cattle back their own disease, though it has not happened yet and this is our last pure herd of American Bison.
- Salazar also approved this year the delisting of Rocky Mountain Wolves from the endangered species list, causing 100 to be killed this year, which Salazar states his scientists determined was OK.
- As a Senator in the 109th Congress, Kenneth Salazar voted to put diseased and downed animals into America's food supply. This, more than any other action, has given the appearance of a real conflict of interest for Rancher Salazar. This is the year he earned a ZERO on the United States Humane Society's voting scorecard.
WHOA is asking for a halt to the rampant round-ups of our last large American Wild horse herds. Secretary Salazar has not published a detail plan for the future of the victims of the round-ups and with the US Senate sitting on Horse Anti-Slaughter bills, this must be stopped. Secretary Salazar must stop the round-ups.
Secretary Salazar has proposed a vague plan to remove most of the Wild Horses from the West, even though the House recently passed the "Restore Our American Mustangs Act" (ROAM Act), which would direct the BLM to restore the wild horses to the wild and protect them from slaughter.
ALternatives to Round Up
Many are innocently under informed due to the media that thrives on controversy.
ALTERNATIVES
- Use PZP immuno contraception which is dartable from helicopters or the ground, at a cost of only $25/horse/year, developed over 20 yrs ago by Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick, and utilized on herds all over Africa as well as our Assateague National Park.
- Stop spending $100 Million/year to kill natural predators and allow the natural population balances of predators and preys to be restored.
- Stop spending $39 Million/yr on round-ups and holding pens/feeding of wild horses and leave them to their rightful and legal public lands, as per the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
- Give back the 19 Million acres to the wild horses which has been stolen from them by the BLM.
- Try really thinking of the many options such as using veterns for the darting or using ex-cons who have trained horses in prison, for darting. There are pros and cons to everything, except helicopter round ups, and or slaughter, there essentially only cons.
- There are less than 30,000 wild horses left on pubic lands while FOUR MILLION cattle remain. Would removing some cattle from public lands seem more logical? The answer seems to be obvious.
- Take down the fences which block the horses from water and which add to the rhetoric for cattle, and against horses falsely, while devastating the horses. See American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign's "Issue" page. Also see American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign's "Solutions" page.
WILD OR NOT? 30,000 Horses on pubic lands
WILD OR NOT? 4,000,000 Cows on public lands
- Are the horses wild or not? Many feel this is relevant question for the horses, which evolved here, but don't question the cattle, who did not, and clearly out number the horses over 100 to 1. No one disputes that cattle evolved in Asia. The questioning of horses being wild or not shows the deeply ingrained rhetoric which the media has helped proliferate.
- Horses are native species and they are wild, even on a legal basis. See American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign's "Wild Horses as Native North American Wildlife".
- Why doesn’t it matter that cattle have no upper front teeth and use their tongue to pull out the grasses by the roots, where as horses are true top down grazers and mow the grasses.
- Top down grazing increases biodiversity. Cattle are not top down grazers, although the BLM incorrectly claims cattle are top down grazers to justify the grazing permits, meanwhile the BLM does not use this rightful argument in favor of the the horses. A mis-use of the science.
- Why is corporate welfare OK on pubic lands? Or, if these lands actually belong to the ranchers, let’s be honest, give it to them, have almost nothing but corn and cattle and be done with the wild, wild, west.
Please also see:
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