Sad Days Indeed for American Wild Horses and American Taxpayers

Note: We urge you to carefully read this entire email-article and supporting links which are the results of hundreds of hours of researching accurate data.

There’s really no such thing as a ‘feral wild horse’; it’s an oxymoron.
So why do some people and agencies keep using that tag?

Recent news that 6,500 Wind River wild horses were rounded-up is distressing to say the least. It’s a move designed to make room for the more profitable use of public and tribal lands for livestock production and mining. 

A preponderance of the latest scientific data strongly suggests that wild horses are not an ‘invasive species’.

On the other hand, it is settled history and science that cattle, sheep and goats are an invasive species in North American, and are *devastating when introduced into American wilderness ecosystems.

*Land Held Hostage: A History of Livestock and Politics; Thomas L. Fleischner, Ph.D.

Citation by: Professor Thomas L. Fleischner, Ph.D: “The most severe vegetation changes of the last 5400 years occurred during the past 200 years. The nature and timing of these changes suggest that they were primarily caused by 19th-century open-land sheep and cattle ranching.” View here.

The term ‘feral’ as used by some people in regard to wild horses is just a name-tag assigned to wild horses that have wondered-off the protected Herd Management Areas (‘HMAs’) run by the Bureau of Land Management or Wild Horse Territories run by the United States Forest Service.

The term ‘feral horse(s)’ is nothing more than a construct that is used for legal jurisdictional purposes and has no relevance as to evolutionary biology or genetics of any horse, let alone a wild horse with genetic markers traced back 500,000 years and more, as with some of our local Iberian horses.

The ongoing mismanagement of native species American wild horses is about greedy people who have no vision other than for money; not what’s right, not what should be, not what the Creator would want, not what’s good for ecosystems, and certainly not what’s good for the American taxpayer. 

The ongoing widespread decimation of wild horses, a native herbivore, and even elk in some areas, is only about eliminating low-value herbivores and replacing them on the landscape with animals that make more money for a small group of profiteers, which now includes some Tribal Nations. 

This exchanging-out of native herbivores for invasive species herbivores (cattle & sheep) is about money and not preserving or protecting wilderness ecosystems. In fact, introducing invasive species ruminant herbivores (cattle & sheep) into North American wilderness ecosystems is the worst thing anyone could do.

It’s become clear that greed will be the undoing of humankind on this planet, unless more intelligent, logical people prevail.

As we now clearly see, even some indigenous tribes are rounding-up wild horses (aka: Spirit Horses) and selling them off with many (most) ending up in slaughter houses.  So much for indigenous wisdom? So much for preserving cultural and spiritual heritage?

It seems that these tribal nations have forgotten their past and what the Creator and Nature intended for the lands… 

Just 5-7 thousand years ago, it is estimated that 50-60 million buffalo, millions of elk and deer, and millions of wild horses ranged over North America. The latest science suggests that humans arrived in North America around 130,000 years ago, and lived among millions of wild horses and other large mammals. Then European settlers came and decimated the buffalo and now some indigenous peoples have joined the government’s effort to decimate the Spirit Horses. In a way, it just seems to be a continuation of government’s agenda to erase all traces of the culture of the indigenous peoples here in American and around the world, just to steal resources. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Then we have the scientifically ignorant (or willfully ignorant) advocates and gold-plated big-dollar nonprofit orgs who are shooting wild horses with high-powered (deadly) rifles using heavy syringes filled with chemicals that sterilize wild horses, ending their life-cycles, a highly unnatural and idiotic process to make money.

That right, it’s now profitable for even some wild horses advocates like American Wild Horse Campaignand others to join ranks with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), United States Forest Service (USFS) and state Fish and Game agencies and get $-millions in Federal grant dollars to chemically sterilize native species American wild horses to help accomplish the monetary agenda of exterminating wild horses from the American landscape to make more landscape into cheap livestock grazing (welfare ranching) available! 

The Brazilians wrecked much of the Amazon rainforest for money. They burned-off hundreds of thousands of acres of rainforest to create cheap livestock grazing. It has been said; ‘no rainforest – no rain’. And now there are reports that the water temperature in the Amazon River has reached nearly 100-degrees! 

Now American government agencies are showing their banana-republic logic as well, by arguably allowing wildfires to burn extensive areas of forest as ‘managed burns’, thereby creating large deforested areas that fill-in with grass and brush. Thus, trading life-giving forests for livestock grazing areas.

Wild Horse Fire Brigade has a proven, nature-based solution that gives wild horses a valuable place in appropriate wilderness areas where each wild horse deployed, into a wilderness wildfire fuels management role, provides value in the amount of approximately  $72,000.00 to Americans. That is at least forty-times (40X) the current value of a fatted steer at market. 

Wild Horse Fire Brigade is results oriented and driven!  

We don’t rescue 2-horses and then ask donors for $25,000 like American Wild Horse Campaign recently did, even as they are sitting on $3-Million in their fat bank account!

We have already saved one entire heritage herd of approximately 150 wild horses by gaining the ownership and management rights to the herd that were once considered ‘feral’ horses. And now they are protected under California law.

There is strong fossil and cultural archaeological evidence that our local herd, here on the Oregon-California border on and around the present-day Cascade Siskiyou National Monument (‘CSNM’) are the descendants of wild horses documented by Sir Francis Drake in 1580 during his exploration of the area, as cited in the doctoral thesis of Dr. Yvette ‘Running Horse’ Collin’. There are also numerous bison, mastodon and horse fossils in Siskiyou County, CA. 

We also have in our possession, and have studied, the historic photo-album and personal diary of the famous local cowboy George F. Wright (born in Henley-Hornbrook, CA 1897), who was a Deputy Sheriff for Jackson County Oregon and a BLM range rider. George F. Wright kept a personal diary and photo album (dated 1911-1957) containing several mentions of ‘wild horses’ and the ‘wild Ones’ in the area of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument on both sides of the Oregon-California border. Observations he expressed to the Bureau of Land Management’s (‘BLM’) staff in the Medford Oregon office. 

Interestingly, the local Bureau of Land Management depended heavily upon George F. Wright for information about the natural history and cultural archeology of the area that is today the CSNM. Yet, the BLM’s Medford office failed to report the local herd, which is not the Pokegama Herd area wild horses, to the BLM’s national office when the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act was passed in 1971, signed by then President Richard Nixon.  That Federal Act and Law stated:

PUBLIC LAW 92-195-DEC. 15, 1971 649

Public Law 92-195

AN A C T December 15, 1971

To require the protection, management, and control of wild free-roaming horses

and burros on public lands.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled., That Congress finds

and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols

of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute

to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of

the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing

from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that

wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture,

branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be

considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of

the natural system of the public lands.

The Medford BLM office arguably failed to comply with this Federal ACT of Congress. 

And, Wild Horse Fire Brigade recently sued the BLM and won, stopping the roundup of the remaining Pokegama Herd of American wild horses. (See Siskiyou News article below)

We are a tiny all-volunteer 501-c-3 nonprofit public benefit organization. But we are staffed by a highly motivated and dedicated professionals.

We are the ONLY organization that is doing this important work, while some others pretend and fake it… and pay themselves nice fat salaries and live in the lap of luxury using donations.

We are conducting the scientific research with free-roaming wild horses in a balanced wilderness ecosystem that is desperately needed to show the important value and benefits that wild horses provide to wilderness ecosystems. 

Siskiyou News article: https://www.siskiyou.news/2023/10/13/environmental-advocacy-clinic-secures-legal-victory-for-wild-horses/

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