(no subject)
86. Write my elected officials 5 times (now 3/5)
I know I've posted about this before, but the continued treatment of mustangs by the Bureau of Land Management is beyond horrific. They're using shitty science and abusing their government mandate to make sure there will be no more wild horses in America within ten years. They've sold out to cattle ranchers and oilmen. There are now more mustangs in government holding pens (40,000+) than there are left in the wild.
Next week, they start winter gathers, which means that mustangs will be chased down from the hills by helicopters. Pregnant mares will abort in the stress of the stampede, and what few foals are by their sides right now will most likely be trampled. Some adult horses will break their legs, and some will drop from exhaustion. Once they get into the pens, they will panic, and they will thrash, and more will be injured. If you have the stomach, do a bit of Googling. Wild horse activists have documented exactly what happens in a winter roundup.
Tristan was a winter roundup - he came from the Callaghan Herd Management Area in central Nevada. He was captured on February 21, 1997. Red roan, star, strip, snip, LH sock, male, est. 1995. (He was younger than I thought - I haven't looked at his paperwork in a long time.) I have the list of horses that were captured alongside him in his bachelor herd, and I think about them - more than I should. I still obsessively check the BLM roundup schedules every year to see if they're raiding the Callaghan herd.
If you want to learn more about mustangs, and see video of a gather (I watched it once, and I can't again - I still remember their sheer terror), the fantastic documentary Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies is now online in its entirety.
This is all to say that you, too, can taken less than 2 minutes (I timed myself) to use the form on this website, send a letter to all your representatives, and help stop the BLM from its drive to make mustangs extinct.
I know I've posted about this before, but the continued treatment of mustangs by the Bureau of Land Management is beyond horrific. They're using shitty science and abusing their government mandate to make sure there will be no more wild horses in America within ten years. They've sold out to cattle ranchers and oilmen. There are now more mustangs in government holding pens (40,000+) than there are left in the wild.
Next week, they start winter gathers, which means that mustangs will be chased down from the hills by helicopters. Pregnant mares will abort in the stress of the stampede, and what few foals are by their sides right now will most likely be trampled. Some adult horses will break their legs, and some will drop from exhaustion. Once they get into the pens, they will panic, and they will thrash, and more will be injured. If you have the stomach, do a bit of Googling. Wild horse activists have documented exactly what happens in a winter roundup.
Tristan was a winter roundup - he came from the Callaghan Herd Management Area in central Nevada. He was captured on February 21, 1997. Red roan, star, strip, snip, LH sock, male, est. 1995. (He was younger than I thought - I haven't looked at his paperwork in a long time.) I have the list of horses that were captured alongside him in his bachelor herd, and I think about them - more than I should. I still obsessively check the BLM roundup schedules every year to see if they're raiding the Callaghan herd.
If you want to learn more about mustangs, and see video of a gather (I watched it once, and I can't again - I still remember their sheer terror), the fantastic documentary Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies is now online in its entirety.
This is all to say that you, too, can taken less than 2 minutes (I timed myself) to use the form on this website, send a letter to all your representatives, and help stop the BLM from its drive to make mustangs extinct.