FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sue Wallis: Executive Director, United
Organizations of the Horse 307-685-8248
Dave Duquette: Executive Director,
United Horsemen's Front 541-571-7588
America's
Pro-Horse Coalition Supports BLM, Salazar Efforts To Rein In Feral
Horse Population
CHEYENNE, WY--The United Organizations
of the Horse (UOH) applauds the efforts of federal officials to
control the overpopulation of wild horses on public lands, and urges
the enactment of responsible policies for the management and
disposition of excess horses. The UOH, a nationwide coalition
working in the best interests of horses and horse owners, and for the
rejuvenation of the equine industry, is the largest organization of
its kind in the U.S. Its members and supporters are petitioning
Congress to support the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in its
mission to manage public lands, not supervise a "welfare state"
for excess feral horses held captive and warehoused in private
feedlots and holding facilities off of public lands at enormous
taxpayer expense.
"The BLM's primary directive is to
manage the land, to establish and maintain a sustainable balance of
resources on public lands, including wild horses, native wildlife,
grazing, fisheries, forests, energy development, and recreation,"
said Sue Wallis, UOH Executive Director. "It should not be using
its taxpayer resources to support excess animals of any species."
The BLM currently pays for the care of
some 32,000 wild horses in short- and long-term holding facilities,
at a taxpayer cost of $29 million in fiscal 2009-more than 70
percent of the agency's total budget for the Wild Horse and Burro
Program. Although the agency strives to place horses in the hands of
qualified owners, the demand for adoptions has plummeted in the
current economic downturn, and has never come close to the annual
natural increase of the herds.
Left unchecked, feral horse herds will
roughly double their population every four years. Although the BLM
estimates the current free-roaming horse population at 37,000, recent
evidence from the General Accounting Office proves that the herds
have been under-counted. In addition, the BLM routinely gathers
significantly more horses than expected during scheduled roundups at
any of its 108 Herd Management Areas.
The UOH unwaveringly supports the
presence of properly-managed wild horses on public lands. However,
the unchecked growth of feral herds has severely upset the
environmental balance on public, private and tribal lands. Paired
with the mounting numbers of unwanted domestic horses, many turned
out to fend for themselves and dying of starvation on public and
tribal lands, equine overpopulation has reached crisis proportions in
the U.S..
Besides removing the excess horses to
reassert a proper balance on the ranges, the UOH advocates the BLM
adhere to responsible management practices such as:
Holding wild horses in captivity
for a maximum of 90 days. If they cannot be sold, adopted or
otherwise permanently disposed of within that time they should be
sold without restriction to the highest bidder. All revenue should
be rolled back into the Wild Horse and Burro Program to better
manage the wild herds and the resource base.
Restore humane and regulated
equine processing facilities, to provide federal, state, and local
agencies; tribal groups and the general public an option for humane
disposal of unwanted excess horses, without needless taxpayer
expense or needless suffering for horses otherwise likely to face
starvation or abandonment.
The United Organizations
of the Horse, a mutual benefit organization, is committed to the
well-being and humane treatment of horses, and the viability of the
equine industry in the United States of America. Its companion
non-profit group, the United Horsemen's Front, is a charitable and
educational non-profit 501c3 organization.
For more information,
visit www.UnitedOrgsoftheHorse.org
and www.UnitedHorsemensFront.org.
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