No More Home on the Range | |
The purpose of The Pryor Mountain Mustangs site is to promote a positive view of the wild horses that exist in the Pryor mountains and the rest of the West. Soon these horses will be gone. They have been, and are being, systematically removed from the wild in ever increasing numbers. For years many brave activists have been fighting for the wild mustangs and burros extant in the West, but they are fighting a leviathan of greed, ignorance and mean spiritedness, the ranch-stockman community, championed by the United Sates Government through its representative the BLM. | |
Wild Horse and Burro Act Gutted
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The rider amends the criminal provisions of the Wild Horse and Burro Act, which makes it a crime to process or permit to be processed into commercial products the remains of a wild horse or burro, to exempt horses bought pursuant to the new "horse sale" program. The rider adds a new sub-section to the Act, creating a "horse sale" requirement that mandates that BLM sell "at local sale years or other convenient livestock selling facilities" all wild horses, "without limitation" -- i.e., no adoption program, etc . . . -- that are either over 10 years old, or who have been put up for adoption 3 times. BLM is required to continue to sell these horses until all "excess animals" are sold, or it attains the appropriate management level in all wild horse areas. |
Read the Rider
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Sec.142. SALE of Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros (4) In General---Section 3 of Public Law 92--195(15 U.S.C. 1333) is amended--- (1) in subsection (d)(5), by striking "this section" and all that follows through the period at the end and inserting "this section" and (2) by adding at the end the following: "(e) SALE OF EXCESS ANIMALS.--- (1) In General.---Any excess animal or the remains of an excess animal shall be sold if -- "(A) the excess animal is more than 10 years of age: or "(B) the excess animal has been offered unsuccessfully for adoption at least 3 times. (2) METHOD OF SALE.---An excess animal that meets either of the criteria in paragraph (1) shall be made available for sale without limitation including through auction to the highest bidder, at local sale yards or other convenient livestock selling facilities, until such time as --- "(A) all excess animals offered for sale are sold: or "(B) the appropriate management level, as determined by the Secretary; is attained in all areas occupied by wild free-roaming horses and burros. .....(4) EFFECT OF SALE---Any excess animal sold under this provision shall no longer be considered to be a wild free-roaming horse or burro for purposes of this Act". |
Take Action
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign Sign their petition!Go to this site to find your representative and send an e-mail or letter asking him/her to repeal rider 142. It is urgent that the president and congress know that the American people are against this wrong headed bill. If we do not stand up for the horses, they will be gone. Count on it.
News Stories - Articles of Interest
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LAS VEGAS - Wild horse advocates say they're worried that healthy horses rounded up on the range could be sold for slaughter under a herd-thinning
measure Congress passed over the weekend. The legislation lets wild horses older than 10, or those that have unsuccessfully been put up for
adoption three times, be sold without limitations at local sale yards or livestock facilities.
"I would expect under this law we're going to have far higher numbers of horses going to slaughter," said Howard Crystal, attorney for the Fund for Animals. "If someone under this program can now buy 300 horses and ship them to a slaughterhouse, people will start making money." Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Bureau of Land Management, placed the measure in a 3,000-page year-end spending bill after consulting with Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., Burns spokeswoman Jennifer O'Shea said. Billingsgazette November 24, 2004 - Read More  Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., chairman of the Senate panel that has jurisdiction over the BLM's budget. Burns is thinking of other ways to use the agency's budget to change the program. "I think what we should do is put some language in this thing that allows the BLM to sell excess wild horses," Burns said. "I'd prefer to sell 'em to whomever. Maybe some of them will end up going to slaughter." Billingsgazette April 30, 2004 - Read More WASHINGTON - Lawmakers are skeptical of the Bureau of Land Management's proposal to increase the amount of money spent on wild horse and burro management. Western Republican lawmakers and BLM officials say the populations of wild horses and burros need to decrease. Environmental groups say the agency should reduce the numbers of domestic livestock that, like the wild horses and burros, graze on federal lands. Billingsgazette April 30, 2004 - Read More Under federal law established in 1971, wild horses and burros are protected on public lands. The act is administered and enforced by the BLM. At the center of the debate is the BLM's policy of annually rounding up thousands of horses and burros, relocating them to a central holding center in Reno and offering them up for adoption throughout the country. More than 133,000 horses and burros have been removed from the wild since 1973 -- a program that BLM says is necessary to control the size of the mustang herds. The BLM says that there are 54,800 wild horses and burros in the nation, 70 percent of them in Nevada. Opponents contend that the number is far less, and the Animal Rights Law Clinic maintains in its letter that the mustang and burros population in Nevada is about 8,300. The Home News Aug. 5, 1993 - Read More |