The government shutdown caused a temporary cessation of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) removals of wild horses and burros from public land. Yet today BLM announced that beginning this week 700 wild horses will be rounded up in the Adobe Town/Salt Wells Creek Herd Management Area. Without giving any specifics BLM says in todays press release that some will be treated with PZP and released while others will be removed. This announcement comes without revealing a roundup schedule for the rest of the year program wide.

The controversy surrounding these roundups has been increasingly gaining the attention of the public and media over the last few years.

As an advocate/journalist for wild horses and burros that still roam America’s West, I often find myself on the other side of the camera being interviewed. I am still amazed that so many American’s are unaware of the controversy that surrounds wild horses. Most American’s simply believe that because we are “America” that our wild horses are protected because there is a “law.”

One of the things that has struck me in the last half-dozen interviews is the phrase “tax-payer burden.” This phrase is used to describe the current monetary cost of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) “wild horse and burro program.” I am increasingly finding this term more and more offensive as the true cost of the program is usually not raised in any context of comparison or criticism of how the funding is spent. The horses and burros that went to war with us, carried our mail, tilled our fields and worked our mines are now called a “burden.”

Let’s first take a look at the BLM program and how the funds are used. Congress gave BLM 74.9 million dollars to spend on the “care and management” of wild horses and burros. BLM breakdown of costs: $43 million was spent “feeding and caring for” wild horses in the BLM warehouse system, $7.9 million was spent on removals, $7.1 million was spent on adoption events. This information is taken from the BLM website information fiscal year 2012. It is notable that on the webpage they do not cite “range data,” or science or restoration in the figures they chose to publish.

There are some immediate questions that begin to arise when you look at the chart for 2013 (chart included in slideshow). About $44 million (more than half the entire budget) will be spent on horses in holding, about $7 million on removals and about $7.7 million on adoption events. But when you look for anything that could represent actual management of wild horses you see only about 3% of the entire budget being spent. (I personally don’t count population surveys as a “management on the range” expense, because the only time I have ever seen them done is in the creation of a removal plan. Removals are not on the range management). Another interesting figure is the over $11 million in “program support/overhead” category that must include things like “public relations” firms for all those “we manage the range for healthy herds,” polish.

So when you look at the budget figures you can see just how “out of whack” the concept of “management” is.

The agency has used remove and stockpile as it’s primary tool of management and most often the only tool of “management.” The BLM removed 8,255 animals (7,242 horses and 1,013 burros) from the range in Fiscal Year 2012. In 2011 BLM removed more than 10,000, in 2010 close to 10,000 animals and in 2009 close to 8000 (more than twice the number removed in 2008).

I just want to take you back to 2007 for just a moment, the moment before the “roundup machine” went into high gear. In 2007 the BLM spent $22 million of its $39 million budget on holding facilities (to care for about 30,000 horses in holding). 2007 is also the year that fertility control, primarily in the form of PZP, was beginning to emerge as a potential alternative, more on that later).

So it seems to be BLM protocol to spend more than half your budget on holding facilities. Not sure what BLM’s expectation was when you go into full throttle and remove nearly about 10,000 horses a year for the next 5 years.

With all of these massive removals you would think that BLM’s population “on the range” would begin to be reduced in their statements? In 2009 a press release from BLM states there are nearly 37,000 wild horses on the range. Today BLM says there are 40,065. So I guess BLM “management” strategy is working? I beg to say only if you work for BLM or own a holding facility.

Let’s travel back again to 2007. Birth control was being seen as an option. PZP was proven “safe” and to wear off (non permanent allowing adjustment of population growth) and extremely successful at curtailing population growth. Yet even in 2012 the total number of PZP treatments on the range were a whopping 1,195 (yes, that is sarcasm). So if your claim is that you want to curtail population growth you utilize contraception in in about 2.5% of your population? At the same time you continue massive removals that disrupt, and most likely increase, birth rates? Who runs this ship?

Now not for one minute do I agree with the numbers game. After all I have read, heard and seen with my own eyes the entire pretext of “Appropriate Management Level,” or AML, is a huge illogical, nonsensical, excuse to continue the same historic, antiquated, prejudicial game that existed before the 1971 Act was passed.

The first census conducted by BLM in 1974 found about 42,000 wild horses (and 15,000 wild burros) roamed ten western states. BLM estimated that about 27,000 wild horses roamed the west in 1971 when the Act was passed. But remember that “guesstimate” of 27,000 was not based on any hard data and did not include animals claimed as private property. Most people forget that there was a claiming period after the Act was passed. During that claiming period it could be argued that “mustanging” ran full force on public land by certain locals when you see numbers like 17,000 horses claimed just in the state of Nevada alone in one year. So if we think about the actual number of equines that may have roamed the western landscape in 1971 it was most likely in the neighborhood of 60,000 wild horses.

Today BLM claims that there are about 33,780 wild horses and 6,852 wild burros on the range. Today BLM claims that the “Appropriate Management Level” is 26,667 total for wild horses and burros.

At this point I think it is appropriate to quote the Act signed into law in 1971: “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.”

“Fast disappearing from the American scene,” is what was written in 1971 in an Act designed to protect wild horses and burros from vanishing forever from the American West. In 1971 BLM “guessed” that there were 27,000 wild horses roaming the American west yet based that number on no hard data. That number failed to account for all of the horses roaming the range that private land owners took as “private property” and did with them what they chose. How is it that BLM can in any way shape or form make a claim that the maximum number of both horses and burros that can live on the range is 26,667? That is less than just the number of horses that Congress declared were “fast disappearing.” (Of note is that Nevada claims that only 12,789 total of wild horses and burros is appropriate in the state. That is less than just the number claimed as private property in one year between 1971-1974).

How come Congress does not question that basic fact? Because Congress no longer cares. Over the last few years Congress has passed legislation that opens your public land up to profiteers like never before in history. New mining regulations make it impossible for BLM to refuse new extraction projects. We stand on the verge of passing new grazing regulations that will spell the doom of many wild places. Why? Because Congress is interested in re-election and big interests make large campaign contributions.

Now let’s get some perspective on cost. The current salary (2013) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year. Congress has 535 voting members: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The Speaker of the House makes $223,500. The majority and minority leaders makes $193,400. per year. $93,180,300. is the cost of paying current salaries (not pension or benefits or staff or office expenses or security or… ) for Congress.

BLM leases public land to private profit livestock operations. Currently leases go for about $1.35 for an “Animal Unit Month,” or AUM. An AUM is the amount of forage 800 lbs of animal consumes in one month, usually seen as one cow/calf pair. Anyone that buys feed for a cow, horse or goat knows that is one heck of a deal. The cost of animal feed, including grass hay, has skyrocketed. That 1.35 hardly covers the cost of processing and approving applications let alone properly paying the public a fair price for the use of the land.

BLM leases (or sells) land to extractive industry. Often you will see that a few million dollars was made in a land lease or sale to a gold mine or a natural gas or oil producer. I’d like to compare the profit margins of those corporations against the claim of money made by the BLM. (of note BLM does not deduct the costs of the Environmental Assessment and leasing process from the sale before adding up the “benefit” to the American public from such leases and sales).

I do not deny that there are benefits to the government leasing public land. Materials are extracted that are utilized by the public and local economies benefit from livestock production. (of note only about 4% of beef utilized in industry comes from public land. Public land ranching could disappear and the impact would be devastating to local economy, but the nation wouldn’t miss a meal).

So in the realm of “tax-payer burden” I think wild horses and burros have been given yet one more prejudicial label.

That living symbol of being a resilient survivor, proud and free, the American wild horse is not a “tax-payer burden.” We have sacrificed principal, honor, truth and justice in implementation of the Act. Wild horses and burros simply are what they have always been, the bearer of our burden.

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For more information on wild horses and burros in America visit Wild Horse Education at http://wildhorseeducation.org