Laura Leigh Post

Is It Bad Enough For You? (Take Action)

Wild Horse Education

Advocates for Public Lands, Public Horses

Saturday, January 23rd, 2021

By Laura Leigh on January 23, 2021

On this day in 2012 a video we put out to the public went viral, officially viral. The video was published in July of 2011, but in January of 2012 the video began getting over 100,000 views each week. Today, this video edited on a broken old laptop from a dashboard, has been viewed nearly 4 million times on Youtube.

Wild Horse Education was filing, and winning, the first cases in history against abuse. We were winning landmark First Amendment rulings that led to daily access to view roundups. Ou legal actions we stopping roundups that had no data based justification. Ground was being broken that began to change policy, the first changes in policy to benefit wild horses in 40 years. It was a shock to us that many groups tried to derail the changes. Were we not all trying to actually stop abuse?

“I was putting out videos of each roundup, photos and reports on a daily basis starting in 2010. This was before BLM posted their ‘daily update’ or photos on Flicker. I felt like the daily newspaper from the roundup. Back then we were also removing ten thousand wild horses from the range each year in a non-stop marathon. One of those years I put 112,000 miles on a vehicle. A lot of miles and a lot of photos and video I wanted to put it in an overview, so I essentially did a music video in a year in review kinda thing. I had no idea it would have that kind of impact. When Ninth Circuit judges began using the phrase ‘Is it bad enough for you?’  during our challenges, I realized we were having an impact and educating, not only the public, but the judiciary.” WHE founder, LLeigh

It took 6 years of relentless litigation to gain those changes. For a couple of years we began to witness some small, but actual, steps toward creating a better reality.

Action items at the bottom of the page. 

Our work shifted toward making those same changes in on range management. But we ran up against well-funded public relations campaigns that saw advocacy as competitive business and the well-funded competitive businesses that exploited public lands for profit. The tactics included extremism that was not above a death threat or two.

However, we came very close to creating a working template that show the flaws the National Academy of Sciences had been reporting from 1982-2013 could be fixed, and fair management actualized in practice. This is where rigorous Herd Management Area Plans (HMAP) need to take center stage.

Over the last 4 years the progress made has slipped backwards, fast. The pay-to-play of politics, and the altTruths of social media, were huge factors in that loss of ground. We have been dragged back in time by big money, fast.

The reviews, revisions and expansions of the Comprehensive Animal Welfare Policy never happened.

Access to roundups and information, even through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, began to evaporate. Massive amounts of information vanished off the BLM website as if it never existed.

The work to gain fair and equitable management plans was plowed under, literally, by those looking to control the actions of land managers, even if they had to use threats to do it.

The damage done by the “Ten Years to AML” agreement is beyond description. Begun in 2016 by those looking to continue profit lines, this agenda has silently run the agency. All of the progress for wild horses (humane handling, access, range resources) sold out for one aim only “non-lethal fertility control.” The ranchers get the “wild place” with no opposition.

Is it Bad Enough For You?

If the steam roll of “altTruth” that has scapegoated the wild horse and burros for profit is bad enough for you, please join us in taking action.

We do not need gimmicks and games, we need open and transparent management.

We do not need a new subsidized industry that obligates the taxpayer to buy new “toys” for BLM. We need BLM to do their job and create equitable management plans that actual protect and preserve our wild horses and burros as the law already states.

We need to push hard to gain back the ground we lost, before it is too late.

Please join us and take action today. 

You can help. You can use the templates below to send fast click and sends. Or you can use the letters at these links to find talking points for your own letters. 

You can send a letter to the President and Vice President HERE.

As Cabinet members are confirmed, and agency leadership chosen, giving clear direction to move our wild horse and burro program forward will be vital. 

You can send a letter to your representatives in the House and Senate HERE.

As the 117th Congress takes their seats they will be very busy facing many urgent tasks. In February the debate for funding of federal agencies for 2022 will go into full swing. Congress must take their responsibility to hold the agency accountable both fiscally and morally. It has been 50 years since Congress declared wild horses and burros as integral to the system of public lands. For 50 years our wild horses and burros have not had an equitable system of management processes.

Next week we will have a series of actions for you. Each action designed to address specific egregious issues. Remember the “what we ask” is as important as “who we ask.” (HERE)

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If you want to learn more about the “HMAP” and the BLM plan: https://wildhorseeducation.org/2020/05/20/blm-plan-and-the-hmap/

Important reading:

• Trespass Livestock on the Range; what you should know.
• The Deputy Director Game; avoid scrutiny and play games with the law
• The “Stewart Alliance” and the big corporate players behind it
• The Devils are in the Details (what is coming in the next BLM Report to Congress)
• The same dirty hands hold both National Monuments and wild horses
• May 8 BLM “Report to Congress” Report
  Help us stay in the fight.