Tragedy Disguised: The Extinction of America's Last Wild Horses and Burros
Saturday, 14 January 2012 14:09
A story, long overdue to be told, reflects the survival plight of America's last wild horses and burros. The proof of their evolution in North America is evident thanks to the works and painstaking research such as Craig Downer’s, a nationally renowned wildlife ecologist who reveals their archeological and fossil evidence and how they contribute to both the ecosystem and humanity.
The very officials charged with their protection have over the course of decades inflicted grave injustices towards these magnificent icons on whose back this nation was built. Special interests have taken over the agenda and whole herds of wild horses have already been extinct, whilst cattle leases are taking over the very habitat assigned to our mustangs by the 1971 Wild and Free Roaming Horse and Burro Protection Act.
Mining, drilling and monopolized water control have played a significant role in pushing our last mustangs and burros into extinction. Fairy tales of range deterioration, forage depletion and starvation have greatly added to the deception tactics applied by those assigned to protect these equines. It is clear: the cruelty inflicted during these stampedes have shocked the nation with recent footage filmed by press members who not only have to fight for our mustang's survival, but their very own rights to be present near a round up to observe the “operations”... which unfortunately are being dismissed with the clever excuse of “safety issues”. Video footage of foals run to death, mares collapsing under helicopter and stallions breaking their necks... is not a benign affair and certainly the agency does not want you to see.
Most Americans do not know what is taken from them. The mustangs are evicted from their rightful range and our public lands are auctioned off to cattle use. Their damage has far more caused harm on the range, yet the few horses which are enhancing our ecosystem by keeping wildfires in check thru consumption of nutrient-poor, flammable grasses, herbs and shrubs for example - are being driven off by helicopter chases whose inhumane substandard have caused a public outrage. This administration is continuing the same secretive and destructive war on wild horses as Bush started - and Obama's promise on change rings hollow. BLM increases cattle to run on same public lands where they are removing horses, despite a congressional mandate to protect them. BLM ignores its federal mandate to remove livestock from federal horse management areas and if this continues, your grandchildren may never see a wild horse in the American West again. You, the American tax payers, are funding this gross injustice. The likely illegal continuance of these round ups is not only inhumane at best, but is challenged with litigation and increasing public pressure. It is a sad day, when the truth is cleverly disguised to benefit special interests and BLM keeps spending millions to quickly eradicate an irreplaceable piece of American history. Biased press coverage is no help either. The traumatizing of the horses is real; the suffering by cruel treatment a fact, the deaths and killings are not a fabricated John Grisham Thriller, but the story of the reality, which must be told. You and your grandkids deserve to know, and it is high times we do something before it is too late.
America's mustangs are the victims of a conspiracy, and you, the tax payer, the product of a scheme which not only uses your funds to sponsor this tragedy, but is fooling the American public into a major cover-up which affects us all. For more information, read Craig Downers latest book, which includes beautiful photos of wild horses and burros. The title is “The Wild Horse Conspiracy” and you can order it by contacting This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Help save and restore America's last wild horses and have pride in keeping them in the wild, on our public lands, where they belong. Thank you.
The very officials charged with their protection have over the course of decades inflicted grave injustices towards these magnificent icons on whose back this nation was built. Special interests have taken over the agenda and whole herds of wild horses have already been extinct, whilst cattle leases are taking over the very habitat assigned to our mustangs by the 1971 Wild and Free Roaming Horse and Burro Protection Act.
Mining, drilling and monopolized water control have played a significant role in pushing our last mustangs and burros into extinction. Fairy tales of range deterioration, forage depletion and starvation have greatly added to the deception tactics applied by those assigned to protect these equines. It is clear: the cruelty inflicted during these stampedes have shocked the nation with recent footage filmed by press members who not only have to fight for our mustang's survival, but their very own rights to be present near a round up to observe the “operations”... which unfortunately are being dismissed with the clever excuse of “safety issues”. Video footage of foals run to death, mares collapsing under helicopter and stallions breaking their necks... is not a benign affair and certainly the agency does not want you to see.
Most Americans do not know what is taken from them. The mustangs are evicted from their rightful range and our public lands are auctioned off to cattle use. Their damage has far more caused harm on the range, yet the few horses which are enhancing our ecosystem by keeping wildfires in check thru consumption of nutrient-poor, flammable grasses, herbs and shrubs for example - are being driven off by helicopter chases whose inhumane substandard have caused a public outrage. This administration is continuing the same secretive and destructive war on wild horses as Bush started - and Obama's promise on change rings hollow. BLM increases cattle to run on same public lands where they are removing horses, despite a congressional mandate to protect them. BLM ignores its federal mandate to remove livestock from federal horse management areas and if this continues, your grandchildren may never see a wild horse in the American West again. You, the American tax payers, are funding this gross injustice. The likely illegal continuance of these round ups is not only inhumane at best, but is challenged with litigation and increasing public pressure. It is a sad day, when the truth is cleverly disguised to benefit special interests and BLM keeps spending millions to quickly eradicate an irreplaceable piece of American history. Biased press coverage is no help either. The traumatizing of the horses is real; the suffering by cruel treatment a fact, the deaths and killings are not a fabricated John Grisham Thriller, but the story of the reality, which must be told. You and your grandkids deserve to know, and it is high times we do something before it is too late.
America's mustangs are the victims of a conspiracy, and you, the tax payer, the product of a scheme which not only uses your funds to sponsor this tragedy, but is fooling the American public into a major cover-up which affects us all. For more information, read Craig Downers latest book, which includes beautiful photos of wild horses and burros. The title is “The Wild Horse Conspiracy” and you can order it by contacting This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Help save and restore America's last wild horses and have pride in keeping them in the wild, on our public lands, where they belong. Thank you.
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Comments
The horse and burro blood is FAR from extinct. The species exists around the world and is thriving, both here and abroad.
The subject horses and burros are no different from the Long Horn Cattle and Cheat Grass introduced by European man: They displace native flora and fauna and impede natural biodiversity on our public lands.
These feral animals should be removed (along with cattle, sheep and goats) so the "innocent" wildlife which they displace, some of which are TRULY in danger of REAL extinction, might have a fighting chance.
These horses can be broken as any other domestic horse, why are they called “wild” instead of “feral”?
Cattle, sheep and other domestic animals have been here the same centuries as horses, yet they don't know how best to live in this ecosystem?
Should Long Horn Cattle be released to run “wild”, being equally a part of our western heritage, arriving along with the horses?
Horses run on different ecosystems, some which never supported horses since the Pleistocene. What do you mean by “this ecosystem”?
Could it be that cattle, sheep and other domestic animals destroy the landscape only because they are run at far too high a population density?
If all cattle, sheep and domestic animals where removed from the public lands, natural predators being returned, fences taken down, and with horses left to their own devices, what impact would naturally regulated horse populations have on ungulate and other species indigenous to the area? How about riparian areas and aquatic flora and fauna?
In that case, what arguments are made for horses vs native ungulates which ranchers don't make for cattle vs native ungulates?
Are horse supporters akin to cattle supporters *vs native animals*?
If horses out-compete other fauna to extinction, would you support human intervention, or would you allow nature to “take it’s course”?
Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska http://www.pnas.org/content/106/52/22352.full
-Are you a pro hunting and fishing guy with status quo supporters ?
- What are your bases to dismiss the legitimate, profuse evidence, when historic facts, DNA findings and increased acknowledgement s/tributes within the scientific community proof otherwise ? I suggest you Google Craig Downer.He is a nationally renowned wildlife ecologist. Is your stance an attempt to advertise that all wild horses and burros should be removed, like Russian Olive Trees? The word feral is a misnomer. Also, see this link on the genus Equus:
http://www.livescience.com/animals/080724-nhm-wild-horses.html
Here the work of renowned wildlife ecologist Craig Downer:
http://rtfitch.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/renowned-wildlife-ecologist-calls-for-drastic-changes-in-blm-wild-horse-program/
http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/features/109-fossils.shtml A startling discovery by a young CA.boy has helped fill a key gap in the evolution of the horse. Gavin Sutter, aged eight, from Auburn, found the prehistoric bones of a horse dating back 15 million years.
2. I dismiss your evidence because it is irrelevant. I can stipulate to its correctness (horses evolved here, so what) WITHOUT making the illogical leap to their reestablishment AFTER their EXTINCTION from here. I would no more want T-Rex or Colombian Mammoths running around on the public lands, even if we could. What you fail to understand is Nevada now is not the Nevada that existed when the horses were here in the Pleistocene. In other words, when you say “here” you say too much. The here which is here is NOT the here where the horses evolved and has not been for thousands of years, most PARTICULARLY in Nevada. You need only look at Giant Sloth shit to figure that out.
3. I don't know about Russian Olives, but yes, my stance is that all horses and burros and, well, see paragraph # 1, above.
To be continued:
I am a bison freak. I want them returned to our public lands. Did you know they used to be indigenous to the Nevada country also? But did you know they went extinct there thousands of years ago also? (There were a few spotty locations on the fringes but not worth discussing here.) That is because Nevada is NOT bison country. It hasn’t been since the horse was there, in the PLEISTOCENE! Bison belong in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, maybe some parts of Easter Idaho, etc. but I damn sure don’t champion their return to place where Mother Earth gave them the boot.
I’ve read all the stuff about how bison hooves massage the soil, and how they are easier on the land, and etc. and I see the horse people jumping on all that science in an effort to justify the return of an animal that does NOT belong in Nevada. It saddens me.
A follow-on argument from you might be that humans were responsible for that extinction, so we should undo that mistake. The answer to that is:
1. Unlikely (see the article); and
2. It doesn't matter, since it was prior to domestication of species and natural.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/features/extinction-176.shtml
I am going to cede the floor to you. I have been spending WAY too much time on the internet and have to get back to other areas of my life.
Thanks for the argument. It's been fun.
Best of luck, M.
http://www.wildhoofbeats.com/news/wild-horses-an-excellent-defense-for-a-returned-native-species
Education is a never ending road. While being open minded is a good attribute, being honest is another. I think the curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York knows what others so vehemently deny: The status of the wild horse is native to North America, there are no paleontological or genetic grounds for concluding that it is native to any other continent.
From a scientific standpoint, it is completely irrelevant that native horses died out in North America 10,000 years ago, or that later populations were domesticated in central Asia 6000 years ago. Such considerations have no bearing on their status as having originated on this continent.
Since the first whites left the East, during the Manifest destiny era, the West has been a conundrum of historical
massacres and cruelty to Indigenous people and the native species (like the bison, beaver,) and any creature that competed with cattle in any way. Cattle consume and destroy too much land for the meat they provide, especially in the west where the land is not particularly productive. Cattle are not a self-sustaining commodity. So the burros, wild horses, and wolves of the west, for different reasons are scapegoats. That federal hunters are paid to shoot them from planes and helicopters is sickening. What is more sickening is that men will do it without hesitation. It is important to follow these atrocities, document, and upload to youtube ( while it's still on the web? ) and keep the pressure on.
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