edward
09-29-2008, 06:53 PM
The Apache Sitegreaves Wild Horses are part of our national heritage and were deemed protected under the federal law after a landmark case by In Defense of Animals et al. This Forest Service study is trying to suggest, after the landmark case that protected them, the appropriate level of management should be kept to 28-35 horses on 19,000 acres to allow for more cattle grazing, that they should sterilize the mares of this amazingly small suggested herd, that helicopters could be used to gather ‘excess’ horses and the adoption terms to the public are unclear rather than allowing the wild horse sanctuaries in other areas to take them. There is no procedural study that supports the herd population they are suggesting in the report and they do not address the impact of the cattle in the area in comparison.
Twenty Thousand Acres can easily sustain a much larger number of horses in this area, even after the Rodeo-Chedeski fire and the area’s primary purpose is to protect the horses that live there. This report’s suggestions are based on allowing permitted cattle grazing instead of rangeland for horses. This is on the heels of the BLM telling us that they cannot find public grazing land for 60,000 mustangs in the US but they can find grazing land for 8 Million head of cattle and that the cost of the BLM refusing to allow keep areas for horses on public land is costing the taxpayer $38M/yr for animals to be held in substandard conditions. The case that In Defense of Animals et al won to protect our Arizona horses was a landmark and we need to help them yet again so that a piece of our state’s and countries heritage doesn’t disappear completely and our taxpayer dollars are misused yet again when it comes to wild horses. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of paying to gather, neuter, auction or hold mustangs that take very little forage in comparison to a cow to sustain when Cattle permits and cattle roundups are a much easier to manage down in number and would cost taxpayers less.
Comments need to be submitted by October 2
http://conquistadorprogram.org/apachesitgreaves_wildhorses/ApacheSitgreavesterritoryplanHorse.pdf
Twenty Thousand Acres can easily sustain a much larger number of horses in this area, even after the Rodeo-Chedeski fire and the area’s primary purpose is to protect the horses that live there. This report’s suggestions are based on allowing permitted cattle grazing instead of rangeland for horses. This is on the heels of the BLM telling us that they cannot find public grazing land for 60,000 mustangs in the US but they can find grazing land for 8 Million head of cattle and that the cost of the BLM refusing to allow keep areas for horses on public land is costing the taxpayer $38M/yr for animals to be held in substandard conditions. The case that In Defense of Animals et al won to protect our Arizona horses was a landmark and we need to help them yet again so that a piece of our state’s and countries heritage doesn’t disappear completely and our taxpayer dollars are misused yet again when it comes to wild horses. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of paying to gather, neuter, auction or hold mustangs that take very little forage in comparison to a cow to sustain when Cattle permits and cattle roundups are a much easier to manage down in number and would cost taxpayers less.
Comments need to be submitted by October 2
http://conquistadorprogram.org/apachesitgreaves_wildhorses/ApacheSitgreavesterritoryplanHorse.pdf