CANA FOUNDATION: RECORD BREAKING REMOVALS OF WILD HORSES HIT AMERICAN PUBLIC LANDS

PRESIDENT BIDEN FIGHTING TO MAKE GOOD ON HIS CLIMATE INITIATIVES WHILE  BLM MAKES WAY FOR DAMAGING EXTRACTION ON PUBLIC LANDS.

EAST NORWICH, N.Y., July 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- While President Biden finds ways to make good on his climate initiatives to the American People, his Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rushes to round up healthy wild horses and burros at a pace never before seen. In 2020 the BLM crafted a plan to accelerate removals of wild horses, in part, to make way for damaging mining permits and oil and gas leasing.

Nevada, the most arid state in the nation, has been accelerating  mining, oil and gas leasing and a litany of other water dependent extractive projects. NV is also home to more wild horses than all other states combined. One again, the BLM NV is preparing to dig in and use millions more gallons of precious water for mining operations while ousting federally protected wild horses from their homes, and continue the destruction of our lands and wildlife.

"Water is at a premium and the government is reckless with its intentions for the American people." Said Manda Kalimian of the CANA foundation.

Mining trucks continue to pour in, rapidly expanding roadways, and setting up the wild horses and burros once again to lose their homes due to the hold hard-rock mining, energy and livestock industry has on western public lands.

The government claims the horses are starving and depleting the range. But organizations like Wild Horse Education, that have spent 15 years observing these lands, claim just the opposite.

"It boggles the mind that BLM needs to remove wild horses from the range because they say there is no water," President and founder Laura Leigh, "There is water. It is simply being guzzled by industry and wild horses and burros are in the way. The vast majority of these horse are healthy and managing the grasses where they are living. When you track wildfire in the West it is becoming a common occurrence to see wildfire the year after a large removal of wild horses."

"BLM has been more than lax in creating management planning to protect and preserve wild horses and the land they stand on, the intention of the 1971 law," Leigh continued, "Instead, the agency created ten-year roundup plans; no additional input, analysis or assessment for ten years. They skip the actual management plan, the HMAP, because they might have to begin to curtail mining and livestock? Seems too convenient to be due to any other factor."

Manda Kalimian of the CANA foundation says "The government is required to prepare Herd Management Area plans (HMAP) and do ongoing environmental assessments in managing the public range lands.  With climate change and drought conditions. Modern day science that address the climate crisis is sorely needed. Rewilding techniques and methodology as well can help in managing the lands for wildlife. But shockingly, there are no environmental assessments and only outdated plans for these areas. Birth control is not a management plan for the range and wild horses, it could be only a small piece of the larger puzzle. The American people and our lands deserve better."

CANA foundation and Wild Horse Education have reached out to Jon Raby, State Director of Nevada Bureau of Land Management, at THE BLUE WING COMPLEX and are awaiting a response.

The orgs sent a joint statement to the State Director prior to the start of the ongoing TRIPLE B roundup in NV where at least 4 wild horses have died, in the first 4 days of active trapping. These operations are occurring during foaling season, a prohibited time of the year for the use of helicopter drive trapping. The agency says it is not foaling season. Observers for Wild Horse Education have been documenting numerous foals being run for miles; some appear days or weeks old.

There has been no reply from the NV State Office.

The organizations had hoped there could be a dialogue to address these ongoing issues involving wild horses and burros. The organizations are preparing their next steps.

SOURCE CANA Foundation