Sunday, January 10, 2010

Celebs to the rescue

Sheryl Crow is working to halt the roundup of 2,500 mustangs in Nevada which began last month.

"My main concern is that horse numbers not be dwindled down to where they can become extinct," she said, fearing the roundups are leaving mustang herds with too few breeding horses.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Crow said the romantic symbols of the American West are being sacrificed, in part, because of ranchers' drive for land. She disputed the government's position that booming mustang numbers are threatening the horses with starvation, and harming arid range lands and native wildlife.

"I think there has to be a better way than taking them away from their native lands," she said by phone from New York. "I feel so passionate about the issue because wild horses are one of the last remaining ties to the land as it was and our history in America."

Meanwhile, there are other celebrities pushing the cause, including Willie Nelson, Lily Tomlin, Bill Maher and Ed Harris.

The photo is of Crow and Ginger Kathrens, the maker of the Cloud documentaries.

10 comments:

Lori Skoog said...

I sure hope they will have some real power in this issue.

Grey Horse Matters said...

Vigo Mortenson is also involved. I hope it will do some good, but I just got an updated e-mail that sort of makes me wonder about the future success of keeping these horses on the range.

There is a gas pipeline (the Ruby pipeline) that they are trying to run right through the lands where these horses live.So it seems that there may be something at stake here for the oil and gas companies. If that's the case then they are in real trouble. They'll have more than the cattle ranchers and corrupt BLM to deal with. Money to be made is a big motivator.

Jennifer MacNeill said...

How exciting. Thanks for sharing the news!

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Halt Near X said...

Is there something concrete to suggest that the presence or absence of horses would impact the pipeline build?

Because based on what I know about building pipelines/the permitting process/how they (can) fit into the native environment to minimize impact, I have a hard time believing that the gas company would want to eradicate horses. Are they also going to eradicate cows? Because the accommodations they'd have to make for cows are the same as what they'd have to do for horses. Or deer/elk.

Is there something concrete to suggest the gas company has it out for horses? This just doesn't fit with anything I know about pipeline building.

ChicagoGrrrl said...

i email everyone -- white house, my reps in congress, blm, dept natural resources, epa. i called them, i wrote. and they do worse. these horses are being brutalized and sacrificed to big ag and cows. it makes me sick. i am thankful for madeline pickens and her support, but its going to take serious money and an insurgency to make any kind of inroads at these agencies. they legislate whatever they want however they want

Jean said...

Everytime I hear more about this the more bummed out I get. BLM refuses to listen to anything but its own agenda.

Perhaps some visible publicity by celebrities will make an impact of some sort.

Drillrider said...

Unless something is done to sterilize the mustangs, they will keep breeding. Who will take care of all of them? Eventually, you run out of land, run out money, run out of celebrities, etc., etc. Letting them keep reproducing is a romantic notion, but isn't feasible long-term.

I doubt that BLM is lying when they say that the land cannot support all those horses. If you look at where mustangs run (particularly Idaho and Nevada) there isn't much forage and it takes A LOT of land to support each horse.

I agree with the pipeline comment. A pipeline could easily be installed with little to no impact on the horses.

The problem is not simple, but something needs to done to compromise and find a solution that "manages" the herds so that both the land AND the horses are protected.

Anonymous said...

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Kerry said...

Thanks guys, celebs can be a big help. I agree with Halt Near X, the pipeline won't have any effect. Yes, they will continue to breed Drillrider, but the balance comes with how much is rounded up, the humanity in which they are rounded up and those that are culled where they go. A good stallion management plan would help, geld 90% of the stallions, relocate on a rotation bases, let a stallion have only 5 years with a herd before gelding him and letting in some new blood, MONITER and manage slaughter houses for horse meat like they do for cattle, plus the adoption programs that are already going. There are many things that can be done, and it costs money yes, but then so do Highways in Alaska that go no where. It's all about lobbying. What is so frustrating about the BLM is that is has only a narrow agenda - round up lots, the do what? SOME adoptions, LOTS of slaughter, worse yet, holding pens.