How to Save America's Wild Horses

by Joe Camp

The 1971 law as written outlines everything the wild horses and burros need. There's very little wrong with the law. It's just that the BLM is ignoring the law, actually breaking the law.

Per the law the BLM's powers to maintain and control the population of wild horses is severely restricted. As Federal Judge Rosemary M. Conyers stated in her ruling against the BLM in the Colorado Wild Horse and Burro Coalition case (bolds and underlines are mine):

"It is a federal crime to remove a wild free-roaming horse or burro from public lands, convert a wild free-roaming horse or burro to private use, or kill or harass a wild free-roaming horse or burro. Congress delegated to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior jurisdiction over all wild free-roaming horses and burros 'for the purpose of management and protection in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.' The Act further provides that “[i]t is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands. It further provides that “[t]he Secretary shall manage wild free-roaming horses and burros in a manner that is designed to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands” and that “[a]ll management activities shall be at the minimal feasible level . . . in order to protect the natural ecological balance of all wildlife species which inhabit such lands, particularly endangered wildlife species.”

The Judge goes on to say, "BLM’s authority to “manage” wild free-roaming horses and burros is expressly made subject to “the provisions of this chapter[,]” 16 U.S.C. § 1333(a), including the provision that “[i]t is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture . . . .” Id. § 1331. It would be anomalous to infer that by authorizing the custodian of the wild freeroaming horses and burros to “manage” them, Congress intended to permit the animals’ custodian to subvert the primary policy of the statute by capturing and removing from the wild the very animals that Congress sought to protect from being captured and removed from the wild."

To read her entire ruling:
http://www.thesoulofahorse.com/PDF Files/JudgeCollyerAugust5-2009Opinion.pdf

The BLM appealed the ruling and then abandoned the appeal when they realized that if they lost at the appellate level the ruling would become legal precedent that could be used against them over and over again in other court actions.

The problem then is that lawyers and advocates - for reasons I cannot explain - have not been battling the BLM's violations of the law on the legal merits, often preferring to wage non-explicit emotional law and "poor horse" rhetoric. If all the litigating organizations would fight on the merits of the law it would, over time, give the BLM so many losses that they'd have no choice but to comply or give up their control (or better yet have it stripped away from them). Consider the following un-amended language of the 1971 law and what each means:

"It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands." Defined as... " the amount of land necessary to sustain an existing herd or herds of wild free-roaming horses and burros, which does not exceed their known territorial limits, and which is devoted principally but not necessarily exclusively to their welfare…"

• With no legal basis, 95% of the land that by law was to be “devoted principally” to the welfare of the wild horses and burros was leased to for-profit cattle and sheep ranchers. To the tune of 150 cattle and sheep to one horse or burro. That is illegal. For-profit cattle outnumber wild horses and burros approximately 150 to 1 on land that by law is to be devoted principally to the wild horses and burros.
  
  
• And that's after the amount of land that was originally designated by congress to be devoted "principally" to the wild horses and burros was arbitrarily reduced by the BLM by approximately 36%. Which also is illegal.
  

The land on which the horses and burros were to reside, according to the law, was to be “designed to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance.” Impossible with over a million cattle and sheep on the same land. Which is reason # 2 why the cattle and sheep are illegal. Cattle in no way help to achieve or belong in any natural ecological balance.

Proper enforcement of the law would effect the ultimate solution to the problem while drastically reducing the budgets of both federal agencies charged with implementing the protection of wild horses and burros. Enforce the law and you’ll save the horses and cut costs.

Enforcement of the law as written would give the horses and burros the land Congress intended them to have land and there would be little need for “management” or management expenses beyond observation. And perhaps some serious research on how the horse is genetically designed to live, eat, travel, etc.

Joe Camp