Letters to the Editor

Writer Claims BLM Lying About Gather Numbers

February 13, 2010

To the Editor:

I am Mr. Ray Field, Executive Director of Wild Horse Foundation writing this editorial from my desk at www.wildhorsefoundation.org in Franklin, Texas. It also includes the opinion of the President Susan Calhoun and Co-Founder of WHF.

This is in response to the most recent BLM round up which occurred in the Calico Mountain complex of northwest Nevada between December 28th and concluded a few days ago in February of 2010. We have seen countless times the estimation of numbers fudged by local cattlemen or ranchers who then passed this on to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) who based their gather plans on such numbers.

The BLM depends on these ranchers to estimate the numbers – the same ranchers who are the enemies of the wild horses. As with the Calico complex, the target was 2500, leaving 600 - 900 behind. They have since then left about 600. BLM quit ahead of their contract actually but they didn't. They left the targeted number of wild horses for the area so they pulled off the right-hand-left-hand-trick for the public.

Most of the organizations that try to fight these gathers are not making proposals to the BLM to take these horses into rescue to place them into homes. These groups usually do not have the capacity to take wild horses and place them. Instead the horses are immediately moved into holding facilities from the gather site. The groups are usually there just protesting the entire gathering process.

Susan Calhoun – President, and I as Executive Director of Wild Horse Foundation receive an enormous amount of wild horses through several sources. The BLM offers no check and balances with budget cuts; in our region we have two BLM compliance officers for four states that cover an area the size of the Eastern seaboard. The marketing and promotion of the wild horse adoption program is a joke at best – if a horse is under four years of age, they might be able to be selected to go to an offsite adoption. If it is the right color it can go out if it is six, and after six – the horses go to the welfare ranchers who decide it is easier to draw a check from BLM then to work.

I can give you a play-by-play operational side of how the BLM holdings work, why they use private contractors to hold wild horses so that they can keep the public and their eyes away from them – the same horses that are the sole property of the American taxpayer. We are entitled to see them anytime but they want us to see them by appointment only. BLM private holding facilities that amount to nothing more than legalized animal hoarding. Seriously, this is a criminal offense in most states and would apply with many of our wild horses tucked away at some private BLM holding ranch where no one can or will check on their welfare.

Don Glenn is the overseer of the Wild Horse and Burro program and if his lips are moving – he is lying. He sent six federal agents here to the Wild Horse Foundation to buy four truck loads of wild horses that were sent here from John Neill at the Palomino Valley Holding Facility as an intimidation ploy. It didn’t work. The agents followed the trucks from as far away as New Mexico to the front doors of the Foundation in Texas. They left with nothing. Don Glenn refused to pay my truck drivers for hauling these horses from Nevada's Palomino Valley. He said they never came here! Now this is BLM's finest corruption. At the highest level.

I have volumes of stories not being told. Stories of skimming over the top of vaccination protocols; checking inventory forms against actual vaccines given, Coggins tests drawn against actual tests performed, a veterinary signature in each and every horses file folder and how many of the blood tests were of the same blood type meaning draw one tube of blood and use it in ten times on several different horses. The list goes on. How much corruption do you want?

Even if Don Glenn did not personally do these tests – he oversees the program and is responsible for all the fraud, waste and abuse within the wall of each and every BLM program and facility.

Please visit www.wildhorsefoundation.org for more information on Americas wild horses.

Mr. Ray Field, Executive Director, Founder
Wild Horse Foundation

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