George Knapp's latest report on the Wild Horses, dated July 21st, 2010, takes his I-Team along with Wild Horse Advocates Laura Leigh and Elyse
Gardner, up in the Channel 8 helicopter to check out the Tuscarora gather site for themselves. What they found differed greatly from BLM claims...
www.8newsnow.com...
The BLM recently invited suggestions from the public on how they could better manage the wild horses and burros in Nevada. They received hundreds of
responses.
Arlene Gawne, a Las Vegas Wild Horse Advocate, suggested that the "preserves" (Zalazoo's) Ken Salazar wants to establish in the east, should be
kept out here in the west and an eco-tourism industry promoted around it... like African safaris. This would allow the horses to live in their family
bands and roam freely within the preserve as they do out on the ranges. Population control would be accomplished by gelding some of the stallions and
treating some of the mares with birth control. This way there could at least be a few babies born to strengthen the herd and preserve the gene pool.
The fees from the tours would adequately sustain the preserves.
Additionally, Nevada has the highest unemployment rating in the country and this would create hundreds of jobs. It would also have taken the burden of
feeding the tens of thousands of horses in holding pens off the taxpayers. Sounds like a wonderful, economically feasible solution for everyone
doesn't it? Especially for the horses!
Well, the BLM said "NO WAY" and although they wouldn't tell us why, we know... they don't want to give up control of the wild horse and burro
program because they'd lose the money to subsidize corporate welfare ranching. I'm sure there are other reasons, though, no doubt, just as
self-serving.
Madeleine Pickens supports the eco-tourism idea and offered to buy the land herself, saving at LEAST the 42 million BLM wanted to spend on a ranch in
Kentucky to warehouse the 6,000 they plan to remove by this September. They met with her a few times, then suddenly turned her down, refusing to sell
her the land necessary to do it on her own.
The BLM is a runaway, rogue agency that thinks nothing of lying to the public and to Federal Judges. It worms it's way out of every lawsuit filed,
every restraining order granted, even though it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they consistently break the law and disregard their own
policy.
The BLM stated that Tuscarora was an "emergency rescue" and not a routine roundup. They claimed there wasn't sufficient water in the Tuscarora HMA
to sustain the horses, there were no cattle on the ranges and no fences preventing the horses from reaching natural water sources... George Knapp has
video proving these claims were fabricated.
These videos should have brought the BLM roundups to a grinding halt.
Why didn't that happen?