New Law Suit Against BLM & FBI Investigation Update 06.23.10

Intent to file suit Against BLM for CA Round-up

http://www.idanews.org/ida-breaking-news/top-law-firm-threatens-suit-06-22-2010/

Washington, DC (June 22, 2010) - Today, the national law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C. (BIR) notified the U.S. Department of Justice that it intends to file suit over the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) proposed roundup and removal of 1,855 wild horses and 210 burros in the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area (HMA) located in Northeastern California. The letter was written after extensive public comments on the roundup (available here) were submitted to the BLM by In Defense of Animals (IDA), which also filed suit in federal court last November over the controversial roundup of nearly 2,000 wild horses from the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada.

"We maintain the BLM's practice of removing and warehousing mustangs is illegal and if the BLM does not relent, we intend to prove it in court," said William J. Spriggs, lead counsel with BIR. "It's time for the BLM to postpone the scheduled roundups and to begin a dialogue on how to manage these horses on the range as Congress intended. If the Twin Peaks horses are rounded up, the vast majority will end up in zoo-like conditions at government holding facilities - the BLM already has more horses in holding than free on the range."

"The Department of Interior's BLM and Minerals Management Service (MMS) have both reneged on their responsibility as stewards of our public lands by giving free reign to interests that exploit public resources for private gain," Spriggs continued. "In the same way MMS betrayed the public's trust by allowing oil companies free rein in the Gulf of Mexico, the BLM consistently caters to a small group of ranching interests and other industries that exploit our public lands at the expense of the horses and other wildlife species."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's recent appointment of BLM Director Bob Abbey to bring "reform" to the MMS exemplifies this connection. IDA has criticized the move, calling for President Obama to truly "clean house" by firing the "industry-cozy" Abbey and Salazar.

Last week, IDA submitted extensive comments on the BLM's Preliminary Environmental Assessment (EA) for the "Twin Peaks Herd Management Area Wild Horse and Burro Gather Plan." IDA's 20 pages of comments blast BLM's population estimates and include BLM internal records and memos, BLM-funded studies and research plans, a photograph of a crippled wild horse taken by an ex-BLM horse specialist and other damning material demonstrating that the BLM's proposed roundup is illegal and violates the mandates of the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

IDA'scomments are available here.

The BLM intends to remove 80 percent of the horses living in the Twin Peaks HMA, in order to reach an Appropriate Management Level of just 448-785 wild horses and 72-116 burros on the 789,852 acre area. At the same time, BLM authorizes up to four times more cattle than wild horses in Twin Peaks and seven times more sheep than burros. The BLM roundup plans involve the use of helicopters to stampede horses for up to ten miles in the hot summer months - most foals will only be four to five months old. Of the horses rounded up and removed, family members will be separated for life and stallions will be castrated before being sent to long-term holding facilities in the Midwest. The roundup is scheduled to take place during the hot summer months of August and September 2010 - because mule deer hunters had complained that the "nuisance and noise" of the roundup would "dramatically reduce the quality of their hunting experience" in September and October - and is expected to take 45 to 60 days, costing American taxpayers millions of dollars.

Wild horses comprise a small fraction of grazing animals on public lands, where they are outnumbered by livestock nearly 50 to 1. The BLM has recently increased cattle grazing allotments in areas where wild horses are being removed. Currently the BLM manages more than 256 million acres of public lands of which cattle grazing is allowed on 160 million acres; wild horses are only allowed on 26.6 million acres this land, which must be shared with cattle. The Obama Administration plans to remove nearly 12,000 wild horses and burros from public lands by October 2010. There are currently more than 36,000 wild horses warehoused in government holding facilities and only 33,000 wild horses free on the range.

More on Cindy McDonald's Request for FBI Investigation...

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15352501?nclick_check=1

Critic wants FBI probe of BLM horse roundups in NV

By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press Writer

Posted: 06/22/2010 04:43:18 PM PDT

Updated: 06/22/2010 04:43:18 PM PDT

RENO, Nev.-A horse protection advocate is asking the FBI to step in to prevent the sale or transport of nearly 2,000 mustangs the government removed from Nevada rangeland until federal managers verify enough were left behind to sustain the wild herd.

Critics of the roundup say recent independent observations in northwest Nevada's Calico mountains suggest there remain nowhere near the 600 to 900 horses the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said it intended to leave there about 200 miles north of Reno.

They suspect the BLM overestimated the size of the original herd to be in excess of 3,000 before it captured horses from December 2009 to February 2010. The critics said that means it is likely many of those animals were not excess and should have been left on the range.

"These animals are protected by law and are the property of the United States and its citizens as well as the state of Nevada," Cindy MacDonald of Las Vegas said in a formal request for an investigation she hand-delivered to the FBI on Monday.

"The unauthorized taking of these animals is now in question and requires an investigation to determine if there had been an abuse of authority, discretion or violations of both state and federal laws set forth to ensure their protection, preservation and maintenance as integral components of the natural system of public lands," she wrote.

FBI Special Agent Joseph Dickey said in an e-mail to The Associated Press Tuesday afternoon he was attempting to confirm the agency had received the request from MacDonald, a researcher affiliated with a number of advocacy groups including the Cloud Foundation, American Herds and the Equine Welfare Alliance.

Officials for the Colorado-based Cloud Foundation said they were circulating MacDonald's complaint among several congressional offices on Tuesday.

BLM spokesman Tom Gorey said the agency was confident it was in compliance with the law.

"If the FBI wants to contact us to discuss the gather or the current situation with regard to the animals in holding, we will be happy to do so," Gorey told AP from Washington.

The BLM estimates there are 38,400 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states, about half in Nevada. That's about 12,000 more than the legally "appropriate management level," Gorey said.

Failure to remove horses from the range "will not only be to the detriment of the horses but also to the detriment of wildlife and the range conditions," he said.

A number of advocacy groups have filed lawsuits in the past to try to block roundups. In Defense of Animals lost a legal bid to block the Calico roundup in federal court earlier this year and lawyers for that group said in a statement on Tuesday they intend to sue over an upcoming roundup of about 2,000 horses and burros planned later this summer in the Twin Peaks area of northeast California.

But Cloud Foundation spokeswoman Anne Novak said she had never heard of anyone asking the FBI directly to get involved.

"This is brand new," she said.

Horse advocates argue BLM underestimates the horses the range can support, partly to defend policies that allow private ranchers to graze large numbers of livestock on the same lands.

"The numbers they say are the appropriate population level already are suspect," MacDonald said Tuesday, "but the possibility they didn't even leave the paltry 600 horses there, I just can't believe they could get away with that."

Craig Downer, a longtime wildlife ecologist who lives in Minden and works with the Cloud Foundation and others, told the BLM that he spotted only 31 wild horses when he flew over the area in early June.

Robert Bauer, who serves as an independent wild horse observer during roundups, said he only found nine during a ground survey over a portion of the management area within the past month.

"There's a vast difference between less than 50 and 600-900 wild horses," MacDonald told AP on Tuesday. "The public needs to be sure the BLM followed the law before those horses are shipped out."

The critics predict the BLM will confirm the smaller numbers in the Calico range when it completes a new aerial census next week. The count began Monday in concert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, covering about 4 million acres including the Calico management area and two national wildlife refuges along the Nevada-Oregon line.

BLM spokeswoman Heather Emmons said preliminary indications were the numbers were consistent with past estimates.