Obvious bias
Dear Editor:
Repeating the very worst gaslighting tropes perpetrated by the Bureau of Land Management in its aggressive campaign to eradicate wild horses and burros from their habitats, the recent article, “Romance versus reality,” (Aug. 25, 2022) by Kathleen Kelly, reveals an obvious bias in favor of the BLM and its unyielding allegiance to the livestock industry. To make the bias even worse, the story demonizes wild horse advocates with the derisive term “conspiracy advocates,” using that insulting pejorative to spin a decidedly anti-horse narrative, without including a single quote or statement from such an advocate.
Had the reporter been interested in a more balanced story, she might have reached out to a knowledgeable advocate who would show her that advocates are constantly using real science to rebut the BLM’s false claims of an imagined “overpopulation” of wild horses. We remind the BLM of the report issued by the National Academy of Sciences that found the agency routinely ignores science and avoids transparency. In fact, it’s these same advocates who have mined the BLM’s own grazing data that shows it is commercial livestock, not wild horses and burros, that are overgrazing the range. Livestock outnumber wild equines on designated HMA’s by as much as a hundred to one, yet still the BLM shamelessly tells anyone who will listen that it’s 82,000 wild equines, not millions of cattle and sheep, that are a threat to the rangeland ecosystems. Ms. Kelly’s story hews closely to the BLM’s false and cynical talking points, yet she makes no effort to present another point of view.
I am a persistent and outspoken critic of the BLM’s wild horse program and therefore no doubt qualify as a “conspiracy advocates” by Ms. Kelly’s metrics. I grew up in Idaho on a farm with livestock and horses, and I now work as a public policy advocate and a professor of law teaching classes on animals, wildlife conservation, and animal agriculture. I may be many things, but I am most certainly NOT a “conspiracy advocate.” I’m a taxpaying American who studies this issue closely and supports wild horses and burros on our public lands. My passion for wild horses is informed by my own research that has given me a clear-eyed view of the devastating impact livestock have on our public lands, and who is appalled with the brutality and violence visited on our cherished wild equines by the BLM.
Next time the Herald Times does a story on wild horses, public lands, or public lands grazing, I invite you to reach out to an experienced advocate or advocacy group working to end the roundups and protect the wild herds. That would at least bring some balance to the issue, something that was badly missing in this one
Scott Beckstead
Director of Campaigns
Center for a Human Economy
Sutherlin, Oregon
One-sided conversation
Dear Editor:
I am surprised that Kathleen Kelly’s Romance versus reality article (Rio Blanco Herald Times, Aug. 25, 2022) was published as anything other than an op-ed. Ms. Kelly’s biased reporting was made clear by the article’s one-sided conversation where Piceance Mustangs, the Bureau of Land Management, and Cattoor Livestock, Inc. were all in agreement about the severity of challenges facing the Piceance-East Douglas herd and how the horses should be managed.
Ms. Kelly’s aggressive language about other advocacy groups, who in fact care equally about the health and well-being of wild horses and burros, as well as her dismissive tone towards the American Wild Horse Campaign, the Cloud Foundation, Scott Wilson, and Delia Malone do nothing to promote the idea of cooperation championed in the article by Bill Mills, field manager of the BLM’s White River Field Office. Words such as “livid”, “seething”, “conspiracy advocates”, “buzzsaw”, “hyperbolic” and the like do not invite positive working relationships.
Other biased language includes “admitted” as in “[Malone] admitted she had no background in equine science…”. How would the sentence read if “admitted” was replaced with “said”? Ms. Malone’s expertise is not diminished because she is not an equine scientist. In that vein, is Derek Nielsen, whose volunteer efforts informed the Osborn study and who “admitted” that he had no understanding of range impacts until he started collecting data, any more capable of discerning range conditions because he is a Rio Blanco County native and accomplished horseman? The use of “the Sierra Club Malone paper” instead of its proper title (“Wild Horses of the Piceance-East Douglas Herd Management Area: An Ecological Assessment of Herd and Habitat Condition”) is insulting.
As for facts, Ms. Kelly states “There are no state lands within the Piceance-East Douglas HMA.” The BLM’s map of the HMA clearly shows that state lands are, in fact, within the HMA as does Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s state lands map.
Ms. Malone provided information to Ms. Kelly about the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility’s (PEER) data analysis of the BLM’s own Land Health Assessment, which shows that even though some of the land within the Piceance-East Douglas HMA has met the agency’s land health standards, the land health assessment for the Yellow Creek grazing allotment, fully within the HMA, has not been completed. BLM land health standards in the Duck Creek Grazing Allotment, directly adjacent to the HMA, have not been met due to the presence of livestock. Ms. Kelly neglected to include PEER’s data analysis in her article.
In reference to body condition and its impact on foaling, Ms. Malone wrote this to Governor Jared Polis ahead of the Piceance-East Douglas gather and provided photos and links to back up her findings:
Observations indicate that the wild horses of the Piceance- East Douglas HMA are vigorous and reproductively successful. Key factors in determining population survivability are adult body condition, which depends on forage amount and quality. Research acknowledges that body condition affects dams’ reproductive success. Because in all wild populations, resources are limited, the amount of forage has been shown to be important to reproduction, most likely mediated by female body condition. When range conditions are good, dams are able to attain adequate nutrition and body condition to successfully foal. Reproductive success in this HMA is evidenced by the presence of numerous healthy and vigorous foals, suggesting abundant and good-quality forage in the HMA. Interestingly, BLM cites 20% wild horse population growth but also malnutrition as reasons for roundups which contradicts both themselves and established science.
I commend the Piceance Mustangs for the hard work they do for the Piceance-East Douglas wild horses. I produced a story about this group for KDNK Community Radio a few years ago. I have also covered the wild horse issue since 2006 for radio and print, including the West Douglas and Sand Wash Basin herds and the first Meeker Mustang Makeover in 2019.
Each advocacy group has a role to play in ensuring the health and well-being of the nation’s wild horses and burros and to hold the BLM and the USFS accountable for best management practices. Ms. Kelly has every right to disagree with studies or points of view but to cherry-pick quotes to support her efforts to disparage those who disagree, hold differing opinions, or have come up with different approaches to the status quo of wild horse and burro management renders her article inappropriate for anything but the opinion page of your newspaper.
Sincerely,
Amy Hadden Marsh
Freelance journalist, former KDNK news director, currently a writer for the American Wild Horse Campaign
Carbondale, Colorado
Ode to the wild horse (mustang)
Dear Editor:
I, like so many, find the wild horse a token of the old west. And find pleasure in seeing a few of them still around. The fact is the wild horse is a feral horse just like feral cats and hogs. And unlike other wild animals, the horse does not migrate. Thus overgrazing — which impacts the range that is needed to sustain these horses and other animals.
These feral horses were once controlled and genetically improved upon by the ranchers and settlers who would introduce new studs to the herds and keep the numbers in check while producing a better quality animal. I remember stories of men like “Bronco” John Martin who made their living catching and breaking these horses to ride. Now sad to say they (the feral horses) have been allowed to go uncontrolled. Result, too many horses and a poor quality of horses.
Today, thanks to men like Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt, Bryon Newbert and others, more people are now able to actually do something with these horses. If there weren’t so many. The answer (in my opinion) is to bite the bullet, so to speak, and get the number of the feral horses down to a manageable number. Then keep it there and not allow the numbers to exceed that which the range can support while keeping in consideration the other animals which also need that same range for their survival — deer, elk, and yes, cattle.
Putting the horses in feedlots and spending money just to prolong their lives seems to be a real waste of money. It does not provide a quality of life to these horses
It is a real challenge, one that needs a unified effort from all and some common sense.
Tim Uphoff
Piceance Creek
Meeker
Thoughts expressed on opinion pages are exclusively those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the Herald Times. You are welcome to submit signed letters on matters of local interest to [email protected], mail to PO Box 720, Meeker, CO 81641 or drop off at 304 4th St., Meeker. there is no charge.
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