Government-Approved Slaughter
by Walter Brasch
Almost every day, a dozen or so wild burros come down from
the foothills of the Black Mountains of northwestern Arizona onto
the main street of Oatman, a revitalized high desert mining town
about 15 miles from where California, Nevada, and Arizona meet.
No one remembers when the burros first came into the mountain
town that is bisected by the hairpin curves and switchbacks of Old
Route 66, but they do know burros have lived in the area for more
than a century. However, it wasnÂ't until the tourists began visiting
the town in the early 1970s that the burros made their regular
visits, arriving each day on no set schedule, but usually leaving
about 4:30Â-5 p.m. when the tourists leave.
The townspeople provide love, concern, funds for veterinarian
bills, and two water troughs for the burros who work the Main Street
tourist industry. Sometimes the residents will brush the burros, but
the burros themselves are adept at making sure the entire pack is
clean and groomed. The tourists pet the burros, have their pictures
taken with them, chat with them, and feed them carrots, available
for $1 a bag from the Oatman General Store or any of a dozen other
stores. The burros work for food.
Once protected by federal law, the nationÂ's 3,000 wild burros
and 33,000 wild horses, as well as 24,000 horses in short- and
long-term sanctuaries, now face Congressionally-approved slaughter.
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) inserted a rider into the 3,000 page
omnibus spending bill of 2005, approved by Congress and signed into
law by President Bush, that requires the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
to sell all wild horses and burros which have not been adopted in
three attempts or which are 10 years or older. Wild burros have life
spans of 25Â-30 years; domesticated burros can live 45 years; wild
horses have life spans of 20Â-25 years. The animals, according to the
legislation, Â"shallÂ" be sold, and can be butchered. There were no
hearings or debate.
The public may not know what forces helped convince Burns to
silently insert the rider into the Appropriations Act, but one thing
is certainÂ""the beef industry has its brand all over it.
During the mid-1800s, more than 2.3 million wild horses and 60
million bison freely roamed AmericaÂ's west. But, ranchers, who had
already seized land from the Indians and were deep into a land war
with farmers, saw horses as competition for unfenced grazing land.
They poisoned the horsesÂ' watering holes, blinded the lead stallions
by shooting their eyes out, or simply ran them to death, up and over
cliffs, according to Mike Markarian, executive vice-president of the
Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Ranchers Â"even captured
wild mustangs, sewed their nostrils shut with rawhide so they could
barely breathe, and returned them to their herds so they would slow
down the other horses and make them much easier to capture,Â" says
Markarian. In 1897, Nevada allowed unlimited killing of mustangs.
By 1900, the bison were almost extinct, the result of
indiscriminate killing during the nationÂ's Â"Manifest Destiny.Â" A
half-century later, mustangs were close to meeting the same fate as
the bison. ThatÂ's when Velma Johnston, to become known as Â"Wild
Horse Annie,Â" began a national campaign to save wild horses and
burros. It took two decades until Congress unanimously passed the
Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 that gave
federal protection to the animals and made it a felony for anyone to
capture or harm them.
In 1974, the first federal census of wild horses and burros
revealed that only 60,000 remained in Arizona, California, Idaho,
Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.
The BLM plans to reduce the population on public lands to about
20,000, removing at least 11,500 wild horses and burros in 2005.
This number is below the minimum necessary to sustain healthy
populations, according Dr. Gus Cothran, equine geneticist at the
University of Kentucky. The minimum number of horses and burros in
each herd management area (HMA) needs to be at least 150, says
Cothran; under BLM plans, about 70 percent of the HMAs will have
fewer than 100 animals. Estimates by animal rights groups place the
number that will probably be slaughtered by the end of the year at
6,000Â-14,000.
Prior to the new federal law, the BLM sold Â"excessiveÂ" horses
and burros for $125, and then gave full ownership only after a year,
during which time the owner had to provide adequate space, shelter,
and care. However, the BLM has a long history of neglectful
oversight after the animals are sold, and even has a history of
willful violation of the law. In 1997, animal rights activists
revealed that BLM employees personally profited by selling mustangs
and burros for $400Â-$500 each, and then falsified records. However,
under political pressures, the investigation, which had resulted in
indictments by a federal grand jury, dissolved.
Even if no horses and burros were slaughtered, and current
levels maintained, that still would be too much for the ranchers.
The 33,000 horses and burros, apparently, are taking up too much
space and are infringing upon forage land of the 4.1 million head of
cattle. A statement by the National CattlemenÂ's Beef Association
released about the time of the Congressional appropriations measure
declared, Â"excessive numbers of feral horses and burros continue to
cause increasing deterioration of range conditions.Â" Why the
cattlemen want more land is a matter of economics as reflected by
the AUM. An AUM (animal unit month) is the amount of forage
Â"required to feed an average-size cow and calf per month, or one
horse, or five sheep,Â" according to the BLM; currently, an AUM is
about 800 pounds of air-dried foliage. The BLM, in its 2005 budget
justification report, apparently bowing to rancher concerns, states
that removing the horses and burros will Â"eliminate the need to
reduce permitted livestock grazing during a drought.Â"
The BLM charges ranchers $1.79 AUM to graze one cow and calf
upon public land; the cost to lease private land is $20Â-$50 AUM.
Half of the fees collected by the BLM and Forest Service from the
ranchers holding about 23,600 permits are eventually returned to
them for range improvements. Even with income from the ranchers, the
program had a loss of about $124 million in 2002, according to an
independent study conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity
in Tucson. However, the cost could be $500 million to $1 billion to
subsidize ranchers because Â"it was difficult to get a clear idea of
just how much money the government is pumping into the federal
grazing program [for cattle] to keep it going,Â" according to Karyn
Moskowitz, principal author of the report. Co-author Chuck
Romaniello, a BLM economist, raised the problem that Â"numerous
programs both in and outside the two agencies [BLM and Forest
Service] also bear costs [and] we could find no system that
adequately accounts for all of these costs.Â" Even raising the
grazing fee for cattle to come close to the cost of private leased
land Â"will not cover the real costs,Â" according to George Wuerthner,
one of the researchers. Â"If we did a full accounting of the
ecological costsÂ""soil erosion, extirpation of predators, water
pollution, endangered species, spread of weeds, dewatering of rivers
for irrigated pasture,Â" said Wuerthner, Â"the price we pay annually .
. . would be in the billions of dollars.Â" The report has spurred the
Government Accounting Office into an investigation of below-cost
grazing on public lands.
In contrast, the BLM spends only about $39 million for the wild
horse and burro program. This includes costs of helicopters to
round-up the animals and then to ship them to holding facilities
where, under the new law, they are likely to be sold for slaughter.
About 24,000 wild horses are now in one of 11 holding facilities in
Kansas and Oklahoma, at least 8,300 meeting minimal criteria imposed
by the repeal of the 1971 law. The cost to keep the horses and
burros in the sanctuaries and not running free on land that
cattlemen want may be as much as one-third of the budget, an expense
not necessary if the horses and burros were allowed to run in herds.
The sale of horses to slaughter houses is financially
attractive. Depending upon market value, a 1,000 pound mustang can
bring $700Â-$900 at a slaughter house. Horse meat is a gourmet meat
in Western Europe, Japan, and several other countries. About 65,000
domestic horses, unprotected by any laws, were butchered last year.
Because wild horses eat natural grasses, and have not been subjected
to mankindÂ's artificial foods, chemicals, and drugs, the meat is
considered especially delicious.
The first sale of wild horses under the new federal law was in
February to a company in Wyoming, which bought 200 horses for
$10,000, $50 a horse. Wild Horses Wyoming says it plans to put the
horses into a sanctuary, and not sell them. Some ranchers, just
wanting the animals off public lands to allow for more cattle, say
they will buy the horses and burros, and then create tourist
attractions in Mexico. However, there is no guarantee that the
animals will be protected or that they wonÂ't then be sold for
slaughter in Mexico or transported across the border to Texas, home
of two of the nationÂ's three foreign-owned slaughterhouses.
There is a possibility that the 1971 law protecting the animals
may be restored. A bill by Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.) and Ed
Whitfield (R-Ky.), with 15 co-sponsors, is in a subcommittee of the
House Resources Committee. The lobbying pressure against the bill is
expected to be intense. However, more than 60 national organizations
are now on record calling for the repeal of the recently-passed
legislation.
When it rains in Oatman, Ariz., the burros and the tourists both
head for cover beneath the storesÂ' wooden porches, both groups
chatting with each other, both groups eating munchies.
On a plaque in Oatman is a realityÂ-- Â"[I]f it were not for these
burros, in all probability, neither you nor the plaque would be
standing here today.Â" Beneath the wooden awnings of stores, the
burros of Oatman remind us that all of us, human and animal, need
each other.
[Assisting on this story were Rosemary Brasch and Gail Fox.
For more information, go to the Humane Society of the United States
(www.hsus.org),
International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros (www.ispmb.org),
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (www.wildhorsepreservation.com),
Alliance of Wild Horse Advocates (www.aowha.org),
and Bureau of Land Management (www.blm.gov)
Brasch is an award-winning journalist, author of 14 books, and a
university professor. His latest book is AmericaÂ's Unpatriotic
Acts; the federal GovernmentÂ's Violation of Constitutional and Civil
Rights. You may contact him through his website at
www.walterbrasch.com]
A