BLM illegally sold thousands of wild horses for torturous slaughter!

 

Forwarded letter from Chantal, which can be posted as well in your US representatives contact form  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/#listrep  And ask for prosecution of the kill buyer, Tom Davis!

 

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To: director@blm.gov ; theinlei@blm.gov ,

 

Subject: BLM illegally sold thousands of wild horses for slaughter!

 

To :

BLM Washington Office
1849 C Street NW, Rm. 5665
Washington DC 20240
Phone: 202-208-3801
Fax: 202-208-5242

Director: Neil Kornze
Deputy Director (Operations): Steven A. Ellis
Deputy Director (Policy): Linda Lance
Chief of Staff: Jon Raby (Acting)

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BLM Colorado
Front Range District Office
3028 East Main Street
Cañon City, Colorado 81212
719-269-8500
FAX 719-269-8599
District Manager: Tom Heinlein

Sir, madam, to whom it concerns:

I'm very shocked and disappointed to read that BLM, the agency tasked with protecting wild horses and cattle and their grazing lands, illegaly sold 1,794 federally-protected wild horses to a Colorado rancher who sent them to slaughter .
http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-11117-wild-horses-slaughtered-in-mexico.html

The kill buyer,Tom Davis, admitted that most of the wild horses he purchased from the BLM were sent to Mexican slaughterhouses, which are incredibly brutal.
http://speakupforthevoiceless.org/2014/11/26/horse-auctions-in-america-and-mexican-slaughterhouses/
http://video.humanesociety.org/press/video.php?bctid=973170356001&channel=973092891001

Between 2009 and 2012, rancher Tom Davis purchased the horses through the agency’s Wild Horse and Burro Program (WH&B) and wrongfully sent them to slaughter, according to the report from the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General. According to the allegations and news reports, Mr. Davis also had farming and trucking connections with former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

BLM did not follow current law while managing WH&B.
BLM also failed to follow its own policy of limiting horse sales and ensuring that the horses sold went to good homes and were not slaughtered.
Selling so many loads of horses, BLM had to know that the horses would end up at the slaughterhouse.

The wrongful sale also cost taxpayers $140,000 to deliver truckloads of horses to Mr. Davis. He paid $10 a piece for the horses, or less than $18,000 total, and made as much as $154,000 in profits by selling them for slaughter, according to the report.
BLM employees never attempted to verify the information that Mr. Davis provided regarding his intentions for the horses he bought, despite the unusually large number of horses being sold to him, investigators wrote. The agency also did not stop selling horses to Mr. Davis after receiving reports that he was sending the horses to slaughter.

For anyone who has ever owned horses you know they have a prey animal mentality. Their natural instinct is to flee danger. Can you imagine the fear and suffering these animals experienced as they were led to their deaths, having their throats slit in a savage way.

Wild horses should be running free, that was the purpose of the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burro Act.
“The act provides specific protections to “all unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros on public lands of the United States,”[2] and makes it a crime for anyone to harass or kill these animals on federal land. It requires the departments of the Interior and Agriculture to protect the animals.”

Unfortunately, there will be no justice for these mustangs, who suffered a brutal death in Mexican slaughter plants. No one at the BLM is being held accountable for this betrayal, and Tom Davis is not being prosecuted for violating his contractual obligation to not sell the horses for slaughter.

There are almost a 100 million cattle in this country, trampling all over our public and private lands. Yet there is no room for a few thousand wild horses?

Repeated polls show some 80 percent of Americans oppose horse slaughter.These horses belong to all Americans. They are their only voice.

The BLM must must act to completely end this horrific practice once and for all.  The BLM must act in the public’s best interest by implementing cost-effective and humane management policies for America’s cherished wild horses and burros.
 Sincerely:    

 

                                                                                                The terrifying road to slaughter

After a horse is bought by a kill buyer, she is shipped to a slaughterhouse in Mexico or Canada. Currently, there are no horse slaughterhouses in the U.S., but the cruel and predatory industry continues to court states in an effort to convince them that slaughter is somehow good for communities and horses.
Former pets, sensitive dressage horses, and draft horses—all are dragged and whipped into trucks that are built for cattle, who are much shorter, meaning the horses are often horrifically injured on their long heads, necks, and legs. Since the slaughter industry sees these horses as nothing but meat, it doesn’t do anything to keep them from being hurt or traumatized.
Workers cram as many horses as possible into the trucks. “They mix stallions in with pregnant mares, foals, and older horses, often leading to fights and injuries,” says Valerie Pringle, Equine Protection Specialist for The Humane Society of the United States.
“And they can be transported in freezing cold or scorching heat, for 24 hours or more with no food or water and no chance to rest or stretch. “Horse slaughter should not exist as a grisly crutch for irresponsible owners and breeders while the majority find humane outcomes for their horses. Sending a horse to an inhumane death at a slaughter plant is not the least expensive way of ending a horse’s life—it is the greediest way.”

                                                                                                  The horror of the slaughterhouse

At the slaughterhouse, a horse is killed in a way that is easiest and quickest for the slaughterhouse worker but most agonizing for her. Investigations from Mexican and Canadian slaughter plants report that horses are stabbed many times in the neck with a “puntilla knife” to sever their spinal cords, leaving them paralyzed and unable to breathe. The horse is then hoisted, bled out, and cut apart, often while still conscious and able to feel everything. Horses fared no better when they were slaughtered in the U.S., according to an investigation by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Slaughter simply cannot be made humane.