Wild Horse Advocates Demand Media Investigate Government Misuse of Taxpayer Funds

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Dec. 16, 2021 - PRLog -- The Cloud Foundation (TCF) and over 90 other organizations and individuals are issuing a challenge to media outlets nation-wide to examine Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) data before reporting further on wild horse issues and roundups.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) has issued 119 press releases to date telling the media that wild horse roundups protect rangelands from destruction and save taxpayers money. The Bureau's own records show that livestock grazing inside wild horse habitat causes rangeland damage.

In an alert sent to over 900 media outlets, professional journalists urged colleagues to look at the Bureau's own data regarding rangeland health, livestock grazing and the exorbitant cost of removing wild horses from public lands to accommodate privately owned cattle and sheep.

A  fact sheet accompanying the alert showed the Bureau's rangeland health data overlaid on satellite maps. The maps show damage caused by commercial livestock within wild horse herd management areas in southeastern Wyoming. Up to 97% of forage is allocated to privately owned livestock within this wild horse habitat.

The U.S. government spends millions of tax dollars to roundup wild horses from public lands each year. These lands were designated as protected wild horse and burro habitat in the 1971 Wild Horse Act. The Act states clearly that this habitat must be "devoted principally, but not necessarily exclusively, for their [wild horses/burros] welfare." Yet in most Herd Management Areas, the majority of forage is allocated to commercial livestock not the federally protected wild equines.

The Bureau's current plan will reduce wild horses/burros to just 27,000 on 27 million acres of public lands. The agency will spend $59 million taxpayer dollars to roundup and remove the animals it terms "excess." The cost of warehousing those animals on the taxpayer dime is about another $43 million annually. If the government then replaces those wild horses with cattle, it will earn a meager $955,800 in grazing fees. It's hard to imagine a worse deal for American taxpayers.

Signatories are calling on media to accurately report on government actions, informing the American public of the facts, rather than repeating rhetoric.

The Cloud Foundation (TCF), a 501(c)3 non-profit, was founded by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Ginger Kathrens, creator of three acclaimed PBS Nature series documentaries that followed the wild stallion Cloud throughout his life. Dedicated to the protection and preservation of wild horses and burros on our public lands, The Cloud Foundation advocates for protecting natural wild equid behaviors, repatriation of wild horses to zeroed-out Herd Areas, and for equal allocation of forage within Congressionally designated Herd Areas. http://www.thecloudfoundation.org