Wednesday October 14, 2009, 7:15 am


SAMPLE LETTER • Print/Send This Letter

President Obama, Vice President Biden, Senator Feinstein, and Senator Boxer:

The Bureau of Land Management has been on a rampage many call "America's Summer of the Wild Horse and Burro Wipe-Out."

BLM has misused the Wild Horse and Burro Program for years, managing for extinction rather than preservation. Instead of protecting our beloved wild horse and burro herds, BLM caves to pressure from special interests such as big game hunting, mining, oil drilling, development, and ranching.

On September 29, 2009, BLM will permanently erase California's last wild burro herds from the Mojave Natural Preserve — unless you stop it.

Since last month alone, BLM eliminated 12 horse herds, along with 1.6 million acres of legally designated land in Ely, Nevada. These historical bloodlines are lost forever. In Wyoming, BLM seized 300 horses. In Challis, Idaho, a roundup of 400 horses left six dead and six foals orphaned. BLM recently reduced Cloud's Herd, famously documented on PBS Nature series, to 120 horses — too few for genetic viability. And they removed the herd's "elders," horses crucial to herd survival.

But BLM is not finished. In upcoming weeks, 270 wild horses will vanish from Caliente, Nevada. Over 200 others will be confiscated from ranges in Idaho, 450 in Tobin, Nevada, nearly 500 in Oregon, and 650 in California. Wyoming's Red Desert Complex will lose 700 wild horses, including 250 foals.

Taxpayers shell out an annual $25 to $49 million to sustain more than 30,000 captured wild horses and burros in federal compounds. Despite BLM denial, it is believed surplus American horses are commonly sold to "killer buyers" and shipped to foreign slaughterhouses.

During these hard economic times, the fiscally responsible solution is to return the 19 million acres that BLM illegally stole from these animals and manage herds on the land, not in holding pens.

Please call for an immediate stop to removal of wild burro herds in the Mojave Desert on 9/29/09. I hope you will do everything within your power to terminate more roundups and hold BLM and DOI accountable for their non-compliance with laws meant to shield our treasured herds.

President Obama's administration promised government transparency and accountability. I call upon you to fulfill that promise with the Bureau of Land Management, an agency that acts as a law unto itself.

Sincerely,

Wednesday October 14, 2009, 7:15 am


On Tuesday, 9/29/09, the last wild burros, along with hundreds of wild horses throughout the West, leave California — rounded up and trucked off to government holding pens. Unadoptable animals commonly wind up at auction, sold to kill floors in Canada or Mexico...

EVERYONE (no matter where you live): Contact President Obama, plus Senators Feinstein and Boxer — whom we understand may have the power to intervene...

Please insist that President Obama and Senators Feinstein and Boxer:

1. Immediately halt all further BLM roundups

2. Release the elder members of Cloud's herd

3. Call for an investigation of the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro scientific
protocols and policies and present a full accounting of all horses and
burros that have been rounded up since the Burns Amendment.

4. Get Senate Bill 1579, the "Restore Our American Mustangs" Act, out
of committee, bring it to the floor "as written", and support it so
that wild horses and burros will be protected.

*Letters and faxes are more effective here.

Wednesday October 14, 2009, 7:16 am


EVERYONE, SEND COMMENTS TO:
President Barack Obama
Vice President Joe Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
comments: 202-456-1111 or 202-456-9000
switchboard: 202-456-1414
fax: 202-456-2461
contact forms: www.whitehouse.gov/contact/,
www.whitehouse.gov/ContactUs/

Senator Diane Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
ph: 202-224-3841
fax: 202-228-3954

Senator Barbara Boxer
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
ph: 202-224-3553; fax: 202-224-0454
contact form: boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm

U.S CITIZENS ONLY, ALSO SEND COMMENTS TO:
The Honorable Representative [YOUR REP'S NAME]
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Senator [YOUR SENATOR'S NAME]
The U.S. Senate / U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

To find your federal legislators' contact info, try:
Congress.org
Project VoteSmart
USA Senate
USA House of Representatives

Wednesday October 14, 2009, 10:43 am
Thanks Cher.

Thank you for contacting the White House.

Wednesday October 14, 2009, 10:58 am
Thank-you Cher.