Alberta's wild horses in danger from human predators {Beautiful symbols of freedom]

Thanks :~)

btt for later

Yes, it is. And it results in bad management, because the horse-crazed women stampede the legislators into enacting laws that codify really bad management.

This is exactly how the BLM's "Wild Horse and Burro" management situation came about. Some horses were shot. Women got their panties in a wad, they lobbied DC, and kept lobbying every time one of these stupid animals so much as stubbed their hoof on anything and the result is what you have today.

The way to nip this in the bud is go get the person who shot the horse, smack 'em for animal cruelty, and leave it at that. Quickly. Before this becomes some nation-wide campaign of ignorant, emotional women in cities.

Horses are an invasive and destructive alien species.

The true symbol of freedom is the nutria.

I could do without the cracks about women. Says more about you than the issue, IMHO.

So are European-descended human immigrants.

So are the Asian derived ones.

"Bob Henderson was able to identify them by the markings on their heads, which had not yet been ravaged by eagles and wolves. "

I am pleased to note the markings had not been ravaged.

Perhaps you've never been to BLM or state capitol meetings where "mustangs" are under discussion. I have. Many, many times.

Hearings where "wild horses" are under discussion are disgusting displays of emotional irrationality overwhelming the law, science, agency policy and rationality.

As a result, the US taxpayers are forking over large and ever-increasing amounts of money to "manage" these "wild" horses. We have the Congress being browbeaten into outlawing slaughtering plants for horses in the US, which will simply result in problems down the road for domestic horse owners. We have the BLM making the adoption process so onerous that adoption rates are going to drop off in the future, in an ever-increasing zeal to make sure that no "wild" horse is ever slaughtered or killed.

There is no science in how we manage "wild horses." First, start with the fact that they're not wild. Then move on to the fact they're not 'endangered' and then finish up with the fact that the greatest danger these beasts face in the future is starvation as a result of policies forced upon the BLM and USFS from "supporters" of "wild" horses rather than their detractors.

But science, reason and sound public lands management decisions cannot be made around "wild horses" in the American west, because (drum roll please) of the utter irrationality of women (and only women) on this issue. You never, ever see men pleading and carrying on about these beasts in public lands meetings. It is always women, and predominately urban white women. And when these women feel they need extra people to prop up their position, they drag "the children," the dear, sweet, gullible children, into a meeting with them. School kids, classes, letters from kids who know even less about the issue than the women who are dragging them into said meetings.

Using the innocence and ignorance of children to prop up any political or policy campaign is disgusting, IMO, but that's just me.

In all the public lands issues that confront people in the western US, there is no subject with less science, more absurd policy and greater waste than the issue of "wild" horses.

My own mother used to be one of these "wild horse annie" types -- from the safe distance of the east coast and complete ignorance. She'd go on and on and on about how endangered and oppressed the "wild" horses were here in the west. Mind you, I always thought she was a flinty hard-core Republican. She even worked for the Goldwater campaign in '64. Around horses, she just seemed to lose her mind.

So one day, I decide I've heard enough. I offered to go up to the BLM's adoption center up in Palamino, just north of Reno, and get 8 to 10 of the critters, hire a horse hauler and have 'em sent back east, all at my expense. All she would have to do is feed them and care for them, for the year the BLM requires, and they'd be hers. She could then be proud that she "rescued" them from us evil ranchers and farmers here in the west who are "starving" these "wild" horses out of their future existence.

Funny thing: She wouldn't go for it. I was offering to pay the adoption fees, do all the paperwork, line up the truck, the vaccination paperwork, the brand/owner documentation for the hauler, you name it. The adoption fees would have cost me only about $1200; the hauler would have been upwards of $5K (this was back when diesel was like $1.60/gal), the vet fees, docs, etc would have been about $700. I would have paid for all of it. All she needed to do was put 'em up with her domestic horses.

Nope. She would not go for it.

What a deal she was turning down, eh?

I've made similar deals to other horse-crazed women since when I get a earful of their bellyaching on "wild" horses.

None of them go for it.

Ain't that funny?

So you can think whatever you'd like of me, because I don't care. I'm just giving you the facts. They're rather inconvenient, but they're facts.

You alienated me by making cracks about women that didn't need to be there. Much as if I blamed all the ills of the world on men would make you discount what I have to say would. You could have just argued the facts.

Since I'm a horse loving woman who is fully capable of understanding what's messed up about BLM horse management politics, it's too bad you discounted and insulted me from the beginning... I might have cared what you have to say about it.