Last Updated on April 22, 2024 by adminahb
By: William E. Simpson II
Is the long term genetic survival and humane natural conservation of wild horses important to you?
It is of paramount importance to the team at ‘Wild Horse Fire Brigade’ and its growing ranks of thousands of supporters.
Understanding the true path to the natural, sustainable, humane conservation of American wild horses:
First, before we can move forward and make any genuine progress, we must be honest with ourselves as we evaluate the history of the results by the various wild horse advocacy groups and nonprofits who have received over $100 million in donations over the past few decades.
Some advocates have difficulty in facing the harsh realities of failed results when illuminated by the light of truth. But that weakness only serves themselves and fails wild horses.
Instead, they prefer to continue operating in a world of illusion where hyperbole, smoke, and mirrors make things look or sound better than what is real in the advocacy, especially when doing so is profitable on a personal level. It’s profitable delusion.
And as they do so, the atrocities and loss of wild horse genetics continues faster than at any time in history.
These same people even go so far as to demonize anyone who dares challenge their failure to help wild horses in order to preserve their own self-serving egos and donation revenue models.
Question: Does showing a picture of a starving pit bull on a chain and living in an old oil drum in the middle of winter with the caption ‘for 35 cents a day I can have a meal’ bring in donations?
It sure does! And HSUS has nearly $200 million sitting in their bank account to prove it.
And why is that money fattening a bank account instead of helping animals? The answer is the people running that nonprofit, American Wild Horse Campaign, is also sitting on millions in assets as wild horses are decimated.
What have most wild horse nonprofits been doing over the past 30 years to stop wild horse roundups, sterilization, and slaughter?
1. Petitions: There have been hundreds of petitions offered by nonprofits and signed by wild horse advocates over the past 30 years. Some petitions had nearly 500,000 names. Many nonprofits use petitions to build up their donation contact lists. In many cases, petitions are really just a data collection tool for some nonprofits camouflaged as a plausible tool to supposedly get something desirable done. None thus far has moved the needle… wild horse populations are dropping faster than ever!
2. Lawsuits: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) have been sued hundreds of times over wild horse issues. And they use taxpayer dollars to defend themselves, and they usually win in court. Once in while, a nonprofit will prevail and there is some temporary relief for wild horses, but in most cases, the benefits are short lived. These agencies are being directed by politicians who are beholden to mega corporations who support their political campaigns on both sides of the political spectrum. Shareholder profitability is what is most important to the leadership of these mega corps. In end, we find the BLM and USFS ultimately finding a work around, and the decimation of wild horses resumes, usually at an even faster pace!
3. Conferences: We all keep reading and hearing about all the wild horse conferences and events. The most recent of hundreds was in Reno, Nevada, running April 17-19, 2024. Interestingly, the promoters of that conference were actually charging people $299.00 to attend. On top of that, attendees had to pay for hotel, travel, and food. What is interesting is that the speakers are largely all the same people wielding all the same old tried and failed ideas, but nevertheless remain profitable to some nonprofits who are nevertheless garnering donations or who are being paid with government grants to sterilize wild horses. Results? A lot of bloviating and no horses saved.
Of Note: Wild Horse Fire Brigade’s lead researchers, Michelle Gough and William Simpson, are now teaching university students wild horse ecology ethology at their wilderness research site among 150 free roaming wild horses using the ‘Goodall Method’ and not accepting a penny for all that work!
Moreover, CAL STATE UNIV is not paying Wild Horse Fire Brigade anything, and instead, Wild Horse Fire Brigade is paying for the students’ housing and providing some funds for travel and food for students needing financial assistance.
4. Sterilizing Wild Horses: Sterilizing wild horses with chemicals (PZP & GonaCon) is not even a genuine solution! The range war is about range capacity and available grazing and water.
A sterilized horse eats and drinks just as much as a genetically intact horse, so sterilization is not a real solution, which is why sterilized horses keep getting rounded up by the hundreds each year!
Making matters worse is that the use of these chemical sterilants causes a host social dynamic and evolutionary natural selection issues, as well as having serious long term genetic impacts.
Bottom line:
Virtually none of these nonprofit orgs have fielded any authentic solution that provides for the cost effective, sustainable, humane, natural conservation of wild horses in a manner that keeps them living beyond economically driven conflicts, wild and free as intended by the 1971 Act.
And we now find that at least one wild horse nonprofit is out of the blue making dubious claims about ‘first of its kind’ research and study and has adapted much of the narratives of our longstanding research without proper citations. Making matters worse is they fail to have the actual requisite experience to make any true rewilding program successful, let alone managing a handful of horses on a lot of leased agricultural land and calling it a ‘first of its kind study’. Just more smoke and mirrors that hurts the chances of saving wild horses.
Visit www.wildhorsefirebrigade.org for more information.