The fight for wild horses on our public lands presses on. Recently the largest “welfare ranching” organization in our country, the Rock Springs Grazing Association (RSGA), filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in an effort to remove all wild horses from the “checkerboard” lands of southern Wyoming. These lands encompass roughly 2 million acres of square mile sections—one square mile of private land, then one mile of public land, 20 miles wide on both sides of the freeway. This hodgepodge of public and private land was created in the 1800s when the railroad was built and investors wanted to encourage settlement.
The centerpiece of RSGA’s lawsuit is the push to have BLM remove all wild horses from not only the private but all the publically owned land in these checkerboard lands – almost half of Wyoming’s entire wild horse population.
Based on BLM’s disastrous track record in retaining viable wild horse herds on public lands, it seems highly unlikely BLM will vigorously defend the right of the mustangs to remain on these southern Wyoming landscapes. And so The Cloud Foundation along with American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) and the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros (ISPMB) filed for a motion to “intervene” on behalf of the wild horses. On November 2nd, we were granted that request.
We were on location at the Great Divide Basin roundup in late October to witness the removal of hundreds of wild horses. Great Divide Basin is just one of the herd management areas that will be eradicated should RSGA win this self-serving lawsuit.
In order for us to be able to make a difference for the future of Wyoming’s wild horses, we need your help.
The Cloud Foundation must raise at least $5,000 now to fight effectively for thousands of animals. As you know, we operate exclusively on tax-deductible donations from the public, and we need you to help us right now, before BLM cuts a deal with RSGA to destroy our Wyoming herds.
You can donate here. Your contribution will go directly toward legal expenses to defend Wyoming’s mustangs. Please do what you can. Thanks!
thecloudfoundation.wordpress.com 
November 12, 2011 at 9:21 pm |
This is such a deeply emotional issue for me. I can’t bear for the horses to suffer the brutality and trauma of roundup, removal, torn from their family units, relocation and all the neglect and additional abuse that is certain during the process and from then on. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason for it and it seem like we keep running into a stone wall at high speed no matter what efforts we make in trying to appeal to the people who CAN do something to stop it.. but WON’T. But, I know that we can’t stop trying! We must perservere for the sake of the horses and burros who can’t advocate for themselves.
(Sorry for the rant! I am so frustrated on many levels. I’m also trying to save negelected and abused animals here, with no success. I don’t get how anyone can DO such horrible things, or ALLOW it to be done, and continued! It is criminal, but noone in authority seems the least bit interested in correcting the situation even tho these living beings are suffering untold agony. To me, that constitutes being part the crime, by refusing to do everything in ones power to stop it.)
I pray every night and day that the Cloud Foundation will receive needed support and be able to win these cases in court, so the horses will be saved from what would otherwise be their ultimate doom.
Thank you for the news and updates. I tell everyone I can talk to, and send it along on social networks to reach as many as possible with the information. It seems like we need a lot more people to actively join the battle to save the wild horses and burros, but the financial support is critical too. (Sending all I can right now.)
~Sue
November 12, 2011 at 9:39 pm |
Trying to send a donation but it says PayPal won’t accept any of my credit cards. Do we have to have a PayPal account set up? Or do you have another method. GreenDot card perhaps??
November 16, 2011 at 3:26 pm |
I have been wanting to be involved to help…
Thank you
November 19, 2011 at 3:09 am |
I hope and pray that everyone will pass this on, so more of the public becomes aware with this critical issue that’s facing our American wild horses. They need us know, more than ever, so please do whatever you can. I’m sure no amount is too small. Thank you for caring.
November 22, 2011 at 6:10 pm |
Andrew Cohen did another article…COMMENTS NEEDED. He has picked up this story and is running with it…this is his FOURTH article about America’s Wild Herds. THE ATLANTIC has been compared to Time Magazine:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/the-night-wild-horses-came-to-manhattan/248639/
The Night Wild Horses Came to Manhattan
By Andrew Cohen
Nov 18 2011, 12:15 PM ET34
The Wild Horse Act act celebrates its 40th birthday, but only a shell of its protections for America’s herds remain.
“So did the ranchers, the true adversaries of the horses. They, too, were invited to New York to offer their assessment of the Wild Horse Act at its 40th birthday. But they do their talking mostly in court these days. The Rock Springs Grazing Association, for example, filed a lawsuit earlier this year asking a federal judge in Wyoming to get rid of all of the wild horses in Sweetwater County, in the southern part of the state. The losers talk, I guess, and the winners walk all over the horses a federal law was designed to protect.”
March 8, 2012 at 7:50 am |
What happened with this? I can’t remember. Thanks