Letter To The Editor of New York Times

Rebuttal to New York Time Article – By  James Anaquad Kleinert

To whom it may concern,
I’m writing in response to Rep. Chris Stewart OpEd titled “The Hard Truth About the West’s Wild Horse Problem” found at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/opinion/wild-west-horses.
In his OpEd, Rep. Stewart deceived your readers by implying there was a 41% increase in the American wild horse & burro population in a 5 month timespan, and by displaying a photo of one thin horse in order to claim that most of the wild horse population on the range are starving or dying from dehydration!
As producer and director of several international award winning documentary films (https://vimeo.com/ondemand/wildhorses)
on the plight of our wild horses, burros, and public lands, I have interviewed dozens of experts on the subject including forming director of the Bureau of Land Management Jim Baca. Courageously exposing horrific lying to the American public, Congress, taxpayer waste, lack of scientific research and accounting for our wild horses, burros and public lands on the part of the BLM,  Baca’s testimony paints a BLM in complete defiance of the Free Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act (unanimously passed by Congress in 1971).  As a result of our investigation we took the BLM to federal court and won our FOIA case.  As a proponent for wild horses and burros, I feel compelled to provide your readers with the truth.

Since Trump has been elected, gross offenses are escalating against America’s wild horses and our public lands under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (who for years has been known as a horse slaughter proponent and cheerleader for the extractive industries). In the interviews with Jim Baca I cited earlier, he revealed the following:  
It’s a question of who controls public lands in the Western United States.  As far as BLM lands go and to a certain extend Forest service lands, they are controlled by the Livestock Industry, The Oil Industry and Mining Industry, control those lands, It’s either their way or the highway!  The wild horse gather contractors go out, they use helicopters, they do all this stuff to catch these horses they get hundreds of horses in a pen and then all of the sudden they cannot track them?  If you cannot do that for a few thousands horses then there is a real dereliction of duty that is occurring on the part of the Federal Government who is mandated to protect many of these wild horses...The Oil & Gas Industries feeling that they are entitled to go in and drill anywhere that they want to, the mining industry they have not even paid royalties for many, many years, so why should they want any changes on public lands.  So I think the horses are like an indicator species.  

It’s important to keep in mind that the second largest form of income (second to taxation) for the U.S. Government is the leasing of public lands to the extractive industries. Baca was not afraid to speak truth to power during his time at BLM, however his innovative ideas to improve the program where squashed. Jim Baca’s term as Director of the BLM sparked the Del Rio investigation in which a federal grand jury had collected evidence that showed U.S. government officials allowed the slaughter of hundreds of wild horses taken from federal lands, falsified records and tried to prevent investigators from uncovering the truth.  But the case was shut down after federal officials in Washington, including officials outside the investigation, intervened.

In addition to Jim Baca, I interviewed C.R. MacDonald who has done extensive research in her published report “America’s Mustangs & Burros What’s Left, The High Costs of Miscalculating and Will They Survive?”  In addition to graphically illustrating the annual wild horse and burro population declines, MacDonald’s report reveals that at least 52 Herd Management Areas have been found to have extreme jumps in annual population reports that were key in supporting BLM’s national “excess.” This hints at continued fraudulent reporting on the part of the BLM. During the filming of my documentaries, I had the honor to interview Michael Blake (writer of Dances With Wolves) who was hired by Universal Studios to write a screenplay on the plight of the wild horses.  During Michael’s research he began to peel back the layers of corruption exposing the BLM wild horse & Burro program.  Michael decided to do an independent aerial count of Wild Horses in Nevada.  Michael’s independent count of wild horses & burros was roughly 66% lower then what BLM was reporting on the land.

There are even questions about the need for population limits in the first place. While the BLM pushes for population limits based on the sustainability of the herd, the National Academy of Science released a report in 2013 completing an 18-month study of the BLM’s Wild Horse & Burro program in which they could not identify a scientific purpose behind the BLM’s arbitrary population limits as shown in this exerpt from their report:
Arbitrary management level (AML): The maximum number of wild horses that BLM declares the Western range can sustain is 26,715.  This is a political construct. Per the 31,583,386 acres — 49,349 square miles — of dedicated wild-horse habitat across the Western states, the AML establishes a maximum stocking density of 1 wild horse per 1,182 acres.  That is nearly 2 square miles! Even if the wild-horse population really were 72,000 (hint: which it can not be), that would mean a stocking density of 1 horse per 438 acres (⅔ of a square mile).  Anyone with common sense would not consider that excessive.
This is corroborated by my own experiences- I have traveled extensively to BLM wild horse & burro range management areas and I find it extremely tasking to actually find wild horses on those legally designated lands. Wild horses are few and far between. While the arbitrary maximum density that BLM begrudges is about 1 wild horse per 2 square miles, many herds are restricted even more severely.  Examples of stocking densities that BLM deems “appropriate,” and down-to-which it strives to reduce them on BLM herd management areas are as follows:

1 wild horse per 3,102 acres : 5 square miles:  Antelope Complex — NV
1 wild horse per 3,566 acres : 5½ square miles: Triple B Complex — NV
1 wild horse per 4,381 acres : 7 square miles: Beatys Butte — OR
1 wild horse per 4,500 acres : 7 square miles: Warm Springs — OR
1 wild horse per 5,062 acres :  8 square miles:  Paisley Desert — OR
1 wild horse per 6,606 acres : 10 square miles:  Eagle herd — NV
1 wild horse per 9,591 acres : 15 square miles:  Silver King herd — NV

The fact of the matter is that wild horses are underpopulated: Per BLM’s own genetic studies 83% of wild-horse herds suffer from arbitrary management levels (AMLs) that areset below minimum genetically viable populations.  
This is severely contrasted by livestock density. To put this in perspective, nationally, BLM allows a stocking density of 1 cow-with-calf pair (or 5 sheep) per 76 acres, which means 8 cow+calf pairs (or 40 sheep) per square mile. Further, this is permitted within dedicated wild-horse habitats — where the mustangs are, by law, supposed to receive principal benefit of resources.

There are 22 million acres of legally-designated Wild Horse herd areas which BLM previously took away for administrative convenience and political expediency.

In our new documentary, Disappointment Valley, we explore the town of Naturita, Colorado that still suffers from the last uranium boom and bust!  What happened in Naturita is a cautionary tale: in the 1980’s, President Ronald Reagan and Director of the Department of Interior James Watt deregulated environmental safeguards, leading to the loss of the local horse population. Naturita Ridge just outside of town had thriving herds of wild horses up until the last Uranium boom.

The Naturita Ridge Wild Horse Herd were forced out by the BLM and massive Uranium Mining took place in the area. By the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act made this move illegal. The Department of Interior and mining companies promised there would be little environmental impact. Just the opposite came to pass. The community suffered increased rates of cancer and the area was left an environmental disaster. All these years later, the area, currently tagged by the government as a toxic superfund site, is still extremely dangerous to animals and humans.  In Disappointment Valley we interview and have testimony from many of the victims.  

Just over the mountain from Naturita Ridge is Disappointment Valley and the Spring Creek wild horse herd.  In 2007 we documented a brutal BLM wild horse round up in Disappointment Valley.  The number of horses the BLM left on the range was so low it jeopardized the survival of the herd.  The Herd went from 120 to 37 adult wild horses, with no consideration for this amazing species.  Eight months after the BLM almost completely destroyed the wild horse herd, the area in which they roamed was staked out with over 100 uranium mining claims.  I began doing more research and interviewed environmental attorney Travis Stills from Durango, Colorado.  Travis commented that “These are not Private Projects, these are Government projects, these are heavily subsidized projects; they’re more akin to an old Soviet style form of development then they are anything that resembles what people who are trying to formulate a sustainable way of living on the land would do”.

In 2008 and 2009 I attended a number of public hearings in Southwestern Colorado discussing the new uranium boom that was coming.  At the first public hearing in May of 2008 Energy Fuels (an Ontario, Canada corporation) CEO George Glasier insisted that I shut down my camera and would not allow me to film his testimony or any of the hearing.  We show this interaction in our films Wild Horses & Renegades and Disappointment Valley.  As attorney Travis Stills pointed out, “George Glasier a slick lawyer who is passing as a Rancher, and he’s moving this project through.”  

As Randy Udall, (nephew of Stewart Udall, Former Secretary of the Interior) an energy consultant, explained to me – “BLM lands are in distant, isolated, scenic, solitary spaces and now they are being cut up and dissected and cannibalized to feed the nation’s energy appetite.“

I traveled to D.C. to interview U.S. Congressman Grijalva. As Chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, he issued a report that accused the Bush Administration of pursuing a “Concerted Strategy” to reduce protection of Federal Lands, opening them up for every type of private, commercial, and extractive industry possible.
As Congressmen Grijalva explained to me, “The BLM is essentially inept in dealing with the issues of wild horses, and the consequence has been a policy, that despite the intentions of Congress, has been basically a policy of how do you exterminate and limit as opposed to how do you manage.  And so because of the escalating cost in round ups and holding facilities we requested a study by the GAO”.  The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.  Their mission is to ensure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American People.
Congressmen Grijalva told me, “And the conclusions were basically what we had suspected.  Not good management, no cohesive policy, no transparency, no real look at alternatives and not effectuating the action of Congress in the past which was to establish set aside public lands as sanctuaries  for the wild horses.   And we saw the corruption in that whole fee collection area there”.

There have been several investigations done by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) into the Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service (MMS) employees. They concluded that the MMS was “A Culture Of Ethical Failure.”  Charges brought against MMS employees include “getting drunk and having sex with oil company personnel, as well as doing coke and smoking pot in the office, including accepting gifts from representatives of the oil and gas companies they were supposed to be regulating.”

Congressmen Grijalva went onto explain how the department of the interior is using a loophole to allow other large-scale extraction projects onto public lands.  “Categorical Exclusions, which basically said we are going to supersede any environmental laws in order to expedite extraction.  The best example of this was Deep Water Horizon in which Categorical Exclusion was used to bypass environmental and safety measures.”

I interviewed Julie Fishel , attorney for the Western Shoshone Defense Fund.  Julie represented Shoshone ranchers (the Dan Sisters) and took the case to the United Nations high court in Geneva, Switzerland.  They received a ruling from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD, a treaty body set up by the United Nations and ratified by the United States in 1993. The BLM was working to push the Shoshoni ranchers off their legally designated treaty land because they were sitting atop one of the largest gold finds in U.S. history.  As Julie stated in our interview “The Large focus seems to be saying it’s the ranchers, it the grazing land.  So let’s look 5-10 years down the road and maybe they shifted into grazing lands immediately after they removed the Horses.  But then are those grazers still there 10 years latter?  Or have they (the BLM) put them in trespass, taken their animals claiming that they are over-grazing or something and who is using the lands now?  What I have seen from my personal experience is the federal government and these companies are very good a dividing and conquering and where is this really coming from is mineral extraction.  It’s mainly extractive industries and they are pitting rancher against Indigenous people’s not just here in the U.S. but all over the world because that keeps all of us on the ground fighting”.   

Dave Catoor, the livestock contractor hired by the BLM, has been convicted of Use of Aircraft to Hunt Wild Horses in violation of the title 18, U.S.C. , Section 47, and of Aiding and Abetting in violation of title 18 U.S.C. , Section 2.  I was able to get a rare interview with Dave Catoor and virtually everything he told me contradicted what we were filming and documenting.  Dave went as far to say “if they cannot sell the wild horses in holding facilities, burry ‘em”!

In my interview with Sheryl Crow she explains how the Free Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act is so important to our heritage.  Willie Nelson also stated in our film, “The wild horse is the cowboys’ symbol of freedom; it’s a vital part of our heritage.”

Without a hearing or an opportunity for public review, Senator Conrad Burns of Montana snuck a rider into the 2005 Federal Appropriations Bill amending the Wild and Free Roaming Horse and Burro act.  The Burns Bill, signed by president Bush, allows the majority of the wild horses held in government pens to be sold for slaughter.   When I asked Fran Ackley, a BLM official from Colorado, about the Burns Amendment he said “The Burns Amendment, I think, was put in place to help remove this big glut of horses that we have in holding facilities right now”.

I went on several aerial photography missions with the flight agency Light Hawk to document what is unfolding on Western landscapes.  As we covered large swaths of BLM lands I filmed massive oil and gas fracturing and strip mining operations and saw virtually no wild horses and few cattle herds. But by far the biggest impacts we documented were from the extractive industries.  When you calculate in the massive use of water and then the massive waste from these extractive operations, lack of sustainable planning, and the boom and bust mentality, it paints a very destructive and dark future for the American West.
The Trump administration has called for accelerated roundups and removal of wild horses on public lands, and the legal selling of wild horses and burros in holding facilities to second parties (most likely kill buyers, along with pulling back environmental protections of public lands, environmental laws and safeguards.   
This includes Public Lands Planning 2.0, which answered the demands of generations of western Republicans, who longed for more grass roots efficiency and local participation over top-down federal planning . . .  

It would be naïve and impractical to believe that America's vast western lands will not be leveraged for their resources. What can be hoped for is a stewardship that creates a small footprint and responsibly cleans up and restores the impact on the land, not leaving a trail of toxic damage.  

The mustangs represent and embody core American ideas of family and freedom that inspire and enlighten a sustainable relationship with the environment. The problem is fraud and greed, not overpopulation of wild horses & burros.  The concocted overpopulation crisis that Rep. Chris Stewart and others are trying to sell is a shell game to mask what is truly happening on public lands as they are being sold off to the highest bidders.  

Thank you very much for your time and hopefully consideration.

James Anaquad Kleinert – Documentary Film Director

Back to more accurate numbers:
Normative annual herd-growth = at most, 5%: Horses are slow to reproduce. Gestation lasts 11 months, and a mare produces 1 foal. By analyzing BLM’s own raw demographic data, Gregg, LeBlanc, and Johnston (2014) found the average birth rate across wild-horse herds to be just under 20%. But they also found that 50% of foals perish before their first birthday. Thus, the birth rate is just a temporary blip in the data. Starting with the surviving-foal rate (10%), and then subtracting a conservative estimate of adult-mortality (5%), the expected normative herd-growth rate would be, at most, 5%. At that rate, it would take 14 years for a wild-horse herd to double. Meanwhile, the corresponding growth-rate for wild-burro herds is 2%. At that rate, it would take 35 years for a burro-herd to double.
Fraudulent figures on the range: BLM’s herd-growth figures are falsified. Repeatedly, we find BLM reporting one-year increases that are 50, 100, even 200 times the norm, far beyond what is biologically possible. Examples:
237% — 47 times the norm — Great Divide Basin — WY
256% — 51 times the norm — Beatys Butte — OR
260% — 52 times the norm — Shawave Mountains — NV
293% — 59 times the norm — Diamond Hills South — NV
317% — 63 times the norm — Jackies Butte — OR
418% — 84 times the norm — Black Rock Range East — NV *
522% — 104 times the norm — Salt Wells Creek — WY
525% — 105 times the norm — Carracas Mesa — NM **
1,218% — 244 times the norm — Centennial — CA
1,257% — 251 times the norm — Carter — CA
* BLM claimed the Black Rock Range East’s population grew from 88 horses to 456 horses in one year, an increase of 368. If so, that would mean each filly and mare gave birth to 17 foals.
** BLM claimed the Carracas Mesa population grew from 12 horses to 75 horses in one year, an increase of 63. If so, that would mean each filly and mare gave birth to 21 foals.