Petition: Tell Whole Foods: Adopt Mustang-Safe Meat Standards
Please help America’s wild horses signing this petition:
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign
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Me too. ^^^^^
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I support the beef industry and it supports me.
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I like the feral horses more than any mis-guided money grabbers I have ever met and/or listened to.
If you really care... really care... about the horses educate yourself by getting your hip pockets out in the field (on the range) where the horses live and see what the conditions are. Learn how ranchers, and sensible, sustainable grazing practices help the horses and all other species. Learn about reproduction rates of the horses and the effect of that on all species that share the land. From bugs to birds. Learn about safe and healthy horse herds.
Stop supporting organizations that take resources away from the agencies with their wasteful, but lucrative (to them), lawsuits.
People who support those groups, like those pushing and signing this petition, do not like the horses nearly as much as I do. They only cause harm. Much harm.
If you really care... really care... about the horses educate yourself by getting your hip pockets out in the field (on the range) where the horses live and see what the conditions are. Learn how ranchers, and sensible, sustainable grazing practices help the horses and all other species. Learn about reproduction rates of the horses and the effect of that on all species that share the land. From bugs to birds. Learn about safe and healthy horse herds.
Stop supporting organizations that take resources away from the agencies with their wasteful, but lucrative (to them), lawsuits.
People who support those groups, like those pushing and signing this petition, do not like the horses nearly as much as I do. They only cause harm. Much harm.
Everyone that thinks all feral horses must be saved (for who knows what reason) should just adopt about 100 of them and feed them for ever on THEIR land until they all die of natural causes.
It is not reasonable or workable to keep them all when the only natural predator they now have is man. To try to keep them all on Public lands (which is all interspersed with privately owned but unfenced land) is no more reasonable that to try to return 10 million bison to our prairie land, displacing all of the farmers and stockmen and city dwellers there. With our current population and food needs, neither is possible or workable.
It is not reasonable or workable to keep them all when the only natural predator they now have is man. To try to keep them all on Public lands (which is all interspersed with privately owned but unfenced land) is no more reasonable that to try to return 10 million bison to our prairie land, displacing all of the farmers and stockmen and city dwellers there. With our current population and food needs, neither is possible or workable.
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I love seeing mustangs run wild and free. I even adopted one.
Roundups are necessary to control populations. I do think the laws are a bit skewed against the horses...but at least the current methods allow certain areas to have herds, etc. I do not support legalizing slaughtering the mustangs, as this practice is what almost exterminated them in the first place.
But I've been finding that a lot of the wild horse advocate groups don't necessarily believe in factual information either. Since adopting my mustang in March 2015, I joined quite a few groups just to learn as much as I can about my horse. But I've left most of them as I didn't like how they were ok with spreading lies, preying on the ignorance of people, and how they were attacking BLM personnel.
Long story short...I won't be signing even though I am happily pro-mustang. I just don't trust most of the 'advocate' groups out there from first hand experience.
Roundups are necessary to control populations. I do think the laws are a bit skewed against the horses...but at least the current methods allow certain areas to have herds, etc. I do not support legalizing slaughtering the mustangs, as this practice is what almost exterminated them in the first place.
But I've been finding that a lot of the wild horse advocate groups don't necessarily believe in factual information either. Since adopting my mustang in March 2015, I joined quite a few groups just to learn as much as I can about my horse. But I've left most of them as I didn't like how they were ok with spreading lies, preying on the ignorance of people, and how they were attacking BLM personnel.
Long story short...I won't be signing even though I am happily pro-mustang. I just don't trust most of the 'advocate' groups out there from first hand experience.
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I tire of the disregard for all other species by the "save every feral horse" crowd.
They do not understand that by having a singular focus the are in effect saying "Wipe out bird habitat." "Reptiles don't matter." "Deer, elk, and antelope? Oh, they'll always be there."
Let the horses over breed? Let them stomp watering holes into hard packed dirt? Erosion takes time. They don't see the effects because they haven't spent a life committed to the land and all things on it. Including plants.
Careful, thoughtful management of a fragile ecosystem that hosts a variety of life forms with a variety of needs. That is what is needed. It takes planning, labor, and money.
They do not understand that by having a singular focus the are in effect saying "Wipe out bird habitat." "Reptiles don't matter." "Deer, elk, and antelope? Oh, they'll always be there."
Let the horses over breed? Let them stomp watering holes into hard packed dirt? Erosion takes time. They don't see the effects because they haven't spent a life committed to the land and all things on it. Including plants.
Careful, thoughtful management of a fragile ecosystem that hosts a variety of life forms with a variety of needs. That is what is needed. It takes planning, labor, and money.
The ferals have reached such numbers they are destroying the land and starving. I'd rather see a bullet put in them than have them go thro the agony of a slow death. Imagine the ulcers. I'm all for protecting small herds but like everything else there needs to be some control.
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Some abuse their permits - but remember, a rancher using public land PAYS for it and is monitored. You don't like the results, blame the FS or BLM - but both the FS & BLM often screw the rancher without cause, too.
A room mate of mine from college once paid $100,000 for a grazing permit. The next year, he was running 10% of his allotment when he got a letter saying his allotment was cut in half. He pointed out he was only running 10%, so it wouldn't change what he was doing. The BLM replied, "We are cutting what people are RUNNING by 50%, not what they PAID FOR - so he ended up having paid $100,000 for about $5,000 in feed.
Another time, he spent $20,000 on water improvements on the permit, then had the permit revoked the next year. Sorry boy - the US government sure appreciates the $20K in improvements, but you'll never get ANY benefit from it!
This for a guy who normally clears around $15,000/year in profit.
Feral horses are not different from deer. An overpopulation in the absence of natural predators will destroy the land. The difference is that we don't issue horse permits for hunting...
A room mate of mine from college once paid $100,000 for a grazing permit. The next year, he was running 10% of his allotment when he got a letter saying his allotment was cut in half. He pointed out he was only running 10%, so it wouldn't change what he was doing. The BLM replied, "We are cutting what people are RUNNING by 50%, not what they PAID FOR - so he ended up having paid $100,000 for about $5,000 in feed.
Another time, he spent $20,000 on water improvements on the permit, then had the permit revoked the next year. Sorry boy - the US government sure appreciates the $20K in improvements, but you'll never get ANY benefit from it!
This for a guy who normally clears around $15,000/year in profit.
Feral horses are not different from deer. An overpopulation in the absence of natural predators will destroy the land. The difference is that we don't issue horse permits for hunting...
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This is slightly off topic but this does not appear to be a sound business venture to get into. Would it not make more sense, from the rancher perspective, to either purchase land (surely $100,000 would get something reasonable) or ranch elsewhere or reduce the number of cattle you are running?
Prices vary a lot depending the part of the country, but as a very rough average $100,000 would purchase about 100 acres.
The land itself changes how many head of cattle per acre it can support. You could make a decent cattle operation to help support a family on 100 acres in North Texas because it is natural grassland. It takes a lot more acreage per head in the arid climates of the western states.
To put it in perspective for a huge ranch though, the famous four sixes ranch (6666ranch.com) in Guthrie Texas is about 270,000 acres and that is in the natural grasslands of the southern Texas Panhandle.
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I'm on my phone, but you should see a map of the western US showing "federally owned" land compared to private/deeded land.
Just for an example, over 80 % of Nevada is" federally owned".
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Okay my answer was rather vague and doesn't really explain if you don't understand where I live which jgnmoose brought to my attention. I should wait until I'm in a better frame of mind to explain but here goes anyhow..lol
Simply put, of the 57 million acres in Nevada 48 million of it is federally controlled and much of it grazed. Depending on what part of Nevada you're in it can take 10-20+ acres to run an animal unit.
Even though Nevada isn't considered a huge cattle producing state, we graze or house a large amount of those cattle before they hit the feed yards that come from other states. People ***** about the price of beef in stores now? Shut down grazing, see what happens.
Simply put, of the 57 million acres in Nevada 48 million of it is federally controlled and much of it grazed. Depending on what part of Nevada you're in it can take 10-20+ acres to run an animal unit.
Even though Nevada isn't considered a huge cattle producing state, we graze or house a large amount of those cattle before they hit the feed yards that come from other states. People ***** about the price of beef in stores now? Shut down grazing, see what happens.
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You buy a permit to provide food. Buying the land would be prohibitively expensive - out west, you measure grazing land in square miles, not acres. Private land is available, but there isn't a lot of it and it costs more. However, it also provides more, and my friend STRONGLY prefers to rent private versus gambling by "buying" a permit on public land.
But if you want to stay in business, you have to be flexible. You pay less for public permits because they are risky - as my friend found out - and the feed is usually lower quality. He survived the $100,000 permit fiasco by letting his sons do the work for a couple of years while he drove coal trucks to keep from going under.
An Internet picture, but typical:
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*is not US based at all*
I thought the USA had predators of larger game (something the UK currently totally lacks - our biggest is a fox) or have these areas been managed for so long that natural predators have been managed to local extinction?
That is certainly something that would, in my view, be as a result of ranchers as they are a specific stake holder eager to avoid loses to their herds. Understandable certainly, no one wants their livelihood eaten. However surely it would be more sensible to consider restoring natural predators to allow for some natural control over wild horse herds (accepting that the horses shouldn't even be there in the first place of course if we are talking naturally
I thought the USA had predators of larger game (something the UK currently totally lacks - our biggest is a fox) or have these areas been managed for so long that natural predators have been managed to local extinction?
That is certainly something that would, in my view, be as a result of ranchers as they are a specific stake holder eager to avoid loses to their herds. Understandable certainly, no one wants their livelihood eaten. However surely it would be more sensible to consider restoring natural predators to allow for some natural control over wild horse herds (accepting that the horses shouldn't even be there in the first place of course if we are talking naturally
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