TCF FILES SUIT TO PROTECT WORLD-FAMOUS PRYOR MUSTANGHERD
Suit challenges bungled BLM management
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – The Bureau of Land Management’s Billings Field Office is being sued over a botched management plan in the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range.
Today, The Cloud Foundation filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for Montana to challenge the BLM’s recent decision to remove 17 young horses from the Pryor Mountain Herd because it will lead to the extinction of this world-famous wild horse herd in the Pryor Mountains on the Montana-Wyoming border. The Foundation is named for Cloud, a Pryor mustang stallion documented from birth by the Foundation’s Director, filmmaker Ginger Kathrens.
“What they’re planning to do will ruin the genetics of this herd beyond repair,” said Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation and Humane Advocate on the BLM National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board. “We raised these issues during the comment period, and we met with the BLM field office to communicate the genetic significance of what they were proposing to do, all to no avail. This lawsuit is our only recourse to prevent an action we believe will destroy the herd.”
The Billings Field Office has proposed a population reduction of over ten percent for the Pryor herd. A removal of this size will lower the herd’s numbers to well below 150 adult animals, which is the number that foremost equine geneticist Dr. Gus Cothran has cited as necessary to maintain genetic viability. In his 2013 report to BLM Cothran suggested that the genetic health of the Pryor Herd was already in decline and that the Herd needs to be increased “if the range will support it.” Although BLM has added water guzzlers to spread the use of the horses, it has failed to do other range improvements such as reseeding as called for in the Herd Management Area Plan of 2009.
In addition, the office has decided it will leave only one offspring on the mountain per wild mare, meaning any unexpected deaths caused by drought, predation, or other causes could completely wipe out genetic lines.
“This management plan is especially troubling because it ignores the significant genetics of the herd.” states Kathrens. The Pryor wild horses are the descendants of Spanish-Colonial horses with genetically significant bloodlines. Even Dr. Cothran has gone as far as to saythat the Pryor herd is "… one of the most significant, if not the most significant, wild horse herd in the United States.”
“This herd is truly a national treasure, and beyond its indisputable historic significance it is a strong economic driver for Lovell Wyoming and the surrounding area,” Kathrens said. “Visitors come from all over the world to see horses they know by name and can identify by their unusual colors—primitive looking duns and grullas to sorrels, buckskins and palominos.”
The Lovell-based Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center gives tours to a worldwide and domestic audience and also keeps track of each horse and all the genetic lines in the herd for the BLM. “Personally, I would love to see it higher (appropriate management level),” Nancy Cerroni the center’s director said. The Center recommended a modest removal of 6 horses which would not threaten future survival of the herd. BLM ignored the recommendation which had the support of the Cloud Foundation.
The Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area at the base of the mountain now cites wild horse viewing as its number one year-round attraction. It is indisputable that the Pryor Mustangs are a key factor in the economic health of the area.
Long time Editor of the Lovell Chronicle, David Peck states in a recent editorial that “It seems ironic that, on the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range the horses are in a somewhat precarious situation due to the same issues our community battled a half century ago.”
BLM’s use of an “Appropriate Management Level” (AML) of only 120 horses is also being challenged in the suit by the Cloud Foundation (TCF). “Acreage has been added to the range which should allow for a larger population,” states Lisa Friday, Communications Director for TCF and the adopter of Pryor Mustangs since 2009. “BLM has failed to raise the AML and to fulfill its commitment to improve range conditions through projects outlined in their Herd Management Area plan of 2009.”
The lawsuit challenges that BLM has not adjusted the AML after additional forage was added to the range in 2016. It also challenges the BLM’s decision to remove so many animals as to render the herd genetically unviable.
“We are hopeful that our legal action might protect these unique wild horses not only from a catastrophic management plan, but will lay a foundation to protect them into the future,” Kathrens said. “The Pryor Mountain wild horses and their rugged home are truly a gift to the world.”
The Cloud Foundation is being represented in the lawsuit by Katherine A. Meyer, of the Washington, D.C. public interest firm, Meyer Glitzenstein & Eubanks.
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The Cloud Foundationis a Colorado-based 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the protection of wild horses and burros living on public lands in the American west.
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The recent wave of international migration has reinforced the growing trend in diversity and need to focus on immigrant children’s well-being. A new OECD report, “The Resilience of Students with an Immigrant Background: Factors that Shape Well-Being,” underlines the significant role education systems, schools and teachers can play in helping immigrant students integrate into their new communities. The report focuses not only on students’ academic achievements but also on “their social, emotional and motivational well-being.” In an interview with CMRubinWorld founder C.M. Rubin, report author Francesca Borgonovi, an analyst at the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, also discusses the important role of an arts and sports education. Borgonovi notes that “providing both arts and sports in schools are critical to support the growing diversity arising from international migration” and that these subjects “can be particularly beneficial for students with learning disabilities and from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Read the Full Article
Francesca Borgonovi is an analyst in the Directorate for Education and Skills at the OECD where she has been responsible for data analysis and analytical work in the PISA and the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), with a particular focus on gender and socio-economic disparities in academic achievement, and student engagement with and at school.
CMRubinWorld’s award-winning series, The Global Search for Education, brings together distinguished thought leaders in education and innovation from around the world to explore the key learning issues faced by most nations. The series has become a highly visible platform for global discourse on 21st century learning, offering a diverse range of innovative ideas which are presented by the series founder, C. M. Rubin, together with the world’s leading thinkers.
For more information on CMRubinWorld
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Contact Information:
David Wine
David(at)cmrubinworld(dot)com
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“Suffer not the little children….”
by Kary Love
482 words
Seems like every day brings a report of some new atrocity resulting from US wars somewhere in the world. It’s getting to the point it is a fulltime job just to keep up on them. Doesn’t pay very well, and it’s depressing, it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Don’t they?
Remember when America was the country that liberated prisoners from concentration camps rather than putting kids separated from their parents in camps? When America stood for the idea the kids ought not to be legitimate targets in war? When wars were fought to give the kids a future, not waste them today? When America liberated the slave from the master and established liberty and justice for all?
No? Me neither, not in my lifetime. But at least there was the pretense that the big, bad American military-industrial-congressional behemoth tried to advance justice. Sure, there was collateral damage because war is hell, but overall the benefits justified the errors. That was the mythos anyway.
But now kids on school buses are killed by US bombsprovided to our “allies,” the most trustworthy, human rights-advancing, freedom loving, Saudi Arabians in their “war” on Yemen. “Are we, at last, sir, devoid of all decency?” Seems like it to me.
I am puzzled. 9-11-01 was carried out by 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudis. Maybe the Saudi government or some of its members or minions were involved. But the USA invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, and threatens Iran? Some magical sleight of hand is exercised and Saudi Arabia is our friend and we arm themto kill kids in Yemen, one of the five poorest nations in the world—average annual income $449?
I have nothing but questions on this. No answers. Is it heroic to bomb kids? Are these my new and improved and exceptional “heroes”—kid bombers? Do I thank the Saudis for their service? How about the US military personnel who fuel their planes, and provide the munitions? Or the mercenary contractors? Whom do I thank?
Do I thank the Congress that takes my tax dollars to bomb kids? Do the congress people get their cut? The President who signs the “deals” to carry it out (hint: he may not have divestedhimself of his many military contractor/weapons-manufacturing investments and now he makes policy that helps them and him profit every day)? The Courts who refuse to hear legal challenges to the apparent illegality of nondeclared wars contrary to the express language of the supreme law of the land? Whom can I thank?
Surely, someone is deserving of my thanks. After all, future terrorists have been “neutralized.” Hearts and minds have been won. I am safer so I can go shopping at the mall. Whom do I thank for this “service”?
“Suffer not the little children to come unto me,” Jesus is reported to have said. Apparently, He liked kids. Well, these kids, hopefully, have come unto Him, though not without suffering. I really would like to know, whom do I thank?
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Kary Love is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters, including some desperado nuns, in court for decades and will on occasion use blunt force satire or actual legal arguments to make a point.
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