Fund for Animals Reports that BLM is Still Violating Settlement Agreement on the Slaughter of Adopted Wild Horses

ARCHIVED 2002–2016: Originally distributed via the eWire press wire service. Preserved as historical record.

SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE |

Conservation & Wildlife

Corporate Responsibility

Science & Technology

Syndication Partners

**************************************************************************

E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE

**************************************************************************

TO ENVIRONMENTAL, LEGAL AND NATIONAL EDITORS:

Fund for Animals Reports that BLM is Still Violating Settlement Agreement on the Slaughter of Adopted Wild Horses

RENO, NEVADA, Feb. 23 -/E-Wire/-- The Fund for Animals has filed a response to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in U.S. District Court, claiming that the BLM is still failing to implement the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the parties' 1997 settlement agreement that intended to stem the tide of adopted horses going to slaughter.

In a recent court hearing, Judge Howard McKibben told the BLM that it is not working hard enough to implement "very simple steps" to prevent adopted horses being slaughtered. Judge McKibben asked the BLM to submit more information within 60 days on the number of horses slaughtered in the last two years and whether it has prosecuted those cases, and to state for the record that it will no longer title horses unless the adopter signs a sworn attestation not to use the horse for slaughter.

In response to that directive, BLM filed papers revealing that the extent of its "investigations" into potential violations of the attestation is to ask adopters whose horses end up at slaughterhouses how their horses were disposed of, and whether adopters intended that the horses be slaughtered. BLM revealed that, while at least 332 horses removed from the wild and put up for adoption in the past two years are already dead, including more than 90 horses who were dead less than three months after the adopter obtained title, BLM has initiated only a single prosecution for violating the attestation.

Howard Crystal, an attorney representing The Fund, stated, "Evidently, so long as adopters are not so foolish as to flatly admit that they violated the attestation, that appears to be the end of BLM's inquiry regardless of the objective circumstances suggesting that a horse ended up being slaughtered only months or weeks following the transfer of title."

In its response, The Fund suggested that the BLM "has offered nothing but smoke and mirrors" in trying to convince the court that it is taking any steps even to prevent people whose adopted horses were slaughtered from adopting again. As evidenced by slaughterhouse logs obtained by The Fund, this data is readily available to BLM, and there is simply no reason for BLM not to inquire about past adoptions or affirmatively ensure that a prospective adopter's previously titled horses have not been slaughtered.

Andrea Lococo, Rocky Mountain coordinator for The Fund, added, "The papers filed by the BLM have simply heightened our concern that the agency is operating under a new 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, avoiding the follow-up questions and reasonable inquiries. These animals are America's living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West, and they do not deserve to end up on European dinner tables."

The Fund's 13-page response is available by calling [REDACTED-PHONE] ext. 216.

The Fund for Animals

Andrea Lococo of the Fund for Animals, [REDACTED-PHONE]; or Howard

Crystal of Meyer and Glitzenstein, [REDACTED-PHONE]

**************************************************************************

To Transmit Your News Over E-Wire, visit http://www.ewire.com or

call 1-[REDACTED-PHONE]. E-Wire Is Broadcast To Millions Of Readers Worldwide

**************************************************************************