Thom Hartmann: Well it’s been alleged that BP is behind letting the Lockerbie bomber out of jail and sending him back to Libya. We know that they basically have nuked the Gulf of Mexico. What else are they up to? There’s a report from a TV station, KLAS TV 8 in Las Vegas that, the last wild horse round up, BLM's last wild horse round up, was the bloodiest operation in history and that the BLM proceeded with this round up in violation of advice from a federal judge. Why?
Madeleine Pickens is with us with SavingAmericasMustangs.org and Jerry Reynoldson, he’s also a spokesperson for SavingAmericasMustangs.org. Madeleine is a businesswomen, thoroughbred racehorse owner, a breeder, animal welfare activist and philanthropist. And first, Madeleine, welcome to the program.
Madeleine Pickens: Thom, thank you so much for inviting us on your show.
Thom Hartmann: Thank you so much for showing up. Your husband, T. Boone has been on this program a couple of times and it’s always been interesting conversations. Why is it that the BLM is proceeding with this slaughter of these horses?
Madeleine Pickens: You know, it’s a good question and nobody knows why other than the BLM and obviously the people that have lobbied them. And it’s a disgrace, there’s no reason to do it, I have flown over millions and millions upon millions of acres and I see no issue out there. There’s not that many horses left. You know as we all know 100 years ago there was two million beautiful mustangs out on the range and we’re down to apparently the last 30 thousand according to the BLM, since their numbers are unreliable and no science behind them. I mean, you could probably chop that in half even if you want to add a bit give them 20 thousand. That’s not very much for the American people.
Thom Hartmann: Well it’s not and I understand that the Ruby pipeline, there’s this pipeline that will go from somewhere in Wyoming all the way out to Oregon and carry natural gas. That that, and BP is a major owner in that or participant in that, and that they’ve been lobbying for the slaughter of these horses because they’re basically in the way of the pipeline. Anything to that?
Madeleine Pickens: You know I’m not privy to what BP does. What I understand is they own, that El Paso owns the pipeline and I think they have like 30% of the right to transport their goods through it and I really don’t know what’s going on but truly at the end of the day you’ve got to pin it on the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management. Because they are the ones, somewhat like the Gulf where they had a real issue with the MMS and they’ve decided to close that down because they weren’t happy with the way they were operating it. And it’s really when there’s a travesty that all of this comes to the forefront. So maybe other people get blamed for it. I don’t know what BPs involvement is in this, I just know there's been a terrible gather, there’s been a lot of deaths, and it’s really unnecessary. I mean it’s lunacy.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. And in fact they did it during the season when the mares were foaling and so there were many pregnant or recently birthed, you know recently birthed mares that died and foals. We’re talking with Madeleine Pickens, the website, SavingAmericasMustangs.org. Beautiful website by the way.
And Jerry Reynoldson is on the line with us. A spokesperson for SavingAmericasMustangs. Jerry, your take on this and why, you know, what is the relationship, or do you have anything about the relationship between the BLM, you know, Madeleine was just talking about this being like MMS in the Gulf, that was a case of regulatory capture where the agency, the corporation, the oil drilling companies in the gulf had basically seized control of the regulatory agency, the Mineral and Management Service, and had it dancing to their tune rather than the other way around. Has somebody seized control of the Bureau of Land Management, the BLM, and is encouraging them to slaughter these horses?
Jerry Reynoldson: Thom I think they’ve always had control of the BLM. When the BLM was founded it was grounded in the notion that they were managing that land for agricultural purposes and largely for cattle grazing and that pat of the ag business. So I don’t think it’s a matter of it happening, it’s been that way for a long time and they’re so resistant to change. They have powerful lobbying groups and it seems like they just continue to do business the same way. And of course that’s what MMS did for years too, was just continue on the same track.
If, you know, you’ve got 42 senators that represent ag states and they’re very powerful. And there’s not been any legislation to try to change the wild horse and burro act for over two decades. And though there’s some pending, you know, that doesn’t look like that’s probably going to move anyway. There’s just not been much will to do much about this. And in the absence of that, Thom, the bureaucrats run this program like they have for a long time. They make these decisions in spite of recommendations by federal judges to back off or to consider the time of the year, they just forge ahead, Thom. It’s pretty much doing business as usual.
Thom Hartmann: So at the very least they’re doing this for the farmers. I’m curious, Madeleine Pickens, with SavingAmericasMustangs.org, how do you respond to those folks who point out that before the 16th century, the late 1500s there were no horses in the Americas, that they were brought here by the Spaniards into Northern, South America originally and made their way across the west. That the original plains Indians were pedestrians. And that these horses are, you know, an invasive species as it were and that they are crowding out other local indigenous species, both flora and fauna.
Madeleine Pickens: Oh no, I listen to that argument all the time and it’s quite pathetic. If you consider that the white man moved into America a couple of hundred years ago I suppose at that point we call ourselves feral. I mean it’s actually proven science that the horse has been here many, many moons ago, long before the 16th century and as the world changes, you know, and we have the dinosaur issues, the horse became extinct too but actually there are museums that have the skeletons of these horses from thousands of years ago.
Thom Hartmann: Oh you’re talking about pre-Pleistocene or, I mean, pre-Clovis people, more than 10 thousand years ago.
Madeleine Pickens: Oh yes. But even, throw that aside, okay I think the 1600s is a pretty good reason, it’s sort of like the homesteaders. They were here before we were here. And you know this is a sacred animal to the Indians and they are appalled at what’s going on. And they were mistreated and we’re mistreating the animals. The American people care about these horses, they’re federal horses, they’re owned by the American people. They’re not owned by ranchers or cattlemen or any kind of wild hunting group that wants to claim a citizenship on the land.
In fact I’ve seen a lot of land in Nevada where they’ve introduced the elk. And they have these people on board with them and they create water areas for the elk and I see all these passages across the freeways and tunnels to accommodate the elk so that the cars won’t crash into them. And I love the elk. But you’ve introduced that species, and I said and then what happens, and they go well when it reaches a certain number we have to control them. Oh great, so then we issue hunting licenses. And this is all been at the expense of the wild horse.
And I think most people overseas, most people in America have never seen an American mustang, they’ve all seen John Wayne, they’ve seen our cowboys, they’ve seen our history. What an incredible history we have. We have a sexy history. And we are allowing them to destroy this. And I want to bring this back, creating a sanctuary where we can take the 11 thousand horses that are in short term holding, now understand this: they are butt to butt, they have no trees, no shade. People cannot go in and visit them. This is a disgrace and we can do better as Americans. The private industry can do better than the Bureau of Land Management when it comes to containing these horses and taking care of them.
Thom Hartmann: Okay. Madeleine Pickens, and Jerry Reynoldson, the website SavingAmericasMustangs.org. Beautiful website, clear calls to action there, you can check it out. Madeleine and Jerry thank you both very much for being with us today.
Madeleine Pickens: Thank you Thom.
Jerry Reynoldson: Thank you Thom.
Thom Hartmann: And keep up the great work, good talking with both of you. We will be back here on the Thom Hartmann Radio Program. Stick around and 866-987-THOM. Let’s, in fact, let’s find out what the BLM has to say about this. Ron Wenker of the BLM is going to be with us next. We’ll be right back.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
