SAN FRANCISCO ADVOCATES ASK OBAMA TO STOP THE ROUNDUPS
For Immediate release
San Francisco, CA (April 20, 2011)—The Cloud Foundation and Americans who value wild horses roaming free in the West are gathering on the steps of Grace Cathedral (1110 California Street) at 3:30 p.m. to march to the Masonic Auditorium at 4:00 p.m. where President Obama is speaking during a DNC fundraiser. The Foundation and members of the public ask President Obama to Stop the Roundups and Stop the Cruelty at the Save Wild Horses—Yes We Can! rally.
"With the country in the throes of budget cut-backs for essentials like education—tax dollars used to unnecessarily remove and warehouse wild horses is wrong," states Bay Area resident, Anne Novak, spokesperson for The Cloud Foundation. "We ask the President to stop the roundups now and use that money to help Americans in their time of need."
"Current government policy is breaking up our public lands for exploitive development and resource extraction—one colossal land grab," says Lise Stampfli, Bay Area environmentalist and open space advocate. "We want the President to bring true balance and sustainability back onto our public lands as well as into the Wild Horse and Burro Program."
Every year the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is awarded big budget tax dollars to fund the broken Wild Horse and Burro Program. With the a much of their $76 million budget going towards roundups and zeroing out wild horses—inadequate funds are left to care for the wild horses once they are captured.
Last week, Lisa Friday and The Foundation released a video exposing the federal BLM holding facility nightmare in Utah showing wild horses languishing in a quagmire of urine and manure as well as mares down for more than 3 hours in the mud and a 3 year-old mare who was skin and bones, despite being in the facility for more than 8 months.
"People are fed up—particularly when they find out that these massive removals are not only cruel and unnecessary but they are costing taxpayers a fortune," explains Ginger Kathrens, Director of The Cloud Foundation. "These animals are taken from their virtually cost-free, pristine environments in the wild, separated from their families and forced to live in filthy feedlot conditions on the government dole.