WYOMING GRAZING ASSOC. THREATENS AMERICAN MUSTANGS

For immediate release

Powerful livestock grazing association lawsuit against WY wild horses spurs controversy Wild horses must be protected on their Federal land

Cheyenne, Wyo. (August 6, 2011) - The Cloud Foundation is alerting the American public to the fact that the largest public lands grazing association in the nation, the Rock Springs Grazing Association, has brought suit against the Department of Interior (DOI) seeking to remove wild horses living on a mixture of privately and publicly owned land along the old Union Pacific railroad route across southern Wyoming. This area is known as "checkerboard" lands—square mile sections of private land which abut square mile sections of publicly owned land, a vast swath that is twenty miles wide on each side of what is now I-80. For centuries native wild horses have roamed freely on this stretch of land. The roughly 2 million-acre corridor is home to the majority of the remaining wild mustang herds in Wyoming--a state that entices tourists with the promise of seeing wild horses.

The lands in question contains the White Mountain, Little Colorado, Adobe Town, Salt Wells and Great Divide Basin herds, as well as many other wild horse herd areas.

"It is an outrage that the largest 'welfare ranching' organization in the nation threatens the future of thousands of federally protected mustangs in southern Wyoming," states Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of the Cloud Foundation. "We trust that the attorneys representing the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the DOI, will fight just as hard to protect the wild horses as they have fought challenges by wild horse advocates seeking their protection."

Are we witnessing a conflict of interest for the DOI? The BLM is engaged in a lawsuit against a coalition of wild horse advocates seeking to protect the same Wyoming herds that the Grazing Association wants to remove and eradicate forever.

"It's time wild horses are protected against big, government subsidized businesses," adds Kathrens. "The mustangs are a returned native species and icons of the West. They deserve to live free in peace with their families."

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Media Contacts:

Anne Novak Tel: 415-531-8454 Anne@TheCloudFoundation.org

Lauryn Wachs Tel: 617-894-6939 Lauryn@TheCloudFoundation.org

Links of Interest:

Rock Springs Grazing Association lawsuit: http://bit.ly/pnojFI

AP Release on wild horse advocate lawsuit: http://bit.ly/nYp8OY

CNN Report on deadly roundups: http://bit.ly/m7PFX5

Interviews and media available on request

www.thecloudfoundation.org

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