Resource Conservation - Page A4
January 30, 1997 BLM Bungles Wild Mustang Program
by John Walton, Natural Resources Writer, Daily Republican
SUSANVILLE - The Bureau of Land Management [BLM] has a popular program to protect the wild Mustang and Burro. But, the BLM has lost track of more than 32,000 animals placed in adoption. As a result, it is feared that some animals have been subject to neglect, abuse, and even slaughter.
In 1971, Congress enacted a law to protect wild Mustangs and Burros and place excess animals for adoption.
In 1978, it created a system of legal titles: The adopter would keep each animal for one year, comply with a health check, then get title. Until the title is issued, the animal would remain government property.
Officials of the BLM may even have falsified records to cover up the problem and ignored warnings that thousands of Mustang adopters have not been checked and have not received titles to their animals, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
'Records are systematically falsified and no one wants to know about it,' said Reed Smith, a former BLM administrator who retired from the New Mexico office in 1995.
Using the BLM's computerized records maintained in Denver and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Associated Press reported finding that 20% , 32,774 of all adopted animals remain untitled. Legally, those Mustangs and Burros are lost and unaccounted for federal property. The adopted Mustangs were given to more than 18,000 different people.
Under the 1971 law, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is mandated by Congress to protect wild Mustangs and Burros on public lands. When Secretary Babbitt was contacted for his comments on Tuesday, he refused to comment.
Since the inception of the program 25 years ago, the BLM has captured 165,000 Mustangs and Burros in the Western U.S. and handed over most of them to adopters for $125 each. Only about 40,000 Mustangs and Burros still roam the Western United States.