Giant Video Reveals Gut-Wrenching Reality of the Wild Horse on National Mall
Advocates Protest Public Lands Sold-Out to Animal Agriculture and Extractive Industries
VIDEO (free for media use with credit to: Wild Horse Education):
WASHINGTON (October 30, 2019) — Wild Horse Education and In Defense of Animals presented a giant graphic video exposing the “Reality of the Wild Horse” outside a key meeting in Washington D.C. yesterday where decision-makers prepared to sell out mustangs to animal agriculture and extractive industries for the next 10 years. The shocking video exposes how wild horses are subjected to terrifying round-ups, horrific injuries, and crushing confinement on the public lands where they are entitled to live freely under federal law.
“This is the last chance for wild horses, they are facing a killer blow,” said Ginger Fedak, wild horse campaigner at In Defense of Animals who led the demonstration. “We came to the Capitol to expose the scapegoating and horrific suffering of horses on public lands which are being plundered by ranchers and big oil. Public lands are the birthright of wild horses and the American people, not the agriculture and oil industries. We need everyone to take action urgently against this betrayal at www.idausa.org/savehorses.”
“Reality is a complete picture,” said Laura Leigh, the founder of Wild Horse Education who regularly documents the shocking mistreatment of wild horses and is the only person to have successfully sued the government for animal abuse during round-ups. “Corporate interests and federal agencies select and manipulate reality to suit agendas that have nothing to do with science, the law and basic decency. Our wild places are under assault and so are our wild horses. It is our job to expose the things they choose to hide and fight for change, before it is too late.”
The giant video screen presented by In Defense of Animals featured video and images from Wild Horse Education to reveal the expensive, bloody outcome of what is being promoted for Congressional approval by HSUS, ASPCA and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)—the government agency tasked with overseeing public lands. The screen was stationed in close proximity to a BLM informational truck promoting a false narrative to help advance through Congress outrageous plans against America’s beloved wild horses and burros.
“What the BLM is promoting has been inspired and drafted by and for the powerful special interests seeking to benefit from plundering our public lands,” said Fedak. “We are sending an urgent message to the American public and Congress to bring awareness to an imminent threat. Our video demonstration shows you the story that the U.S. Department of the Interior does not want you to hear. Powerful animal agriculture and extractive industry interests are actively working to push the Department to whitewash the violent mass incarceration of horses at vast expense to taxpayers.”
Most members of Congress have little knowledge of the true situation on public lands and what horrors wild horses and burros endure as the BLM stubbornly continues its disastrous and failing policy of wild horse roundups and removals. In Defense of Animals is part of a coalition of over 100 organizations that proposed a humane and cost-effective plan for the horses in 2018, but the coalition has been shut out of the decision-making process. Many of those organizations have now signed a joint-letter opposing the BLM’s plans to the members of the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
“Our legislators are falling prey to well-funded organizations that have much to gain from promoting schemes to decimate our public lands for their own profit, and then scapegoat wild horses,” continued Fedak. “Congressional Appropriations committees have put language into their working bills that advances the flawed plans of special interests that will continue the devastation of public lands by giant corporations and private interests which are driven by greed.”
Many thousands of supporters of Wild Horse Education and In Defense of Animals, along with many other animal protection groups and activists, have made calls and sent letters and emails in support of America’s wild horses and burros on public lands to their Congressional legislators.
Learn more at www.wildhorseeducation.org
Take urgent action to save wild horses www.idausa.org/savehorses
Contact:
Ginger Fedak, ginger@idausa.org, 415-448-0048 x217
Laura Leigh, laura@wildhorseeducation.org
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In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization with over 250,000 supporters and a 36-year history of fighting for animals, people and the environment through education, campaigns and hands-on rescue facilities in India, South Korea, and rural Mississippi.
Wild Horse Education (WHE) is an internationally recognized nonprofit that specializes in wild horses on western public lands in the United States. WHE's field work and litigation has been key in changes to policy to preserve and protect our wild horses and burros from abuse.