Ya think red tape and politics will make Madeleine Pickens give up her dream of creating a sanctuary for horses set to be slaughtered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)? Heck to the no.
Last year, we reported on Pickens’ purchase of a 14,000 acre ranch in Elko, Nevada which she planned to use as home for 1,000 mustangs. (If her last name is familiar — yes, she is the wife of megamoney oilman T. Boone Pickens.) She has since expanded this land lot to include another ranch — coming to a total 8,000 acres of private land and 570,000 acres of public land.
However, her plan faces strong opposition from locals who reject the idea that Pickens will be paid by the BLM (and U.S. tax dollars) to keep her horses on public land.
Her retort: she could eventually save taxpayers as much as $30 million annually if her Saving America’s Mustangs Foundation is permitted to open series of sanctuaries for all of BLM’s unadoptable (and thus “euthanizable”) wild horses. At present, more than 11,000 mustangs are in short-term holding with BLM, at a cost of $2,500 per year.
She’s also facing pushback from ranchers whose businesses count on the sale of these horses.
“The idea that you can’t destroy a horse because they’re the symbol of the pioneering West flies in the face of reason,” declared Demar Dahl, Elko County Commission chairman and a second-generation rancher.
Through all this, she marches on. ”I want to get on with it. I want to be alive before this is finished,” the 64-year old proclaimed. ”… we will make a home for the horses. And we will move forward.”
Photo: Flickr
About Lisa Kalner Williams
Lisa Kalner Williams is a lover of rock 'n' roll and founder of Sierra Tierra Marketing, a social analytics, strategy, and education company. She lives with her vegan family in the Greater Boston area.View all posts by Lisa Kalner Williams →
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