VICTORY LAP Latest news about FoA's advocacy and achievements

VICTORY LAP

BY NICOLE RIVARD AND FRAN SILVERMAN. PHOTOGRAPH BY MENDAR BOUCHALI

FOA FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST BLM FOR ITS ASSAULT ON CALIFORNIA’S WILD HORSES Friends of Animals (FoA) filed a lawsuit last November against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its decision to reduce the size and slow the growth of California’s Twin Peaks wild horse herd. The 10-year plan calls for several detestable approaches, including rounding up by helicopter-drive trapping and bait-and-water trapping, as well as fertility control and castration to reduce the herd to the low end of its so-called appropriate management level of 448 wild horses on approximately 800,000 acres.

“The scope of this 10-year decision is unprecedented in this area and authorizes rounding up and removing more than 80 percent of the wild horses from the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area as well as castrating an undisclosed number of stallions,” explained Jennifer Best, assistant legal director for FoA. “With these long-range plans, BLM is trying to avoid further scrutiny of its overall plan to zero out wild horse populations on public lands and Friends of Animals will not stand by and do nothing.”

Adding insult to injury, 1,060 cattle and 13,000 sheep can graze in the Twin Peaks grazing allotment.

“BLM keeps trying to paint wild horses as an abundant population that is damaging to our public lands, when the culprits are doomed cattle and sheep,” Best said. “This decision shows how BLM is once again putting the interest of ranchers ahead of a balanced ecosystem that includes wild horses and other wild animals.”

The 10-year decision was issued pursuant to a new rule that eliminates the opportunity for the public to review or comment on BLM’s decisions. The changes not only drastically alter the way BLM is managing horses in the Twin Peaks area, they violate the law in several respects, the lawsuit states.

First, the decision violates the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act requirement that BLM make a determination that such animals are in excess before removing wild horses and burros; that removal is necessary and that such determination be based on current information; violates BLM’s obligations to conduct management activities at the minimal feasible level; and violates its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act to: (1) prepare an environmental impact statement, (2) consider reasonable alternatives, and (3) fully evaluate the impacts and alternatives to the proposed decisions.

Furthermore, the BLM issued the new rule in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it didn’t provide the public notice of the new rule before implementing it, solicit comments on the new rule as required by the APA or offer a reasonable explanation for the rule change.

“BLM’s decision thwarts public participation and puts BLM on a path to continually harass wild horses and bur- ros behind closed doors for the next 10 years,” Best said. “Friends of Animals hopes the lawsuit puts an end to this criminal practice.”

FOA TO NOAA: REJECT MYSTIC AQUARIUM’S REQUEST FOR FIVE CAPTIVE BELUGAS Mystic Aquarium’s efforts to acquire five captive beluga whales from Marineland, Canada, will inflict unnecessary trauma on the marine animals and will only enhance a captive entertainment and breeding industry that should not be supported, Friends of Animals (FoA) told the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in comments submitted in December regarding the Connecticut-based aquarium’s permit request.

The move to Mystic, which ran a deficit of $2.4 million in 2017 according to its latest publicly available tax filing, would require tearing them from their social relationships at the Ontario-based Marineland and transporting them thousands of miles, inflicting emotional and psychological trauma, FoA noted in its comments.

Marineland has captured 36 belugas from the wild between 1999-2008 and currently has more than 50, making it the largest known captive beluga facility. Selling the belugas for an undisclosed price will enable it to make room for yet more babies that it hopes will draw big crowds, said FoA Wildlife Law Program Attorney Stephen Hernick, who filed the comments.

“It’s doubtful that these captive beluga whales can teach researchers much about belugas in the wild. As an initial matter, most of what can be learned from captive belugas has already been learned,” FoA told NOAA. “As Jacques Costeau once said, ‘There is about as much educational benefit to be gained in studying dolphins in captivity as there would be studying mankind by only observing prisoners held in solitary confinement.’ The same is true of belugas. Moreover, improvements in technology mean that studying belugas and other marine mammals in the wild is not nearly as difficult as it once was.” Mystic has not ruled out displaying the whales, who are all offspring of belugas taken from the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia, where the population is now considered a depleted stock. Additionally, while claiming the primary purpose of the import is scientific research, Mystic in its application did not rule out breeding them and has requested it be allowed to transfer some of the belugas to the Georgia Aquarium. Four of the five belugas are young females.

“It is an unlikely coincidence that Mystic is seeking to partner with an institution that as recently as four years ago was litigating to import wild-caught belugas for public display and to assist captive breeding of belugas across the country,” the FoA comments noted.

The Canadian aquarium had faced 11 counts of animal cruelty brought by the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which was prompted by a complaint by a U.S.- based animal rights group. The charges were later dropped by authorities who said it wasn’t in the public interest to pursue. Since then, Canada approved a “Free Willy” law, which makes it illegal to hold whales and other marine mammals captive, except for rescues, rehab, research or when deemed in the animal’s “best interest.”

FoA’s comments are not the first time it has stepped in to protect belugas, a subspecies of which are endangered. Last October, FoA pushed back against the Trump administration’s unrelenting efforts to vigorously promote energy exploration projects in Alaska that endanger beluga whales, whose populations in Cook Inlet have declined so precipitously that approval of a new gas project could push them to extinction. The project seeks to commercialize natural gas resources in Alaska’s North Slope by converting the natural gas supplied to liquified natural gas for users within Alaska.

In comments filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Alaska LNG Project, FoA noted that a FERC’s own biological assessment concluded that the project would increase the risk of vessel strikes on Cook Inlet beluga whales, result in underwater noise that would harass the whales and would cause the whales to lose critical habitat. “Belugas are under assault,’’ said Priscilla Feral, president of FoA. “It’s imperative we speak out to protect them instead of enabling energy and entertainment interests looking for profits. They deserve to live hassle free in the wild.”

FoA also filed comments last summer with the National Marine Fishers Service Office of Protected Resources objecting to its proposal to allow 20 belugas to be moved or killed per year for the first five years of the project, for a total of 100.

“That amount of takes will still likely cause the Cook Inlet beluga whales to become extinct because the population is so fragile," FoA said in comments submitted last July.

KEEP PETS OFF THE STREET. SPAY OR NEUTER.