Crt_205_Ckpt_Argument_Credibility

Checkpoint Argument Credibility Tracy Robinson Dalke CRT 205 01/18/2011 Wild Horse Roundups The Bureau of Land Management, BLM, is a governmental agency that is responsible for managing the care of the wild horses and mustangs on state and federal lands. Part of their job is to manage the numbers of wild horses and burros on each of the ranges set aside for these animals in order to do this they have roundups of the wild horses and burros and then they offer many for adoption. The BLM has come under attack by many different activist groups not only for carrying out roundups that are not government sanctioned, but also for the methods they employ when conducting these roundups. The BLM is using helicopters to round up the horses and burros, often causing death or crippled animals. The BLM states these helicopter roundups are not inhumane, that rounding the horses up in this fashion they are reducing the stress on the animals. The BLM states these roundups are necessary because the ranges cannot support the number of horses and burros on the ranges, they claim that they have nothing to hide, yet they carry out roundups in secret and those people that do manage to get to them are kept far enough away that they cannot actually see what is going on or the shape of the animals. I have no “personal observations” only what I see in the news and online and what I feel. In my opinion it is better to let the wild horses and burros remain on their ranges and to use methods of “birth control” in order to keep numbers manageable or to use roundups and bring smaller numbers in and offer them for adoption. The rate at which the BLM is rounding up these animals is not only going to cause the wild horses and burros to become extinct, but is going to overburden taxpayers even more by bringing them into captivity and having to feed them all. At this time there are over 33,000 in captivity and BLM plans to round up another 12,000 this year. Who is paying for the feed and vet care of these animals' Who pays for the roundups' How many of these horses are actually ever adopted' The background information I have about these claims comes from documentaries on the wild horses and news stories on the roundups. I raise horses so I closely follow these roundups and the registry for my curly horses actually has members that go to the roundups because they have gotten permission to make sure that any that appear to be curly horses can be blood typed, DNA’d, and our registry is now notified any time a horse appears to be curly we are notified and our members have first option to adopt these particular horses. The author of the videos I watched is John Zarrella of CNN, he appears to have quite a bit of knowledge about these roundups, he has interviewed both the BLM and the activists against these roundups and he has physically attended the roundups. I feel that his interviews and the video footage are unbiased and trustworthy. Sources: Wild Horse Roundup www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/01/05/exp.am.zarrella.horses.helicopter Battling Over the Wild Horse Roundup www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/01/03/zarrella.wild.mustangs