Why don’t all WHB advocates push the native issue anymore…?

I’ve been trying to put the pieces of that messed up puzzle together ever since I started advocating and found out not all WHB advocates actively support the wild ones being native…it bothers me to no end when anyone calling themselves a WHB advocate can’t seem even refer and inform the public about our wild ones being native!? It’s the most important part of it all, right after saving them of course! Public perception instantly changed overnight just from 2 clicks on the gov computer system to change wild horses and burros’ status to native, instead of invasive and exotic.

Today Mike helped me come pretty darn close to understanding WHY these advocates cannot publicly address the native issue, EVER!

The legal binding, or whatever from it, must come from HSUS being involved with having the EPA deem wild horses as “pests”, remembering of course that HSUS exec Kitty Block’s husband works for the EPA. HSUS is in it DEEP, they dreamed up this whole injectable sterilant idea for cats and dogs to replace surgical neutering back in the ‘80’s while Kirkpatrick was working for their R&D dept. But now this animal welfare org was in a pickle because while they are well known for advocating against using animals to experiment on in LABORATORY settings, they found themselves in need of some lab rats to test out their recently developed and experimental PZP sterilant on.🙀 oh no!

HSUS is well known for their “work” w domesticated pets, but we don’t see a lot from them regarding wildlife, or whatever our wild horses are considered by law, in the immediate public’s attention. Most donors aren’t even aware of their work w any wildlife causes. In short, HSUS couldn’t afford to be caught experimenting on dogs and cats (even though they’ve always been the primary target), or pets in general, so they reached out to our gov, or BLM, to see what they thought about testing their new sterilant out on our country’s native wild animals instead! (a little loophole for them since it would be field testing outdoors and not inside an actual laboratory like they protest against).  Link to article by Tony Hassen.

Since HSUS is next in line only to ASPCA when it comes to publicity stunts such as their ads on tv, they were put in charge of keeping it all as quiet as possible and coming up w ways to gain support and funding for it from the public/advocates, while the BLM takes care of the legalities and paperwork involved w trying to make sterilizing wildlife legal. HSUS is so good at scamming the public and getting others involved in scamming in the animal welfare industry that they were able to convince Michelin Foundation Animals to join in this insanity w a $75 million funding opportunity (possible tax write off after their HUGE success w creating the pet microchip.  The goal was to help locate owners of lost pets after hurricane Katrina) for anyone interested in creating a FDA approved one shot sterilant vaccine for cats and dogs, w a $25 million prize to whoever comes up w it first.

HSUS figured out if the experiments were small enough, here and there on certain species of wildlife, the publicity wouldn’t catch up and be all that bad to the point that HSUS involvement would be revealed (and threaten their nonprofit status w the IRS since developing fertility control drugs for profit does not fall under charitable work, or does it? Say perhaps you convinced everyone you were developing it for charitable reasons… such as aiding our country’s efforts in controlling a destructive INVASIVE species, per say. Knowing round ups are a hot topic amongst advocates, BLM graciously offered HSUS the tip of telling advocates PZP will “stop round ups” … sure enough many of them bought into this theory hook line and sinker even though none of the research supports this ridiculous idea.

Since HSUS thrives from all those monthly recurring donations, they needed to make it seem like using birth control was a good idea for whatever animal they ended up testing it out on and containment for initial testing was crucial.

It is a perfect situation for these 2 corrupt orgs, BLM was the perfect fall guys for taking on negative publicity over it since everyone already complains about the government? But they did still have to figure out which wild animals they could get away w experimenting on the easiest. BLM granted HSUS the Maryland side of Assateague Island as the perfect solution for HSUS’s lack of semi controllable and contained lab rats that were still outdoors and not inside a lab, and we all know how that sad story ended up.

When Kirkpatrick realized it was taking several doses for PZP to permanently sterilize the horses, they needed to be able to continue experimenting until they finally achieved their mission of a one shot permanently effective sterilant for mammals. But they also needed to hurry it along because once everyone found out the island ponies were sterile, there was going to be public outcry and bad publicity over it, so they needed the quickest solution.

With USDA using Kirkpatrick’s work to create their own fertility control sterilant as well while the Assateague experiment was going on, and finalizing their GonaCon formula around 2005, HSUS now had some competition to contend was well. Of course, now USDA was needing lab rats while staying under the radar. So, a lot of - “I rub your back, and you rub mine” was going on between our gov and HSUS. HSUS played the public so well, hardly anyone knew that GonaCon was being used on the herds for the initial experiments around ~2008.

Everyone just assumed it was PZP since USDA wasn’t going public about creating an animal sterilant for profit… just like it is for nonprofits, I assume our USDA isn’t supposed to be using tax dollars to experiment on our wildlife in the hopes of creating a commercial product for profit. That kind of work belongs in the pharmaceutical industry’s department!  But if either HSUS or our gov actually wanted to make any money off of these 2 experimental sterilant, they both needed each other if they had any hopes of getting them officially approved for use by the EPA/FDA.

This is where the BLM theory that our native wild horses are considered an INVASIVE species (being invasive only to ranching operation profits of course) to most of the United States that currently have wild horses in them (and having this theory backed up by the Centre of Agriculture and Biodiversity International CABI) comes into play. With HSUS doing so well controlling public opinion, as well as coming up w most of the funding needed to pull this all off, the pressure was really on to find a way to legalize sterilizing wildlife to continue on w all the research needed for GonaCon and PZP final one-shot formula. The quickest path they found to EPA approval was using an invasive species as the pest to control and not a native one.  But how do they get everyone to believe the wild horses are invasive when all the scientific discoveries being made were pointing in the direction of horses being native to the US…they just LIE even bigger!

So, USDA joined up w CABI to create an invasive species compendium to add to their website and organization, and there went several more millions of dollars going towards keeping our wild ones listed as non-native!  CABI was perfect for the purpose of having a seemingly trustworthy and respectable science based, independent, outside 3rd party source agreeing that American wild horses are invasive and non-native species, which is exactly what they needed for a quick EPA approval process for PZP, along w trial testing and approval for GonaCon. Even better is that Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International

Center for Biological and was located all over the world in other counties so it’s not like communicating w them would be an easy task for the public or a concerned WHB advocate who stumbled across their gross misinformation regarding our American wild horses.

See Only problem being is that the only source cited on the invasive theory bit is the BLM itself! They also went as far as to hire someone who worked for the BLM to write up the entire horse compendium. Mr. Eric Beever even cites himself over a dozen times throughout the horse write up. Beever was rewarded for his loyalty to the ranchers and other private interests and now has a nice paying job w the USGS (the GPS tracking collars we see on the wild horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) are one of his babies) shortly after he finished his intentionally misleading horse write up for CABI’s new invasive species compendium (courtesy of USDA, potentially funded through USAID, which means CABI funding from the US is on hold for 90 days and very well will soon dry up, we can only hope!)

Something along the way in this race to create and get approval for permanent birth control for animals happened between HSUS and their gov partners in crime. My guess is that our gov tried to squeeze out HSUS from the one shot sterilant race by telling them they only wanted to use their own GonaCon once it got approved, thus eliminating the need for PZP to become EPA approved at all.

GonaCon was actually ready for approval around the same time as PZP was, but to keep it under wraps they decided to wait 10 mo. tile after all the attention from advocates being outraged over our horses getting listed as EPA pests just so PZP could be approved for use on them, had died down some. I think I was only able to find one article written up about the disappointment over GonaCon being approved for use on wild horses when it happened in 2013). To prevent this from happening, HSUS decided to join IDA in an ongoing WHB law suit against the DOI or BLM at the time, and threatened to have the wild horses officially deemed native in federal court, using none other than PZP creator Kirkpatrick’s own research to do so.

Kirkpatrick’s partner Rachel Fazio (studied biology and is an attorney) even got 7-8 different news medias to pick up the “Are wild horses native” court determination story to let the BLM know how serious they were (as native status would squash USDA GonaCon approval as well since EPA waived all the same studies to rush GonaCon approval, as it did for PZP).

HSUS’s threat worked against the BLM and it is the ONLY court case issue I’ve seen the BLM cave to… the court case itself was a flop and loss, having nothing to do w wild horses being native. BUT the wild horses being native was included in the opinion statements from it that are the only thing offered to the public from that court case. One day I’d really like to get my hands on the actual court docs from that case, that was unnecessarily extended out over a 4-yr period of time! During those 4 yrs is when our wild horses were deemed EPA pests in 2012, and HSUS joined in on the case in 2011 w their threats of deeming wild horse’s native.

How HSUS came out on top actually had nothing to do w the court case at all, they only hijacked that case for their own personal interests in mind. Immediately following that case Kirkpatrick got his big PZP research and training facility out west, and of course HSUS stayed in the game by getting PZP EPA approved. At the time BLM also agreed to the eco sanctuary proposals, and these were guaranteed to allow PZP continued testing, on top of all the newly found interest certain HSUS supporting advocates were showing in wanting to help our gov, and HSUS, experiment on and sterilize our wild horses. The catch to this was if you want the gov and HSUS grants for this new fertility control program that has promised to end the need for further round ups of your beloved local wild herds of horses and or burros, you MUST sign a gov contract agreeing to never publicly discuss or bring up in the courts ever again, the native issue pertaining to wild horses and burros.

It was 12 yrs later in 2024 that specific versions of both PZP and GonaCon were sold off to other entities to be used for commercial production and sales.

In conclusion, because of the invasive status the BLM was able to create and validate for wild horses, using CABI as the reliable scientific source cited on this, EPA was able to waive MANY of the necessary and expensive studies that are required for the EPA to approve a new pesticide, as EPA regulations are vastly different for native vs invasive species pesticide approval. The biggest difference of course, is not having to prove there is a need for controlling the population of an invasive species since all invasive species are automatically considered pests! In fact, THIS is what the EPA used as THE reason for listing wild horses as an EPA pest that needed its population-controlled w an EPA approved pesticide. So quite possibly the biggest fear for native status right now, is that if the wild horses are deemed native, the EPA pest listing would have to be reconsidered since it is based on wild horses being invasive.

At first, I thought it doesn’t make sense for these advocates to not support the native issue seeing how both invasive and native species can be deemed pests. But at the time I had not realized the differences in EPAs requirements for a native vs invasive species pests listing.

I’m also suspicious of the possibility that those waived EPA environmental tests, typically necessary for a new pesticide listing, could have been completed w/o someone bringing up the fact the horses are native… this might also have played a role, on top of shaving off years and saving millions of $$$ by not having to do all of those pesky environmental assessments. 

The truth behind how GonaCon came to be used on Wild Horses

Mike Jenkins - research notes and ongoing development (NOT FINISHED)

Background

This unusual, illegal activity came to light around 2010 with the US Dept of Agriculture forming a partnership with the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI).  CABI set out to maintain documentation on invasive species.  The US Dept of Agriculture became a partner.  This fit well with the need to get a drug approved to sterilize wild horses. The funding was accomplished through USAID.

Why is this important?  In the US the EPA rules make it necessary to ONLY USE A PESTICIDE on invasive species.  The horses needed to be shown to be invasive.  That work began in 2013 when CABI hired former Bureau of Land Management employee, Erik A. Beever, to write the datasheet on Equus caballus (the wild horse).  Conveniently almost of all the references Beever used are either his own work or work for the Bureau of Land Management.

Why would an international organization headquartered in Europe place a US expert on bees in charge of writing the documents to facilitate showing that American wild horses are invasive?  Because the Department of Agriculture, Forest Service and the Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management needed corroboration for their claim that the horses are invasive in order to use GonaCon. (APHS-NWRC Partnership)

GonaCon is an EPA classified pesticide.  It is produced by U.S. Department of Agriculture, APHIS, Pocatello Supply Depot 238 East Dillon Street Pocatello, ID 83201. GonaCon™ is a gonadotropin‐releasing hormone (GnRH) immune contraceptive vaccine developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Wildlife Services' (WS) National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC).

The next step is to ensure the EPA lists wild horses as invasive in order to permit the use of a pesticide on them.

To Curtail the Use of GonaCon pesticide on wild horses means reversing all of these relationships and curtailing funding, and the authority to apply the pesticide from EPA. 

FORTUNATELY 

The CABI Invasive Species datasheet NO LONGER SHOWS EQUUS CABALLUS TO BE INVASIVE (FEB 2025)