**Management Overview of the**

**Wild Horse and Burro Program**

**A BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**March 26, 1998**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast. It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, \"A
Management Overview of BLM\'s Wild Horse & Burro Program,\" an
Interactive Telecast for BLM Managers, Program Special Today\'s
Instructors Are Gary Bauer, Ron Wenker, Don Glenn and Lili Thomas. And
Now the Host of Your Program, Michelle Chavez.

Chavez: Good Morning. Welcome to this Management Overview of the Wild
Horse & Burro Program. We Want to Thank You for Participating in this
Broadcast With Us Today. We Will Be Discussing Some of The Major
Components of the Wild Horse & Burro Program, Focusing On What Managers
and Field Specialists Need to Know and How To Manage for Long‑term
Health And Viability in Populations. On March 4th We Heard an Update Of
the Program from Deputy Assistant Secretary Sylvia Baca And Director Pat
Shea. For Those of You Who May Have Missed That Broadcast, You Can Get a
Taped Version from the National Training Center. We Also Had a Pilot
Training Course for Field Specialists on The Program During the Week of
March 9th. These Two Events, along with Today\'s Broadcast, Reflect the
Recommendations from the Culp Report. Joining Me this Morning Is Gary
Bauer, Associate State Director For Arizona. Good Morning, Gary.

Bauer: Good Morning. Happy to Be Here.

Chavez: I Understand We\'re Somewhat Kindred Spirits in That We Both Had
the Pleasure of Working with Don Schramm in Wyoming.

Bauer: You Bet. I Hope Those Folks Are Tuned In. That\'s a Key Office in
the Program.

Chavez: We Also Have Ron Wenker, District Manager from Beautiful
Winnemucca, Nevada.

Wenker:. Thank You. It\'s My Pleasure to Be Here. I Know Everyone Has a
Lot of Questions Regarding the Wild Horse & Burro Program and I Hope We
Are Able to Provide Answers To Your Questions.

Chavez: Ron, I Keep Telling Myself I Need to Find a Reason To Get down
and Discover How Beautiful Winnemucca Is.

Wenker: it Is a Beautiful Spot.

Chavez: We Also Have Don Glenn, Wild Horse & Burro Specialist from Which
I An, Wyoming. Good Morning, Don.

Glenn: Good Morning. I\'m Happy to Be Here, Although I Must Say Lili
Made Me Do this. But Seriously, Folks, I Know There Is a Little Bit of
Anxiety About Calling in on These Kind Of Programs, but Your Calls Are
What\'s Going to Make this a Good Program and You\'ll Get Something Out
of It. So I\'d Really like to Encourage Everybody to Call in When You
Have the Chance to Do That.

Chavez: Thank You, Don. And We Have Lili Thomas from the National
Program Office from ‑‑ Out of Reno, Nevada. Good Morning, Lili.

Thomas: Good Morning, Michelle. Good Morning, Everybody. I Hope this
Will Be a Very Quick And Meaningful Two‑and‑a‑half Hours and Hope
Everybody Will Understand by the End of this What Our Responsibilities
Will Be with this Program and How to Manage it Better.

Chavez: I Suspect Coming from The National Office You Get a Lot of
Questions That Need to Be Answered on a Regular Basis.

Thomas: We Get Them from One End of the Program to the Other. It\'s Not
Boring.

Chavez: Our Discussion this Morning Will Be Primarily for All Managers
and Field Specialists Are Who Are Responsible for the Activities In the
Wild Horse & Burro Program. However, There Will Be Valuable Information
Which Will Benefit Anyone Who May Have Tuned in Today. I\'d like to
Mention to Our Viewers That During this Telecast We Want to Hear from
You. If You Have a Question or a Comment for Us, Please Give Us a Call
or Send Us a Fax Using the Numbers Provided in Your Training Material.
We Will Have Two Scheduled Phone‑in Periods During Today\'s Telecast and
Will Let You Know When to Start Calling. Phone Calls Will Be Accepted
During These Sessions and We Will Try to Address as Many as We Can on
the Air. Faxes, of Course, Can Be Sent in At Any Time. When Sending a
Fax, Please Use The Fax Form Located in the Satellite Downlink Guide,
and Please Make Sure to Use a Dark Marker and Print Your Question In
Large Print. That Way I Won\'t Have to Resort To Using My Reading
Glasses. Speaking of Faxes, We Would like To Ask All Downlink Sites to
Fax In the Attendance Roster of Those Participating in Today\'s
Telecast. Please Use the Standard Course Roster Form in Your Training
Materials and Fax this Information to the National Training Center
Immediately After this Telecast. As I Mentioned Before, We All Heard a
Few Weeks Ago from BLM Director Pat Shea and Deputy Assistant Secretary
Sylvia Baca About the State of the Wild Horse & Burro Program. The
Director Wasn\'t Able to Join Us Live in the Studio Today, but He Did
Prepare a Message for Everyone. Let\'s Take a Look at it Now.

Dir. Shea: Good Morning and Welcome to the Wild Horse & Burro Training
Program. I Want You to Understand That The Program Has Had My Attention
And Personal Commitment since August 4th, the First Day I Was Sworn into
Office. We\'ve Done a Number of Things, Including Having the Three Fact
Finders Report to the First Meeting of the Wild Horse & Burro Advisory
Committee in Reno Last Month. We Had the Broadcast Earlier This Month
from Phoenix with Sylvia Baca Reporting on the Status of the Pearson and
Culp Reports. I Think with the Advisory Board In Place and Ron Being the
Chair And Jack Hanson Being the Vice Chair, We Are Going to Be Getting
Some Very Good Recommendations That I Think Will Make Your Activities in
the Program More Effective and Have Your Own Input Be Heard Loud and
Clear. I Want You to Understand That I Have a Great Sensitivity for This
Program. Indeed, My E‑mail Has Been Increasingly Dominated by People Who
Want Me to Give My Own Attention to Their Comments About the Program.
Now, There Is a Difference in This Program That I Think You Need to Be
Aware Of. You as a BLM Employee Are Needing to Be Sensitive to the
Animals Themselves, That Is, the Horses and Burros and Not Necessarily
the Questions of Allotment or Permittees or Other More Traditional Macro
Approaches. The Animals Are Mentioned Specifically in the 1971 Act, And
We Need as the Administrators of That Program To Pay Attention to the
Well‑being of the Animals. I Want to Also Stress at the Beginning of
Your Training Program That this Is a National Program. It Is Not
Something That Will Be Administered Differently State By State but
Really Does Have to Have a National Consistency. I Have a Great Deal of
Faith and Confidence in Tom Bagoshnik. He Was Helpful in Reno. I Thought
He Has a Budding Career on Television. I Asked to Represent Him Before
The Networks. Just Kidding. But You Did a Great Job in the Broadcast
from Phoenix and I Commend You and Hope That We Can Move Forward. We
Have to in this Program Depend on Each Other. There Will Be a Number of
Critics Ranging Across the Spectrum of Political Choice. It Is Going to
Be a Program That Is Marked by Continual Change. We Have 199 Herd
Management Areas That Were Present in 1971, And We Need to Make Sure
That We Have Adapted in the Best Science Way, in the Best Management Way
To Meeting the Needs of the Horses and Burros That Are Found In Those
Areas. So, Again, You Are Going to Be The Managers I Will Be Looking To
to Manage That Adaptation. Thank You Very Much for the Hard Work. Please
Take Advantage of These Type of Training Programs to Maintain the
Professionalism That\'s There. With Michelle Chavez Heading it Off
Today, I Really Believe That We Are Continuing a Strong Initiative to
Have the Wild Horse & Burro Program Be a Positive Hallmark for the BLM
as We Enter into Our 52nd Year of Existence. So I Commend You, Learn a
Lot And Thank You Michelle and Tom For All Your Good Work Today. Thank
You.

Chavez: We Want to Thank Director Shea for Preparing Those Remarks for
Us. Any Thoughts from the Panel About the Director\'s Comments?

Bauer: I Think One Thing That Director Shea Emphasized That\'s Really
Important Is Consistency In the Program and We\'re Going To Talk about
Appear Lot Today In this Program, and Communication Is Essential, and
It\'s Important That We Are Sharing Information Back and Forth Between
Offices, Because There\'s So Many People Involved In this Program, and
it Is Such An Emotionally Charged Issue.

Chavez: That\'s for Sure.

Thomas: I Liked the Part Where He Talked about the Horses And Burros as
the Individuals And We Have to Take Care of Them. That\'s Really
Important and I Think Sometimes People Do Kind Of Lose Sight of That,
Because This Program Is So Much More Unique than Other Programs Because
We Do Handle the Actual Animals and We Are Mandated to Make Sure That
Their Health Is Ensured. But Later on in the Program, I Will Get a
Little Bit More Involved in the Individual Animal.

Chavez: Very Good.

What Kind of Struck Home on Me Was When He Talked about Using Good
Science in the Program. We Had a Situation in Wyoming This Spring Where
Our Spring Gathers Were Causing Some Controversy and Some Folks Thought
That We Were Getting Too Close to the Foaling Season or Even into the
Foaling Season and I Was Able to Find Some National Academy of Sciences
Research That Was Done Back in \'82 That Basically Showed That the
Spring Foaling Season in Wyoming Is in The Late April, May and June. So
We Really Weren\'t Getting Into That Foaling Season in Our Proposed
Gathers, and We Also Have the Population Model That We Use and We Use it
Quite a Bit In Wyoming in Our Herd Management, and That Was Developed at
the University of Nevada‑reno, and it Really Comes In Handy. So I Would
like to Encourage People to Use in That Their Herd Management Plans.

Chavez: So Good Science Did Pay off.

Wenker: Our Credibility in This Program Is Frequently Questioned and I
Think the Director\'s Statement on Moving Towards a More Consistent
Program from State to State Certainly Should Help Us Improve Our
Credibility.

Chavez: Yes. As Our Director Highlighted, the Wild Horse & Burro Program
Has Always Provided Us with Challenges. One of Those Is Trying to
Understand How the Program Historically Got Started and How It Operates
Today. To Meet this Need, a New Video Is Being Produced by the National
Program Office and the National Training Center Called \"Managing a
Legend\". It Should Be Available to Field Offices Later this Spring and
Will Help Explain the Program as It Stands Today as Well as How It Got
Started. This Product Will Be Available To All of You in the near
Future. Lili, You Were Involved in Developing the Video for the Wild
Horse Program. What Can People Benefit from by Using That Video?

Thomas: Well, the Video, \"Managing a Legend\", Was Produced for BLM
Employees, Basically All BLM Employees, and It Was to Show Them Why the
BLM Has a Wild Horse & Burro Program And How We Manage it Today. It
Starts off Basically with the First Horses Being Reintroduced In the
Northern Continent by the Conquistadors and Goes to the Management of
the Animals Today. It\'s Also Designed to Help the BLM People to
Understand the Emotions of the Program and Understand That These Animals
Are a Valuable Resource to the Public. Now, an Extra Benefit That We
Have of this Video Is Going to Be That We Can Then Use it as an Outreach
So That this Message Could Go to the General Public.

Chavez: Well, Thank You, Lili. You Know This, Video May Come in Very
Handy in New Mexico. We Have a Special Event Coming Up Commemorating the
Camino Real And What We Will Be Celebrating Is the 400th Anniversary of
the First Spanish Colonization into The United States. I Think this
Video Would Be Very Useful for That. On I\'m Sure That Managers and
Field Specialists Will Find Many Other Ways to Use this New Video As
Well. Look for it Soon, Coming to Your Office. For the Rest of Today\'s
Program, We Will Be Looking at Some of The Critical Responsibilities
Each BLM Manager Faces in the Wild Horse and Burro Program. The Program
Is Spread out from Herd Management in the West to Adoptions in the East.
It\'s Really Much More Interrelated than it First Appears. Ron, Perhaps
You Could Help Us Understand How the Different Parts Are Interrelated.

Wenker: Certainly. First, I\'d like to Have Everyone Take Just a Moment
and Think About How Many Offices We Have In BLM That Do Not Have Any
Involvement with the Wild Horse & Burro Program. What Do You Think?
Maybe 10, 20 Offices? Well, Actually Any Answer over Zero Is Incorrect.
Every One of Our Offices Has Some Involvement with the Wild Horse and
Burro Program. Some Offices Are Involved with The on the Ground Herd
Management While Others Are Heavily Involved in Adoption, And Everyone
Is Involved in Compliance. As of this Morning, Even Alaska Has 55 Wild
Horses That Are Untitled That Need to Have Compliance Performed on Them.
It Leads Me into a Discussion on The Interrelationships of the Program,
and It\'s Very Important That Everyone Understand That Each of These
Aspects Are Very Closely Tied with One Another. The First Component Is
That of Herd Management. That\'s Where We Manage the Wild Horses and
Burros on the Ground In the Herd Management Areas. The next Aspect of
the Program Is When the Numbers of Animals Exceed Our Appropriate
Management Level, or If the Animals Get Outside of the Herd Management
Area. We Need to Gather the Excess Animals. The Third Phase of the
Program Is Where We Take the Excess Animals That Have Been Captured And
Put Them into Preparation Facilities Such as Palomino Valley Where the
Animals Are Prepped for Adoption And, of Course, Adoption Is the Last
Phase of the Program Where We Move the Animals into Private Care and
Maintenance. Collectively, We Refer to the Process of Taking Animals off
The Range and Getting Them into Private Care and Maintenance as Moving
the Horses and Burros Through the Pipeline. Each of These Phases Is Very
Tied with One Another and Are Interdependent on One Another. For
Example, It\'s Obvious That The Amount of Horses We Have up For Adoption
Is Certainly Dependent on the Number of Horses That We Gather. But
Conversely, as a Manager Managing the Herd Management Areas in the
Field, I Can Be Restricted from the Number of Horses That I\'m Gathering
If There\'s Too Many Animals in the System, If the Animals Are Backed up
at the Preparations Facilities, or If Not Enough Animals Are Being
Adopted. So Each of These Phases Are Very Tie to Do One Another. I Think
It\'s Critical That We Maintain Good Communication with One Another,
Especially from the Beginning, Coordinating Our Gathers, as We Move the
Animals Through to Adoption. In Fact, I Think Our Credibility Can Be
Improved with Better Communication as Well.

Chavez: Thank You, Ron. What Are Some of the Decisions That Managers
Would Be Making That Might Affect this Process?

Glenn: Well, We Had a Situation in Wyoming this Year That Really Speaks
Exactly to What Ron Was Talking about Where We Had to Can Sell Our
Gathering Operations Early Last Fall and Again this Spring Because the
Adoption Pipeline Was Full. What ‑‑ the Effect this Had a H‑was
Essentially it Gathered ‑‑ Delayed Gathering at Least 600 Horses and
Sets Us Back Two Years in Our Attempt to Achieve Appropriate Management
Level. This Could Also Cause Problems With Ecological Balance in the
Herd Management Areas. So You See, Michelle, it Is Really Interdependent
and When We Can\'t Adopt Horses, We Can\'t Gather, and Our Whole
Management Effort Is Set Back or Hindered.

Bauer: You Bet. And If I Might Interject, I Think One of the Things Ron
Talked about Was this Importance Of the Interrelationship All the Way
Through this Pipeline, and One Example That Strikes Me Is The Need for
the Folks on the Adoption End to Have Good Information on the
Demographics And the Character of Those Animals, Because I Can Remember,
I Know Terry Lewis in and His Staff in Eastern States Were Very Astute
at Adjusting Marketing Plans Based on the Ages of the Horses. On the
Other Hand, of Course, Older Animals in the Pipeline, They May Go to
More Adoptions. They May Be in the System Longer, and They Can Impact
the Amount of Flow of Animals Through That Process and Ultimately Go
Back to What Don Said And, You Know, Back up on The Gather End. So
That\'s Really an Important Communication Link That Has to Take Place.

Thomas: Gary Just Kind of to Put That Together in the National Program,
like Michelle Was Saying, We Get a Lot of Different Issues from One End
to The Other and One of the Things We Were Seeing as Far as this Is A
National Program and It\'s All Intertwined in There, Is That Basically
If Don Ships Unhem These Horses Where They Have to Stay in the
Preparation Facilities for Longer, Then What That Causes Is the
Adoptions in Eastern States or New Mexico or Wherever the Horses Are
Going Have to Be Postponed or Canceled. So You Still Have That Problem.
Then If You Have the Adoption Program Where ‑‑ like You\'re Talking
about with the Older Horses or Horses That Are More Undesirable and
Can\'t Be Adopted As Easily and it Backs up There, Then Your Facilities
Are Full Again and Then Don Doesn\'t Get To Gather Again. But, Then, on
the Other Hand, If The Facilities Have Injuries or Illnesses That Keep
Horses in There a Lot Longer and They Can\'t Be Shipped to Adoptions,
Then What You\'ve Got Is You\'ve Got Adoptions That Are Postponed And
Canceled. It\'s Real Important. Like Ron Was Saying, the Coordination,
Managers Need to Know What\'s Going on and Know Today What\'s Going On,
Not Just Two Months Ago.

Chavez: Yes.

Wenker: Another Example of This Interrelationship Is the Burns, Oregon,
Facility That Recently Experienced Arson and Was Destroyed. In
Winnemucca We Gather Quite a Few Animals and When We Fill Up, The
Palomino Valley Facility, We Frequently Rely on the Burns Facility to
Take Our Animals, And We May Very Well Be Restricted on the Number of
Animals We Can Capture until That Facility Is Repaired.

Chavez: Don, I Understand That You Just Completed a Training Session
Here at the National Training Center, a Pilot, and That it Was Fairly
Well Received and Well Attended. I Understand Part of the Reason For
That Was Because it Actually Covered a Lot of the Laws and Regulations
Involved with the Program. Could You Give Us a Little Highlight of Those
Laws and Regulations.

Glenn: Sure, Michelle. We Did Just Complete That Comprehensive Course,
and it Was ‑‑ it Did Cover a Lot about the Laws and Regulations. It Was
Really Designed Around a Concept That We Call a Box, and I\'m Going to
Try to Explain What We Mean by this Box. Like Other Programs in the BLM,
The Wild Horse & Burro Program Operates Inside a Box. The Horse You See
on the Screen Right Now Represents the BLM Wild Horse & Burro Program
Before We Had Any Laws and Regulations or Anything to Restrict Us. This
Horse Is Free Roaming. It Can Move in Any Direction and Has a Lot of
Flexibility. Now, in Probably 1959, Because Of a Lot of Public Outcry
over Inhumane Treatment, the Wild Horse Annie Act Was Passed and This
Act Prohibited People, Not The BLM, but the General Public, From Using
Aircraft and Motor Vehicles and ‑‑ in Wild Horse Round‑ups. This Still
Didn\'t Satisfy the Public as to the Treatment of These Animals, and
There Was Still Some Inhumane Treatment Going On, and People Were
Worried That These Horses Were Disappearing. So in 1971, the Wild Horse
& Burro Act Was Passed, and this Really Gave BLM the Authority to Manage
These Animals. Now, the Law, Which Is What These Two Things Are, These
Are The Statutory Law, They Represent the First Side of the Box. Ok. In
1973, the BLM Issued its First Set of Wild Horse & Burro Regulations.
This Was Done as a Mandate of The Wild Horse & Burro Act. Now, These
Regulations Are Found At 43 Cfr 4700, and the Regulations Represent the
Second Side of the Box. Policy Is Usually Issued in Response to Demand
by the Public. A Recent Example of this Is the Culp and Pearson Reports,
Which Were Basically the Result of Public Attention to Drought
Situations in Nevada and Allegations of Problems in the Adoption
Program. Policy Represents the Third Side Of the Box. Case Law, or
Judicial Rulings, Are Also Usually the Result of Dissatisfaction by the
Public With Our Management of the Program. In Other Words, If They
Don\'t Like What We\'re Doing, They Sue Us, and We Get Case Law. Case
Law Represents the Fourth Side of the Box. Now, There Are Several
Important Examples of Case Law. The First One I\'m Going to Talk About
Is Cited as Animal Protection Institute Versus Hodel, and this
Originated with The Fee Waiver Program. People Were Not Happy with the
Fee Waiver Program. What this Did Is it Resulted in A Permanent
Injunction Against The BLM Forbidding Us to Issue Title to Anyone Who
Expressed an Intent to Exploit His Animal for Commercial Purposes after
Title Had Passed, and We\'re Still Under That Injunction. So If We
Violate That Injunction, Basically, in a Worst Case Scenario, the
Director Could Be Held for Contempt of Court. Another Example of Case
Law Is One Called Doll Versus Clark. This Was Very Important in Our Herd
Management Aspect. What it Did Is it Required That We Base Any of Our
Removal Decisions on the Analysis of Data. We Can\'t Just Say, Well,
We\'ll Keep the Horses at the Level They Were in 1971 or 1981 or Just
Pick an Arbitrary Date and Say That\'s the Number We\'re Going to
Manage. Now, What Happens If We Operate Outside the Box? And Sometimes
this Possibly Happens. For Example, You Might Say If Somebody Went Ahead
and Issued Title to an Adopter That Had Expressed this Intent for
Commercial Purposes, We\'d Definitely Be Outside the Box on That. What
We Mean Here Is We\'re Violating Policy or We\'re Not Paying Attention
to Case Law. What this Results in Is That the Sides of the Box Get
Smaller and Smaller. We Lose Flexibility in Management. We Lose the
Tools, Some of the Tools, That We Were Able to Use Before. Another
Example, When We Didn\'t Pay Attention to Doll Versus Clark, it Resulted
in a 1989 Ibla Ruling That Basically Shut Our Gathers down for Almost
Three Years. Now, in Some Cases, the Sides of The Box Can Actually
Expand. Probably the Best Example of This Is When the Recommendations Of
the First Advisory Board and The BLM\'s Own Biannual Report to Congress
Resulted in the Amendments to the Wild Horse & Burro Act That Allowed Us
to Use Helicopters and Motor Vehicles In Gathering Operations. So You
Can See That When Lili Asked You for All That Information That She Does
about Every Two Years to Put in That Biannual Report to Congress,
Sometimes It\'s Probably Worthwhile. So I\'d Encourage You to Go Ahead
And Give Her the Information She\'s Asking for. Michelle, That\'s ‑‑
That Pretty Well Explains the Box, I Think.

Chavez: Thank You, Don. What Are Some of the Important Issues Managers
Need to Consider When They Find Themselves Getting Outside the Box?

Bauer: Michelle, this Is a Good Opportunity Again to Reinforce Director
Shea\'s Message about the Credibility of The Program and Need for
Consistency F We Experience an Error or As, Don Said, Get Outside the
Box, Then the Program Bureau Wide Loses Flexibility. The Box Gets
Tighter and We as Managers Get Forced into Making Decisions That May Not
Be the Best for the Resource, the Best For the Horses or the Best for
Running an Efficient Program, And That as a Manager Is a Real Concern to
Me, That We Lose That Flexibility Unnecessarily If We Lose That
Credibility.

Wenker: Another Example Is Where Case Law and Litigation Reaffirm the
Side of the Box. Example Is in 1992 Where the Interior Board of Land
Appeals Remanded a Decision Back to the Bureau of Land Management
Because We Had Failed to Follow A Previous Ibla Decision in 1989 That
Said We Had to Use Monitoring to Establish Our Appropriate Management
Levels. When These Decisions Are Remanded Back to Us, it Does Serve to
Erode Our Credibility As Well.

Chavez: That\'s for Sure. Don, You Mentioned That One of The Sides of
the Box Involves Laws like Nepa in Different Parts of the Decision
Points in The Program. Can You Elaborate a Little Bit More on the Nepa
Analysis?

Glenn: Sure, Michelle. Nepa Is One of the Laws That Is Very Important in
Wild Horse & Burro Management as it Is with Other Programs in the
Bureau, But Especially in Our Herd Management Efforts Nepa Is an
Essential Tool That We Use Most Often to Establish Our Appropriate
Management Levels in Our Herd Areas. Ibla Has Said That Our Sole Removal
Authority Is to Restore A Thriving Natural Ecological Balance and
Prevent Range Deterioration. Our Eas must Analyze Impacts of Excess
Horses or Burros on the Thriving Natural Ecological Balance. And this
Analysis must Be Based On Monitoring Data. Now, Another Thing to
Consider Is the Impact on the Horses and Burros Themselves and the
Health And Viability of the Herd. In a Recent California Case, Our
Selective Removal Policy Was Challenged, and since the Field People
There in That Office Did A Good Job with Nepa and Analyzed the Impacts
of Selective Removal on Their Herd, That Policy Was Upheld. In Other
Words, We Didn\'t Lose The Tool That We Have of Selecting ‑‑ Selective
Removal. We Could Have If We Hadn\'t Done A Good Job of Analyzing Those
Impacts. Basically What They Said in Their Ea Was That These Horses,
Even Though It\'s a Small Appropriate Management Level, Have the Ability
to Intermix With Other Nearby Herds, There By Preserving the Gene Pool.
I Think That\'s How Nepa Can Really Work for Us in this Program,
Michelle.

Chavez: as a New State Director, I Need to Know What\'s Involved in
Making Decisions in This Program. Can You Give Me Some Idea of the Types
of Decisions a Manager Would Be Faced with?

Glenn: I Can Sure Try, Michelle. Basically We Have Three Kinds of
Decisions That We Normally Use In the Wild Horse & Burro Program. The
First Is, as I Talked about Just a Minute Ago, Is a Nepa Decision or a
Planning Decision. These Kind of Decisions Establish Our Appropriate
Management Level or Our Herd Management Area Boundaries. Now, Another
Type of Decision That We Often Use Is Called a Multiple Use Decision.
This Type of Decision Is Used If We\'re Going to Make Livestock or
Wildlife Decisions at the Same Time We\'re Making Our Wild Horse & Burro
Decisions. The Third Type of Decision That We Use Is a Separate Wild
Horse & Burro Decision and These Are Normally Used as a Removal Decision
or a Compliance Decision. Compliance and Removal Decisions Are Always
Issued in Full Force And Effect. Now, the Reason for That Is That There
Is Some Urgency in the Need to Do Some Action When We Issue That Type of
a Decision. In the Case of a Compliance Decision, It\'s Obvious. If
We\'re Repossessing a Horse, It\'s Because the Horse Is Being Mistreated
or Abused in Someway Or Another. So There\'s an Urgency There. At the
Same Time, If We Issue Our Removal Decision, If You Go Back to What the
Ibla Has Said About What Our Sole Authority Is To Remove, Is to Restore
the Thriving Natural Ecological Balance and Prevent Range
Detearieration, Again, There Is An Urgency There. We Have to Take Action
or We Have to Either Upset the Ecological Balance or the Range Is Going
to Deteriorate. So Those Are Always Issued in Full Force and Effect. On
the Other Hand, Aml, or Appropriate Management Level Decisions and Herd
Management Area Decisions Don\'t Have to Be Issued in Full Force and
Effect. Now, All These Decisions Are Appealable, and the Appeal
Procedures Vary a Little Bit, Depending on What Type of Decision You
Use. But Usually the Appeal Period Is 30 Days from Receipt of the
Decision. I Think That Kind of Summarizes The Type of Decision We Use in
The Wild Horse & Burro Program And What We Use Them For, Michelle.

Wenker: One Thing, Don, That Is Important for Everyone to Note Is That
Because We Do Have People Appealing Our Decisions, It\'s Very Critical
That We Establish Delivery of the Decision Either Through Certified Mail
or by Personal Delivery. If We Fail to Establish That Delivery Point,
Then the 30‑day Period Can Actually Stretch out A Lot Longer.

Thomas: That Brings up a Good Point, as Far as When You\'re Talking
about Doing the Appeals On Compliance Cases, Because You Brought in Full
Force and Effect, Do They Still Apply, the Type of Appeals, to Those
People?

Glenn: Well, Absolutely, Lili. Any Decision We Answer Is Appealable. If
We Repossess a Horse Through A Decision or We Issue a Decision That
Gives the Adopter A Notice of Corrective Action, Something That They
Have to Do Basically an Adverse Action Against Them, They Have the Right
to Appeal, Even Though It\'s in Full Force and Effect And We Immediately
Take the Horse or Demand That They Immediately Take the Action, They Can
Still Appeal, and the Appeal Can Be Heard, and They May Get Relief If
We\'re in the Wrong. So We Need to Be Careful about That When We\'re
Issuing These Decisions.

Bauer: I Know We\'re Going to Talk about it More Lately, but I Think
this Emphasizes the Importance of Good Record Keeping and Solid
Documentation In the Program, Too.

Chavez: Thank You, Don. Your Message Is Very Important For Managers
Having to Make Some Pretty Difficult Decisions. At this Time, I\'d like
to Tell Everyone in That a Few Minutes We Will Begin Our First Question
And Answer Session. So Please Be Thinking about Potential Questions or
Comments For Our Panel. Right Now We\'re Going to Gary Bauer Who Will
Tell Us Just How We Can Encourage Public Participation in the Wild Horse
& Burro Program. Gary, Will You Share Your Thoughts on How We Can Best
Involve Our Public?

Bauer: You Bet, Michelle. Thanks a Lot. Good Morning, Everyone. I Don\'t
Suppose It\'s Any Surprise to Any of You That Communications Is a Key
Part of This Program\'s Agenda. We Can Run the Most Effective Program in
the Bureau, but If We Don\'t Communicate Effectively, We\'re Going to
Have Problems. Everything Can Be Done Correctly And We Will Run into
Trouble If We Fail on the Communication End. This Program, the Wild
Horse & Burro Program, Is One of the Most Emotionally Charged Programs
in Government. There Is No Question about It. Employees, the Public,
Media, Interest Groups All Care Deeply About These Animals, and Rightly
So. The Key in this Arena Is Developing a Habit of Open and Interactive
Communication, Both On the Internal Side as Well as Externally with the
Public. One of the Important Things That I Want to Dwell on a Little Bit
This Morning Is the Importance Of Anticipating That Things Will Go Wrong
and Planning on How to Deal with the Situation in Advance. I Know We
Used to Do Some Training down Here at the Training Center in the Oil and
Gas Program, and That Was One of The Key Messages That People Needed to
Recognize When You\'re Managing a Project or Anything Else in this Kind
of an Arena, Is There\'s a Whole Different Mind Set If You Go into a
Situation Planning That Things Will Go Wrong. It\'s Routine in the Wild
Horse & Burro Program to Plan for Example to Have Trucks Available In
the Event All the Animals Aren\'t Adopted and You Have to Return Some
Animals. But Likewise It\'s Equally Important to Plan for the
Eventuality of Going Into, for Example, a Fair Ground Facility And All
of a Sudden Finding out That You Have Sick Animals Arriving. Have You
Thought about the Contingencies for Those Kind of Eventualities. Do You
Have a Place Where Those Animals Might Be Prepared to Be Relocated
Because That Facility May Be Booked for the Next Day or Two? Are You
Prepared to Deal with The State Veterinarian or Prepared to Communicate
Back to The National Program Office? All of These Kinds of Things Need
to Be in Place, and You\'ll Be Real Surprised If You Put Together These
Kind of Contingency Plans, Even If It\'s Only Mental in Your Head as
You\'re Preparing for this Sort Of Thing, It\'s a Different Kind Of Mind
Set That You Have If a Problem Occurs. Our Communication
Responsibilities Really Range From the Interaction That\'s Required by
Law or Regulation, Such as What Don Was Talking About, to Really the
Common Sense Daily Communication That You Have to Have with Interested
Community Leaders, Advocates, The Media and the General Public. The
Required Communication Such As Requirements for Public Involvement in
Nepa and Planning Decisions and Related Documents That Don Talked About,
the Requirement for Gather Notifications, Helicopter Hearings, All of
These Things Are Fairly Well Spelled out in Law and Regulation. The More
Subtle but No less Important Communication Is the Routine Daily Task of
Dealing With Our Colleagues and with the Public. It\'s Difficult in Just
a Few Minutes to Do this Subject Justice, but I\'d like to Share a Few
Tips and Ideas That You Might Find Useful on Both the Internal Side as
Well as Communicating with the Public Externally. First, We Need to
Recognize the Importance of Internal Communication. Without Effective
Internal Communication, the Rest of this Effort Is Going to Become a
Very Tough Challenge. I Know Many Field Managers and Program Folks out
There Are Probably Wondering, Why You\'re The Ones Always Getting Calls
Daily from the State Directors, Associates and Headquarters While Other
Programs and People Over ‑‑ down the Hall Seemingly Go on Routinely with
a Lot less Attention and Scrutiny. It\'s Important to Understand That
the Interest, the Visibility and the Sensitivity Of this Program
Separates it From Nearly Everything Else That The Bureau of Land
Management Managers Deal with on a Daily Basis. You\'re Getting That
Constant Contact Because We\'re Getting That Constant Contact, and It\'s
Extremely Important That We Get Into a Habit and a Routine, If You Will,
That We Are Communicating Seamlessly, Interactively and Nearly as Real
Time as We Can Possibly Communicate. I like to Characterize
Communication as Three Cs: Correct, Clear and Constant. First of All,
You Have to Ensure That the Information Is Correct. Nothing Is More
Adversely Impacting on Our Work in this Program than Incorrect
Information. As We All Know, Rumors and Suppositions Are Going to Travel
Like Wildfire, and it Takes a Tremendous Effort to Correct Erroneous
Information and Frequently Complete Correction In the Minds of Many
People Is Virtually Impossible. Secondly, Communication Has to Be Clear.
Misunderstood Correct Information Is as Significant a Problem as
Incorrect Information In the First Place. Again, a Tremendous Amount of
Effort Is Need the to Rectify The Situation. And Factual Information
That Isn\'t Clearly Communicated Will Create as Much Confusion and Chaos
as Incorrect Information In the First Place. Finally, and in Someways
Most Important, the Communication Must Be Constant. Frequently We Have
Questions Crop up at the State Director, The Director, Even the
Departmental Level That Demand An Immediate Response. The Effective
Means to Deal with This Is to Carry out this Constant Information
Sharing I\'m Talking about on a Routine Basis. The Information Needed to
Respond to an External Inquiry Really Should Be on the Respondent\'s
Desk in Advance of The Question. I Know That Sounds like a Tough
Assignment, but It\'s Really Possible If We Get into this Habit of
Working on Seamless, Interactive Communication on a Real‑time Basis.

Chavez: Thank You, Gary. Now We\'ll Begin Our First Question and Answer
Segment. So If You Have a Question or Comment for Our Studio Panel,
Please Pick up That Phone and Give Us a Call. You Want to Continue?
Gary, Maybe Some More Thoughts About Communication While We\'re Waiting
for Calls.

Bauer: You Bet. One of the Things I Wanted to Talk about a Little Bit Is
Communication on the External Side. Everything I\'ve Been Talking About
in Terms of Internal Communication, I Think, Applies To Communication
Externally as Well. But I Wanted to Talk about a Few Additional Points
That You Might Want to Keep in Mind. First of All, I Think It\'s
Important That You Remember to Involve Your External Specialists in
Preparing for Media Interviews. It\'s Important You Plan the Points You
Want to Make in Advance and That You Are Forthright and the Truthful in
The Information That You\'re Sharing. Also, I Think It\'s Equally
Important That If You Don\'t Know Or We Don\'t Know the Answer to a
Question, We Should Say So and Then Follow Up. Also, I Think It\'s
Important, Michelle, That We\'re Able to Relate to the Wide Variety of
Public, Interest Groups, Adopters and Volunteers Who Are Involved in
this Program. You Know, Director Shea Talked About the Horses as
Individuals, And We Also Have a Tremendous Number of Individuals out
There Looking at this Program from a Wide Variety of Perspectives, And I
Think It\'s Very Important That We Foster the People Skills, the
Compassion and the Sensitivity among Our Employees And Our Managers So
That We\'re Well Equipped to Deal with Those Folks and Recognize Their
Perspective, More or less Look At it from Their Point of View When
We\'re Dealing with the Public.

Chavez: Absolutely. Well, If You Have Any Questions, Please Call Them in
or Fax Them Into Us Now. We Would like to Spend this Time Sharing Your
Thoughts with Us And Hopefully Clarifying Any Concerns That Have Been
Raised Through this First Segment of Our Program. One of the Questions
That Has Come up in the past That I\'ve Been Faced with Occasionally,
Ron, Is What Is the Intent of The Law? Is it for the BLM\'s Convenience
To Propagate Adoptable Animals? Or Is it Really to Preserve and Protect
the Qualities of the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros?

Wenker: Well, it Certainly Is Not the Law Designed for Our Convenience.
It\'s Our Responsibility to Manage the Animals in a Manner That Ensures
Their Long‑term Survivability. We Need to Ensure That the Number of
Animals on the Range Are in Balance with the Carrying Capacity So That
the Animals Are There for the Long‑term.

Chavez: Ok. We Have a Fax That Came in Here. It\'s a Question for Gary.
What Do We Do as Field People If We\'re Doing a Gather and the Press
Shows Up?

Bauer: That\'s a Very Good Question, and I Think One Thing That\'s
Extremely Important to Keep in Mind Is, Number One, and This Is
Something You May Not Think of Right off the Bat, and That\'s the Safety
Aspect of It. If You Have Folks out There That You Didn\'t Anticipate
Being out There, the First Thing to Do Is Make Sure That They\'re in a
Safe Location and the Second Thing to Do Is to Make Sure That You
Contacted Your Office and Try And Get Some Assistance from Your External
Affairs Folks to Work with the Media on That. Again, the Best Thing to
Do Is Be Forthright, Be Truthful and Make Sure, Though, That You\'re Not
Putting Folks Who We Do Not Anticipate Being out There in an Unsafe
Condition.

Chavez: You Know, in this Program, Especially in the Last Couple of
Years, We Have Been Experiencing, I Think, Some Opportunities to Try
Some New Things and to Experiment a Little Bit. I Know There\'s Been
Some Pilot Efforts Going On. I\'m Wondering, What Sorts of Opportunities
Have We Been Experiencing So Far in the Last Couple of Years in Handling
the Wild Horse Program? I Know That in Oklahoma We\'re Dealing With, Oh,
Fee Issues and Veterinary Checks and That Sort Of Thing.

Thomas: Basically in Oklahoma They Have Done a Lot of Innovative
Different Things There. They\'ve Gotten More Innovative With Their
Precompliance, When I Know That Later on in the Show Gary Is Going to
Kind of Talk About Compliance. They Were Probably the Forefront On the
Pilot Projects on Competitive Bidding. They\'ve Done That. They\'ve Done
Some Very Unique And Controversial Training, as Far as the Horse in the
Box That Some People Have Seen. So, Yeah, They Have Done a Lot. But
Other States Have, Too, You Know. Eastern States Has Been Very
Innovative in a Lot of Ways When They\'ve Been Trying to Adopt Horses
Out, Find New Avenues for Them. The Western States Basically This Year
Has Tried to Increase Their Adoptions with a Little Strategy to ‑‑ with
Their Sharing of Bodies. A Lot of Specialists out There Are Trying Very
Hard. The National Program Really Wants Them to Try Things, as Long as
We Stay Within Our Little Box, as Don Put out.

Chavez: We\'re Hearing There Is Going to Be Some He Can Super Mentation
on the Internet as Well.

Thomas: That\'s Right. The Eastern States Is Doing a Brand‑new Type of
Adoption. I Forgot. They\'re Going to Try to Have an Adoption on the
Internet. That Should Be Interesting to See How That Works out. I Think
That\'s Kind of Cool.

Chavez: Yes, That\'s Going to Be Fun. Virtual Horses. Don, We Have a Fax
Here for You. I Think Can You Best Answer It. Are Opinions of Ibla
Considered Policy or Case Law?

Glenn: Well, They\'re Actually Considered Case Law, Michelle. That\'s
Actually a Pretty Easy Question to Answer. We Covered this in Our
Comprehensive Training That We Held Two Weeks Ago Here in Phoenix, and
We Had a Solicitor As One of Our Instructors, and She Got into a Lot of
Detail on That Sort of Thing. Very Interesting to Listen to The
Solicitor Talk about Case Law and Statutory Law and All The Different
Things That We Have to Pay Attention to and Some of the Things I Talked
About Right Here Just a Little Bit Ago about How We\'re under a
Permanent Injunction on this Api Versus Hodel Case. Actually I Learned
That Myself Right There in That Course. So I Would Sure Encourage People
To Try to Attend That Comprehensive Course, Because You Have the Chance
to Listen to The Solicitor Actually Tell You A Lot about All These
Legalities And What the Ramifications of Them Are.

Chavez: Nothing like Having An Attorney Speak Legalese for You and
Interpret.

Glenn: That\'s for Sure. Although She Could Talk Pretty Well in
Layman\'s Terms. This Was Kim, Was the Solicitor We Had as an Instructor
There.

Chavez: There Is Definitely a Comfort Level When You Have an Attorney
Advising You. Lili, One of the Things That Came up in the past Is a
Question about the Budget Process, and Particularly How The National
Program Office Equitably Divides the Budget out In the Field and What
Sorts of Things Are Being Supported by The Budget.

Thomas: Well, Yeah, a Lot of People Want to Know about Money Because
Money Makes Us Run. But, Yes, the National Program Office, We Have a Lot
More Operation Probably than a Lot of Other National Programs. One of
the Things We Run Is the Palomino Valley Corrals, and Those Particular
Core Corrals Can Hold up to 1800 Head of Horses at One Time, Which I
Think They\'re about There Right Now. So it Takes a Lot of Feed, Care,
Veterinary. We Also Run the Elm Creek Corrals. So Those Contracts That
Go with Those Corrals as Far as Feeding, Manure, in and Out, That Work
on That Way. The Training Don Was Talking About, You Know, That
Basically Was Funded to Offices. Any Kind of ‑‑ When We Try to Get the
Specialists Together to Solve a Problem That We Have in This Program, We
Fund All That On Their Travel and Their per Diem. A Loft Our Money Looks
like It\'s In One Pot, but What We Try to Do Is Put it out in the Field
Where It\'s Going to Do the Most Good, and a Lot of Times the States
Will Come to Us with Special Projects They Want to Do, like the Eastern
States Pilot Project on the Internet And We\'ll Fund Different Things
Like That.

Wenker: One Example, Too, Was Last Year When the Program Office Was Very
Good Working With Us When We Had an Emergency Situation on the Colorado
River, And We Were Able to Readjust Some of Our Budget Within Arizona,
Work with California And Some of the Other Partners And Also Obtain Some
Additional Funding to Take Care of a Very Critical Burro Situation
Caused By, Amazingly Enough, Hard to Realize it Now, but a Drought.

Thomas: Gary Had Me down Here In Yuma in July.

Chavez: We Have a Fax Here From John Dennis, and I Think, Don, I\'d like
You to Give a Try At Answering this One. Please Explain the Intent to
Commercially Exploit Untitled Animals. An Example Is If an Adopter
Expresses He or She Would like To Sell His or Her Mustang to a Neighbor
Prior to Title, Should They Be ‑‑ Should Be a Hold on The Title Because
of Commercial Gain?

Glenn: No, this Is Something That the Solicitor Got into in a Lot of
Detail in Our Comprehensive Training Course, And One of the Things That
She Emphasized Was That this Intent Has to Be Ill Intent. It Has to Be
Bad or Mean. It Was Pretty Well Impressed Upon on Me, and These Are the
Kind of Things You Can Learn If You Come to That Course. But If They
Say, Well, I\'m Going To Sell this Horse to My Neighbor When I Get
Title, That\'s Not Ill Intent. If They Say That I\'m Going to Sell it to
the Slaughterhouse or Can it or Something like That, Then That Is Ill
Intent, and We Couldn\'t Pass Title in That Case.

Chavez: John Has a Follow‑up Question, or a Second Question. If the
Adopter Wants to Sell His Or Her Mustang Through an Open Sale, like at a
Sale Barn, Before Title, Should the Title Be Held Assuming That the
Animal Will Go to Slaughter?

Glenn: Well, That\'s a Little More of a Gray Area, but What Kim Fondrin
Allude to Do or Told Us in the Class Was That Probably If They Say,
Yeah, I\'m Going to Take it to the Sale Barn as Soon as I Get Title, We
Would Have to Probably Assume That That Was Ill Intent. On the Other
Hand, If They ‑‑ She Kind of Put a Time Period on It. If They Take it to
the Sale Barn Six Months after Getting Title Because of Some Financial
Condition or Something That Was Unforeseen, Even Though Didn\'t Intend
to Do That Before They Got Title, Then That\'s Not Necessarily Ill
Intent.

Chavez: Ok. Well, We Have a Call from Gus in Cedar City, Utah. Good
Morning, Gus.

Caller: Good Morning.

Chavez: How Are You this Morning?

Caller: Good. Thank You.

Chavez: I Understand You Have A Question.

Caller: Yes, I Probably Would Have this Call Directed Towards Lili If I
Can, and it Has to Do With the Amino Contraceptive of These Animals and
the Sterilization, Trying to Control The Population Through That Effort.
Has There Been Any Effort Expressed Through Washington, Through the
National Program, on Continuing That or Maybe Upgrading That and Pushing
That Effort Any More?

Thomas: Hi, Gus. Yeah, Basically We\'re Still ‑‑ We Still Want to
Continue with That Research. We Did Have Two Research That We Did in
Nevada this Year, Fish Creek Was One of Them, Kamma Mountains Was the
Other. We Do Want to Continue On. We Would like to See That Be a Little
Bit Longer as Far as Timewise. They Still Haven\'t Effected it For a
Three‑year Period. It\'s Basically Got a Good Solid Base for One Year.
They\'re Kind of Working a Little Bit Closer to the Two‑year. So We Need
to Kind of Keep on Trying with That. So We Still Are Pushing It. Did
That Answer Your Question?

Caller: Yeah. I Was Just Kind of Thinking the Last Time We Had a
National Meeting it Seemed like the ‑‑ Maitland Sharpe and Some of the
Folks from Washington Were Making an Effort to Push That Forward on a
Fast Track.

Thomas: True, and I Think Ron Had Something to Say.

Wenker: I Just Wanted to Add, Gus, the Kamma Mountains Is a Herd
Management Area That\'s in The Winnemucca District, and We Did Implement
the Amino Contraception this Year, and While it Is Still in Research, I
See it as a Very Practical Application to Help Us Slow up The Growth of
the Herd and We Do Intend to Use it in Other Herds As Well.

Chavez: Gus, Thank You Very Much for Your Call.

Caller: Thank You.

Chavez: We Have a Fax Here From New Mexico, And, Lili, I\'m Going to Put
You on the Spot Again. The Fax Is: So Who\'s in Charge Of the Program?
Who Do We Communicate To? Where or from Whom Do We Receive Information?
We Would Sure like to See an Organization Chart.

Thomas: Well, Probably That Would Be Good to Have an Organization Chart
and I\'ll Talk To Tom When I Get Back. The Way That I Understand it
Right Now Is That We Have Bud Cribley in Washington, and He Takes Care
of a Lot of the Policies and He Works, You Know, Directly under Maitland
at this Point, Who Works Directly under Director Shea. So We Work Hand
in Hand with Bud. I Mean, He Gives Us a Lot of Direction of What the
Director Would like to See Done on the Program. Then Tom Takes Be That
Direction And Hands it Back down to His Staff Who Then Work it up and
Then We Work it Back Up. But as Far as the Field Is Concerned, You Can
Call Us ‑‑ I Mean, Npo Is There for You All As Far as Trying to Do Any
Kinds Of Questions or Comments or Something You Don\'t like or Do Like
or Whatever. You Can Also Called Bud. I Mean, Bud Is Very Receptive to
Comments and Calls. He Wants to Hear What\'s Going on Out in the Field,
Too. From What I Understand, as Far As Director Shea, He Also Wants To
Know. So I Don\'t Know If That Answered His Question.

Chavez: for Those of You Who Have Been Sending in Faxes, If You Feel
That We Haven\'t Done a Thorough Job of Answering Your Questions, Please
Give Us a Call So That We Can Have a Little Dialogue on the Phone and
Make Sure That We Do Get Your Question Well Answered. We Have a Fax in
Here from the Colorado State Office. Gary, Maybe You and I Can Work On
this One. In Director Shea\'s Comments, Did He Infer That BLM Should Be
Managing Horses in All 191 Hmas?

Bauer: Well, it Seems to Me That ‑‑ I Don\'t Know That it Was Inferred
in the Comments, but Clearly the Objective of the Program Is to Properly
Manage Wild Horses and Burros and We\'re Not Going to Be Able to Get
There Without Dealing with All Of Our Herd Management Areas. Ron May
Have a Comment about That from Nevada\'s Perspective.

Wenker: as We Monitor Our Herd Populations, We Do from Time to Time Come
up with Decisions to Modify Our Boundaries to Our Herd Management Areas
and Sometimes Combine Herd Management Areas. So I See it as a Constant
Evolving Process.

Chavez: Certainly Something We Shouldn\'t Consider to Be Cast In
Concrete Because They\'re Live Animals and They Do Change. Another Part
of this Fax Came In, and I Think Lili or Ron, Maybe You Could Help Us
with This One: Any Estimates on the Number of Hmas Where Amls Have Been
Achieved and What Is the BLM\'s Strategy to Secure the Necessary Budget
to Reach Amls For Those Hmas Where Amls Have Not Been Achieved? My,
Goodness, Such Alphabet Soup!

Thomas: Ron?

Wenker: I\'m Sorry, I Don\'t Have an Estimate Right off the Top of My
Head as to How Many Herd Management Areas That We Are at Appropriate
Management Level. I Know in Nevada We Do Have a Little Ways to Go Before
We Are At Appropriate Management Level. I Know That Doesn\'t Answer Your
Question for the Bureau.

Thomas: I Know That Bob Mitchell in Npo Has That Information. I Don\'t
Have it at My Fingertips Here. If You Wanted to Give Him a Call, He
Could Tell You Exactly How Many, You Know, Hmas Have Appropriate
Management Levels. As Far as the Section on the Funding, I Really Can\'t
Answer That at this Moment.

Chavez: Part of the Question Had to Do with the Strategy to Secure the
Budget.

Thomas: and I Don\'t Have an Answer for That Right Now.

Chavez: Perhaps We Can Do Some Research and Get an Answer Back to Those
Folks. We Have a Call from Jim in Carson City, Nevada. Good Morning,
Jim.

Caller: How You Doing?

Chavez: Just Fine. How Are You?

Caller: I\'ve Got a Question On Budget. It Seems That the Tail Has Been
Wagging the Dog for Quite a While, and Director Shea\'s Last Comments,
He Seemed to Emphasize That the Budget Would Go to Research and the
Adoption Program. The Guts of the Program Are the Field Level People and
the Overused Phrase Health of the Land. If You Don\'t Have Good Range
Resource, You Don\'t Have Healthy Sources and in Order to Do That We
Need a Budget at this Level And We Don\'t Seem to Be Getting It. We Do
Have Good Census Information, Regardless of What People Think, We Follow
National Academy of Science Guidelines, And We Do Good Census. When Are
We Going to Set ‑‑ Are We Going to Set a Time Limit on This Amino
Contraceptive, Either Give Us a Product That Works or Cancel the Thing
and Move in Another Direction?

Chavez: Sounds like You Have A Couple of Questions There N Terms of the
Budget, I Think Lili Did Try to Explain How They Sort out the Money and
How Some Of Those Major Contracts Also Come down to the Field and
Provide Services and Additional Support for the Field Offices. Perhaps
Lili You Might Have Another Comment on That?

Thomas: Yes. Jimmy, I Understand That You\'re Frustrated with it Because
Especially this Last Year, it Has Been like Money Has Gone Into a Lot
More of the Disposition of the Animals Instead of the Field. But That
Has Been Our ‑‑ Kind of Our Trouble Spot. As You Well Know, with the
Demand Down, That We\'ve Been Holding More Animals than We Normally Do
at this Time of the Year. But Hopefully That Will Shift Back a Little
Bit More So That We Can Work a Little Bit on the ‑‑ More on the Ground.
As Far as on the Fertility Control, I Think That We Are Still Wanting to
Go Ahead and Get a Little Bit More Research Done on it since They
Haven\'t Gotten to That Part. So I Don\'t Know If There Is a Time Frame
at this Point or Not. To Tell You the Truth. I Know They Want to Keep
Going With It. That\'s the Whole Thing.

Bauer: I Think Also, Jim, You Need to Recognize Appear Lot of Emphasis
Is Being Placed this Year on Implementing the Culp Report and I Think
the Important Thing to Understand There Is as Ron Talked about the
Pipeline, If We Don\'t Take Care of Business on Some of Those Issues,
That Pipeline Is Going to Get Smaller And It\'s Going to Get Clogged,
And it Is Right Now with the Number of Horses That We Have in
Facilities. So It\'s Really Important That We\'re Looking at the Entire
Package That Makes up this Program and the Importance of Responding to
These Criticisms And Concerns in the Program Very Proactively to Make
Sure That We Have a Viable, Workable Program In the First Place.

Wenker: I Might Just Add, First of All, Hi, Jim, Thanks For Calling. I
Might Just Add That the Amino Contraception That We Administered in the
Kamma Mountains, in My Opinion, Is Getting as Close to a Practical
Application. While it Still Is in Research And We Have a Ways to Go for
the Amino Contraceptive Shots to Be Real Effective, I Think We Are
Getting Closer to Being Able to Use That on an Everyday Basis.

Chavez: Jim, I Think as Don Mentioned Earlier, We Are Recognizing That
We Do Have Some Good Data out There. What We Need to Do Is to Strive For
Consistency and Assure Ourselves That It\'s the Best Scientific Data
That We Can Use. I Hope That\'s Answered Your Question, Jim. Thank You
Very Much for Your Call.

Caller: Thank You.

Chavez: Bye. Well, That Wraps up Our First Half of the Show. If We
Didn\'t Get to Your Question in the First Interactive Segment, Don\'t
Worry, You\'ll Have Another Chance to Ask Questions of Our Panel Later
in the Show. At this Point, We Will Take a 15‑minute Break. When We Come
Back, We Will Be Discussing, among Other Things, Just How to Best Handle
Wild Horses and Burros. So Stay with Us and We\'ll See You in a Few
Minutes!

Chavez: Welcome Back to the Management Overview of the Wild Horse and
Burro Program. Back with Me Again Is Our Panel Of Experts. In Our First
Segment We Heard The Director\'s Message about How We Depend on Each
Other for Success in the Program. We Covered Legal and Regulatory
Parameters and We Had a Discussion about Communication Opportunities.
Now We\'d like to Shift Our Focus To Herd Management and Just What It
Takes to Manage a Healthy and Viable Population. Ron, Having Become a
Bit Horse Poor Myself These Days, I\'ve Discovered How Easily They Can
Multiply. Just How Many Horses Do We Manage on the Range?

Wenker: Far More than Our Current System Can Handle, Michelle. The
Estimate of Total Horses and Burros in the Bureau Is Right at 43,000
Animals. In Winnemucca Alone We Have 6,500 Horses and We Have to Remove
at Least a Thousand a Year Just to Stay Current with The Annual Growth.
And to Get down to the Appropriate Management Level of Around 3,000
We\'ve Got to Remove A Lot More than a Thousand per Year.

Chavez: We\'re Hearing a Lot More from the Public That Concerns about
How We Can Manage The Wild Horse Herds along with Domestic Livestock and
Wildlife Sharing the Same Rangelands. How Can We Address Concerns like
That?

Wenker: Well, the First Step Is That We Have to Establish the
Appropriate Management Level. The Appropriate Management Level Is the
Total Number of Animals That Can Be Sustained in a Herd Management Area
in Order to Achieve the Thriving Natural Ecological Balance. That Term,
as Don Mentioned Earlier, Comes Straight out of The Law. What it Means
Is We Have to Make Sure That the Total Number of Animals on the Range
When You Consider the Horses, Burros, Wildlife, Livestock Are All Within
the Carrying Capacity. The Appropriate Management Level Is a Mid‑‑point
Number in a Population Range. As We Mentioned Earlier, We Can Establish
That Aml Number Through Any Number of Decisions. But it Does Need to Be
Consistent with Achieving the Multiple Use Objectives Set for The Area
as Well as the Aml Absolutely Has to Be Based on Monitoring to Ensure
That You\'re Within the Carrying Capacity of The Land. While There Is No
Minimum Number For an Appropriate Management Level, There Has Been
Several Studies Conducted on this Topic.

Chavez: How Do We Determine Minimum Viable Populations?

Glenn: Well, Michelle, There Is Really No Black‑and‑white Answer to
That, but There Has Been Such Research Done. One Study I\'m Aware of Was
Conducted by Robert Franklin in 1980, and That Study Basically Found We
Need at Least 50 Adult Breeding Animals to Maintain Genetic Diversity.
When Dealing with Small Populations We Have to Consider A Couple of
Things. One Would Be That We Would Consider Introduction of Animals From
Other Herd Areas If this Was an Isolated Herd That Was Very Small and We
Were under That 50 Head Number. That\'s Something I Would Definitely
Consider. Something Else Is the Natural Ability of the Herd to Intermix
With Other Nearby Herds. This Was an Important Factor in The California
Case That I Mentioned Where Our Selective Removal Policy Was Challenged.
These People in this Office Analyzed the Situation in Their
Environmental Assessment, and it Was Obvious from Their Ea That This
Herd Could Intermix Freely With Other Herds That Were Nearby and
Therefore, the Genetic Diversity of That Herd Was Maintained. When
We\'re Talking about Selective Removal, We Really Have to Be Careful
about Genetic Diversity and Maintaining the Viability of the Herd. We
Could Actually Manipulate the Sex and Age Structure of the Herd to the
Point Where We Would Actually Have Fewer Breeding Animals out There than
the 50 Head That They Talked about in The Research. So We Have to Be
Real Careful About That, and the Specialist Needs to Make Sure That They
Leave Enough Young Replacement Animals in the Herd to Ensure That
Viability of the Herd.

Chavez: Ron, You Know, Some Folks Are under the Impression Once You Set
an Aml It\'s Set Forever. Could You Clarify That?

Wenker: Oh, No. Through Our Monitoring Studies, We Can Modify the
Appropriate Management Level Either up or Down, and We Would Implement
That New Appropriate Management Level Through the Same Decisions That We
Established in the First Place. So it Is Necessarily a Fixed Number at
All, but it Is Important That We Continue Our Monitoring Studies to
Track If It Is the Appropriate Level.

Chavez: Just as We\'re Being Challenged to Use the Best Science in
Determining Rangeland Health, it Is Clear That the Decisions We Make for
Preserving And Protecting the Wild Horses And Burros Will Also Require a
Good Scientific Foundation. Ron, Can You Tell Us Just What Those Factors
Might Be When Considering the Health of the Horses and Burros?

Wenker: Sure. First of All, We Need to Ensure That Our Monitoring Plans
Take Into Account the Animal Populations as Well as Their Habitat. We
Need to Monitor Both the Vegetation, Climate, Soils, as Well as the
Animal Populations To Collect the Data Necessary to Evaluate Progress or
Lack of Progress in Achieving Our Management Objectives. It Is Certainly
Imperative That We Use the Best Science Available and We Use Approved
Techniques in Our Monitoring Process. We Also Should Ensure That the
Monitoring Programs That We Conduct Are Coordinate with the Other
Disciplines Such as Range Or Wildlife Studies That Are Conducted So That
We Avoid Duplication and That We Can End One a Comprehensive Analysis.
The Census Studies Provide the Basis for Total Herd Production
Monitoring, and the Purpose of The Census Studies Is ‑‑ and Related
Vegetation Studies Is to Ensure That the Appropriate Management Level
That We Establish Is Within the Carrying Capacity of the Land and as
Well As Within That Thriving Natural Ecological Balance. It\'s Critical
for the Managers To Ensure That the Employees Are Trained in Proper
Census Techniques, and the Census Techniques That We Apply Are Approved
Techniques. The National Academy of Sciences Has Recommended Several
Things For Us on Estimating the Herd Size, the Health, Reproduction,
Condition, Distribution, as Well As the Composition. Now, the National
Academy of Science Did Not Recommend That We Need to Conduct Census
Every Year, but They Figured a Two to Three‑year Period Between Our
Census Flights Would Be Adequate For Us to Track the Population Growth
of the Animals. The Credibility of Our Monitoring Program Frequently
Comes under Criticism, and it Is Very Important That Besides Using
Approved Techniques That We Maintain Accurate Records and Keep Those
Records up to Date. When We\'re Conducting Our Census, There\'s Other
Information That Can Be Collected While We\'re Doing That. For Example,
We Can Collect Information on Age and Sex Structure and Ratios, the
Lactation and Pregnancy of the Mares, Distribution of the Animals, as
Well as Various Herd Characteristics Such as Band Size, General
Condition of the Animals, as Well as the Presence Or Absence of Physical
Deformities. The Vegetation and Soils Monitoring Usually Includes Actual
Use as Well as Utilization and Trend. And There\'s Far Too Many Approved
Techniques to Mention Them on this Broadcast, But, Once Again, Ensure
That Our Employees Are Using Approved Techniques, They\'re Properly
Trained, and They Are Maintaining Accurate Records.

Chavez: Don, How Do We Know When Our Monitoring Is Adequate?

Glenn: Well, Michelle, I Think That Question Is Actually Quite a Bit
Easier to Answer Than the One about Minimum Viable Herd. Both the Ibla
and the Federal Court Have Addressed this Question. Again, the Ibla Has
Stated That Our Sole Removal Authority Is to Restore the Thriving
Natural Ecological Balance and Prevent Range Deterioration and That a
Determination of Excess must Be Based on an Intensive Monitoring
Program. Now, this Monitoring Program Must Consider Four Things as Ron
Mentioned: the First Thing That We must Consider Is Grazing Utilization.
Secondly, We Have to Consider Trend and Range Condition. Third, Actual
Use, Which Means Wild Horse and Burro Census as Well as Livestock Actual
Use and Wildlife Population Estimates. And the Fourth Thing We Have to
Consider Is Climatic Factors. The Federal Court, in Addition To Ibla,
Has Also Addressed this Question in a Case Called Blake Versus Babbitt.
This Case Says That Removal Decisions must Be Based on the Best Data
Available. Now, You Might Think That That Conflicts with What Ibla Says
to Some Degree, but it Really Doesn\'t. What this Means, What the Court
Said in Blake Versus Babbitt, Is That We Don\'t Need Five Years\' Worth
of Intensive Trend Data to Make a Removal Decision. What We Need to Do
Is Consider The Best Monitoring Data That We Have Available to Us and
Make Our Decision Based on That. We Still Have to Consider the Four
Things, Grazing Utilization, Trend and Range Condition, Actual Use and
Climatic Factors. But We Don\'t Have to Wait Five Years to Make Our
Decision. As Long as It\'s Based on Monitoring and Analysis of the Data
and It\'s Rational and Reasonable and Not Arbitrary, I Think We\'ll Be
Upheld.

Chavez: Well, Ron, You Know, There Has Been Some Trends in Using
Volunteers and Grazing Permittees in Actually Monitoring Their Livestock
Operations on Public Lands. Is There Any Possibility of Using Volunteers
or a Similar Kind of Program in Monitoring The Wild Horse Program?

Wenker: Absolutely. I Think We Can Use Volunteers Throughout All Phases
Of the Program, from Throughout The Ground Monitoring, Assisting Us
With, Say, Herd Movements, Herd Characteristics, All the Way Through to
Helping Us with Compliance. I Think We Do Need to Assure, Though, That
When We Use Volunteers That We Don\'t Put Them in Hazardous Situations.

Chavez: We Managers Face Some Sensitive Decisions Throughout The
Program. One Area That Has Always Challenged Us to Make a Sound Decision
Is When We\'re Faced With the Problem of Excess Animals. Ron, What Are
Some of the Factors We Need to Take into Consideration When We\'re
Facing Such an Emergency?

Wenker: Well, First of All Removing Animals Is Certainly Part of the Job
to Maintain That Appropriate Management Level. If We Are Doing Our
Monitoring, We Should Be Able to Minimize Those Situations Where We Have
An Emergency. But Even under Best Situations, Emergencies Do Come up
from Time To Time. It Really Is Critical That We Understand Even under
Emergency Situations We Still Have Processes to Follow. For Example, We
Do Need to Follow Nepa as Well as Public Participation in Setting up an
Emergency Gather. Now, Obviously You\'re Not Going To Be Putting out a
Decision on Emergency Gather Allowing Time For Appeal. So Those Kind of
Decisions Will Be Put out in Full Force and Effect. And We Generally
Would Never Issue the ‑‑ a Notice with a 30‑day Notice on the ‑‑ on an
Emergency Gather. On Our Normal Gathers, We Remove The Excess Animals
That Are Above the Appropriate Management Level or Those That Are
Outside The Herd Management Areas. It Is Important to Note That While We
Do Have to Conduct Monitoring to Support Our Removal Decisions, We Do
Not Have to Show Range Deterioration Before Way Do Any Removals.
Congress Has Not Given Us That Authority to Allow for Destruction of the
Range Before We Start Removing Animals. Our Gathers Currently Are
Oriented Towards Removing Excess Healthy Animals for Which an Adoption
Demand Exists. The Selective Removal Approach, As It\'s Called, Was Put
into Place in 1992 and Directs Us to Remove Just Those Younger Animals
That We Can Quickly Move Into the Adoption Program. It Is Important for
the Managers To Realize When We\'re Using the Selective Management
Approach, We Do Need to Use Population Models to Estimate and Try to
Predict the Outcome on Using the Select of Approach. We Need to Monitor
to Ensure That There Are Sufficient Younger Animals as Well as
Sufficient Reproduction to Ensure a Viable, Long‑term Population. Now,
While Gathering Wild Horses And Burros, as Well as on Other Occasions,
it Becomes Necessary From Time to Time to Do a Humane Destruction. Now,
this Obviously Is a Very Sensitive Topic, and It\'s One in Which the
Managers Absolutely Have to Stay Involved In. The Basic Authority for
Humane Destruction Is Found in the 1971 Act Itself. Our Current Policy,
Which Has Just Been Redrafted by Our Washington Office in Consultation
with the Newly Formed Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, States That a
BLM Authorized Officer Does Have The Authority for Humane Destruction of
an Animal If the Animal Shows Any of the Following Conditions: the First
Is That the Animal Displays a Hopeless Prognosis for Life. Two, the
Animal Suffers from a Chronic or Incurable Disease. Three, Requires
Continuous Treatment for the Relief of Pain And Suffering. Four, Is
Incapable of Maintaining a Body Score Greater Than 1 under Standard
Range Conditions. And Five, Presents a Danger to Itself or its Handlers.
Now, the Policy Goes on to State That If an Animal Has Suffered From a
Traumatic Injury or a Condition That Causes Acute Pain And Suffering,
Immediate Humane Destruction Would Be an Act of Mercy. The Authorized
Officer Is Authorized to Carry out the Humane Destruction. Now, the
Second Situation Is If An Animal Suffers from Any of The Conditions That
I Mentioned But it Is Not in Acute Pain. The Current Policy Says the
Authorized Officer Does Have the Authority for Carrying out Humane
Destruction, but Only After Consultation with a Veterinarian. You\'re
Further Directed That That Consultation Should Be Documented as Well as
Notifying Your State Office as Well as the National Program Office of
Your Decision to Humanely Destroy the Animal. Obviously Humane
Destruction Is A Very Sensitive Topic and It\'s One in Which the
Managers Absolutely Have to Stay Involved. My Recommendation to You Is
If You\'re Ever in Doubt, Consult a Veterinarian.

Thomas: Ron, I Would like to Clarify a Little Bit When You Were Talking
about the Draft Policy and You Had on There it Was Condition Class 1 and
What It Is in Case Some People Don\'t Know. I Know Most of the
Specialists Do and That\'s the Heineke Condition Class. Class 1 Is When
the Animal Is Absolute Poorest Condition, Their Backbone Is Way Up,
It\'s Protruding, the Ribs Are Protruding and You Don\'t See a Lot of
Fat in It, but If You Need To, You Can Look up the Condition Classes in
the Heineke. If You Don\'t Have It, Give Us a Call and We\'ll Fax You
One.

Chavez: Thank You, Ron and Lili. It\'s Clear to Me That an Important
Part of Your Message Is That We Cannot Just Make a Decision and Walk
Away from It. We Need to Be Involved Through The Whole Process. Clearly
These Decisions Are Very Tough to Make and Require Close Communications
with Those in the Program. We Want to Make Sure That All BLM Managers
and Specialists Understand Their Responsibilities to Ensure That
Individual Wild Horses and Burros Receive Humane Treatment. In the next
Segment Lili Thomas Will Discuss What We Do with the Animals after They
Have Been Gathered. One of the Things I Discovered, Lili, Wile Working
in Southwest Wyoming Is Once They\'re Gathered And Sorted, Then Those
Animals Become Individuals and They Have Unique Needs. Can You Elaborate
a Little Bit On How We Deal with That?

Thomas: Yeah, I Can Do That. I Think So. You\'re Right, They Do Have
Unique Needs. Successfully Caring for the Individual Animal Is Critical
in Meeting Gathering Objectives and Moving Animals Through the Pipeline
to Adoptions and Ultimately into Private Care and It\'s Really Important
for People Working on the Adoption Side of The Program to Know How Much
Impact They Actually Have on the Healthy Rangelands. In Producing the
Upcoming Video, \"Managing a Legend\", We Did a Number of Interviews,
and Joe Stratton, Assistant Manager of Palomino Valley, Was One of Them,
and He Said Something Really Interesting about this Issue That I Wanted
to Share With Everyone. So Let\'s Roll the Tape on Joe.

Stratton: the Adoption and Gather Is Highly Related to Our Facility
Because in Order for Us To Take Animals in from the Gathers, We Need to
Have Animals Moving out of Our Facility. If There\'s Any Backlog along
the Adoption Route, Which Means That We Cannot Ship Animals out to Other
Adoptions or Other Facilities, Then When We Reach Our Capacity, We Have
No ‑‑ We Can\'t Take Animals from a Gather.

Thomas: as You All Saw, Joe Understands the Interaction We Have Been
Talking about Between The Whole Entire Program but to Go Back Just a
Little Bit as Far As on the History of the Program, When Don Was Talking
About Our First Side of the Box, And That Was the First Laws and The
1971 Wild Horse & Burro Laws, Basically on That Law We Were Mandated to
Keep Healthy, Viable Herds on the Rangeland, And to Do This, as Ron and
Don Have Talked About, You Have to Remove Excess Wild Horses and Burros.
So at this Present Time, We Only Have the Adopt a Horse and Burro
Program as Our Tool, and it Has Been Our Only Tool since 1982.

Glenn: Lili, I Would like to Explain or Elaborate a Little Bit on Your
Comment There. Why Is the Adopt‑a‑horse Program The Only Tool We Have
Tool We Have to Deal with Animals That We Remove from the Range? We Get
the Question from the Field Quite a Bit That, You Know, it Says in the
Regulations That If an Animal Is Unadoptable We Can Humanely Destroy It,
and Since It\'s in the Regulations, Why Can\'t We Do That? Well, the
Answer Is That this Is ‑‑ Has Never Been a ‑‑ an Acceptable Eye Thing to
the Public, to Destroy Healthy Animals. It Was Recognized Way Back in
1982, Our Director at That Time Actually Issued a ‑‑ an Order or A
Directive to Us That Placed a Moratorium on Using That Method Of Dealing
with Unadoptable Animals. And a Short Time Later, I Think Just Within a
Year or Two of That Moratorium by the BLM Itself, the Congress Actually
Picked That up and Put it in as An Appropriations Rider on Our
Appropriation Act. So Basically It\'s Against the Law. That
Appropriations Rider Has Been in There Ever Since, and It\'s Still in
There. So It\'s Against the Law to Use That to Destroy a Healthy Excess
Animals That We Have Removed From the Range.

Thomas: Thank You, Don for Clarifying That. That\'s True. The Adoption
Program Is Our Only Tool and until Another Tool Actually Comes Up, It\'s
Going to Be the One That We Have to Work With. And it Is a Very
Important Tool Because the Public Actually Likes to Be Able to Adopt
Some Of Our Wild Horses and Burros. But as the Individual Animal, When
They Are Removed from the Rangeland, Then Those Particular Animals
Become Individuals. At Pvc, They Are Given a Freeze Mark and That Freeze
Mark Is Just like Your Social Security Number. It\'s Individual for That
Particular Horse. So That Animal Then Goes from The Preparation as an
Individual Animal into Our Adoption Program Where it Is an Individual
Animal. So Those Animals That We Have That Are Shipped Through There And
Put into the Adoption and Then Placed in Private Care, Every Time the
Public Looks at Them, They Are Individual Animals That We Have to Look
At. When We Go Back, When We Deal With the Animals with the
Preparations, We Have to Deal With the Vaccinations That Are There for
Them, the Warming That They Have to Deal With, the Hoof Trimming If Any
Involved When They Stay There. So We Have to Make Sure Those Animals Are
Healthy in the Preparation Facilities. When We Ship These Animals for
Adoptions We Have to Make Sure That Those Animals Are Shipped In
Adequate Trucks, That the Stress and Injury of Those Particular Animals
Are Looked Into and Are Eliminated as Much As Possible. When We Take the
Animals to the Adoption Program, We Have to Make Sure That the People
That Are Going to Adopt the Animal Have Adequate Facility and Adequate
Knowledge on How to Work with Those Particular Animals. When Though Go
into the Private Care, Our Job Doesn\'t Stop. I Mean, That\'s Not the
Problem With It. Those Horses Are Ours. Each Individual Freeze Marked
Animal Belongs to the Federal Government, and You Have to Protect That
Animal until Title Is Passed on It. So When They Go into Private Care,
You Have to Make Sure That The Adopter That Has That Animal Makes Sure
That They Take as Good a Care of Them as You Have Been Able to Take Care
of Them. So Our Job Doesn\'t Stop Just Because Someone Else Has Hands On
and Is Taking Care of That Animal. Now, as a Lot of the Specialists And
Management, We Do Have the Regulations That Govern How We Do Certain
Aspects of the Program and There Is a Large Part of it in There in Our
Regulars. We Also Have a Preparation Handbook That\'s Been out for a
Couple Years. We Are Going to Have the Adoption Handbook and Compliance
Handbook out Sometime this Summer. So All of Those Are Tools for You to
Look At, and They\'re Basic Tools. What it Comes Right down To, Is The
People Hired to Administer This Program Also Have to Use Common Sense
and They Also Have To Have the Knowledge That the Wild Horse and the
Wild Burro Are Individual Animals and That They Have to Be Taken Care
Of, And You Have to Ensure That They Have the Best Proper Care That You
Can Give Them. So You Need to Look at Regulations and Handbooks, but You
Also Need to Use Common Sense When You\'re Looking at Animals. The Other
Regs That We\'ve Had That\'s Been New since March 7th Of 1997, Was When
We Changed the Fee on the Animals. Now, We Had a Lot of People in The
Public Sector That Wanted The Burros Fee to Go up and Also Wanted the
Wild Horses Fees to Go Up. So What the Bureau Decided to Do Is to Raise
the Fee on Every Freeze Marked Animal to \$125. And That Means Every
Foal and Every Burro. So All Animals Now Are \$125. But They Also ‑‑
They Gave You Another Tool, and That\'s What it Is, It\'s a Tool, It\'s
Something That We Can Use. It May Not Work in Every Situation, but it Is
a Tool, and That Was with the Competitive Bidding. That ‑‑ the Reason
for That Tool To Be Was So That the Public, Not BLM, Could Put a Value
on These Animals, That If They Saw Flicka\" out There and They That\'s
the One They Wanted, They Had a Chance to Get Him. It Was Not to
Increase the Revenue, but it Was to Allow the Public to Have a Little
More Control over the Animals That They Want to Adopt So That They Get
the Animal That They Want to Adopt, They Take That Animal Home, and
They\'re Pleased with It and They Take Really Good Care of it and
That\'s the Bottom Line, Is Those Horses\' Health And Condition. So That
Was the Reason for this Particular Tool to Be Used. There Are Different
Types of Ways of Doing It. We Can Still Use Our Traditional Ways Right
Now and We Can Also Use Competitive Bidding. A Memo on How to Do
Competitive Bidding Should Be Coming out Pretty Soon. Some People Have
Done It. Some People Have the Memo. So We\'re Still in the Process of
Learning How to Get this Worked Out with the Public and with the BLM. It
Is New, It\'s a Pilot, and So We Have That. The Other Thing Is That
We\'re Going to Have a Regulation out On the Change of Power of
Attorneys. There\'s a Lot of People That Have Been in this Program for a
Long Time, and They Use Those, Or the Adopters Use Them. You No Longer
Will Be Able to Do That. This Spring When That Regulation Comes Out, it
Will Eliminate the Ability for the Adopter to Use Power of Attorney. So
You Need to Keep up with What Regulations That Are out There Because
They Do Change and They Have a Big Impact on What We\'re Going to Do,
Because If You\'re Not Paying Attention to the Regulations, and You Go
Ahead And Do Power of Attorney, You\'re Jumping out of That Box Again.
You Know, We Can Get in a Lot of Trouble over That. So You\'ve Got to
Pay Attention To That and You Have to Use Common Sense. The Thing on the
Individual Animals and Director Shea Said It in His Speech this Morning,
Was Basically They Come First. That Animal Comes First. You Have to
Ensure its Health. You Have to Do the Best Possible Care That You Have
and the Resources You Have to Do That With, and as Long as You\'re Doing
Your Best in Ensuring That Health of That Particular Animal, Then
You\'re Doing Your Job. So I Think That\'s about it as Far as
Individuals.

Chavez: Thank You, Lili. Just for Our Viewing Audience, I Did Want to
Mention in Phoenix We\'re Experiencing Quite a Thunderstorm with Some
Lightning. So If You Happen to Get Some Interference in Your Downlink,
It\'s Probably as a Result of the Lightning That\'s Coming in All Around
Us Here. We Have a Lot to Do to Keep Those Horses Healthy Once They\'re
Gathered and on Their Way to a Good Home, and You Know, the Job Isn\'t
Done Even Then. Now We Get into That Part of the Program Which Affects
Every Manager in the BLM, That Is, Compliance. Once These Horses and
Burros Are Adopted, They Will Be Showing up In Your Backyards Where
Field Offices must Ensure the Continued Care for the Adopted Animals.
Gary, Will You Discuss Just What Sort of Challenges We\'re Faced with
Dealing with Compliance?

Bauer: You Bet, Michelle. This Is Really the Part of the Program, I
Think, for Anybody Out There Who Is Asking Themselves Why They Tuned in
When They Don\'t Have Any Herds To Manage, No Amls to Establish, No
Gather Plans to Right Write Or Any Satellite Adoptions to Conduct,
Compliance Touches Every Office in BLM, as Ron Said, We Even Have
Untitled Animals in Alaska. So Every Office Is Involved in This Part of
the Program. And in Many Ways I Think this Part of the Program May Be
the Least Understood. The Key to Understanding and Managing a Sound
Compliance Program Is, Number One, to Recognize the Breadth of this Part
of the Program and How Integral it Really Is to the Overall Success of
Our Mission. Effective Compliance Really Takes Place as a Part of Our
Overall Program. But, First, I\'d like to Talk About the More Obvious
Part of The Program and That Is Those Compliance Activities That Take
Place Post Adoption. The Wild Horse & Burro Adoption Program Policy
Analysis Team, That\'s a Long Title, So It\'s Referred to as the Culp
Report, Did an Outstanding Job of Concisely Defining Workable and Clear
Recommendations to Improve Compliance, Titling and Overall Post Adoption
Management. Some of the Highlights from the Policy Analysis Team Include
Program to Deal with Backlog Titling, a Realistic One‑time Project to
Deal with Old Cases To Be Able to Focus Our Resources. The Requirement
to Increase Our Titling Rate on New Adoptions to 98%. A Clear Focus for
‑‑ of ‑‑ for Department of Justice Efforts on The Egregious Cases. The
Need to Implement and Maintain a Positive Compliance Program Based on
Systematic Follow Up. There\'s the Requirement for a 100% Telephone
Follow up with All Adopters Within Six Months Of an Adoption. There\'s a
Real Clear Purpose in This. Number One, to Alert Adopters to A Presence
of the Compliance Program And, Also, to Assist If The Adopter Is Having
Difficulties, Because this Is One of the Areas Where it Really Give Us
the Opportunity to Work With Folks in an Education Mode. There\'s the
Requirement to Increase On‑site Compliance to Ensure That 95% of
Untitled Animals Adopted Within the Last Five Years Are Being Cared for.
Clearly We Need to Use Creativity Here, Mous Where Practical and So
Forth, to Achieve That Level of On‑site Compliance. We Need to Apply
Uniform Policy On Repossession, Documentation And Administrative Actions
as Many of the Folks Here Have Already Talked about. We Need to Include
Consistent Titling for Properly Cared for Animals So That We Can Reduce
Our Paper Work and Focus Our Resources on Problem Cases. It\'s Important
That We Send Certified Letters to New Adopters Also Who Have Not
Obtained Title after 15 Months. We Realize That We\'ve Spent a
Tremendous Amount of Time and Effort in Clearing up Old Backlog Cases,
and These Recommendations Are Very Solid In Terms of Preventing Those
Back Logs from Being Incurred in The Future. The Policy Analysis Team,
or Culp Reports Recommendations, Also Relate to Law Enforcement\'s
Integration into the Program and I Think this Is One of the Most
Important Things for the Managers to Be Aware Of. It\'s Really Important
That We Have Sound Enforcement of Record Keeping Requirements for
Slaughterhouses. This Is under 43 Cfr 9260 and That\'s an Important Task
to Focus Our Law Enforcement Efforts On. Another Element That\'s
Extremely Important Is to Ensure That We\'re Closely Coordinating
Compliance Between Wild Horse And Burro Staff and Law Enforcement. The
Reasons for This, I Think, Are Fairly Obvious. Number One, We Can Easily
Be Going along with an Administrative Case and Suddenly That Case Can
Become a Long Enforcement Issue Without Integral Involvement of Law
Enforcement We May Not Have the Proper Documentation and Prework
Necessarily ‑‑ Necessary to Follow up on a Law Enforcement Case. Another
Element That I Think Is Important Is There\'s a Real Value in Joint
Visits in Some Cases of Law Enforcement Personnel and Wild Horse & Burro
Specialists Visiting Adopters to Talk about the Program and Ensure That
We\'re Achieving Compliance. Above All, I Want to Emphasize That It\'s
Essential That We Timely Follow up on All Complaints. In Order to Have
an Effective Program, There\'s Really Two Key Components One Is the
Education And Assistance Side of the Program, and this Is the Kind of
Compliance, I Think, That We Typically Encounter, Those Situations Where
We Have Adopt‑a‑horses Perhaps Need Information or Are Concerned About
How to Care for Their Animal or Perhaps Don\'t Completely Understand the
Regulations and Requirements. That\'s One Part. The Other Part, Though,
Is I Think That We Need to Emphasize That We Strong Action on Those
Kinds of Compliance Violations Which Are Either Repeat Offenders or
Serious Offenders. Those Are the Areas That We Really Need to Make Sure
We Have A Strong Compliance Presence. Now I\'d like to Focus on the
Preadoption Phase of Compliance, And this Part May Be a Little Bit
Surprising to Some of You, But in Reality, Compliance Begins Way Back up
the Pipeline With the Removal of Adoptable Animals. It\'s Important That
the More Adoptable Animals That We\'re Providing to the Public, the Less
Likely We Are to Have Compliance Concerns. It\'s Important That We
Involve In Compliance an Education and Outreach Program That Is Very
Proactive So That People Have Information and Knowledge That They Need
to Properly Care for Their Animals Once They Get Those Animals in Their
Presence. It\'s Also Important That We Have A Good Process of Screening
and Counseling Prospective Adopters. I Think the Timing of an Adoption
for an Adopter Is Very Important. Frequently I Think Our Best Adopters
Are Those People Who May Come to an Event, See How The Process Works,
See What the Animals Are Like, Talk to People Who Have Already Adopted
and Really Come Back Later and Then Adopt an Animal When They Have The
Facilities, They\'re Mentally Prepared and So Forth. After All, the
Success in this Program Is Achieving Good Homes For Horses and Burros,
Not to Have Success Be Measured by 100% Of All Animals That Go to an
Adoption Are Adopted. And I Know We\'ve Always Said and We Tell Our
Folks That, You Know, We\'re Not Concerned Necessarily about Adopting
Every Animal That Comes to an Event. We\'re Concerned That Those Animals
Find Good Homes So That We Can, Therefore, Reduce Our Compliance and
Also Really Focus On What I Consider to Be the White Hat Part of this
Program, Which Are Those People out There Who Really Care for Those
Animals and Really Have Tremendous Success with Them. In Summary on
Compliance, I Think It\'s Important That We Recognize That We Need to
Deal With Older Cases to Clear Records and Focus Our Limited Resources.
That We Carry out a 100% Phone Follow up with All Adopters Within Six
Months of Their Adopting an Animal, That We Carry out On‑site Adoption
That Ensures That a 95% Confidence Level That We Have Those Animals
Adopted Within the Last Five Years Are Receiving Good Care. That We
Include Law Enforcement Contact and Action If Necessary With
Slaughterhouses Relative to Their Record Keeping. And That We Maintain
an Integral Law Enforcement and Administrative Program That Includes
Sound Documentation, That We Educate and Inform People, But, and I Want
to Ohm Faux Size this Again, We Deal Very Decisively with Repeat and
Serious Cases. We Need to Recognize That ‑‑ the Compliance Aspect of the
Entire Program, Again, All the Way up The Pipeline, as Ron Talked About,
That Really Compliance Is Involved. And an Important Thing to Do Is To
Use Your Adopter Network. You Know This, Program Is Sort Of Fraught with
Networks, You Know, Networks Can Hurt Us or Help Us, and Truly, the
Cadre of Volunteers and Folks like That That We Have out There That Have
Successfully Adopted and Are Doing Some Really Tremendous Things out
There, Are Tremendous Assets That We Need to Tap Fully. And the Bottom
Line Is to Remember, as the Director Said, Too, We Need to Focus on the
Horse and Burro as the Customer As Well as the Adopter, Because I Think
That\'s Really an Important Part of this Whole Thing, Is the Bottom
Line, Lili\'s Talked about It, the Horses Are Individuals, These Folks
We\'re Dealing with Are Individuals, Every Case Is Different. I Think
That\'s One of the Real Challenges in Compliance. It\'s Also One of the
Real Rewards of Working with That Variety of Animals and People.

Chavez: Thank You, Gary. At this Point We Would like to Mention to Our
Viewers That in a Few Minutes We Will Be Opening The Phones up Again to
Hear from You. So Start Thinking about What Questions or Comments You
May Have for Our Panel. As We Just Discussed, Compliance
Responsibilities Are a Critical Part of Our Job, and along with That Is
a Thorough and Accurate Keeping of Records. The Job We Do in Record
Keeping Also Establishes Our Credibility In the Whole Program. Ron Is
Going to Help Us Understand More about the Administrative
Responsibilities Of the Program. Ron?

Wenker: Well, I Think It\'s Extremely Important That We All Recognize
That Maintaining Accurate Records Is Extremely Important. I Don\'t Think
We Can Stress That Enough. Our Credibility Continues to Be Eroded Every
Time Errors in Our Records Are Pointed out. In Our New 1998 Directives
from Washington, it Has Directed Us To Ensure That Those Employees That
We Have That Have a Job Responsibility for Inputting Data into the Wild
Horse and Burro Information System Have a Critical Element in Their
Effort To Ensure That this Data Is Accurately Put into the System. It\'s
Also Important, I Think, to Go Back and to Clean up the Old Data That We
Have to Ensure Accuracy. We Are Going to Have a Little Different Way of
Reporting Units In the Future, and We\'re Going To Be Looking at Having
Units Reported Through the Wild Horse And Burro Information System. So
That\'s Critical That We Make Sure That the Information That\'s In That
Computer System Is Absolutely Accurate.

Thomas: I\'ll Kind of Tag onto You, on this Thing, Ron, as Far As on
Information to Make Sure That It\'s Accurate. When I Talked about the
Adoption Program and How the Horses Were Individuals, and We Talked
about The Freeze Marks That They Have, When Those Animals Do Come off
The Public Rangeland, Then All Preparation Facilities Have to Freeze
Mark These Animals, and That\'s Where the Record Keeping Starts. It
Starts Right There. Well, Actually it Can Start Back As Far as in Some
of the Gathers. But the Individual Record Keeping of That Individual
Animal Starts with the Preparation, and That Freeze Mark Is How We Track
Those Animals. Like I Said Before, We\'re Responsible for Those
Particular Animals. So When They Go from the Preparation Facility and
You Ship Them off To, Let\'s Say, Elm Creek, Then You Have to Do
Shipping Records, and You Don\'t Want to Wait Three Months Before You Do
That Shipping Record, Because There\'s No Telling Where This Particular
Horse Is Going To Be in That Three Months. So It\'s Got to Be Accurate,
but It\'s Got to Be Timely So That You Know What That Horse ‑‑ Where
That Horse Ghosts Goes. He Goes from Elm Creek and Then Back East to an
Adoption. There Is Another Shipping Record That Has to Be Done. And That
Has to Be Done in a Timely Manner So We Know Where That Horse Is All the
Time, or Burro. So When He Gets Adopted, We Need To Make Sure We Know
Where That Animal Goes. So That That Information Has to Be Entered in
Accurately and in A Timely Manner. The Other Part of it Is, Unlike Some
Things, They Say the Titling That Ends It, the Horse Is No Longer Our
Responsibility, It\'s Not Federal Property, It\'s Not Considered a Wild
Horse Anymore. Well, in Our Record Keeping, That\'s Not Necessarily
True, Because When the Horse Is Titled, If Several Years down The Line,
like When John Dennis Brought His Fax In, He Says, What Happens When
this Horse Ends up in a Sale Barn or Somebody Sells it There and There
Is No Title That Goes with It. So You Have to Have That Record Keeping
to Find out. Oh, Yeah, You Know, this Horse Is Titled. He Has Been
Titled for Three Years. Or Then, Oh, No, We Send Gary in With Law
Enforcement and They Go from There. So Basically You Need to Keep
Accurate Records Because We Are The Caretakers of These Particular
Animals, and That\'s The Only Way We Can Track Them. So It\'s Very
Important to Have The Consistency And, as Ron Said, as Far as on the New
Whbis System, it Should Be Easier. We Hope it Will Be.

Chavez: We\'re Having a Fairly Good Discussion on Record Keeping. I
Think Those of Us Facing April 15th and Our Tax Returns, We Certainly
Know How Important it Is to Keep Every Little Bit Documentation That We
Can. Before We Finish up this Discussion, I Would like Again To Mention
to Our Viewers That In a Couple of Minutes We Will Be Taking Your Calls
or Faxes. So Now Is the Time to Start Calling. We\'re Looking Forward to
Hearing From You. Don, What about Record Keeping In Monitoring and
Census.

Glenn: I Was Going to Say, Michelle, There Is More to it Than the Freeze
Mark and the Stuff Lili Talked About, Although That\'s Very Important.
We Also Need to Be Thinking About Our Record Keeping for Our Monitoring
Data since the Ibla Has Told Us That Our Sole Authority to Remove Is to
Maintain That Thriving Ecological Balance and Prevent Deterioration of
the Range, and The Only Way We Can Show That Is Through a Monitoring
Program. You Can See That If You Don\'t Either Have the Data or You
Can\'t Find What You Collected in Years Past, You\'re Not Going to Be
Able to Make Your Decision to Remove Horses or Support it If We Have to
Go to Court on It. So We Got to Make Darn Sure That We Keep Our Census
Records Clear Back from Day One. We Never Throw Those Away. You Can\'t
Believe How Many Times I\'ve Had to Go Back in and Say, Well, What
Happened ‑‑ How Many Horses Did We Have 20 Years Ago, And How Much of an
Increase in The Population Have We Had over The Years and That Sort of
Thing. It\'s Something We Really Need to Do, Is Keep Those Good Records
On Monitoring. Ron Touched on It, Too. So I Just Wanted to Reemphasize
That.

Bauer: Don and Michelle, I Would like to Take Us to the Other End of the
Pipeline and Point out Once Again in Terms of Compliance, We Have Spent
a Tremendous Amount of Effort in The Bureau of Land Management Dealing
with Work Loads in Compliance That Were Brought on By Record Issues, and
I Think It\'s Extremely Important That as We Deal with Back Logs and Get
Those Back Logs Caught up That We\'re Making Sure That We\'re Really
Doing a Diligent Job of Keeping Those Records Current Following up per
the Culp Report And Not Rebuilding a Backlog Just like the One We\'re
Working Through Right Now to Get Taken Care Of. It\'s Kind of like
Don\'t Dig the Hole Any Deeper While We\'re Trying to Take Care of the
Problem.

Wenker: While It\'s Not an Administrative Responsibility, I Think We
Need to ‑‑ Administrative Responsibility, I Think We Need to Make
Mention of The Safety in the Wild Horse & Burro Program. There\'s a Lot
of Areas Where Our Employees, Our Contractors or Volunteers Can Be
Injured. I Think It\'s Absolutely Essential That the Managers Be Aware
of Those Situations, Give Training Where Appropriate and Minimize Those
Kind of Hazards So That We Don\'t Put Our Employees in a Hazardous
Situation.

Chavez: Thank You All for This Discussion on Record Keeping. Well, It\'s
That Time Again. So Pick up the Phone or Send Us A Fax. Our Panel Is
Here to Help Answer Those Questions You May Have, And with a Program as
Complex as This One, I Know There Are Many. We Have a Fax from Salt Lake
City We Received in the First Half of the Program And, Don, I Was
Wondering If Would You Try To Answer this One. Actually It\'s
Specifically Addressed to You. When You Canceled Your Gathers In Wyoming
Because of the Backlog with the Pipeline, How Was That Decision Made and
Coordinated Between the State And the National Program Office?

Glenn: That\'s a Good Question, Michelle. It\'s Something That We May
All Be Faced with That Deal with the Herd Management Aspect of the
Program. I\'ll Tell You, it Wasn\'t an Easy Decision to Make. We Had a
Lot of Contact, Almost Daily, From, Oh, Probably a Couple of Weeks Ago
until We Made the Decision with Both the National Program Office, Tom
and His Staff, as Well as Bud and The Folks up in Washington. It\'s Real
Important That You Keep Those Folks Involved in Any Of These Kind of
Decisions That You\'re Making Right Now Because Of the Sensitivity in
the Program. We Thought about it Long and Hard. The Pipeline Is Still
Plugged Up. It\'s Really Difficult to ‑‑ Basically We Were Faced with
Keeping the Horses We Gathered And Feeding Them for an Undetermined
Period of Time, and Our State Director, Al Pearson, Made the Decision
Based on the Fact That We Didn\'t Think That We Could Afford the Budget
to Feed Those Horses Without Some Indication That We Could Ship Them in
a Reasonable Period of Time. So We Thought it Was Better to Just Go
Ahead and Cancel the Gathers and Hope That the Pipeline Clears out by
July When We Want to Start Again.

Chavez: Well, You Know, There\'s Another Part to this Question, Lili and
I Think You Might Be Able to Help Us with This One. As the Pipeline
Situation Evolves Through the Season Who Will Decide If Additional
Gathers Will Be Canceled and This Is the Part I Thought Could You Help
With, Is How Will Gathers Be Prioritized on a Bureauwide Basis?

Thomas: Well, That Is a Very Good and Timely Question. From What I
Understand, We Will Probably Look at All Gathers That Are Going to Be in
All States, and Each State Will Have To Prioritize Which Gathers They
Find, You Know, the Most Important Ones. So I\'m Not Quite Sure Exactly
The Time Will Be When We Will Ask for this Information. I Know We Will
Be Talking about This at Our National Meeting in May. Then That
Information Will Go up Into Washington, and They Will Actually Look at
the ‑‑ and Prioritize at How Many Animals You\'re Looking At, Gathering,
How Many Animals You Are Looking At Removing, What Type of Year, Whether
It\'s Right in July, Whether It\'s in September. So You Kind of Need
Everybody, I Think, in Their Offices to Look At What Your Priority Is,
You Know, Because You Know That Better than I Know. I Mean, You Know
What You\'re Facing out There on the Range. So, You Know, You Have to
Look At Your State and Your District And Prioritize What Gathers That
You Want and Then We\'ll Probably Be Calling for That Information. I
Hope That Answers.

Chavez: Again, for Those of You Sending in Faxes, If You Feel That We
Haven\'t Done an Adequate Job of Answering Your Question, Please Call in
So That We Can Have a Little Bit of Interchange, or We Will Try to
Follow up after the Program. We Have a Fax Here from the Kingman Field
Office. When Establishing Amls Within an Established Herd Management
Area, What Techniques or Ideas Do You Have to Address Wilderness and
Riparian Values Which May Be Impacted? I Think Both Don and Ron Perhaps
We Could Get Some Response from You.

Wenker: I\'m Not Sure If I Can Offer You Any Techniques, but My
Suggestion Would Be the Time to Deal with Riparian Issues, Wilderness
Issues Is When You\'re Doing Your Decision. You Need to Involve the
Public In Preparing the Decision, in Preparing Your Nepa Document, And
Through That Involvement, You Should Be Able to Get Advice As to the
Proper Considerations For Those Values.

Chavez: Great. Thank You for That Fax. We Have a Call from Valerie out
Of Meeker. Good Morning, Valerie.

Caller: Hi, There. Hi, Lili, Hi Don. Nice Seeing You a Couple Weeks Ago.
As You Know, Our Wild Horse & Burro Strategic Plan Is Considered a
Policy Document, And it Outlines, among Other Things, Our Ground
Management Strategies. Now, Shifting over to the Culp Report, on Page 7
of the Culp Report, There\'s a Statement Made That Ground Management
Remains The Highest Priority in Our Program and That Field Staff Funding
and Program Funding Should Not Be Reduced in Order To Implement Any of
the Culp Recommendations. Now, in Light of That Culp Statement, I Have
Some Concern About a Continued Lack of Field Funding, as Jim Stated
Earlier, And the Fact That the Culp and Pearson Recommendations Do
Indeed Seem to Have Taken Priority over Some Our Ground Management
Actions. In Light of This, I Guess I\'m Asking Either Lili or Don for
Their Thoughts on the Possibility of Our Meshing Some Of the
Culp/pearson Recommendations with Our Strategic Plan Recommendations.
And, Secondly, If Any Thought Has Been Given to Whether or Not There\'s
Going to Be a Continued Decrease in Field Funding in Order to Implement
The Culp Recommendations?

Glenn: Well, Valerie, That\'s Kind of a Hard Question to Answer, but I
Think Part of the Key to it Is What You Said Yourself about Meshing the
Two Together. I Think Right Now What We Have To Do Is Do Our Best with
the Funding We Have to Really Do Both Things. The on the Ground
Management Definitely Is the Number One Priority in the Horse Program.
That\'s Really Why We\'re Here. But, on the Other Hand, like Lili Said,
We Have to Ensure the Well‑being of the Individual Animals. Lili, Do You
Want to Add Anything to That?

Thomas: Well, It\'s a Concern. I Know like Jim Had it and Valerie Has
It. The People in the Field See That They\'re Slipping and Everything Is
in the Disposition and at This Point in Time, We\'re Going To Have to
Try to Work More as a National Program. You Know, this Idea That There
Is the Herd Management and Adoption, And, Granted, the Adoption Is a
Tool, and That\'s What it Is, It\'s a Tool, but It\'s the Only One
We\'ve Got, So Until Something Else Changes, We\'ve Got to Maximize That
Tool. Right Now We\'re Having a Harder Time with it Because We Have
These Horses in There. So, You Know, I\'m Hoping That We As a Group Will
Be Able to Come Up with Some Ideas. Now, the National Program Has, Along
with Washington, Tried and Are Trying Some Different Innovative Ways of
Moving Animals Through the Pipeline. We Started with the Western States
Plan. We\'re Looking at Various Different Types of Training Things. So
We\'re Trying to Kind of Mesh Those Two Things, but I Think That the
Field on Both Sides Are Going to Have to Be Kind of Patient with Us
until We Get Through this.

Bauer: I Would like to Add to That. I Think We Need to Recognize, It\'s
Almost like You\'re Running A Large Project Here, You Know, And If You
Have a Large Inventory, You Know, Even Though We Have Understand It\'s
Important to Keep the Production End or the Inlet End of the Pipeline
Focused and It\'s Important to Take Care of Land And So Forth, as I
Mentioned Earlier in One of the Questions, If We Don\'t Respond to Those
Culp Recommendations, Don\'t Respond to the Public Concerns About the
Program and We Don\'t Recognize the Inventory Situation We Have Right
Now with Animals, the Overall Program Will Break down. We\'ve Got to
Take Care of the Business That Has to Be Taken Care of Right Now, and I
Think That There Are Someways That We Can Mesh the Two Together. We Need
to Recognize That Obviously Range Condition Is Another Issue. We Could
Face Additional Lawsuits as Don Talked about. It\'s One of Those Things.
I Think It\'s a Very Topical Question for Our Management Perspective.
It\'s like Where Do You Put Your Limited Resources? It\'s a Very Did You
Have One to Deal with. But I Think We Have to Look at The Whole Picture
from the Beginning to the End to Really Make Those Decisions.

Chavez: Valerie, Thank You Very Much for Your Call. I Hope That Gave You
a Satisfactory Answer.

Caller: Yes, Thank You. It\'s Encouraging to Me. I Agree the Concept Is
Needing To Mesh the Two Facets of the Program, Is Absolutely Vital and
It\'s Good to Hear All of You up There Today Recognizing That as Well.

Chavez: We Also Have Art Tate From Cedar City, Utah. Good Morning, Art?

Caller: Hi.

Chavez: How Are You this Morning?

Caller: I Have a Lot of Questions. Gary Tried to Answer Part of Them. I
Am Not Sure He D I\'m Not Sure Any of Us Can. But it Is a Considerable
Concern. I Guess I Basically Have Three Points to Make. One Is the
Reapplication Issue For Adoptions. In Utah We Have the Five Adoption
Scheduled and We\'re Look to Go Adopt Three to 500 Animals. Right Now We
Have Reapplied less Than 100 Applicants for Those For the Year. So I
Hope That Increases. I Think Part of That\'s Due to The Price of the
Animals, et Cetera, and How That\'s Taken Care of and I Know We\'re Not
Trying to Fund the Total Program, but in One Sense It\'s Probably Hurt
Us from the Standpoint of Individuals Being Able to Afford the Cost of
Two Animals and Then to Care and Maintain Them. But That\'s a Concern.
And I Know the Regulations Have Set it Up, So There Won\'t Be a Change
to That Part. But I Think That\'s Something That We Definitely Have to
Look At If We\'re Really Trying to Put These Animals into Homes. People
Want to Take Care of Them And Manage Them. The Second Part, I Think, of
This Discussion, We\'ve Talked About and Was Answered a Little Bit about
Cancelling Gathers, If Our Monitoring Studies Has Indicated That We\'ve
Had to Remove the Animals, Then How Do We, You Know, as Gary Mentioned,
Somewhere down the Road We Got To Face That. But If Our Ranges Are
Indicating They Need to Be Removed and We Don\'t Remove Them,what Do ‑‑
What Are We Facing in That Aspect Both from the Standpoint Of the Health
of the Land as Well as the Entire Horse Program And its Effect out
Allocated Uses? And I Think the Third Thing Is The Budget Issue That
We\'ve Talked About, and I Realize We\'ve Got to Look at the Entire
Program Together, but Right Now I Think the State of Utah, We\'ve Got
Funding That We Can Possibly Put on One Part‑time Individual To Assist
Us, and That\'s for the Entire State, and I Think Somewhere We\'ve Got
to Look at If We\'re Going to Really Do a Good Job, First, We\'ve Got to
Be Able to Remove the Animals from The Land to Maintain the Proper
Balance, and Then We\'ve Got to Be Able to Take Care of Our Business
Once We Do Remove Them.

Chavez: Thank You, Art. Quite a Few Questions There. I Think I\'ll Let
Gary Start.

Bauer: Well, Art, How You Doing? Good to Talk to You.

Caller: Thanks.

Bauer: I Think You\'re Hitting On One of the Key Points That Really
Faces Us. It Almost on the Face of it Is Is an Insurmountable Challenge.
That Is, How Do We Manage to Deal with Populations out There Recognizing
That While We\'re Holding up on Gathers and So Forth the Situation
Worsens and We Get More and More Horses out There. At the Same Time,
We\'ve Got this Tremendous Inventory. I Know One of the Things That
We\'re Looking at Is a Western Adoption Strategy. We Think That There
May Be Some Opportunities There to Do a Little More Assessment of Where
Our Markets Might Be, If I Can Use That Term, in Terms of Where There
Are Adopters. There Are Probably Populations Of Adopters out There We
Haven\'t Reached Yet That Would Be Fully Qualified. I Think If They Were
Brought Into the Program and Educated, These May Be the Folks That, You
Know, I Mentioned Earlier, That Might Need To, You Know, Come to Events
and Kind of Get Familiar With the Program but Find out That, Hey, this
Is Something I Want to Do. So I Think That We Need to Be Creative in
Terms of How We Look For Means to Move Animals Through That Pipeline to
Good Homes. But the Other Part of the Question Is How Do We Really Deal
with These Situations Where We Know We Have to Get Horses Off the Range?
I Think That Goes Back to Something Lili Said Earlier and That Was, That
Was an Earlier Question about How Are We Going To Prioritize These Needs
for Gathers? And I Think That\'s Going to Come Down to the Critical
Monitoring Data, Whether Clearly Litigation May Play a Part Eventually
down The Line. Art, I Don\'t Know If That Really Answers Your Question.
It\'s One of These Where It\'s Kind of like We\'re All in this Together
and We Need to Figure Out How to Work Our Way Through This Inventory. In
My Mind, the Inventory Is One Of the Key Items That We Absolutely Have
to Deal with Because We\'re Not ‑‑ We\'re Just Going to Be Spending More
and More Dollars Caring for and Feeding Animals That Are in Facilities
If We Can\'t Figure Out a Way to Free up That Adoption End and Work on
Basically What I Would Call the Placement of Animals.

Wenker: I Would Agree with You, Gary, and I Have the Exact Same Concern
That You Do, Art. But I Think We Have Been Talking About the
Interrelationships of This Program, and the Only Outlet We Have Today,
the Only Viable Outlet, Is Through the Adoption. I Think That\'s Why
You\'re Seeing Increased Emphasis in the West To Try and Place Some of
These Animals in Private Care and Maintenance to Try and Clear up This
Backlog of Animals That We\'ve Got.

Chavez: Thank You, Art, for Your Question. I Really Appreciate That.

Caller: Thanks. Good Luck to All of You. I Know We\'ve Got a Challenge.
I Think the Marketing Is the Only Answer Right Now, but We\'re A Long
Ways and I\'m Afraid We\'ve Got a Lot of Horses to Feed in The Meantime.

Chavez: Thank You, Art. We Have a Fax Here from New Mexico, and Lili
Perhaps You Can Help Us with this One: What Kind of Marketing Program Is
Underway? Has There Been a Marketing Survey to Determine Where to Place
Horses?

Thomas: No, at this Time There Hasn\'t Been a Marketing Survey, but the
Public Affairs People in Washington, Eastern States, in the West Are All
Looking at ‑‑ They Did Sit Down, I Don\'t Know, a Couple Weeks Ago,
Three Weeks Ago, Not Sure What the Date Was, but They Did Sit down Back
in Eastern States, And They Developed Kind of a ‑‑ A Wish List of What
We Would Like to See Marketing People to Look At. So at this Point It\'s
Kind of in The Baby Stages, but They Are Moving Toward, You Know, Doing
It as Far as Trying to Look at How to Go about If We Go to a College,
Whether We Go to a University, Whether We Go to a Marketing Firm. They
Are Looking into It. Hopefully Pretty Fast.

Chavez: for Our Viewing Audience, We Are Getting Quite a Few Questions
Coming In, Particularly on Faxes, and What We\'d like to Do Is Carry
over a Little Bit So That We Can Give Adequate Attention to Those
Questions While We\'re on the Air. So We Are Going to Be Going over Our
Scheduled Time a Little Bit. We Have a Call from Terry Lewis In Eastern
States. Good Morning, Terry.

Caller: Good Afternoon from Here.

Chavez: Oh, That\'s Right! Good Afternoon, Terry.

Caller: Yes. Thanks for Taking the Call. My Question Is, Maybe Going a
Little Counter to Some of the Thinking Right Now, What\'s the
Possibilities That Maybe We Could Have a Few Adoptions Where We Reduce
Fees, Looking at These Animals Not Necessarily Just as A Commodity, but
That\'s Standard Business Practice If You Have Too Much of Something,
You Might Reduce Fees, Maybe Even 25 Bucks, in the Long‑term Care of An
Animal, That\'s Minuscule but It Gives Something for the Folks Doing
P.r. New to Hang There Hat On. What Is the Possibility of Doing That.

Thomas: I\'ll Answer You That, Terry. Have You Had Lunch Yet? Basically
We\'ve Thought about That and It\'s Come Up, You Know, Quite a Few
Times. One of the Things That You Cannot Do Because of the Way the
Appropriations Rider Is and Because of the Way That the Regulations Are
Written Is You Cannot Reduce Fees on an Animal That Is Considered
Adoptable. It Has to Be Considered Unadoptable. So When I Finish This,
One of The Tasks That I Have Is to Work With Washington and Bud\'s Shop
To Look at What Would Be Our Criteria for Unadoptable Animals. And
Probably What We\'d Do ‑‑ Because They Did this at Some of The Other
Competitive Bidding, Is They Actually Reduced the Fees on Horses That
Were Considered Unadoptable Because Of Injury Reasons, and People Bid
Them Back Up. So it Was Kind of an Interesting Type of a Deal. But
We\'re Going to Be Looking at That Criteria. And That Should Be
Hopefully Coming out Soon Because We Need To Do Something like That, You
Know, Quite Readily.

Chavez: Does That Answer Your Question, Terry?

Caller: Yeah, Thanks. I Just Hope You Give Us a Few More Things That We
Can Do to Try to Get a Kickstart in the Adoption Business in this
Program.

Thomas: If You Have Any More Ideas, Terry, Give Me a Call.

Bauer: You Bet, Folks. You Folks Are Some of the Best In the Business
Back There and I Think We\'re Going to Try to Tap A Lot of Your Ideas in
Eastern States for this Western Strategy As Well.

Chavez: and for Anyone Else Who Is in the Viewing Audience Today, If You
Have Any Ideas You Would like to Share with Lili at The National Program
Office, Please Do So. They\'re Interested in Your Thoughts and Ideas.
Thank You Very Much, Terry.

Caller: Thank You.

Chavez: We Have a Fax Here From New Mexico Again. I Wonder If Those New
Mexico Folks Are Picking on Me. This Is from Frank in New Mexico. Gary,
Perhaps You Could Answer This One: Other than Supplying Congress with a
Biannual Report, What Kind or Amount of Communications Do We Have with
Key Hill Staff and Committee Members Regarding Progress and Problems?

Bauer: Well, I Think That the Important Thing with Congressional Staff
Is That We\'re, Again, Going Back to this Constant Communication Because
We Involve Congressional Staff At the Field Level And, You Know,
Attending Adoptions. Denise Holds Regular What We Call Congressional
Briefings on Anything That\'s Going on in Any Of Our Programs That\'s a
Hot Issue at That Point, Including Wild Horses and Burros, Is Covered
and I Think You Can\'t Overemphasize the Importance of That Daily
Interaction at the Local Level as Well as Coupled With Working with Our
Legislative Affairs Folks in Washington, Keeping That Information Flow
Going So That When They Get Questions ‑‑ You Know, Nothing Is Going to
Play Better with Someone from Capitol Hill Who Calls about an Issue in
Wyoming If They Find out That They\'ve Called in and That Answer Is
Already There, and That Goes Back to Something I Said Earlier. So, You
Know, I Think That We ‑‑ We\'re Selling Our Interaction With
Congressional Staff Short If We\'re Depending on the Reports and Things
That Go in on A Regular Basis. We Really Need to Involve Those Folks All
the Time, and Whenever We Have an Issue, Frequently We\'ll Call the
Staff in Arizona And Inform Them of Something. They May Never Hear of
It. But They Appreciate the Upfront Knowledge Even If They Don\'t Get
The Question.

Chavez: Thank You for Your Question, Frank. We Have a Question from
Milwaukee. Has There Ever Been Any Liability Claims by Volunteers Doing
Compliance? Ron, What Do You Think?

Wenker: Boy, I Really Don\'t Know the Answer off the Top of My Head If
There Have Been Any Liability Claims, but There Certainly Is the
Potential. If We Put Volunteers in a Situation Where They Can Be Readily
Injured, Like, Say, Put Them in a Corral at a Preparation Facility,
You\'re Certainly Putting the People in Harm\'s Way, and We Certainly
Leave Ourselves Open for Liability in a Tort Claim.

Bauer: I Would like to Add to That, Too, Particularly from the
Compliance End, Which Is Where I Think a Lot of That Focus Came From, We
Are Going to Have to Be Careful Using Volunteers in What Part of the
Program We Use Those Volunteers for. I Think the Volunteers in the
Compliance Program, We Really Need to Focus Their Efforts on That
Education, Outreach Type of Effort, and Even, You Know, People Who Are
past Adopters, Whether We Realize it or Not, Are Playing a Part in Our
Compliance Program Because Frequently They Either Get a Call or We\'re
Able to Refer Folks to Them If They\'re Having Trouble with Their
Animal, and Through That Kind of Network, We\'re Able to Resolve What
Otherwise Might Be a Compliance Issue. I Think Where We Want to Be Very
Careful Is When We Get into Those Kinds of Cases Where We Have the
Repeat or the Egregious Offenses and We Don\'t Want to Put Volunteers in
a Situation Where They\'re Going up to Someone\'s House Who Perhaps May
Have Some Intents That Are Other Than, You Know, Noble and Putting Them
in Harm\'s Way, So To Speak. That\'s Where I Think We Have to Be Very
Careful and Be Very Sensitive to That.

Thomas: the Other Thing, Gary, in the Culp Report, One of The Things
They Put in There, We Are We Were Doing the Telephone Calls and I Think
a Lot of People Forget about Volunteers. They Can Be Educated What to
Ask And What to Look for and It\'s ‑‑ You Know, It\'s Really a Good Use,
If You Have Good Volunteers, to Come in and Do Some of the Telephone
Checking. But I Agree with You 100% and I Always Have, as Far as Using
Volunteers on the on the Ground Compliance, Because We\'ve Had Some
Nasty Things. But as Far as Any Litigations, I Don\'t Know of Any
Either, Though.

Chavez: That\'s Good. Maybe We Have a Good Record So Far. We Have
Another Fax Here from Rim in New Mexico. Where Do the Proceeds Go from
Adoptions and Competitive Bid Adoptions, to the Treasury, to The BLM,
Back to the Program, And Can We Show the Program That We the BLM Have
Nothing to Gain From Competitive Bid Adoptions At the Same Time We Need
to Pay For the Very Expensive Wild Horse & Burro Program?

Thomas: Yes, Adoption Fees All Go Back into an Account That\'s Called
the 5200 Account. That Account Is Only Used by the Wild Horse & Burro
Program. It\'s Not a Treasury Account. It\'s Not an Account That Other
Programs Use. So That Money Does Go Back and Right Now, and
Historically, It\'s Always Been Used for Transportation and Part of the
Adoption Part of It.

Chavez: Very Good. We Have a Fax Here from Tom out Of Coeur D\'alene,
Idaho. The Second Part of the Question Has to Do with You Lost Part of
The Transmission and Would like Gary to Summarize in the Law Enforcement
Part. I Would like to Suggest since We\'re Taping this and You Will Have
a Tape Available That Perhaps That That Would Better Serve Your Needs.
Gary, but Does He Have a Question: Do Law Enforcement Officers Still
Need to Use the Compliance Form? Or Will the Law Net Incident Report
Form Suffice?

Bauer: That\'s a Very Good Question and We\'ve Just Deployed Law Net in
Arizona and New Mexico and That\'s Probably Something We\'re Going to
Need to Start Out, and it Begs the Question of Overall, as We Go to More
and More Electronic Records, What Kind of Legal Record Do We Have. So I
Would Consider That One as A Good Heads Up, That We Probably Need to
Develop Some Policy as to Whether or Not We Still Need That Report or
Whether Law Net Will Take Care Of It, Because That\'s ‑‑ Law Net,
Because That\'s Virtually a Work in Progress as We Deploy Law Net and a
Good Question That Needs to Be Addressed.

Chavez: We Have a Fax from The Yuma Field Office, And, Lili, Again this
One Is Addressed to You. Deals with Budget. Can You Speak to Any Efforts
by The National Program Office to Ask for Increased Funding for
Monitoring, Census, Removal and Maintenance Tasks? What\'s the Progress
for Out‑year Dollars?

Thomas: I Would Imagine That At this Point the Budget Will Probably
Stabilize at What it Is Right Now. That\'s the Impression That I Have.
It Could Always Change. Because it Is ‑‑ it Has Been a Hot Topic for the
Director and For Actually Department Level, Too. Like We Talked About,
If We Can Get the Immediate Problem Taken Care Of, You Know, with Our
Backlog and We Can Work on That, Then I Could See That the Monies
Basically Will Be Trying to Shift Back into the Census Monitoring and
Herd Management, Because We Can\'t Get ‑‑ like Don, Gary and a Lot of
Callers And Everybody, We Can\'t Get Too Far Behind Because it Takes Us
Too Long to Catch up Again. It\'s a Real Balancing Act and Right Now
We\'re Really Not in Balance. So Hoping That Will Answer Your Question.

Chavez: Well, We Are Definitely Running out of Time Now. So If You
Called or Faxed Any Questions and We Weren\'t Able to Get to Them, You
Can Always Contact the National Program Office. Remember That with All
the Challenges of this Program, One Of the Important Things We All Need
to Do Is Communicate. The National Program Office Is There for You If
You Need It. Before We Sign Off, Though, I Would like to Get Closing
Thoughts from the Panel. First, Don, I Understand You Have Some
Suggestions on How We Can Keep up with Training That\'s Available?

Glenn: Well, Yes, Michelle. I Would like to Talk a Little Bit about Our
Training Package That We\'ve Developed for Wild Horses and Burros. I
Know Kelly Grisholm and I Have Been Working on this for Overall 10
Years. I\'m Not Sure Just How Long. But a Long Time. We Finally Got the
Comprehensive Program Actually Presented a Couple Weeks Ago, and We\'ve
Developed this Package. So I Think We\'re Making Progress. The Director
Shea Said That the Program Is Continually Changing, And it Is, and We
must Keep up With Those Changes. Lili Emphasized That with the
Regulations, the New Ones That Are Coming out. And We Can Also Learn
from Things That Have Happened in the Past. So These Are the Kind of
Things You Will Get If You Partake of Our Training Package. This
Training Package That We\'ve Developed Is Basically Broken Down into
Four Parts and it Was Recommended in the Culp Report: The First Part I
Want to Briefly Mention Is this Broadcast That We\'re Doing Right Here
Today. This Broadcast Is Mainly Aimed At Managers but Also Field
Specialists, and It\'s Really a Brief Overview of the Program. The
Second Part Is the Comprehensive Training Class That We Put on Here in
Phoenix a Couple Weeks Ago, and That One Covers a Lot of the Same Things
You Heard Today but in a Lot More Detail and It\'s Really a Good Class,
I Think. Like I Said, We Have a Solicitor There That Can Go into a Lot
of The Legalities That We Have, and We Are Going to Put this Class On
Again this September and I\'d Really like to Encourage All Managers to
Support Their People To Come to That Class as Well as The Field People
to Try to Come If They Can. The Third Facet of the Training Package Is
the Video That Lili Talked about Earlier in the Broadcast. This Video Is
Aimed, like Lili Said, at All BLM Employees and The Public. And the
Fourth Part of the Package Are Training Segments. These Are Formal
Training Segments That We Plan to Present At Our National Program
Meeting That We Have Every Spring. Again, If I Could Just Encourage
Managers to Support Their People To Come to That National Program
Meeting, There\'s a Lot of Good Information Exchanged There, You Can
Learn a Lot, and Particularly You Can Meet One of The Requirements for
Training. This Year\' Going to Have a Segment on the New Computer System
for Wild Horses and Burros Called Whbis, and You Can Take That in If You
Come to the National Meeting. That Will Be Held in Colorado Springs on
May 12th. So Try to Come, If You Can.

Chavez: Thank You, Don. Gary, Any Last Comments?

Bauer: You Bet, Michelle. I Think It\'s Important That You Recognize
That this Really Is an Emotionally Charged and Sensitive Program and it
Affects Every Office. I Guess My Message to the Managers out There Is,
You Know, There\'s a Lot That We Can Learn From the Specialists and
Staff That Work in this Program, And, You Know, I Have Been Pitched to
Learn from Folks in Wyoming and Eastern States and I Mentioned Terry and
His Folks Being the Best in the Business in Terms of Marketing. It\'s
Important That We\'re Communicating and We\'re Listening and That We\'re
Learning, and Through Doing That I Think We Can Maintain a Consistent
Program and We Can Also Maintain That Credibility That Director Shea
Said Was So Very Important.

Chavez: Thank You. Ron, What Are Your Final Thoughts?

Wenker: I Think First and Foremost Everyone Needs to Recognize That We
Are and Should Be the National Leaders in Wild Horse and Burro
Management. As Such, We Need to Work Diligently on Improving Our
Credibility. The Things We\'ve Touched on Today, Such as Training,
Improving Communication and Maintaining Accurate Records, I Think, Will
All Go Towards That End of Improving That Credibility.

Chavez: Thank You, Ron. Finally, Lili, Any Final Thoughts from the
National Program Office?

Thomas: Yes, Basically I\'m Here as a Representative for the National
Program Office, and I Want Everybody to Know out There That the Whole
Reason That We\'re There Is to Help You with the Very Difficult Job, and
as We Saw with the Telephone Calls and Some of the Faxes, I Don\'t Have
All the Answers to Everything. But We like to Work with the Field and We
Also like to Work With Managers in Trying to Come One Solutions for All
These Very Difficult Problems That We Do Have. So We Do Really Want to
Hear From You All. Npo Basically in Reno Is More Operational, Where as
Bud up in Washington Is a Lot on the Policy Side. But We Do Work Very
Well with Bud. So We Kind of Mesh Really Well. But If Would You Call Us
with Any Kind of Questions, Comments, Ideas in the National Program That
Don Was Talking about That We\'re Going to Be Have Gone the Meeting That
We\'re Going to Be Asking You All to Help Us Solve Some of Our Large
Problems, Because We Are All in this Together and it Is National. It Is
Not, You Know, West, Midwest and East. It Is, You Know, the Whole United
States, Even Alaska. So We Really Do Need to Work Together on this. If
We Don\'t, We\'re Not Going to Be Able to Solve Our Problem. So If You
Have Any Questions, Managers, Too, Give Us a Call And We\'ll Try to Help
out.

Chavez: Thank You, Lili. Before We Go, I Would like Again To Ask All
Downlink Coordinators To Fax Us the Completed Class Roster of Today\'s
Participants. Please Fax this Information to The National Training
Center Immediately after this Telecast Using the Same Fax Number
Provided in Your Training Materials. Also, Please Complete the
Evaluation Forms Provided in the Training Material and Send Them To the
National Training Center. Your Feedback on Broadcasts Such As this Will
Help to Make the Next One Even Better. I Would like to Thank Our
Director Pat Shea for His Words, Gary Bauer, Ron Wenker, Don Glenn and
Lili Thomas for Their Contribution to this Broadcast. However, Most
Importantly, I Would like to Thank You the Viewer for Your Contribution
in Helping Us Make this Training Telecast Truly Interactive. Our
Objective this Morning Was To Help Managers and Field Specialists Better
Understand The Wild Horse & Burro Program As Well as What it Will Take
to Continue Managing for Healthy And Viable Animals. Remember That the
Intent of the Law Charges BLM to Preserve and Protect the Wild Horses
and Burros on Public Land. As the Director Pointed Out, Every Manager in
the BLM Plays An Important Role in Meeting the Objective of Healthy and
Viable Populations on Public Lands. We Hope That this Broadcast Has Been
Useful to You. Only Through Your Commitment as Managers and Employees in
the Wild Horse & Burro Program Can We Make this Objective a Reality.

Announcer: Here\'s a Look at Some Upcoming Broadcasts on the BLM
Satellite Network. On April 8th, the National Wildfire Coordinating
Group Will Present an Interagency Telecast On the New Fire Policy. An
IRM and ALMRS Forum Scheduled For April 22nd Will Take an On‑the‑ground
Look at the Deployment of ALMRS in New Mexico. And the Road to
Successful Weed Management for BLM Managers Will Be the Focus of a
Telecast on May 21st. To Help Your Office Participate In Future
Telecasts, See the BLM Satellite Downlink Guide and Visit the NTC Home
Page on the World Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is www.ntc.blm.gov.
Transcripts of this Program and Other NTC Broadcasts Are Available on
the Home Page. For More Information on Upcoming Distance Learning
Events, as Well as Traditional Courses, Call the Training Center at
602‑906‑5500. Or Visit the Home Page. This Broadcast Has Been a
Production of the BLM National Training Center.→