News and Issues of Importance to Readers of The LOOM

by Joanne L. Belasco, Esq.

Investigation Needed in Post-Katrina Vigilante Crime

While reading my Bloglines the other day, I followed a link to an article at “The Nation” website, entitled “Katrina’s Hidden Race War.” According to the well-researched article, during the days following Katrina, White vigilante groups in an area of New Orleans called Algiers Point openly shot at, and in some instances allegedly killed, African Americans.  These are crimes that have not been investigated or prosecuted.  At a time when people should have been coming together to help each other, certain racist individuals instead wanted to start a race war.  An organization called Color of Change is taking action.  Please visit their website and sign their petition for a full investigation into these crimes.  We must all learn to live and work together.  Every voice adds to the beautiful tapestry of life, and that voice is diminished when we tolerate hate.  Diversity is beautiful. We must do all we can to support it.       

Wild Mustangs Saved From Euthanization

When we were located at Sowbelly Ranch in Nebraska, we ran the Mustang Freedom Project.  That program gave a home to wild Mustangs that would otherwise have been kept in holding facilities by the Bureau of Land Management.  Currently, the BLM has about 30,000 wild Mustangs in holding facilities, more Mustangs than exist out on the range.  Due to the cost of maintaining the Mustangs, the BLM had considered euthanizing some or all of them, as they are allowed to do under the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act. 

All of those horses have been given a reprieve. Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, announced her plans to buy approximately one million acres as a wild Mustang refuge for all of the horses currently in holding facilities and for possible future Mustangs that the BLM rounds up and cannot adopt out. 

For more information about wild horse adoption, please visit the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Internet Adoption page located at https://www.blm.gov/adoptahorse/.