Four more wild horses died yesterday, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which has been brutally stampeding wild horses from their native grazing lands in the Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada to a holding area on privately owned property near Fallon, Nevada.
The death toll of formerly free and still proud horses now stands at 26. An additional 20 heavily pregnant mares have suffered spontaneous abortions after having been mercilessly chased over unforgiving ground for up to 10 miles, while another two dozen are being treated for lamenesses and injuries that were inflicted during the stampedes.
Watch this horrifying video, taken just days ago, if you want to experience the suffering that the BLM has wrought upon these equine victims. It will make you weep.
According to a news release from In Defense of Animals (IDA), the horses who have died include:
* A young colt who had been stampeded so long and hard that his hooves were destroyed and his "hind feed abscessed and the outer hoof wall did separate." He was euthanized at the holding facility after undergoing a painful two weeks of bandaged hooves and treatment.
* A mare who crashed into a gate and broke her neck.
* A mare who went down in the transport truck on the four hour drive between the capture site and the holding facility and died shortly after she arrived.
* A colt who collapsed and died while being chased by a helicopter and being separated from his mother.
Here's a list of the documented deaths to-date. There may be others.
What you need to know is that all of these horses were healthy and doing just fine before they were sujected to the supreme stress of being separated from their herdmates and forced to gallop for miles and miles to a barren place they'd never seen before, where they are now pent up in open corals without shelter from biting winds, driving rain, or pelting snow.
To-date, more than 1300 horses have been manhandled by the BLM contractors, on foot and in helicopters, as part of a roundup that defies reason. The awful thing is that current BLM plans call for 11,000 more to be similarly uprooted from their home grazing lands to forever lose their freedom, and maybe, their lives. What these people are doing in the government's name is simply unconscionable.
The BLM had originally planned to allow a "public observation" day today, January 30th, but it's unclear whether observers will actually be able to enter the Fallon holding facility to document what's going on there. Elyse Gardner, who has been writing about the carnage in her excellent Humane Observer Blog, plans to be onsite today, and will be reporting on the current condition of the horses as soon as she can.
Please contact your Senators and U.S. Representatives, and President Obama, to ask them to stop the BLM's wild horse roundups before more wild horses lose their homes, and their lives.
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Comments
Thank you for addressing this ongoing issue.....it needs to stay
in the public's eye. Very disturbing indeed.
This is so horrible. Thank you for posting such an informing article on the subject.
Why can't the government just let horses live? Why don't they have any rights? Why can't horses have a refuge to live on? We live by a refuge for wildlife, in Missouri where there's 12,000 acres. And that's just one of the refuges in this state. Other states have them,also. Why can't these beautiful animals be put there? Where's all of the money going, after these horses are butchered? SAD SAD SAD
Why doesn't BLM worry about deer, instead of horses?
The BLM and the dept of the interior has yet to substanciate any claim that the horses are starving...quite the contrary-the majority of horses are in excellent shape considering it is winter, and they have been run miles, the wet and milder winter is a good indicator there will be record range feed come spring-and if left uneaten by the removal of the horses...will dramatically increase the likelyhood of range fires come summer...This is extremely bad management and decision making, and makes one consider the possibility-that there is an entirely different reason for removing these horses from their native land at an end cost of 95 million dollars-100,000 a day during these roundups-trucking them across country-to the midwest and east...and putting them in enclosures for the rest of their lives...not allowing them to breed..just letting them die off at a cost of 475. per horse for the rest of their life-payed for by the tax payer...why...when we already own the land they roam today?
Oh yeah--- thanks for posting the contact info for my reps in DC. I'm forwarding this to everyone who would like to see more deer and antelope and alot less livestock on public land. That means sheep, cows and especially horses.
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