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Calico stallion interred at BLM Fallon holding facility Photo credit: Wild Horses of Nevada Photography

Wanted to share a terrific investigative news segment on the consequences of the Calico Mountain Complex. Kudos to George Knapp,  chief investigative reporter with KLAS I-Team (Las Vegas), for asking good questions and exposing this story. (note: in the piece you may some images of a downed mare which were taken by an IDA observer at the Fallon, NV holding facility)

I-Team: Wild Horses Forced into a Stampede of Death ( be sure and check out the video )
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/global/story.asp?s=11979541#

Calico horse losing his freedom; Eagle horses spared for now. Photo Credit: Elyse Gardner

After receiving 9,000 public comments, the BLM announced yesterday that it is postponing the roundup of nearly 500 horses living in the Eagle Herd Management area in eastern Nevada.The announcement came just three days after IDA’s attorneys notified the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that they would sue to stop the helicopter stampede and capture, which had been scheduled to begin February 15.

Despite issuing an Environmental Assessment detailing a capture plan scheduled for mid-February, the BLM now states “there is not adequate time to safely conduct the proposed Eagle Herd Management Area (HMA) gather prior to the beginning of foaling season.” The agency states that it is currently seeking a solution for 50 horses who have wandered outside the Eagle HMA.

The decision comes days after the BLM ended the Calico roundup, in which, to date, 39 wild horses have lost their lives and an additional 20-30 pregnant mares spontaneously aborted.

Last month, the BLM also postponed the roundup of 200 horses in the Confusion Mountains HMA in Utah. IDA’s federal lawsuit challenging challenging the legality of BLM roundups and long-term holding facilities continues in federal court, with a hearing scheduled in late April.

Read IDA’s full news release here.

Horse struggling in trap pen at Calico on January 2, 2010. photo credit Craig Downer.

The BLM announced today that it has ended the Calico roundup, with 1,922 horses captured. This is 600 fewer horses than the BLM had targeted in its capture plan, which had estimated the horse population in the five Herd Management Areas (HMA’s) at Calico to be 3,040.

According to its press release, the BLM now estimates that 600 horses are left in the Calico Mountains Complex. If correct, this means that the BLM’s original population count was off by over 500 horses, raising serious questions about the validity of the horse census data upon which the agency is basing its management decisions.

The death toll from the roundup is 39 horses and counting, as the fatality rate at the Fallon holding facility has risen sharply in the past two weeks. Deaths not reported before in this blog include a four-year old sorrel mare who was kicked in the head while being transported from the trap pen. According to the BLM gather activity updates, her “eye globe was ruptured with complete prolapse of the iris. This eye could not be saved and would remain a serious physical defect. She was euthanized as an act of mercy.” Other deaths include mares euthanized at Fallon due to injuries to spine and pelvis, and failure to adjust to feed.

An additional 20-30 pregnant mares spontaneously aborted. Although the BLM has claimed that poor nutritional condition of the mares led to these miscarriages, equine veterinary sources disagree.

“Nutritional deficiencies have not been associated with abortion in mares. In general, if mares are in good condition (body condition of greater than 2 on a scale of 0 to 5, where 5 is very fat), they will carry a foal. Mares that are too thin, however, will not cycle or conceive.”

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/05-061.htm

Equine veterinarian Don Hoglund states: “20-25 abortions in captivity are not likely due to range conditions. Infections, vaccination reaction, but most likely stress is the cause. In fact, that many abortions are cause for concern, anywhere.”

Thanks to the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign for these resources.

The Calico roundup has taken a terrible toll on the horses who have lost their lives due to the trauma of the helicopter stampede and capture, and on the horses who survived the capture but have forever lost their freedom. The legal case over the illegality of the Calico roundup continues in federal court, and the Department of Justice has agreed that the Calico horses will not be moved from the Fallon holding facility until the case is resolved. In addition, lead counsel William J. Spriggs of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney has notified the Department of Justice that he is ready to sue again if the BLM proceeds with plans to round up 495 mustangs living in the Eagle Herd Management Area in eastern Nevada. Stay tuned.

Downed mare struggling to rise at Fallon 1/26/10 Photo Credit – Craig Downer

Mare who had spontaneous abortion that day at Fallon. Photo taken 1/26/10 by Craig Downer

Since we posted this item, the BLM has reported the deaths of four more horses at the Fallon facility, bringing the total number of deaths to 26 horses. In addition, several people have raised questions about some of the horses looking very thin in the video below. Here is what a wild horse expert has to say about this situation:

“A horse’s condition is more compromised in the winter, especially older horses, pregnant horses or those nursing foals. The additional stress of roundup, capture and separation only adds to their fragile condition. What is so sad is that not only do many of these horses have to endure a helicopter chase, capture and transport…some will be euthanized in the end. Some horses are too stressed out to eat hay or drink out of troughs when they are in corrals. These free ranging herd animals suffer more than we can see. They are wild horses, they are not even ‘tamed’ wild horses. They are born, live and die on the range and I am sure if they could speak they would prefer to live out their lives…season to season, on their range with their herd”

Neda DeMayo
Founder, CEO
Return To Freedom, American Wild Horse Sanctuary

News of brutality and suffering  continues to stream from the BLM’s wild horse holding facility in Fallon  Nevada, where the death count from the Calico Mountains Complex roundup  now stands at 22 horses. New deaths include a mare who crashed into  a gate and broke her neck, and more horses — including a stallion and  a 12 year old mare — found dead in the Fallon holding pens. Many of  the latter deaths are being attributed to “failure to adjust to  dietary change,” raising the likelihood that these horses suffered  horribly due to colic before dying, separated from their families, at  the Fallon holding pens. (See complete fatality summary below.)

According to John Neill, the BLM employee in charge of both the Fallon and Palomino Valley holding facilities, 15-20 mares suffered from spontaneous abortions. The trauma and terror that the BLM has subjected these pregnant horses to is likely to have played a role in many or most of these miscarriages.

BLM is also reporting that 20-25 horses are being treated for injuries and lameness caused by the roundup.

Read the rest of this entry »

On the heels of a news report indicating that Freedom, the proud stallion who escaped the BLM’s trap pens, may have been recaptured, comes the news that two more horses have died as a result of the Calico roundup. One, a colt, who should have been cavorting in the hills with his mother, someday having a chance at being a proud band stallion, was instead terrorized and stampeded by helicopter so long and hard that his little hooves were bruised to the point of sloughing off.  He died in the cold, in pain and alone in the BLM holding pens.

Another foal at BLM Fallon feedlot where Calico horses are being held.

According to the BLM, the little colt, stampeded for miles at top speeds from the only home he had ever known, forcefully separated from his mother and other family members, confined in trap pens, crammed onto trailers loaded with other terrorized horses, trucked four to five hours to the BLM holding facility at Fallon — suffered for two weeks before the BLM “euthanized” him (likely by rifle) and sold his body to a rendering plant.

The vet report below confirms that his death is a direct result of the roundup:

January 22, 2010

Black Rock East

History and Report on Sloughed Hoof Foal

This foal was received at the Indian Lakes contract holding facility from the Calico complex gather around 1/6/2010. He was fed and watered for a day and when noticed to be lame was removed from the general population and placed in a hospital pen. On 1/8/2010 this horse was treated with phenylbutazone (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and penicillin (an antibiotic) for presumptive sole bruising and abscesses. No abscesses were noted at this time but there was some foot swelling suggesting hoof trauma. During the next 5 days the colt which was nine months old was fed and watered in the hospital pen and observed for body condition and lameness. He was retreated on 1/13/2010 with phenylbutazoneand penicillin. Sole abscesses and potential hoof sloughs were noted. Both hind feet were flushed with betadine (an antiseptic) and bandaged with gauze, antibiotic ointment and tape. The colt was slightly improved after treatment but over the next couple of days spent more and more time lying down. On 1/18/2010 the 2 hind feet were examined again. Multiple hoof sloughs were noted and the foal was euthanized for humane reasons. The cause of these hoof abscesses/sloughs was most likely hoof trauma from the gather operations. (Emphasis added.)

Richard Sanford DVM

NV #565

Also dead is a mare who went down in the trucks transporting frightened horses between their Calico homeland and the Fallon holding facility. No help was given to this mare on the four to five hour journey; she died shortly after arriving at this newest BLM feedlot.

At the same time it announced these latest fatalities, the BLM also revealed that it was treating 20-25 additional horses for injuries and lameness suffered in the roundup, where helicopters are chasing horses for up to ten miles or more over treacherous terrain at full gallop speeds.

If a person were to chase a horse with a truck so long, hard and fast that his hooves were bruised and damaged, that person would be put in jail on animal cruelty charges. If a private citizen were to transport a horse from one barn to another in a trailer where the horse went down, was afforded no assistance, and died, that citizen could be brought up on charges of neglect. But the BLM considers this blatant cruelty an acceptable side result of its capture operations, which it claims are done in the best interest of the horses!

Clearly the vast majority of American citizens find this treatment of our nation’s beloved wild horses unacceptable. Amidst growing public outrage, the BLM’s days of business as usual may be coming to an end.
Please do your part in stopping this cruelty by taking action here and here.

Photo Credit: Cattoor Livestock Roundups

The BLM is reporting that a total of four horses have now died at the Indian Rivers Road holding facility in Fallon, to which the Calico horses are trucked after being stampeded into capture pens near their homeland.  The agency is attributing three deaths to “dietary feed change” and “failure to adjust in change in feed” and not reporting the cause of death for the other mare.

This brings the death toll for the Calico roundup to seven.  Meanwhile, BLM contractor Sue Cattoor reports 122 more horses were caught on Saturday, January 16, when public observers were allowed to observe the helicopter stampede and capture for just one hour and 40 minutes of a ten hour day.

The unofficial total for the Calico roundup since December 28 is just under 1,000 horses. We are awaiting the BLM’s official capture count this week.

This video was taken on Saturday by IDA’s observer Deniz Bolbol.  Kept at a distance, Deniz could hear the ominous thundering noise of the helicopter on the far side of the mountain, which obscured her view of the stampede.

When the horses came into view, several bands were being herded together by two helicopters into capture pens.  On the video you will see one horse who evaded the helicopters path and remained free.  When his horse comrades were stampeded into the traps, Deniz could hear the horse on the ridge call to them. They called back. She believes the back and forth calls occurred four or five times before the horse ran off to freedom, leaving his band behind. One can never know for certain what the horses were communicating, but Deniz felt that the captured horses were letting their friend know that they were trapped and urging him to run on and leave them behind.

Deniz reports witnessing the helicopters descend within a few feet of the horses, nearly touching them. Horses arrived in the pens covered in sweat despite the cool temperatures, meaning that they had been run great distances at swift speeds. Even after an hour in the trap pens, the horses remained sweaty.

This photo taken from video shot by Deniz Bolbol, shows just how close the helicopters get to the horses when stampeding them into traps.

Elyse Gardner, another horse advocate and public observer reported that Thursday’s roundup brought the cruelty of the Calico capture sharply into focus.  Although the observers are being kept at a distance, Elyse reported seeing the horses valiantly fighting capture, charging back toward the helicopters trying to run back to the hills.  Elyse reports one particularly heartbreaking scene where a stallion, loaded into a trailer packed with other horses, managed to turn himself around to look out at the hills as he was driven off, never to see his homeland or his family again.

It is a tough job to observe this brutality first-hand, a job that is made more difficult by the BLM’s restrictions, which prevent observers from witnessing the full activities of the BLM’s contractors as they stampede horses from ranges afar into trap pens situated on private lands.
Before the Calico roundup even ends, the next BLM offensive will begin . . . — a roundup of 550 horses in the Eagle Herd Management Area in eastern Nevada, scheduled to start in Mid-February. Public comments to oppose this roundup by January 27. Take action here.

More on this roundup and the proposed capture of 1,200 horses in the Antelope Complex also in Eastern Nevada soon.

BLM helicopter contractor Sue Cattoor has posted a photo of the second mare who was shot by BLM because she was “thin” and “very old.” The mare was shot after she was terrorized and traumatized in a helicopter stampede and separated from her family. According to the BLM, this is a mercy killing.

Meanwhile, two horses have died at the Fallon holding facility. The latest fatality is a 12-year old mare who had been at the facility for four days.

Current capture count: 759 horses, fatalities 5. One stallion escaped to freedom.

Steam escaping from sweaty horses run in the cold at Calico. Photo Credit : BLM

The BLM is reporting that a mare was found dead over the weekend in the holding pens at the Fallon facility. The veterinarian is attributing the death of the horse, who was from the Black Rock East HMA to “dietary feed change.”

Meanwhile weather grounded the capture helicopter on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Calico capture stats as of Monday: 547 gathered, 518 shipped to Fallon, 24 at gather corrals, 4 deaths, 1 escaped back to freedom.

UPDATE FROM BLM

Trooper the Calico Orphan, courtesy of www.aowha.org; W.S. Lamm, Jan. 2, 2010

Several days ago, I wrote the post below about the orphaned foal rounded up in Calico and now housed by himself at the BLM’s Fallon holding facility. The little dark brown/bay colt has since been named “Trooper” by the horse advocates who are monitoring the situation.

Since that posting, Sue Catoor, the BLM helicopter roundup contractor, has stated that Trooper’s mother is not the older mare who was shot by the BLM.

Of course there is no way to verify this information, due to the BLM’s lack of transparency and the agency’s failure to give continuous access for public observers to witness the Calico roundup activities. This restriction directly contradicts the public statements of BLM horse program chief Don Glenn that “All of our gathers are open to the public; the public is invited to come and watch all the time.”

ue Catoor says this is the older mare "euthanized" by rifle on December 28, 2009

If true, Ms. Catoor’s claims beg the question: if this mare is not little Trooper’s mother, then who is and what happened to her? How did this little foal end up by himself, held alone in a pen, without his mother or another horse to give him comfort or shelter from the biting Northern Nevada cold? And why didn’t the BLM allow the elder mare, who reportedly had a yearling with her, the opportunity to be adopted by horse rescue groups, instead of being terrorized and traumatized in a helicopter stampede before being shot in the head in what BLM calls a “mercy” killing.

Stay tuned as we try to unravel this mystery as well as the true story behind this brutal winter roundup of the beautiful Calico Mountain horses.

UPDATE ON ORPHANED FOAL from Jan. 8, 2010 :

Sad news on the poor little foal whose mother was shot by the BLM in the first days of the Calico roundup. The agency says it “euthanized her by rifle” because she was in poor body condition, yet horse rescue groups were standing by and would easily have taken this older mare and her foal, thus sparing the little colt the agony of losing his mother.

After being trucked to the Fallon holding site, this baby was placed with two mare/foal pairs. Photos taken by Willis Lamm (see below) show this baby bonding with one of the mares, standing near her for the comfort and security his mom would have provided. Disturbingly, on January 7, the BLM reported that it had separated this foal from the mare/foal pairs. This little horse is now housed by himself in an adjacent pen; with no one to provide him comfort or shelter from the cold.  The BLM says this was for his own good, just as it claims that the brutal helicopter stampedes and capture of these majestic animals is for their own good. The heartless policies continue, but hopefully for this beautiful and innocent foal’s sake, the agency will let Mr. Lamm adopt him and provide him with a good life as soon as possible.

The photo and text below from www.aowha.org

www.aowha.org; W.S. Lamm, Jan. 2, 2010

1/2/10 on-site observation of the new contract horse holding facility in Fallon, NV: Our horse observations started at the mare and foal pen. Two of the youngsters were still nursing and were in with their dams. The orphan foal appeared to have socially bonded with one of the nursing mares and her foal. The first two photos show the orphan foal on the left and the third shows interesting markings on one of the nursing foals.

Update from Willis Lamm, January 7, 2010:

John Neill promised to provide an update on the “Calico orphan.” I received the following report this morning.

Willis, just a quick update on the orphan. He has been gaining strength each day. We did relocate him to an adjacent holding pen next to the pairs in order to provide him more nutrition than he would consume through oat hay. He presently has both oat hay and alfalfa along with BLM formulated pellets for foals. Dr. Sanford and I continue to monitor the health of the animals each day.

Photo credit 'Buckles Blog' : Josky, second from left, performing for Ringling in 1973

The elephant Josky, whose son Ned was the second elephant in history to be confiscated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), was euthanized last week at the Ringling breeding center in Florida. According to Ringling’s announcement, she suffered from “declining health” though she was only 42 years old.

Though Josky performed briefly for Ringling’s circus, she was mostly used as a breeding elephant, and she produced five babies that we know of during her life. Each birth would have been like this one, with Josky chained by three legs and handlers using bullhooks to control her every move.

Elephants’ family bonds are intense; daughters stay with their mothers for their entire lives, and sons well into their teen years. Circuses destroy those bonds, and Josky endured the trauma of having every one of her babies taken from her, likely before they were a year old and well before they would even have finished nursing

The suffering inherent in circus life is demonstrated in the histories of Josky’s babies. They all endured painful and terrifying training. That was only the beginning of the misery for Josky’s babies, including the two sons that died before her:

• Benjamin died in 1999 at age 4, while traveling with a Ringling show. He drowned evading a bullhook-wielding handler who was trying to get him out of the water.
• Nedperformed in circuses from a very young age, and was reportedly sold to his last trainer, who had a history of animal abuse, for $1. Acting on reports of his emaciated condition, the USDA confiscated him in November of 2007 and brought him to The Elephant Sanctuary. Sadly, it was too late for Ned to be helped, and he died in May of 2008.

Josky’s surviving offspring continue to suffer with Ringling and in a Mexican zoo:

• Benny, born in 1991, was passed around a number of circuses before being illegally sold in 2000 and then smuggled across the border into Mexico. Discovered performing for a circus there, he was confiscated by the Mexican authorities and taken to a zoo. Attempts to repatriate him have failed so far.
• Luna, now 26, performs with Ringling as she has for 20 years. Eyewitnesses have repeatedly reported Luna being bullhooked by Ringling handlers in recent years. She is rarely walked in public and instead driven by truck between train and arena, reportedly because she is an especially dangerous and very angry elephant.
• P.T. is not quite 8 years old. When he was five, Ringling attempted to use him in the circus but, according to a whistleblower account, he attacked trainer Joe Frisco. Ringling would admit only that P.T. “did not adapt well to life with the circus”. He has been confined to the breeding center ever since.

The sad stories of Josky and her babies Benjamin, Ned, Benny, Luna and P.T., are by no means rare among elephants used in the circus industry. Denied everything natural to them – family, room to roam, and the ability to make choices in their lives – they endure. Or, like Josky and her sons, they die before their time.

Please work with IDA to end circus’ exploitation of elephants. Send a quick email to the USDA here. And stay tuned as we continue to take action on behalf of elephants in circuses.

This blog was contributed by Deborah Robinson, IDA’s Captive Elephant Specialist.