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Posts Tagged ‘Nevada’

A wild horse in Utah saved . . . for now

This just in: The BLM has postponed the roundup of 200 horses living in the Confusion Mountains in Utah, after the agency and the Obama Administration received thousands of emails from IDA supporters yesterday. Here’s the scoop, from IDA’s Director of Research, Eric Kleiman:

This afternoon, I spoke with Eric Reid, the Wild Horse and Burro specialist at the BLM’s Filmore, Utah field office. He confirmed that the Confusions roundup had been postponed; said he had just received an email today from the Washington office that handles the gather schedule, saying it is being removed from the schedule.

The BLM had planned to conduct this roundup without public comment and no documentation to document the capture. Further, BLM failed to do any current environmental assessment of the impacts of the action, which would have left behind only 70-100 horses in the 235,000-acres public land complex.

Eric continues:

Reid said that the BLM would now be doing an Environmental Assessment and would now be giving the public the opportunity to comment.  He expects the EA to be posted around May 2010. The May EA will include updated census information and other unspecified new data.

He said that once he receives clearance, there will be a brief blurb on the Utah BLM site regarding reasons why the roundup was postponed.  He said the postponement should be reflected in an updated national roundup schedule but he didn’t know where on the BLM site that was.

Clearly our letters, calls and emails are having a difference! The Utah horses have been spared . . . at least for now, giving us more time to organize. The more we shine the public spotlight on the BLM’s actions, the less this agency can get away with business as usual.
Let’s keep it up!

Other updates:

Wendy Mallick joins protesters in L.A.

Protesters line street in Los Angeles

An estimated 120 people took to the streets of Los Angeles yesterday to defend America’s wild horses and call on Senator Diane Feinstein for help in saving these icons of the West. The colorful rally featuring actor Wendy Malick, IDA, The Cloud Foundation, Return to Freedom and other members of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign coalition, helped draw attention to the plight of the wild horses of the Calico Mountain Complex in Nevada, who are currently under siege by the BLM.

The event is just one of many being organized across the country, demonstrating the growing outrage of American citizens over the Obama Administration’s assault on wild horses.  We must keep up the pressure and not waste a moment in our fight to help the wild horses.

Calico update

As of yesterday, the BLM has captured 424 Calico horses, well on their way to the goal of permanently removing 2,500 of these beautiful animals from their homes in the Calico Mountains Complex.
For more info on the Calico horses see this new video by Humanity through Education :

BLM Captures More Than 299 Wild Horses in First Week of Calico Roundup Scheduled To Last Two Months

Another foal who survived the chase into BLM's trap pens.

A necropsy (animal autopsy) report on the young foal who collapsed and died in a New Year’s Day helicopter chase shed more light on the tragedy befalling the horses of Nevada’s Calico Mountain Complex. The necropsy states that the little foal collapsed twice while being chased for at least a half-mile by a government-contracted helicopter. Ten minutes after the second collapse, BLM wranglers found the colt dead.

This six-month old, dark bay/brown foal’s final moments were filled with terror trying to escape from the government operation; BLM officials acknowledged to observers that the tax-payer-funded helicopters are chasing the Calico horses at speeds of 20-30 mpg for 3 to 5 miles, and up to 10 miles. The little colt could not keep up with his family. Separated from his mother, he fell behind and died.
The BLM justifies this travesty by stating that the colt had a defective heart and would have died anyway, as if that justifies the trauma this agency’s heartless wild horse policies inflicted on this innocent young horse and his family.

Read the necropsy report below.

Meanwhile, the BLM reports that, as of January 4, it had rounded up 299 Calico horses. The capture operation has now moved from private land in Paiute Meadows Ranch to private land in Soldier Meadows where they will remain for the next two weeks. Daily access for public observation of the roundup activities is being denied and the BLM has selected three days each week (for the next three weeks) to allow orchestrated public observation. BLM claims staffing constraints as the reason to limiting public observation of this multi-million-dollar government operation. The only individual given unlimited access to view the roundup over consecutive days is a photographer hired by the BLM.

Necropsy Report

Date:                          1/1/10
Prepared by:          Albert Kane, DVM, MPVM, PhD

Location/Event:      Calico Complex Gather
Animal ID:              6 month old, dark bay/brown, colt

History: The pilot reported this colt lied down twice while moving just ½ mile from the original location of the band of horses. The second time he radioed to the trap for wranglers to come with a trailer and assist the colt as he seemed unlikely to make it to the trap. I accompanied the wranglers to the location. We arrived to the colt’s location about 10 minutes after the call from the pilot. On arrival he was found dead, lying in left lateral recumbency, with no signs of struggle or agonal movements apparent in the surrounding snow.

Examination: Alan Shepherd accompanied me during this necropsy examination. The carcass was rolled onto the right side, no external abnormalities were noted. Front right leg was lifted and reflected dorsally. On opening the chest cavity negative pressure was apparent. There was no blood present in the trachea. There was a large amount of free blood in the chest cavity. The lungs were pink and airy with no abnormalities noted.

On examination in-situ a hole was apparent in the pulmonary artery at the base. The left ventricle was thickened and larger than expected and the atria were thin and without muscular tone. There was an area of thinning and apparent aneurysm on the left atrium.

The abdominal cavity was examined with no abnormalities noted. Body condition was moderately thin with only small amounts of subcutaneous and abdominal fat noted.

Conclusion/Differentials/Dx: Left side heart failure.
Death caused by acute pulmonary artery rupture attributable to a pre-existing, probably congenital heart condition. Gather related but attributable to a pre-existing condition

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – – - – -

Albert J. Kane, DVM, MPVM, PhD
Veterinary Epidemiologist
Senior Staff Veterinarian
APHIS/BLM Wild Horse and Burro Partnership

Trapped by senseless U.S. government policy

As we enter the New Year with the BLM’s assault on the wild horses of Calico Mountain in full swing, and more BLM roundups set to start in Utah and another area of Nevada over the next month and a half, it is easy to feel frustrated and powerless over the plight of these majestic icons of the West.  While we mourn the news of the mare who was shot by the BLM, her orphaned foal and the little colt who was run to death in Calico, we must also take heart at the growing momentum of opposition to this inhumanity and the growing international pressure on the U.S. government to change its illogical and illegal wild horse policy.

Consider for a moment, the amazing events of the past two months:

Wild horse defenders braved snow and cold in Ketchum,Idaho.

• American citizens submitted over 10,000 public comments to the BLM in opposition to the Calico roundup.
• A federal lawsuit was filed pro bono by Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, a prominent national law firm against the BLM, and U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman concluded that the BLM’s stockpiling of 35,000 (and counting) horses in Midwestern holding facilities is likely illegal. (The case continues.)
• Thousands of news reports have appeared internationally, exposing BLM’s inhumane and unnecessary war on wild horses to a worldwide audience.
• Our effort to pressure  the Obama Administration into reform by highlighting its shameful continuation of the Bush Administration destructive wild horse policies is gaining increasing attention in the national political press, as evidenced by this LA Times political  blog entry, Top of the Ticket.
• Citizens are taking to the streets in defense of America’s mustangs.  Last week saw colorful, peaceful rallies in San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, London, Colorado and Idaho. This week more rallies are scheduled for Los Angeles, Albany (NY), New York City, Las Vegas and Denver. See below for news coverage of these rallies.

My message to all wild horse advocates worldwide is keep the faith and keep up the fight! Remember that, for 40 years, the BLM has subverted the intent of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which protected the mustangs as living symbols of freedom and important parts of our national heritage.

Change will not happen overnight, but the pressure is building as never before!

If you have not done so already, please let President Obama know how you feel about his war on wild horses.  Follow us on Twitter and on this blog for more updates.

Please take a minute to speak up for Wild Horses in this on-poll :

Should the federal government round up wild horses in Nevada?

On New Year’s Day, the BLM rounded up 10 wild horses but only captured 9 because a 6-month old foal died en route. APHIS vet at the scene, Dr. Al Kane, reported that after being chased by the helicopter for “1/4 mile” the little foal was behaving strangely, lying down periodically. It is reported that the pilot radioed Dr. Kane that this foal was having problems and Dr. Kane went out to see the foal who was found dead. Dr. Kane said that he did a necropsy in the field and discovered congenital heart defect and said that foal couldn’t have handled any exercise and probably wouldn’t have lived to adulthood.  They left the body in the field and refused to allow the public observers to witness the body.

Below are the photos of the roundup that took place today (Saturday, January 2, 2009) showing how the captured band stallion, “Freedom,” valiantly fought for and regained his liberty although he had to leave his family of 8 adult mares and 2 colts.  Jumping a 6-foot fence and immediately thereafter breaking through a barbed wire fence and injuring himself, this was an awe-inspiring, do-or-die effort demonstrating the loathing of captivity to a wild horse and his need for freedom.  We can only pray for his recovery from the injuries the sustained from the barbed wire.

Before his escape, he became hung up by his front legs when he reared with all his might to attempt an escape from the narrow fenced area where he was being examined by BLM contractor Sue Cattoor and her wrangler.

Also included here are shots of the capture of his entire band, the 11 horses including Freedom himself.

The capture of Freedom and his band by helicopter, 11 horses.

Band stallion, Freedom, in the lead. You can see the Judas horse, trained to run into the pens so the wild horses will follow, being released.

Desperate horses, Freedom and his family huddle together.

During examination, Freedom attempts escape and gets caught up on the fence.

Preparing first failed attempt to clear 6-foot fence to freedom. He fell on his back during this attempt but pressed on to try again...

Preparing for final herculean effort to clear 6-foot fence to freedom...

...only to have to crash through barbed wire...

...to a bittersweet return to freedom, for leaving his cherished family behind

More to come.  Right now we are just sending stills.  We have videos and interviews, but these photos really do capture the anguish and drama of the roundup for these majestic icons, our treasured American wild mustangs.

For video of the capture on 12/30/09 visit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl0keG49kQU

This blog was contributed by Craig C. Downer, Wildlife Ecologist and Elyse Gardner, Public Observer

We were thrilled and energized by the turnout and energy present at the San Francisco rally today, supported by IDA, The Cloud Foundation and the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, in front of Senator Diane Feinstein’s office.

Rally in San Francisco, CA

Over 75 people participated in the rally, including famed children’s author Terri Farley, whose wildly popular Phanton Stallion book series tells the stories of the Calico horses.  The San Francisco protest drew lots of press coverage, and Senator Feinstein’s office is interested and actively engaged in finding a solution to the BLM’s wild horse mismanagement problem.

The event coincided with other events today in London, Colorado, Idaho and Chicago, organized to call attention to nthe tragedy that is befalling the beautiful wild horses on the Calico public lands complex.

Our observer, Deniz Bolbol, witnessed this tragedy first-hand when, today, she visited the Calico horses who have been captured on Monday.

Stallions bunch together near the gate closest to the mares.

This is the only mother/foal pair who were kept together, as the foal, estimated age 3 months, was too young to be weaned.

These are some of the mares, separated from their foals by an iron fence.

Less than 48 hours ago, these horses were free on the range, living peacefully in the Calico complex with their families. Stallions led their close-knit family bands, protecting their mares and foals. But then the helicopters came and the horses were stampeded over snow and ice into BLM capture pens.  Families that had been together for years were torn apart.

According to the BLM, 74 horses were captured on Monday; 73 were transported in two trailers to the new BLM Falllon “Broken Arrow” holding facility. (BLM says that the 74^th horse was killed due to old age and emaciated body condition [rated 2]).  An additional 22 horses were captured Tuesday and will soon be trucked to Fallon as well.

The photos you see here show the Calico horses within 24 hours of arriving at the Fallon facility.  The things that are most  important to them — freedom and family — have just been taken away.  Foals have been torn from their mothers and are kept separated from them by an iron fence. Stallions are held together in separate pens across a driveway from the mares.

The Fallon holding facility is brand new, constructed in the last 60 days on land purchased just a few months ago. According to the BLM, the Calico horses were brought here, instead of the open-to-the-public Palomino Valley facility near Reno because they are prone to develop a highly contagious bacterial infection called “strangles.”   The stress and trauma imposed on the horses by the BLM roundup, compromises their immune systems, making them more susceptible to this potentially fatal illness.

The private contractor who operates the new Fallon facility is a rancher from California who has never before managed a BLM horse facility.  Thus we have a situation where the BLM takes horses off the range to allow for ranchers to graze more livestock, then pays ranchers to house the horses both at short-term facilities in the West and long-term pastures in the Midwest. The ranchers are the clear beneficiaries of the BLM’s multi-million dollar wild horse program; the horses the innocent victims, swept off their rightful lands like the Native Americans were so many years before.

Tomorrow, our observer Deniz travels to the Calico Complex to witness the roundup. Stay tuned for more updates.

BLM reports that 74 horses were captured on Monday in the Calico Complex.  No helicopters flew Tuesday due to poor weather conditions.

The captured horses have been taken to the Fallon holding facility in Nevada. An IDA observer is on the way to Nevada to visit this newly-opened holding facility today. She will also observe the roundup activities tomorrow.  Check back later for more reports and photos from the holding facility.

Despite our best efforts, the BLM today began the cruel roundup of 2,700 wild horses living peacefully in the 500,000-acre Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada. See video of these beautiful horses here.

The BLM knows that its latest assault on wild horses is so shameful that it cannot stand the light of day. So the agency is setting up its capture pens on private land from which the public will be barred.  No one will be able to witness the brutal helicopter stampede of the horses over treacherous winter terrain. No one will see the BLM chase older horses, pregnant horses, and little foals to the point of exhaustion, some will be literally run to death. The separation of foals from their mothers, the shattering of horse family bands will happen behind closed doors.

In the face of growing opposition, international media attention, a federal court ruling suggesting the roundup be postponed, and pending complaints with the Interior Department and White House to stop the cruel action, the BLM chose the coward’s way out. Never mind that just 21 days ago, BLM chief Don Glenn proclaimed publicly and repeatedly that “All of our gathers are open to the public; the public is invited to come and watch all the time.”

Don Glenn’s 180 degree reversal is not surprising in light of the sheer inhumanity of BLM roundups.

This is what the BLM does not want the public to see : This pregnant mare was chased to the point of collapse in a winter BLM roundup in 2007.

Evading public scrutiny by conducting a roundup in secret on private land during the week between Christmas and New Year’s when government officials are on holiday and unable to hear official complaints is business as usual for the BLM.

But we expect more of the Obama Administration, which was elected with promises of change and transparency.  Sadly, those promises ring hollow for America’s wild horses. In reality, the Administration has accelerated the pace of wild horse roundups, and plans to remove 12,000 horses a year from their Western ranges over the next three years.  The vast majority of these horses will be sent to holding facilities in the Midwest, where they will join the 33,000 wild horses already removed from the range and currently warehoused at taxpayer expense.

In the end, the number of horses in government holding facilities will far exceed those left in the West.  The plan remains unchanged, despite the federal court ruling on IDA’s lawsuit that the BLM’s stockpiling of horses in Midwestern warehouses was never authorized by Congress.

Despite the horrible fact that the Calico roundup continues, we can assure you that we will not stop fighting to protect wild horses. We will fight for what is right and just for these iconic American animals.  While the same government officials who have overseen this ill-fated program for decades may think they will continue to get away with this injustice – they are wrong.

Add your voice to the growing chorus of outrage over the all-out assault on America’s wild horses. Please tell the Administration to change course and start by immediately suspending the Calico Complex roundup in Nevada.

Our Legal Team!

Our lead attorney, William J. Spriggs, delivered a very effective oral argument summarizing our case. Cleverly, he began by telling the judge all the problems with the government’s wild horse and burro management program that we were NOT there to discuss, reciting a litany of BLM’s transgressions resulting from its 30-year history of mismanagement.  Mr. Spriggs said those issues were for another day, then launched into very effective arguments about our case, specifically why the indiscriminate roundup of thousands of horses off of the Calico range was illegal and the mass warehousing of wild horses in holding facilities in Kansas and other non-Western states was never authorized by Congress.

The Justice Department attorney defending BLM countered by attacking our standing, claiming that the plaintiffs would not be harmed by the removal of 80-90 percent of the horses in the Calico range because there would still be horses left in the Complex. He likened helicopters used in roundups to sheep-herding dogs, and said that individualized, on-the-range determinations of the horses’ conditions could not be made because BLM could not get within a mile of them. The DOJ attorney then claimed that the overriding mandate of the 1971 Act was the maintenance of a healthy range for multiple purposes, and that the BLM was mandated by law to remove horses.  (Mr. Spriggs later remarked to the judge that he wasn’t sure what law the DOJ attorney was referring to, but we were talking about the WILD FREE-ROAMING HORSE and BURRO Act!)

The Honorable Judge Paul Friedman was friendly and engaged throughout the hearing. He asked many excellent questions, and observed that this was an interesting case.

This lawsuit lays bare what we believe are these indisputable facts:

• The BLM is authorized only to round up horses who are both excess and adoptable.
• Congress intended for on-the-range management of the horses, with removal as a last resort, only after other methods of population control have been tried and failed. Yet the BLM has thumbed its nose at this mandate, spending three-quarters of its resources to remove and stockpile horses from their home ranges, and less than 3 percent of its budget on range management activities such as water enhancement and field studies to understand wild horse behavior, biology and social dynamics.
• The long-term holding facilities in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota are patently illegal, because the Secretary of Interior is not authorized to relocate horses to private lands or to lands where they were not found in 1971. The horses in these warehouses have not lost their designation as wild horses nor the federal protections that come with it.

Judge Friedman asked for some additional information on case law, which has been submitted to him, and a decision is expected next week.  The threshold for a preliminary injunction is very high, and even if we don’t succeed on this motion, this hugely important case will likely still go forward (we are seeking both a preliminary and a permanent injunction of the Calico roundup).

Excellent coverage of the hearing was provided  in an Associated Press story and a superb piece on Channel 8 TV in Las Vegas by stellar investigative reporter George Knapp, whose investigative series, Stampede to Oblivion, is a masterpiece exposing the BLM’s 30-year history of malfeasance, mismanagement and cruelty to our nation’s wild horses.

We are deeply grateful to the Herculean effort of our brilliant legal team from Buchanan, Ingersoll and Rooney — Mr. Spriggs, his partner David Taylor, Ibie Falcuson, Katie Allen, Katie Flood and Marty Scully — launched on behalf of the horses.

We will keep you posted on what happens, and meanwhile — keep your fingers crossed and pray for a good ruling for the wild horses next week!

For the past several weeks, Mr. William Spriggs and his amazing team of attorneys at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney’s Washington, DC offices have been working tirelessly AND pro bono on our lawsuit to stop the Bureau of Land Management’s roundup of almost 3,000 horses in the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada. Our case maintains that the BLM’s plan to remove 80-90 percent of the horses living in this protected area and stockpile them in government holding facilities is flatly illegal.

Some of the horses the BLM wants to round up in the Calico Complex contending that they are overpopulated and starving. These horses look healthy and sound, as is their range, according to local ecologists and wildlife biologists.

Just today, famed children’s author Terri Farley, officially joined IDA and Nevada ecologist Craig Dower as plaintiff’s in this important lawsuit.  Read IDA’s news release here. Ms. Farley’s beloved Phantom Stallion book series, which is set in the Calico Mountains and tells the stories of the horses living there. The wildly popular series with young readers has sold over a million copies.

Last week, Ms. Farley hand delivered more than 200 letters from young people to the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board at its meeting in Reno. She and her young readers are passionate advocates for America’s wild horses, and we are grateful to have her at our side in this fight.

Terri Farley presents letters from readers asking now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to save America's wild horses.

Drawing sent by one of Terri's readers, Michelle Baehner.

A hearing on our motion for an injunction to stop the roundup, which was delayed until December 28, 2009 after we filed suit, will take place on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Paul Friedman.  I’ll be there along with Ms. Farley, Mr. Downer, and IDA research director Eric Kleiman to watch our brilliant legal team do battle with the government over its destructive and devastating wild horse policies

Meanwhile, the horses at the BLM’s Palomino Valley Adoption Center outside Reno, Nevada spent the weekend in the middle of a blizzard and below freezing temperatures confined to pens with no shelter or way to escape the harsh elements.

Some of these horses had just arrived from the Buckhorn herd management area in California, where the BLM conducted a secret roundup without public notice due to an “internal communications” error.

Although the BLM’s guidelines require adopters of wild horses to provide them with shelter, the agency does not abide by its own rules.  Wild horse advocates who live near the facility report observing horses in direct, blistering sun in 105 degree heat and withstanding harsh windstorms without even a tree to block strong gusts and blowing dust. Although the Palomino Valley center is supposed to be a short-term holding facility, investigative reporter George Knapp of KTLA-TV in Las Vegas reports that some horses stay here for years. Mr. Knapp’s investigative series Stampede to Oblivion is a must watch for all who care about America’s wild horses.

Palomino Valley is where the Calico horses are destined to go if we are not successful in stopping the roundup. Wish our attorneys luck and stay tuned for more updates.