Wild Horse Remain Under Seige by Government Authorities
Wild for Life Foundation (Jan 22, 2010)
The BLM reports that 118 horses taken to the Fallon facility on Wednesday. They intend to ship the remaining horses at the trap sites to Fallon on 1/22/10 and a new location in the Calico HMA will be established. BLM states that approx 30 mares from the Warm Springs HMA range in body condition from a 2.5 to 3.0, but the BLM does not mention the fact that these mares are still nursing their young. An estimated 20 to 25 horses at the facility have received treatment for vaioius injuries or lameness. Other reports are still coming in.
No wind breaks will be constructed for the general population of wild horses now penned inside the new BLM feed lot, though after much pressure from pro horse advocates, the BLM just announced they now intend to build wind breaks for sick & lame animals…
Recently free roaming Calico wild horses adversely impacted as follows: 1,195 REMOVED, 1,074 AT FEED LOT, 30 IN TRAPS, 2 SHOT AT TRAP SITES, 1 DIED DURING STAMPEDE, 1 ESCAPED- CURRENT WHEREABOUTS UNCONFIRMED, SIX DEATHS ATTRIBUTED TO FEED LOT. (Said totals per BLM) *Note that inconsistencies remain as to the true number of horses on site at the Fallon feed lot.
From The Cloud Foundation:
Two more horses were killed at the Fallon Facility in conjunction with the Calico roundup on 1/21/10. Based on the posted BLM report: The Cattoors/BLM ran the feet off a colt on Tuesday, let him stand for a day, then made him ride four hours in a trailer to Fallon where he was unloaded and then shot. At least two of his hooves had fallen off. This colt and his family may have been run by helicopter up to 14 miles on Tuesday. We don’t know how fast over rough volcanic rock and terrain this foal was run. Another mare was down in the trailer, arrived at Fallon alive and then died subsequently. No members of the public were allowed to observe on 1/21/10 and no one will be allowed to go to Fallon Facility until Tuesday, Jan. 26th.
This from In Defense of Animals:
It’s time to get public comments in on another large removal of wild horses which is planned by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This time the BLM intends to remove over 500 of the estimated 645 horses living in or near the “Eagle Herd Management Area” in eastern Nevada outside of Ely. While 500 individuals is fewer than the 2,500 horses currently being rounded up and removed from the Calico Complex in northwest Nevada (click here for Calico update), the Eagle roundup is even more ludicrous because it is 125,000 acres larger than Calico, but the government will only allow 100 horses to remain! In Calico, by contrast, 500-900 horses will be left behind in the approximately 500,000-acre public land complex.
The Obama Administration is continuing the Bush Administration policy of targeting wild horses in order to serve special cattle and other industry interests. Under President Obama’s oversight, the BLM is actually accelerating the pace of wild horse removals, with 12,000 horses targeted for capture from our public lands in Fiscal Year 2010 alone. The majority of these horses will be sent to government holding facilities, where they will join the 35,000 wild horses already stockpiled at taxpayer expense.
