The purpose of this page is so you can see the condition of the wild horses coming off the Diamond Complex. We have received multiple emails requesting the opportunity to view individual body scores. WHE always try to get you want you want to see. (to read background on this operation that represents the “Ten years to AML” deal with a PZP treat and release, click here)
Stallions after arrival at PVC, north of Reno
Cumulative total as of 9/19/2020, pm:
Wild Horses Captured: 898 (389 Studs, 397 Mares, and 177 Foals)
25 Deaths:
5 month old Sorrel fractured spine, a stud (no age given) collapsed during the run and died, 2-3 year old Sorrel stallion, euthanized due to a displaced cervical vertebrae, severe weakness in all four limbs. an 18 year old stallion with a club foot was euthanized, a 7 year old with a broken hip, a 4 year old in poor body condition (according to BLM a “2”), 3 year old with a broken leg (BLM states break is old break).
BLM has classified 4 more deaths on 9/16 as “chronic conditions,” including: 10 year old roan stallion, club foot, 8 year old sorrel stallion, broken right front shoulder (chronic), 8 year old sorrel stallion, broken left rear leg (chronic), 20+ year old palomino stud, Body Condition Score 1.5 (chronic).
On 9/17 BLM added 5 more deaths: 10-year-old sorrel mare, broken neck (acute). 6-month-old bay stallion, found deceased (pre-existing), necropsy noted possible constriction at lower stomach. 11-year-old bay mare, found deceased (pre-existing), necropsy noted symptoms similar to colic, i.e., gastric distention and bloating 4-year-old strawberry roan mare, symptoms similar to colic, i.e., gastric distention and bloating (pre-existing). 3-year-old sorrel mare, symptoms similar to colic, i.e., gastric distention and bloating (pre-existing); euthanized in accordance with IM 2015-070.
On 9/18 BLM added 2 more deaths: 11 year old roan stallion, euthanized due to a club foot, 11 year old bay mare, severe bloating.
9/19 deaths: 5 year old roan stallion, euthanized due to a club foot, 4 year old roan mare, euthanized due to a umbilical hernia, 4 year old bay mare, euthanized due to malformed thoracic vertebrae resulting in a deviated spinal column.
9/20 BLM added: 7 year old bay stallion, euthanized due to blind right eye, 7 year old bay mare, euthanized due to a club foot, 7 year old bay stallion, euthanized due to bilateral osteoarthritis of the carpal joints, 20 year old sorrel stallion, BLM reported low body score.
Little one at the temporary corral on range, prior to shipping to PVC, that BLM said may have been orphaned before the roundup.
On 9/18 a WHE member was the only one to take the very long trek to trap as operations moved north. Only 3 horses were captured at that trap, and then trap moved north again. BLM then set trap in a location that had not determined a viewing location (yet) and our member had a long travel schedule so they went to holding. Stallions had already shipped out.
Mares at temporary corral
You can view background and previous day stats here
Pictures of the wild horses shipped to facility so you can see examples of body condition. 
Our team lead has been requested to attend multiple meetings this week on the current budget debate that has headed into the Senate. We will have an update on our outreach for you soon; the questions we are fielding from legislative aides show real promise that our message is beginning to be understood. It has been a very intense few weeks of meetings.
It is astounding how many times we are told that no other organization has spoken about actual flaws in paperwork, presented range data, discussed management planning, etc.
Roundups are one point in time of a program mandated to protect and manage our wild horses and burros. Roundups represent the last moment of failed “on range” management and the beginning of traversing a treacherous system filled with holes that can end the life of one born free at a slaughterhouse.
The BLM “sale program,” created in 2004, has always represented the most direct threat of landing in a kill pen. (learn more about wild horse slaughter: SAFE, Burns, Budget)
Today, the taxpayer subsidizes a new route to slaughter in the Adoption Incentive Program (AIP). Over 3 million was spent last year, not on creating management plans, on a new subsidy to “clear the pens” and run the collapsing program full steam.
More on the AIP, and other matters, in our sample comments to the Advisory Board
When visiting wild horses just captured the initial adjustment is hard to watch for anyone that spends time on the range experiencing life with our wild herds.
Catching a glimpse of the youngest is always a “wait for it” as the mares do their best to hide them until they get a bit older.
Mares with colts are put in one pen, their mothers or daughters that did not have a colt that year in another. They will continually move toward a panel to glimpse each other or to move to safety; protect the band and the colts is ingrained as a survival mechanism. They do their best to continue the behaviors that kept them alive on the range.
The studs have lost purpose dramatically. All spring and summer that have fought to keep harems of mares intact and protected their new colts. In holding they become bachelor bands, on high alert for danger and watching for any sign of their families.
You often see grandfathers, fathers and sons group close together as the cluster of stallions continues to mill around, moves toward other pens, searching.
“I am an amazing band stallion, muscled and smart. I have lived a decade, or more, keeping my families alive as humans destroy our home, our food, our water. What am I now?”
Where in this system does a plain colored, full-grown stallion, have a place after capture? All of these horses will get that “sale eligible” brand on their well muscled hind quarters, most will never be seen again. How many have been sold to killbuyers? BLM is not answering FOIA requests for the sale program. (learn more about the difference between adoption and sale)
“Just another bay stallion” has become a gut wrenching phrase. There is no such thing as “just a bay.” Each one unique, each one carries the beating heat of the wild stallion.
The risk of landing in a kill pen is rising daily as more and more titles are issued under the slaughter subsidy for young wild ones. The AIP must be defunded and that money must go into the mandate to protect them, not the authority to sell/adopt.
What does my future hold as “just a bay?”
A common thread in the BLM program is funneling more and more money into “what they can do” and not “what they must do.”
BLM is mandated to manage, not remove and clear the pens to remove more. BLM has avoided doing anything that increases transparency, protects our herds from industrial impacts, protect them from slaughter, etc. In fact, BLM does their best whitewash the broken system and cater to profit lines; that is all they do, push that paper around for politics and buddies and make it sound like they “care about the horse and the law.”
It needs to stop.
Slideshow below
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Help us stay in the fight.
Categories: Lead, Wild Horse Education
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