This stallion escaped trap, again. He escaped captured on the 2 days BLM already flew this area. BLM has returned to squeeze out the last of the wild ones that have moved up into the hills to escape the chaos. This valley has been hit by 3 traps over a few weeks. BLM is back again today.
Some of the issues involved in this valley include large livestock operations, wild horses moving north as livestock turns out and waters are shut off, into an area where there is an expanding mine and an endangered fish threatened by the water table draw down from that mine. But BLM has never identified how habitat inside the HMA needs to be protected and waters improved for wild horses and not just cows; the horses move north each season to survive. WHE partnered with several groups to stop the mine expansion. The mine is back in talks to expand. The enviro groups (Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club) have apparently joined the pressure points from industry to remove wild horses in this area.
We scouted the valley before the chopper returned… and it was full of ghosts of wild horses that lived there… and very few horses left in the massive expansive area. You should know, there is more forage (beautiful rice grass and bunch grasses) in that valley than there has been in the last decade due to the hard winter.
48 (19 Stallions, 22 Mares, and 7 Foals) were captured yesterday.
BLM returns today.
Since July 9, 33 wild horses have died. 23 at north trap. All of the catastrophic deaths aligned with the rises in heat index primarily during the first 3 weeks of capture.
If you have a place in your home for 3 orphan foals, these 3 will be ready to go in 2 weeks time. BLM is not releasing these 3 for foster, only adoption after they receive booster vaccine. They can be found at Palomino Valley Center (PVC).
Mares and new foals go through incredible stress during roundups. Mares that were not their moms may have nursed them at temporary and not have been their moms or simply the capture stress caused moms to reject after the 7 hour drive on the semi from temporary holding to PVC. But these 3 need some focused attention… and we hope they can stay together. Their little lives changed so fast.
All of the horses at PVC are from what BLM called “Antelope South” that ended July 26.
Antelope North, still ongoing, sent all horses beginning July 9, to Broken Arrow (Indian Lakes) off-limits to the public facility in Fallon, NV.
Above: These mares captured just a couple of weeks ago will be giving birth soon. If you know someone looking for a mare and foal pair, there will be plenty of them that need a loving home before being separated; mares deemed sale (or shopped to long-term storage) and foals going to the Adoption Incentive Program (AIP).
Stallion, stripped of their purpose as guardians and band leaders, are lumped together from yearlings to seniors. After gelding, in just a couple of weeks, they have the least chance of finding a home.
BLM is approved to capture wild horses under the 2017 EA (the Gather plan or Gather Environmental Assessment for this complex). BLM has gone to this area every single year and done large scale removals increasing the population growth rate every single time they do it (National Academy of Sciences, 2013).
This area is as large as the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. Under this single EA, BLM has removed just shy of 10,000 wild horses.
Places like Antelope represent one of the half-dozen last large wild horse herds left in the US.
Often, the public forgets about places like Antelope when the chopper leaves. We hope this time it is different. We are on the verge of losing every last large herd left in the US as habitat loss and fragmentation move at unprecedented rates.
Our lawsuit for Antelope and to gain an enforceable welfare standard for all wild horses, continues.
Thank you for keeping us in the fight!
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Categories: Wild Horse Education
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