Preface:
The BLM online corrals have an active auction from May 6 through May 13th starting and ending at 4:00 PM MT.
You can access the online auction event by clicking here.
Due to some of the high profile horses on the auction, we were asked in several emails why were we not promoting the auction? The answer is simply trying to find the time. There is no hidden meaning. We had 3 mining comment letters to write (one of which will remove even more territory from Triple B where nearly 40% of the HMA is already carved up for mining and no mitigation for that cumulative loss is even contemplated by BLM). In addition, we are preparing to answer BLMs next brief in the final rounds of the “Blue Wing case” active in fed court. Now we also need to prep scoping comments as BLM lobs a curve ball and announces scoping as we enter into the last round of the case. We also have field work, other litigation, etc., etc.
The omission of promoting the adoption event does not reflect our views on adoption. If you can give a wild horse or burro a safe and loving home, please… adopt. If you can, two is always better than one. Companionship can have great benefits psychologically and physiologically. Most of our volunteers have taken in a free-roaming horse or burro from multiple jurisdictions and feel the one-on-one you develop is the experience ofd a lifetime.
Born day after mom captured, July 22. Buffalo Hills
When those of us at WHE look at the adoption event, of course we see beautiful beings in need of forever homes. But we also see so much more.
We see each roundup, circumstances, the range they once called home. We see the facilities and, often, more than one facility each animal was housed in. (One of our welfare reports)
We see the injuries and deaths observed during capture and the list of deaths our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reports reveled at each facility. (Our FOIA investigations from 2022 clearly show the average death rate comes in around 12% in a multi-FOIA investigation)
We also see animals that will not be adopted that will get a “strike” in a “three-strike” system that will move them one step closer to becoming “sale authority” (available for as little as $5. with immediate title transfer placing them at risk of shipping rapidly into the slaughter pipeline).
When we look at the adoption site we see the shadow of a failed on range program and those that have, so far, survived an agency that will fight tooth and nail to avoid creating an enforceable welfare policy.
If you go to the “animals available” landing page there are search criteria to sort through the catalogue of 956 horses and burros available. One of the tabs allows you to search by “animal origin.” Please click that tab and you can see just how many herds are represented.
There are ALWAYS glitches in the BLM portal. This time we noticed that if you search for a certain HMA, you do not actually see all the horses available from that HMA.
Example: When we search “Buffalo Hills” we see 7 horses. There are more than 7 horses on the portal from Buffalo Hills than show up in the search. Looking through all 956 horses on the site to find all the horses from Buffalo Hills, but not categorized as such, is not something we have time to do right now. However, know this kind of record keeping and tracking is rather “status quo” from on range through adoption.
This sweet baby girl, now known only as 8997, was born on 6/1/23 from a mare captured at Buffalo Hills. We do not know what day mom was captured or where mom is. Buffalo Hills was a brutal roundup that began July 1, 2022. This is the roundup where the colt was slammed to the ground and tied to an ATV, a horse broke its neck and then a band was driven in over her body, we saw barbed wire collisions and a horse dragged by the neck with a rope into the trap. She has spent her life off-limits to public view at the Carson prison.
Even with the perfect heart on her forehead, she is nearly impossible to find on the BLM interface without scrolling through the pages.
She does not have a single bid.
One important thing we always note is that you “need to know your HMAs” if you are searching for a horse or burro from a particular roundup. BLM does roundup plans not on an HMA-by-HMA basis, but by a name of a Complex they drew on a map that may have an entirely different name than the HMA the horse/burro will be labelled under. Sometimes, BLM will use the name of one HMA, but roundup horses/burros from neighboring HMAs and the individual you are looking for is going to be really hard for you to search for.
Example:
You watched the Surprise roundups in 2021 and 2023 and want to adopt “Surprise.” You know BLM drove the 397,000 acre complex down to below low AML of 283 in the entire area. You are aware that BLM treated old mares with GonCon and released them (where the two dose regime will probably last longer than the lifespan of the mares) and any return of a “foaling season” is unlikely and unmonitored. You know the handful of untreated mares have a really rough road ahead as they will be targets for every stallion BLM released. Basically, you know the complex is “toast.”
You want to adopt a horse from Surprise. You know that these horses are beautiful and have “good minds.” Maybe you are a fan of Amado, a well-known horse from Surprise? Did you know Amado is not tracked as a “Surprise” horse, but a High Rock? If you want to adopt off the online corral you would need to know that the complex is made up of Massacre Lakes, High Rock, Wall Canyon, Bitner, Nut Mountain and Fox Hog and search that way.
We did that exact search. We found a few that have bids, many that do not. In some cases the photos are so badly done you cannot even see the face of the horse clearly in the only thumbnail you see in the catalogue, unless you click in that face.
One such instance is 3685, a horse with no bid. This 3 year old filly has spent almost her entire life in a pen. According to BLM, she was captured on 9/30/21, as a baby, at the Bitner/Nut Mountain trap site. There were 2 deaths that day. We do not know how many times she has gone up for adoption and been passed over, moving her toward that sale authority mark. We pulled shadows out a bit in the screengrabs below. You can click here to see this beautiful little mare with the sharp star on her forehead and BLM has posted video, she moves really pretty.
If you want to adopt from “Blue Wing” you would need to know: HMAs consist of: Kamma Mountains, Seven Troughs Range, Lava Beds, Blue Wing Mountains, and Shawave. HAs are Antelope Range, Selenite Range, Trinity Range, and Truckee Range.
We want to take a moment to “shout out” to all the burro folks out there. Every burro has a bid!
Not one horse from this area has a bid.
Could it be because the pictures are so bad, out of focus, dark, small file size so they can’t even be enlarged, no video?
BLM really does consider horses like 9627 from Shawave as “lower status” then horses from more high profile roundups. This boy was captured as a baby on 8/15/2020 and has spent his life in the off-limits to the public BLM Broken Arrow corrals on Indian Lakes Rd. in Fallon, NV. The area has shown to have a low number of genetic contribution. One contributor to the area is the Exmoor (the oldest British pony breed) and we think if you got this baby tested, it would show up.
Many of you will remember that roundup and the insane smoke blowing in from California wildfires and BLM simply kept going while the air quality meter went purple. BLM has no enforceable welfare policy and their internal standards have no heat index or air quality standards. Left to the discretion on BLM, the only criteria is if the “pilot can still see.”
Was 9627 the foal that was roped that day because it could not keep up? We will never know.
The Blue Wing court case is moving through the system, now.
If you wanted a “Triple B,” you also need to search for Maverick Medicine and Cherry Creek.
If you want an “Antelope” horse, you would need to also know to search Antelope Valley, Goshute, Spruce-Pequop.
A Calico? Also search Black Rock, Calico Mountains, Granite,
If you want a Pancake? You also need to hit Jakes Wash.
The Pancake roundup of 2022 most of you remember because a colt snapped a leg on the first day (exclusive footage by WHE, warning: graphic). That event garnered intense public interest and spurred the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act introduced by Dina Titus and is mentioned in the text of the bill.
The intense interest also, finally, gained enough attention that we found the support to jump an IBLA Appeal into federal district court. The roundup plan these horses were captured under was negated and remanded due to flawed analysis. In addition, BLM has 1 year to craft a management plan. We won in court. Bit the attention and ruling did not come fast enough for those captured.
As you can see, most of them are being passed over. Even though there are beautiful roans, paints and really calm bas (we know these horses), they suffer the “bad photo” and “hard search” class.
We knew the father of 9013 and called him “Charlie.” (click the highlighted text to go to the landing page for 9013). He was extremely calm, curious and a joy. He was a younger band stallion that had just gotten his first mares the season before the roundup. We have not seen him on the range or in any holding corrals since the roundup in 2022.
Charlie
4697
This beautiful red roan does not have a single bid. Spending her life in off-limits to the public corrals, captured as a baby, and now suffering the terrible photography syndrome, will she ever find a home?
So you can see how writing about the online adoption is not a simple task for us.
If you can adopt, please do. Even if you cannot adopt, we urge you to go to the online corral and look around.
We need your help to continue to document, expose, work toward reform with lawmakers and litigate. Our wild ones deserve to live free on the range and free from abuse.
Thank you for keeping WHE on the frontline in the fight to protect and preserve our treasured wild ones.
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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