WHE drove hours to Utah to see burros captured from the Blue Wing roundup during a tour of Axtell (one of the private facilities burros were sent to from this year’s brutal roundup and from the Blue Wing roundup in 2022 when no tour was offered and over 40 burros died at this facility after capture).
This is all we could see of the burros (shown in the video above). Apparently a tour of a “wild horse and burro facility” does not mean burros, only horses. BLM did not specifically type in the contract “wild horses and burros,” the contract stated “public tours to view wild horses.”
This disparity is actually part of our active litigation for the Blue Wing complex. However, we had hoped BLM was doing a bit of “course correction” when we saw the facility tour scheduled. Unfortunately, that was not the case at all.
We were NOT permitted to see burros (except briefly down an alley where we could not even see how many were in there or pen construction).
We were NOT permitted to see any pens where “born in the facility” horses were being housed. We could not go see a single one of those horses to even see if they had a brand… in the Axtell facility literally 2 minutes from a livestock auction that includes horses.
BLM hates it when the public makes any accusation about slaughter, care or management, but then BLM always seems to do the exact thing that encourages unpalatable conclusions by the public.
Statement from observer: At the start of the tour BLM knew I would be looking down the alley to see the glimpse of the burros we are permitted to see (that I drove all that way to see). During the tour they must have dropped hay (very little was eaten compared to the horses). I could see burros lined up from my vantage point giving an indication that feed is not distributed so all animals can eat at the same time allowing dominant animals access to any feed first. I also could see burros shoving their heads through the bottom of what looked like a section of highway guardrail to get food. If they survive the next 2 months in this makeshift pen area, they will be put into a field, then in a few months, “gathered up” again and trucked out to other facilities and “events.” “Pasture,” in this case is not how BLM now references long-term holding facilities by calling them “Pastures.” Pasture just means “in the pasture, not the pen.”
WHE remains extremely concerned about burros. Access to view roundups is hard. Access to view any treatment of burros is even harder; at roundup, transport, sorting and facilities, burros seem to fall into a “hide all” category.
BLM seems to be unwilling to address any access, welfare, management problem. It is more than unfortunate these same issues have to go to court, repeatedly, instead of moving on to create any semblance of equity with other interests or uses.
It appears this tour was facilitated because certain parties ( that have agreements with BLM to dart Onaqui) were concerned because some of those horses were caught in the “off Swasey” portion of the gather that just concluded. This tour was really not to facilitate transparency.
In fact, during the tour we found out that the few chosen Swasey stallions were going to be released the following day back to the range. Only one group was sent notification (a group with an MOU), and all of us, including you, the public, were left off the notification list.
Below: The release stallions.
Further commentary will devolve rapidly into an OpEd style rant due to the sheer idiocy of the tour itself that was more like joining the contractor for a Fourth of July parade (where they were the only high school band playing and if you wanted a different song, you would be ostracized… like in high school) than a professional tour by BLM.
Born at facility and rolled under fence because BLM does not require that the low rails on fencing surrounding mares in foal be blocked. A practice ANYONE that has a foal in a pen does… even if it is just a piece of plywood, hog fence or chain link. Look at skig, neck, hips, eyes, legs, hooves… baby is in trouble.
This baby is slowly starving to death. Anyone with eyes can see the dehydration and malnutrition.
Telling me “it rolled under weeks ago” and is “doing fine”? That baby is “weeks old” and far from “fine.” Telling me it is “too hard” to get that baby out, to a vet and foster care? Would you like me to give you the phone number of the wranglers that work at Palomino Valley Center north of Reno? They could get that baby out for you and to the vet? This baby is in serious trouble…. for weeks now. The fence between dry mares (those with no foals) and mares with babies (that might even nurse this one although not their baby) needs to be modified. This baby is not in a pen with nursing mares.
This is not the only baby that had rolled under a fence and is in the wrong pen. But the one above is the one that will die first… a horrible, painful and frightening experience while its mom is in the next pen over.
Below: a comparison for “non horse people” of what this foal looks like and what this foal should look like if it were in the next pen over with mom…. for weeks… for weeks this baby has been slowly dying. The foal that is not starving has an umbilical hernia. In BLM speak that is actually reason to kill it (simply if they decide to).
Knowing that this is an ongoing issues at Axtell for years and never fixing it?
How many babies marked “failure to thrive” on the death reports we receive in facility Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are because BLM just won’t require the contractor fix/modify a damn fence?
As WHE battles it out in the courtroom, please make a call.
Please make a call. If you have made the call, make another. Our wild ones desperately need an enforceable welfare policy that is crafted with transparency, public participation and complies with current welfare standards for equines.
The phone number for Congress is: (202) 224-3121. You should put it in your speed dial. Call the number tell the operator who your representative is (or where you live if you do not know) and you will be connected to an aide in the office. Ask to register your concerns and request. Ask that an amendment to the funding bill for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program be crafted to simply create a line item for funding for “Rulemaking to create an enforceable welfare policy.”
That phrase “rulemaking” is really important. It allows public comment and creates enforceability. A policy would apply on range, during capture and in facilities.
Many of you might remember this big boy from his capture on the first day of the Swasey roundup just a couple of weeks ago.
He won’t be one of the ones released.
In fact, BLM personnel onsite kept trying to insist that for him to even be released to a sanctuary or adopter it would require a directive from DC. (None of that is actually true regarding regulations. In fact, a conversation was occurring to release “off-Swasey” horses that were part of the Onaqui catalogue herds to be placed during the tour. You could call, request him and they could sort him for transport to an adoption facility.)
It was really troubling that personnel were taking a really convoluted approach to this one stallion I had mentioned I thought should go back when I was at the temporary corrals during the roundup. The bizarre behavior even extended to the BLM employees on the tour breaking down in the type of laughter you hear after someone tells a dirty joke.
It was more than odd, but became apparent later on… they did single out this poor stallion as part of almost a “revenge plot” that is rooted in the most childish type of behavior you can imagine.
At temporary, day 1, Swasey
The stallion simply represents a genetic component of the herd well and, if BLM is returning horses to keep the herds identity intact (something all offices state in their gather plans), he should go back. SIMPLE genetic mathematics.
I love all the horses and really feel bad I even said I liked him… because now he carries that stigma.
Sorry old boy. Sometimes it is hard for me to remember the type of moral character of the people that hold the power in this mess…. sorry big boy that you are paying the price.
While we were ending the tour, after the explanation of the chute and methods of facility, the owner of the facility said “Don’t know if you remember me but we met 15-20 years ago?” Then he mentioned “the prison.”
Apparently the man with the Axtell contract is the man that ran the BLM facility at Gunnison prison.
Back in 2014 BLM closed the Gunnison prison facility. “The BLM estimates that it has overpaid UCI by approximately $2 million. The agency is in the process of securing an outside, independent audit to verify this figure.” You can read the short BLM press release on the closing of Gunnison HERE.
Silver King. Dawn at temporary holding before being loaded to go to Gunnison prison. 2010.
I knew a stallion with mismatched ears at Silver King. During the roundup BLM was killing almost all the cremellos claiming, according to old cowboy myth, that blue eyed horses are blind. I blurted out “I’ll adopt him!” Back then BLM often let their friends pick a horse at trap they wanted to adopt and then facilitated it. So I figured I would see if I could save his life. (more here)
Then I followed the horse, because, I was afraid if they did not know I was serious about taking him they would claim he was blind.
I went to Gunnison. Gunnison was not literally “inside the prison walls.” There was the prison, a huge fence, a clearance space for prisoners to be searched as they went into the BLM facility to work. There was another fence inside the facility so the public and prisoners did not intermingle. The parking lot was outside the doors to the BLM facility, not separated by a fence, and then another fence around the entire thing.
I had just won the first case in history against abuse and had filed a First Amendment lawsuit for daily access to gathers. Maybe the resentment was more than I anticipated?
Routinely horse trailers would be taken in so people could pick up horses and events were held. None of those people had to empty out their entire vehicle, have every bag searched, have essential medication taken away (I have epilepsy) and had to undergo a pat down. I did. I also received an email that said if I returned to the facility to pick up the horse, I would have to provide BLM notification so they could notify S.W.A.T. to be present (yes, that SWAT). No one else ever received that notice for the “adoption day” event when everyone would be picking up horses.
Battered, Silver King made it to Sanctuary.
This event became part of the Ninth Circuit case we won in February of 2012. Access must happen and it cannot be discriminatory.
Maybe after reminding me “who and what” the identity of the contract holder was he thought I would not respond? If he met me “15-20 years ago” as he stated, did he not think I would remember every single detail? Why would you bring up a time when you caused someone hardship, with a huge smile on your face and not contrition?
Why, in 2024, is the cremello from Swasey paying a price for some strange and twisted tale simply rooted in one person’s desire to save a horse back in 2010 and a resentment that has lasted longer than a decade over it?
I think this speaks volumes about the entire program.
We have more to say about the tour in a “by the numbers” piece that we are doing in conjunction with a larger article on facilities.
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 us on the frontline in the fight to preserve and protect our treasured wild horses and burros.
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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