Overburdened System (Fiscal 2024 Roundup Update)

By Laura Leigh on August 27, 2024

The first look inside the Winnemucca facility, 2024

Above: Did you know that BLM uses “no shelter” as a reason to zero out an HMA and revert it to HA status? If a range has no cliffs, trees, rolling hills, the BLM will cite a lack of shelter as a reason to remove all the horses. Then they remove them and put them in a facility where they claim horses do not need shelter. The contradictions in “BLM speak” can be absurdly maddening.

Throughout each roundup season our team works hard to bring you rapid update from the field, in-depth reviews as we take action in the courts and continuing to raise awareness in the media.

You can also use our assessment reports in your outreach. One example is how BLM’s self-assessment on welfare is not working and needs to be replaced with independent oversight teams shown clearly at Blue Wing. BLM found one minor issue at Blue Wing and our team, even with extremely limited access, found 18 violations. (Learn more and click to access our full assessment HERE)

This “roundup update” is a bit different.

Today we take a look at the system of “capture and hold” in a programmatic update for fiscal 2024.

Swasey, foal lost for 2 hours on the range found hiding in a drainage ditch, roped and brought to holding.

In 5 short weeks the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) fiscal year 2024 roundup schedule comes to an end and the 2025 season begins October 1.

As Congress finalizes the last round of debates on the fiscal 2025 budget, we see the language to continue the status quo of the last 6 years. Even though there has been a lot of talk in this election year, we have seen no new messaging from Congress and big lobby groups. We expect a series of resolutions to fund the government through the chaos of an election year. That means the 2025 roundup season will be funded and announced in “quarterly chunks” as it has been the last decade. We expect the first targets for 2025 (to begin October 1) to be announced in the coming weeks; the fall and winter capture schedules. (We will do a longer article on the budget shortly.)

Calico, fiscal 2024

All of this will happen, once more, without one single member of Congress proposing an amendment to designate a mere 2 million dollars to fund Rulemaking for an enforceable welfare policy.

BLM has already created the draft, done a review. Now all they need to do is put their Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program standards out for public comment, condense into concise rules and add consequences.

It really does speak to the heart of the program that even on welfare issues, the simplest aspect of the program, a “cloak and dagger” mentality of obfuscation and denial of open public process continues to exist.

Another roundup year will begin without any move to create an enforceable policy for welfare. It is really outrageous that this one simple thing, that everyone should agree with (even if they do not agree wild horses and burros should be on the range) is a clear and enforceable policy to prevent unnecessary suffering and death. The fact that it is not included speaks to the deep influence of political lobby groups on all sides that set the current practices in motion back in 2018.

Marietta

Please make a call. If you have made the call, make another. Our wild ones desperately need an enforceable welfare policy that contains concise rules, crafted with public participation and complies with current accepted welfare standards for equines by the broad equine community.

The phone number for Congress is: (202) 224-3121.

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.”

The phrase “rulemaking” is vitally important as it is the name of the process that opens a welfare policy to public comment and finalizes with enforceability. We need concise rules, enforceability through formal policy making and consequences. The way to get that is through Rulemaking.

Triple B, another removal pending the 2025 budget allocation without any current census data or Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA).

In 2024, BLM has, once again, pushed the limits of their capacity to warehouse wild horses and burros to the breaking point. BLM simply cannot process and transport animals out fast enough to accommodate the number coming off the range. BLM has been overloading the online corrals to try to get horses and burros moved out and even added a “buy now” option before they even figured out how to facilitate transport.

Every single roundup operation in fiscal 2024 was rushed to completion ending long before the approved timeframe. Coming in fast and under budget seemed like an unspoken directive with little care for welfare.

Marietta

BLM has been overloading the system since the Path Forward was incorporated into the BLM Report to Congress. Basically Path Forward is a race to get to AML (without any disclosure of how they were set or revision) and an increase in the use of fertility control (without any monitoring). Absolutely zero reform of the broken program was included in the plan from deficits in on range management planning and ignoring the fact that there is no enforceable welfare policy to (at least) stop unnecessary suffering and death during capture an in the massive warehousing system that functions by shuffling horses and burros out with very little oversight to protect them from further abuse and landing in the slaughter pipeline.

Above: Overview of a week at East Pershing. At timecode 0:53 is the horse that was roped, collapsed and dragged to trailer with wrangler sitting on it.

After national exposure showed how BLM was selling and shipping directly to known killbuyers in 2012, numbers for the Sales program dropped. Since 2013, open sales where title transfers immediately (resulting in a loss of any legal protection) have risen 65%, nearly back to the rate before the exposure in the press. There has been no significant changes to the Sales Program.

Public attention has focused on the new Adoption Incentive Program (AIP) that has seen the taxpayer subsidize adoptions and then many of these horses and burros are immediately dropped off at sale barns creating panic as rescues try to step in to stop the horses and burros from going to slaughter (because once title transfers, BLM no longer has any legal responsibility).

Move ’em in, move ’em out. Keep the broken program accelerating with no reform on range, during capture, in holding or after title transfers. We have been on a fast Path Backwards.

NEW Holding facility EAs

BLM is rushing to approve new “off-limits to the public” storage facilities. More wild horses and burros will be warehoused and you will never see how your money is spent.

A mere 8 days is being provided for public comments on 2 proposed facilities (you can participate HERE)

North Lander

Fiscal 2024

To date 14,672 wild horses and burros were removed by helicopter drive-trapping.

After the roundups scheduled for September are completed, about 1200 more will be added. The 2,355 wild horses targeted at Triple B and removed from the September lineup, appear to be inline to be addd to the next roundup schedule to be announced in a couple of weeks.

The bait trap operation updates are piecemeal and not complete, but will add approximately an additional 1000 to the total so far for the 2024 fiscal year.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) investigations continue to indicate that the death rate from capture through the first 6 months, remains at a 12% rate. In other words, 1 in 9 wild horses and burros die from roundup into holding within 6 months.

If that calculation continues to hold true, the number of reported deaths will reach over 2,020 in the first 6 months post capture in BLM care.

Of note: BLM does not publish cumulative capture and death numbers for the fiscal year. BLM does not provide any information from facilities on deaths or vet reports unless you file Freedom of Information Act requests. It will take several months before we can assess the true loss in lives from fiscal 2024. A wild one with a club foot, one-eyed blindness, a previous break that healed funny, etc. could live a decade of more if left free. A wild one that contracts an infectious disease in captivity, could have lived a normal life in the wild. It is not just the catastrophic deaths like breaking a neck, dropping dead on a trailer from heat stroke or heart attack, snapping a limb, that results in loss and undue suffering. Death is not the only measure of abuse.

We won an amazing ruling earlier this year where the courts recognized roundup plans are not management plans. We are stretching ourselves and our resources to keep 3 other cases alive in the courts to push this precedent forward.

Current AMLs (the numbers BLM says can be on range) were never set using science, but were set within politically motivated “interim” agreements.” These were never address through monitoring plans and disclosure through management planning. We are pushing as hard as we can against big money to get planning set in motion to save our wild ones still free on the range.

Help keep our teams on the frontline on the range and in the courts