Many of you have been following our work for a long time. Some of our volunteers have experienced their first roundup this year. One has been documenting roundups for seventeen years. No matter how long you do this you are impacted by each roundup, each run.
Our welfare team is out providing sorely needed independent oversight and working hard in the courts and educating the public and lawmakers to gain an enforceable welfare policy.
Below is a personal plea from one of our steadfast volunteers.
Above: Sulphur HMA, Utah, in the summer of 2024, this beautiful horse was allowed to remain free, not roped, after being driven by helicopter and evaded capture. Nevada BLM would have roped this horse without regard for animal safety. More here Video here
“How do you do it?” is often a question posed to me of my hundreds of days documenting wild horse and burro roundups over the last three years. I strive, with everything in me, to attend as many days at roundups across the West and to memorialize as many moments and events as humanly possible. If observers were not onsite, the public would have no way of knowing what actually happened beyond the few lines Bureau of Land Management (BLM) includes on its website of number captured, shipped and those that died that day. Our team works very long hours, grabbing only a few hours of sleep a night, so we can provide the information to the public the following day, and most of the days the only organization to do that.
Abusive conduct is sometimes apparent and in full view. But there is also abusive conduct happening beneath the surface and harder to spot, especially factoring in distance. Given the valuable humane handling training WHE continues to provide me, I feel a weighty responsibility to use my experience to ensure the recording of roundup events, critically examine them, and ask relevant questions of BLM in real time.
Roundups are more horrendous than video with sound can illustrate. So often I have observed how BLM’s “humane handling” program is absolutely inadequate and silent in far too many areas.
For example, environment should be considered: heat advisory, heat index, or wildfire smoke. “The Nevada Blue Wing Complex roundup (2024) slammed through two extended Heat Index rises and pushed through Air Quality Index (AQI) warnings, and operated at about 4 times the death ratio of the national average.” (Learn more HERE)
The PM2.5 particles (the “bad stuff” in wildfire smoke) were 13 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, saying wear a mask outdoors and avoid all outdoor activity. The smoke was so bad I found myself covering my face with a mask while I listened to BLM public affairs coughing. Blue Wing (Can you see through the smoke?)
A wild horse was driven in the smoke, roped, and spent over AN HOUR on that rope during the Blue Wing roundup under BLM discretion and approval onsite (below).
The program standards should not include discretionary language where that language is constantly abused. For example, under BLM discretion we have watched BLM routinely rope solo animals in areas that are not being “zeroed out” (all removed). Animal is helicopter-driven relentlessly back and forth, fights and evades capture, chased down and roped by multiple wranglers throughout Blue Wing. Cheap nylon rope contributes to deaths. Even when it comes to the rope used at trap, corners are cut to save money and welfare concerns are not the priority.
Mare was kicked and punched, roped, yanked and pulled by the neck probably caused her broken neck and collapsed on a trailer (below). (You can see the incidents in video HERE)
At East Pershing Complex roundup (2024) horses were also routinely roped. A roped horse was dragged with an ATV (below). instead of bringing the trailer to the horse. More here
(below) The BLM Nevada Wild Horse and Burro Specialist in charge at Blue Wing and East Pershing roundups was also the same person in charge during Antelope Complex (2023) where he not only approved the roping and choking down of a solo adult horse, he participated, as the horse fought for over an hour. Antelope was also during a dangerous heatwave and Heat Index Warnings. BLM was asked and refused to suspend roundup. More here
WHE team observes more days at roundups and the only organization able to author assessment reports on BLM’s conduct. For the Blue Wing Complex report, you can see our draft assessment that notes 18 areas of the current guidelines BLM violated (even with extremely limited access to assess) and other concerns by clicking HERE.
To stop the abuse we need a Comprehensive Animal Welfare Policy created through public input called “Rulemaking.” A clear, concise and enforceable policy with consequence would be the outcome. BLM’s broad discretion that we see now that leads to so much abuse of power and abuse of horses and burros would not be included in any future policy.
I hope you feel galvanized and ready to take action with me.
Our wild ones desperately need an enforceable welfare policy that is crafted with transparency, public participation and complies with current welfare standards for equines.
It is not too late to gain an amendment that directly addresses abuse and to stop the exploitation of abuse to serve other agendas.
Please Call Congress (202) 224-3121. 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.
Request an amendment to the funding bill to create a line item for funding for Rulemaking to create an enforceable welfare policy for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.
WHE was founded in the trenches years ago as we fought in the courts to open roundups to public view to expose the program and gain equity on the range.
WHE took the fight into the courts to gain an enforceable welfare policy. When WHE began the fight there was no daily access policy and not even a simple welfare standard. WHE won in the courts on both issues. An amazing ruling in the Ninth Circuit opened roundups to daily view stands today as a testament to the First Amendment and cited in rulings to protect press freedoms far beyond the confines of a roundup.
Today, we have an access policy and the first welfare standards since the 1971 Wild Horse Act passed.
Then why are we still seeing abuse by BLM?
BLM began the official process of creating a welfare policy when they released the Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) as a draft at the end of 2015. They also released an assessment tool.
The next step would have involved review, revision and releasing that version for public comment and that step was never taken.
In 2020 BLM simply typed the words “permanent” and “policy” onto the draft. Even today, many people inside BLM do not know what to call CAWP. Some call it a standard, a program, and a few misleadingly call it a “policy” when talking to the press or Congress.
The last steps to create precise rules to gain enforceability and consequence are long overdue.
We must move this process forward. ~ Colette Kaluza, Wild Horse Education welfare team assistant director
Thank you for keeping WHE running for the wild.
There are several ways you can support WHE from gift shopping to stock donations. Learn more HERE.
Fiscal 2024 team reporting (helicopter roundups)
Sands Basin/Four Mile Emergency (ID)
Private Facility Reports fiscal 2024
Broken Arrow (Indian Lakes Rd, Fallon, NV)
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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