Blue Wing Burros as capture operations began, 2024
As the fiscal year winds down (BLM year 2025 begins Oct. 1) we are continuing to gain additional information concerning roundups from the 2024 BLM fiscal calendar.
Our team is beginning to uncover an alarming death toll in short-term corrals post the Blue Wing operation in just the first month. Death rates post operation are beginning to climb. Just in the first 6 weeks post capture 13.8% of burros have died in one facility. We expect the six-month mark to reach around 18% or more.
Above: There was literally zero access to assess any actual handling of burros. What could be seen was that the pursuit was long, relentless and often involved roping. There were a lot of new babies and extremely pregnant Jennies on the range indicating that Blue Wing burros do, in fact, have a “foaling season” and BLM claims there is no “foaling season” at for burros.
Preface
Blue Wing in Nevada (near Lovelock) 2024 took place from July 8 through August 1. This operation took place in actual (data-backed) foaling season, two dangerous heat index warnings lasting more than 16 days and air quality warnings from wildfire smoke that lasted 5 days.
BLM refused, once again, to heed any warning to take precaution to prevent unnecessary suffering and death.
Instead of postponing, BLM simply sent in their Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program (CAWP) team, after the first heat index warning had waned (did they not want to stand in the blistering heat all day?) and after the first two burros had collapsed and died during transport; one from trap just to temporary holding and the other on arrival at Broken Arrow (Indian Lakes) corrals as temperatures rose over 100 degrees and the heat index lingered in the danger zone.
BLMs welfare team came to create a whitewash, not to stay onsite and provide oversight. The BLM team gave this roundup an “excellent” rating. With extremely limited access to assess capture and zero access to assess temporary corrals, our team found 18 violations of existing standards. (You can read a rundown and access both BLMs assessment and ours by clicking HERE)
Above: Blue Wing ended in controversy and ongoing litigation. From the very first day we observed conduct that escalated until observers finally got a relatively clear view of a horse choked down, kicked in the face and harassed… and then with just a bump on the trailer, a broken neck (most likely the same horse).
All of this is the result of the failure of BLM to create clear, concise and formal welfare rules. BLM created CAWP only after years of litigation in 2015. They said it was a draft that would be assessed and then public comment woulds be accepted and the rules formalized into policy. The formalization that would have completed the “Rulemaking” process never happened. BLM still does not comply with the main tenet of law, humane handling, and continues to leave it to the discretion of the BLM employee in charge onsite. (We are fighting back in the courts.)
42 were reported by BLM to have died onsite: 8 burros and 34 horses. The deaths included broken bones, dropping dead in trailers, a plethora of non-life threatening conditions and BLMs insistence that 2 body score “1” horses were somehow able to run from the helicopter over distance to later be euthanized at trap/ Anyone that actually knows what a body score 1actually is, knows that horse would have dropped dead from exertion) long before hitting the trap. Observers saw no “walking skeletons” at any time. This type of exaggeration from BLM brings every death under suspicion.
The death ratio during this roundup ranged from 2 times the national average to 4 times the national average and 6 times of the other operations occurring this summer (during the early heat index rises).
Post-Roundup
1,268 wild horses and 94 burros went to the BLM off-limits to the public facility in Fallon NV. The drive is about an hour from temporary corrals to facility. BLM has offered no tour of the facility in the nearly 8 weeks post capture. There has been no ability to assess the condition of animals at all.
258 burros went to Axtell in Utah. From the temporary corrals north of Lovelock in NV, the drive is about 9 hours to Axtell. Axtell did offer a tour. The tour was apparently to only facilitate observation to the wild horses captured at and off Swasey that included some Onaqui Utah wild horses.
Observation of burros was apparently “not written in the contract.”
We could only see a few of the burros down an alley. The “feeding area” looked like a hodgepodge that included a section that appeared to be like a highway rail with burros trying to reach feed through it. Feed appeared to be green alfalfa blend… not what you should primarily feed a burro.
Capture Stress
Burros are highly susceptible to death from capture stress (capture myopathy). Horses suffer illness and death from capture stress as well. Capture Myopathy (CM) occurs when animals overexert themselves so much so that physiological imbalances develop and result in severe muscle damage. Hotter temperatures increase the risk of animals suffering from CM. Death from CM can be immediate or occur days or weeks later.
Burros can suffer from a specific type of capture stress called Lipemia/Hyperlipidemia. This kind of death is exasperated by feeding burros as if they were horses. Basically, blood thickens and begins to look milky often described “like tomato soup” due to high levels of cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia) and triacylglycerols (hypertriacylglycerolemia or hypertriglyceridemia).
This condition causes the vast majority of deaths in burros in BLM care. BLM refuses to craft specific management and welfare requirements for burros. They do not utilize appropriate reproduction modeling, appropriate capture methods or appropriate care and feeding post capture.
BLM does not consider death from capture stress related to capture in any statistical data base. This is the kind of “logic” BLM uses program wide when it comes to classifying data and it is a bit “crazy making.”
Capture during heat event and dangerous air quality from wildfire smoke, Blue Wing, 2024.
Investigation: Phase 1
After a roundup our team crafts welfare reports and begins to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Our FOIA investigative work has repeatedly found that the national average sits at about a 12% death rate (or 1 in 9) from capture out to the first 6 months. We have also found numerous discrepancies in record keeping and missing information.
We have filed numerous FOIA requests to track the captives from Blue Wing.
We received the first one back regarding any burros sent to Broken Arrow (Indian Lakes) in Fallon. The request was incomplete (not unusual). Although requested, we received no vet reports at all.
94 Burros were sent to Broken Arrow out of the 352 burros shipped.
In the first 6 weeks post capture:
One arrived dead at the facility (and one died on the trailer simply going from trap to temporary holding). From the records we received, no necropsy was done (and if it was done, it was not sent as requested or even noted).
1 died of gelding complication
1 died of colic
2 BLM said dropped dead because they were 20 years old
8 died of Lipemia/Hyperlipidemia
Of the burros sent to Broken Arrow (Indian Lakes) 13.8% have already died.
Worst Record Keeping You Can Imagine
The inventory list we received states all the burros at Indian Lakes arrived on 7/20. This is simply absurd.
The shipping manifests show the dates correlate with the last burros shipped from trap: 7/12 and 7/13. The shipping manifests state that on 7/12 a total of 80 burros arrived and on 7/13, 14 burros arrived.
This is what BLM posted on the “daily update” online: On 7/12, 140 (61 Jacks, 59 Jennies and 20 Foals) shipped. On 7/13, 50 (14 Jacks, 34 Jennies and 2 Foals).
We can only assume that on 7/12, 40 burros went to Axtell and on 7/13, 60 burros went to Axtell.
No burros were shipped after 7/13.
We have not received any replies to our FOIAs addressing burros from Axtell in Utah yet.
BLM likes to claim that they have a death rate of less than 1% due to capture. We can say that if the helicopter never flew, all that died would be alive today. When BLM even refuses to count deaths clearly due to capture stress in that statistic, nothing they say can carry an factual weight.
The national average sits at about a 12% death rate (or 1 in 9) from capture out to the first 6 months. Since BLM adopted the CAWP standards in 2015, this statistic has not budged one decimal point. CAWP, as it stands, is clearly not working during and after capture.
Our team is working hard in the field, investigating, outreach to Congress and in the courts.
Thank you for keeping WHE running for the wild.
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Categories: Wild Horse Education
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