EDITED TO ADD EXTRA VIDEO:

When BLM places numbers over safety injuries happen. This foal was apparently kicked (according to BLM) and the lip is in tatters and hanging. GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING in video below. Foal was sent to Litchfield. 

Unsecured trailer door causes spill out at trailer moves down the road

On October 3, 2024, BLM once again placed numbers over safety.

Bringing in 177 wild horses in a single day into crowded trap pens and temporary corrals BLM showed numbers are priority over safety. This operation is approved to last until October 31 and there is no reason to not place limits on what can be squeezed in.

Crowded trap pens create fighting among rival bands that are already in “fight or flight mode” after a chase. Crowded trap pens create chaotic conditions that are unsafe for both young and old alike. Babies get hurt in the crush.

The unthinkable happened due to the rush… a trailer door was not secured causing further trauma and injury. As the trailer was driving the doors came open on the slightest incline and wild horses spilled out onto the dirt road.

This is pure neglect and every single injury and additional trauma was preventable if BLM would just for once place safety over speed.

It is harder to see wounds on bay horses from a distance. But the gash on the neck of this horse is easy to see.

BLM likes to use “dropping dead” as the bar. Death is not the only measure of abuse.

Simply because the wounded limped off under the rush of adrenaline does not excuse BLM’s negligence.

We know what fear and adrenaline can do. We all remember “Sunshine,” the wild horse with his leg snapped in two that kept going for over 30 minutes. People that claim there are “no injuries” from this incident are simply ignorant.

During a “gather operation” BLM barely monitors what is happening in the trap zone. The wild ones from the trailer event are not being “monitored” and are not marked (except that some are limping badly) to distinguish from the other bays and browns on the range they are driving in each run. To “monitor” BLM would need to stop operations and follow them as they keep trying to move to evade the sound of the helicopter after their ordeal. BLMs “monitoring assertion” is absurd, illogical and logistically not possible during active trapping.

If BLM actually “cared,” they would first SLOW DOWN and place safety over numbers. Second they would cease active trapping anywhere until a series of enforceable welfare rules was finalized as real (and not just asserted) policy.

Signing petitions won’t help get enforceable rules and the opportunity to demand independent welfare officers to be onsite each and every day to stop abuse. More “fertility control” will not stop BLM reaching unscientific AML, rendering herds genetically fragile and it will not stop abuse. You need to address the need for enforceable welfare rules directly.

Please make a call!

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 for the Department of Interior to create a line item for funding for Rulemaking to create an enforceable welfare policy for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The word “Rulemaking” is important to use. That word will get the draft CAWP standards out for public input and finalized as enforceable. 

This action addresses abuse directly. It does not use abuse to forward any other agenda.

Please… make the call today. 

Gaining enforceable welfare standards should have been easy. It has been a 50 year fight. Why is it so hard? Learn more HERE. 

Follow our Twin Peaks Roundup Updates HERE that includes extensive video and reporting.

We do need your support to keep our teams in field and in the courts. Without you, none of our work is possible.

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.