Trailer doors left unsecured in the rush

The first roundup of the 2025 fiscal year has ended at Twin Peaks. Another roundup BLM completed in 1/3 of the time scheduled. This is becoming standard practice: BLM gets funding for large roundups to last a month or more and then races through placing speed and funding over safety.

Week 1, Twin Peaks

Week 2, Twin Peaks 

All of you have watched these types of events for the last few years through our reporting. Many of you have asked what it is like to be behind the scenes of that reporting.

It is hard to explain a “normal” roundup where you get up long before dawn to meet BLM to be escorted out. Spend the day at trap and then get back to your room, download the video and images you captured and then upload to send to our offsite team (or hand off to the editor when they are onsite). Sometimes our field person is both in field, editor and writing the updates each day.

But when BLM crams a half dozen bands into trap again and again in a single day, the amount of video and images is massive. Sometimes we simply cannot process all the media and upload because there is simply not enough time! The pressure is on hard during long days with a massive amount of information to convey each day.

There are some events that happen that represent a real challenge to illustrate because the event inovles time itself. A band driven from the top of a mountain and then raced back and forth across a valley floor for over 40 minutes (while babies lag behind) is really hard to convey in a 3 minute video (about the limit that can be loaded from the crappy internet you usually have in the field).

Events that we simply cannot tell completely in a single short video involve tension and time.

Below: At Twin Peaks a band (or two) was being driven in. One challenged the jute entering trap pens sending the rest of the horses bolting out of the trap. (Video below)

We originally edited this entire event, illustrated on this page in 4 videos, down into 1 video.

However, the distance our videographer (thank you Colette Kaluza) is focused on is far and she is placed across a highway with moving vehicles crossing her shot continually. This creates a challenge to hold the camera still. It also creates a challenge in editing. Our editor does stabilize video to remove shake due to distance. But the vehicles crossing the path caused glitches in the inexpensive software we use. The videos had to be re-edited and reloaded giving us an opportunity to tell the story in a longer form as a “stand alone” instead of as part of the ongoing updates. 

Below: The escape from the trap began a tense stand-off where the horses knew the trap awaited. These bands stayed amazingly steady under hard pressure from the chopper.

When we know all of you rely on WHE for rapid updates from the field the tension is like working in a daily newsroom with hard deadlines. Our onsite team taking the day shift and our offsite team taking the night shift. If we did not, you would not know what happened for days after an event which can be too late to take appropriate action to stop something onsite that should not be happening.

Example: Rushing and trailer doors not being secured was seen by you, news media and those higher up the food chain in BLM and became a big topic onsite the next day. The event also set off a new round of calls from the public for concise and enforceable welfare policy. 

Below: The pressure continued with countless attempts by the pilot to push these horses into the trap.

When observers do catch something bad and put it out to the public there is blowback. Many of you have asked if people “get mad.” Sometimes the blowback is simply being pushed further away making documenting challenging. However, there are times when blowback can escalate to literally being yelled at onsite, being driven fast down unsafe roads and, occasionally, things like being told “if you break down, we are leaving you.” Each roundup is different and some BLM districts recognize that observers are just people that play an important role in process. Some districts simply see the public as a part of “public lands” that just want to get rid of.

Being a consistent onsite observer is a test of physical and emotional capacities.

Below: With one more push into the trap by the helicopter, a stallion races directly by the low flying craft. The rest bolt and follow. The bands are finally allowed to escape. The last frames of this video show you just how far away the observer is. 

If you can get out to a roundup the experience of being on-site is one you will not soon forget. 

We are grateful to our volunteers that suit up and show up day-after-day. Their commitment to daily reporting is the foundation needed to create necessary changes in day-to-day operations to prevent unnecessary suffering a death. 

If you want to learn more and make a call to your reps to help gain a concise and enforceable welfare policy for our wild horses and burros (Click HERE)

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.