While BLM is squeezing every wild horse they can find off the range at each trap site, roping of adults is commonplace. Roping of adults is traditionally limited to matching up nursing mares with small foals separated at any roundup BLM claims is to “achieve management objectives” (getting to a numbers quota so they can “increase fertility control”). The roping of anything on the range is standard practice when BLM’s objective is to zero out an area, or zero animals on the range. The mare and the younger horse in these videos should have been let go if BLM’s objective were to achieve a viable population on the range.
The horses in these videos should have been let go if BLM’s goal were to have a viable population on the range. Instead, a long saga to catch one wild horse begins.
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133 (53 Stallions, 49 Mares, and 31 Foals) were captured during a very long day as BLM expected weather to move in and cancel operations the following day.
2 more died: 3-year-old Grulla stallion was killed because BLM said he had Wry nose (a twisted nose that he has lived with for 3 years). A Sorrel foal died in transportation (we have no more details like age or cause). NOTE: BLM has weaned all foals so far at trap and sent moms to a facility north of Reno and babies off-limits to the public to Indian Lakes R. in Fallon.
We are going to present a really long series of videos showing the effort that went into catching one “just a bay.” Just a bay that was in the prime of life, terrified, will suffer capture stress, probably a neck injury, possibly breathing problems or heart failure from this ordeal.
Why? Because BLM is removing below AML. How do we know? Just like the Surprise Complex in CA, North Lander in WY, Twin Peaks in CA, etc., etc. BLM is inflating population numbers on the range. Even BLM says the estimates are off “25% up or down.” But BLM only inflates numbers and never operates with caution.
If you look at the pre-roundup census flight you can see the direct count of 1,834 as a total sum in the complex (2023 survey, BLM did not do a survey immediately before this operation.
If no wild horses died of any cause and the herd reproduced by 20% in 2024, a direct count result would be around 2201.
We know BLM said “dozens died” and they removed 106 in an emergency (that continues to repeat every few years because BLM refuses to address an ongoing issue with water) in September. If you believe BLM that “dozens died” then there are dozens fewer horses.
We know BLM then ran numbers through a computer modeling program and will not share the specific variables used in the “numbers pad.” After padding the numbers, BLM says the estimate can be off “25% up or down.”
The target for this operation is to catch 2,255. On 1.6 million acres, in 3 distinct areas, they only plan to leave 472 and may be leaving even fewer!
BLM NV has repeatedly refused to do census flights to determine numbers that need to be released to keep within legal population limits post-roundup.
Other states have done these types of flights, even temporarily ceasing operations to do the flights. Each time this has happened it was confirmed BLM removed below allowable numbers.
Even if a few horses are returned, BLM plans to use GonaCon (4-10 years of efficacy) on older mares that will probably die before they have another foal. On 1.6 million acres are a few hundred, non-reproductive horses, really fair management and protection? Is this really “expanding safe fertility control” or is it a path to a slow die-off of one of less than a handful of our last large herds in the U.S.?
This poor horse is no threat to any cow, mine or wrangler. Even if she were left on the range, she would simply have been part of a severely fragmented population. This horse is in the prime of life and not injured and has no nursing foal. This simply checks a box labeled “capture.”
When confronted with the logical facts on population data coupled with events at trap (increased roping of healthy adults) BLM suddenly presented an “operating practice” we have never seen approved in any manual, IM, operating procedure, CAWP, Gather EA…
Video from 11/19… with audio… click to watch “bad horses” video
Basically BLM is saying that they need to catch the “Bad Horses” so they do not teach other horses how to evade the chopper. In all of our years documenting after capture, we have never seen a horse do a “Ted Talk.”
Horses that evade are primarily in their prime… they evade just like they would evade the mountain lion or any other predator that lives out on the range and a horse not in the prime of life could not. Even in an area that has not had a roundup in years, horses will evade (even without another horse teaching it how).
Apparently, BLM takes zero responsibility for setting bad traps (there are only bad horses y’know). BLM also sets traps repeatedly without taking into account how a horse sees the world and how from dawn to dusk the way the sun hits an object changes perception. Hey, BLM! Do you know that when the sun is behind the jute you can see right through it and see it is a flimsy object with crouching people behind it? BLM also does not recognize that repeated capture increases vigilance particularly when they hot the area with mass removals for 12 years in a row.
Triple B and Antelope (the two complexes BLM lumped into one in the largest gather plan in the country) is the most data-poor document in the nation. BLM has never, not once, provided any shred of data to demonstrate any baseline or continued science-based action under this gather EA, nothing.
The following two videos show how this saga ends: She had to wait on that rope for over 40 minutes because more horses were coming in. (Even though the video of this event is extensive, it was still edited for time.)
Then it appears that the rope is threaded through the trailer to a wrangler and they other rope wrapped through the back of a trailer… both used to drag her in. We do not see a horse standing when the trailer is finally parked.
This event reminds us of a similar incident where we could actually see the back of the trailer as a mare was choked down twice as the rails on the trailer were used as a fulcrum for the wrangler to pull her in after being handed the rope by the BLM employee in charge. That event took place at Antelope, under the same gather plan as this one.
You can see the entire event from last year HERE.
The reason they have to increase roping is that there are not as many out there as they say (because nothing else truly makes any logical sense). Accusations that they need to get “bad horses” are absurd when you consider how many times BLM gets out the rope and approves the chase of another adult. Nevada must be home to the smartest “baddest” horses in the country!
Please join us in requesting that BLM needs to pause Triple B and do a census (just like at Surprise, N.Lander, Twin Peaks, etc.) prior to proceeding. If the modeling estimates have been so off-base in so many places over the last year… it stands to reason that Triple B is off too.
You can add your name to a letter requesting a pause for a census.
If you want to write your own letter please be respectful in your request. The District in charge of this operation is the Ely District. District Manager: Robbie McAboy, rmcaboy@blm.gov the Wild Horse and Burro Specialist: Ben Noyes, BNoyes@BLM.gov
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