Captured day 1. To us these are not numbers. This is Big Bay and Curly Joe, individuals that have relationship, personalities and value.

On July 10, the helicopters turned to the Callaghan Complex. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) intends to remove roughly 2,000 wild horses here and drive a million-acre landscape down to just 323 animals.

One day of capture and the death toll has already begun: a baby with a broken leg, a mare with a broken neck, and a baby dead of colic.

On the first day, BLM captured 329 wild horses. That single-day figure is central to understanding these deaths. A capture of this size overcrowds a field facility during a period of high summer heat, and overcrowding in heat is precisely the condition under which catastrophic injuries, colic, and other emergencies become more frequent

Even though BLM will cite the 3 deaths a “within acceptable numbers,” the deaths resulting from that day are not over and each one was preventable. The death toll will rise on average to 1 in 9. It can rise as high as 1 in 4.5.

You can see the roundup reports HERE. 

Nothing anyone does or proposes can be considered a “humane solution” until we have enforceable welfare rules. The word game needs to end, now. 

Concerns with the lack of a formalized welfare standard run deep. Gaining an enforceable welfare policy that contains clear standards is vital. The concerns include concerns with foaling season, air quality and heat index standards. All of those are very relevant to this roundup. 

You can learn more about the issue and take ACTION here, 

How Heat and Density Increase Risk

Rising heat is not incidental to these outcomes. Our data indicates that increases in the heat index correlate with increases in injury and death — and that the risk is not limited to days that fall within recognized danger zones. Any sustained upward shift in the heat index is associated with elevated injury and death rates, and that elevation continues as horses are shipped into facilities after capture. Broken necks, broken legs, colic, and other emergency conditions are foreseeable consequences of moving horses in extreme heat and then concentrating them in holding pens.

This pattern is documented rather than anecdotal. Our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) work over several years supports it. As an example our 2022 FOIA report found that, on average, 1 in 9 wild horses and burros — approximately 12% — captured at a roundup will die within six months as a direct result of capture, shipping, and holding facility conditions.

That average rises considerably during seasonal extremes such as summer operations, when the observed toll can approach 1 in 4.5. 

Below: Video from Callaghan holding, day 1

Just ONE Factor: Space and Water in Field Holding

Our field observations tie one of the most significant risk factors to a recurring shortcoming: BLM’s management of space and water in temporary holding corrals. BLM’s own CAWP recommendations advise against filling a pen beyond 50% of capacity with horses. Exceeding that threshold prevents horses from resting and from reaching feed and water, and in high heat it turns water access into a serious constraint. This is the number one violation we see during roundups consistently. It is a significant issue and most BLM employees we have soken with are truly unaware it even exists.

The arithmetic from Day 1 illustrates the problem. A capture of 329 wild horses requires, at minimum, 3,290 gallons of water. In high heat, that requirement roughly doubles. In practice, there are rarely enough troughs, or enough time, to deliver that volume.

The result is a sequence of compounding stressors:

• Horses living on ranges where BLM cites “water availability” as a justification for removal are subjected to a roundup, among the most physically demanding events they will experience.
• They frequently do not receive adequate water in field holding.
• They are then shipped to a facility for hours without food or water, with foals separated during transport — foals young enough to nurse several times within a single hour.
• On arrival they experience further stress: they are offloaded, sorted, sorted again, branded, and moved out quickly to make room for the next horses coming off the range.

The receiving facilities are, in most cases, difficult for the public to observe. As of December 2024, only 8.7% of all captive wild horses and burros were accessible to public view, and at least 70% were off-limits at any given time (Wild Horse Education, “Facilities and the CAWP”). The majority of pens in BLM facilities have no shade structures; in many private facilities, the only pens offering meaningful shelter are the “sick pens” (Wild Horse Education, “Facilities and the CAWP”). Where oversight and shade are both limited, the physiological effects of heat translate directly into elevated mortality: 1 in 9, and in extreme conditions as many as 1 in 4.5.

In blistering heat foals cluster by a wire fence seeking the shreds of shade provided. Although BLM requires shelter of adopters they do not hold themselves to the same basic standards. (Palomino Valley Center, open to the public)

The Youngest Animals

Two of the three deaths were foals.

July and August operations are among the most difficult from a welfare standpoint because they coincide with foaling season, which begins in mid-February, peaks in June, and continues through August (Wild Horse Education, “Baby Feet”).

In addition to issues involving colic or catastrophic injury (immediate death from a broken leg or neck), a newborn’s hooves are soft, covered at birth by a protective capsule, and the integrity of those first feet and limbs establishes the structural foundation for the horse’s entire life (Wild Horse Education, “Baby Feet”). Being driven by helicopter in the first weeks of life carries a substantial risk of injury to developing legs and feet. Documented outcomes include torn laminae, sloughed hooves, tibial fractures, spinal and limb injuries, and euthanasia following a post-capture determination of “lax tendons” — injuries that occur during capture and in the first weeks afterward (Wild Horse Education, “Baby Feet”).

A sorrel filly with a broken leg. A three-month-old with signs of colic. These outcomes are consistent with the pressures that accompany rapid processing of the youngest animals in the herd.

Just before the roundup

What Should Happen Next

BLM needs to stop doing roundups in July. BLM needs to define when foaling season truly occurs. BLM needs to do real management planning and stop trying to pass off gather plans as management plans (like they rushed to do here at Callaghan). There are so many problems in the program. We are litigating all of the underlying issues at Callaghan.

But there is an immediate action that can be taken to address welfare. An ongoing problem that should be the easiest to address in the entire program. But BLM has dug in ther feet and refused. It took decades of our litigation just to get the so-called “Comprehensive Animal Welfare Program” even started and the  “recommendations” it contains. But there are no formal and enforceable welfare standards.

The needed correction is narrow: a single directive in the appropriations process.

We ask readers to contact their elected representatives and request that Congress move beyond the (meaningless)  instruction to “comply with CAWP” and instead fund and direct BLM to formalize enforceable welfare standards — including a data-based definition of foaling season and basic heat index and air quality thresholds — with clear consequences for violations.

Please send the letter to your Senators and Representatives HERE

One day at Callaghan produced three deaths: a broken leg, a broken neck, and a foal lost to colic — two of them foals. That is just the beginning of the death toll the 329 captured on that first day will face. Callaghan will capture another 1671.

At least 1 in 9 will die. The death rate could nearly double. That dry statistically fact represents 240-480 wild horses. Roundups are the number 1 cause of death for a wild horse or burro in the U.S.

These are the predictable results of conducting large-scale operations in summer heat without enforceable rules to govern them.

Please take action today. 

Please send the letter to your Senators and Representatives HERE

Share the action item with friends and family and anyone that you believe feels we need real enforceable welfare standards, If everyone speaks up today we can gain this desperately needed tool to impact needless suffering and death. 

We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team ready to run the roundup schedule.

Every mile we travel to cover roundups or assess a herd, every court case we bring, every win, every action we take is only possible because of your support.