Fifteenmile release

The Fifteenmile (WY) roundup ended yesterday. 356 wild horses were captured. 108 were released and 1 escaped (an it is unknown if the horse was recaptured). BLM lusts 109 as released. 12 wild horses died; most listed with a vague “mobility issue” as the reason they were killed. There was no veterinarian onsite as the BLM weakened their welfare recommendations right before the helicopter drive-trapping season.

You can see team reports and find an action item HERE.

Why publish a picture of Adobe wild horses for Sand Wash? Because we believe these will be the first target. This group has been known to cross the southern border of Adobe and back again.

The Sand Wash Basin (CO) roundup began today. Our observer is onsite. However, public observation was cancelled due to heavy rains and difficult terrain. But that has not stopped the roundup from starting. BLM is not allowing observation for the duration of the roundup at the temporary holding corrals and it was not an option today,

On the same roads that BLM has to get trailers full of wild horses through, BLM deemed it “unsafe” to take observers. The area is the “off HMA” zone. A zone we wrote about earlier where it would be impossible to distinguish an “off HMA” wild horse from Adobe or Salt Wells or Sand Wash.Are there off HMA Sand Wash horses? Horses cannot see an invisible line in the sand. Particularly in drought years, wild horses can cross those lines in search of water or forage. The boundary lines of HMAs were never drawn using and data on how horses use the range in any given year. Boundaries have never been looked at as BLM gives more and more of the available resources within HMAs to livestock and extractive industry. As far as a horse is concerned, those lines are arbitrary and nonsense (not much is the program is “of sense”). Going north and northwest from Sand Wash, you run into both Salt Wells and Adobe Town. BLM has historically used bait trapping for Sand Wash. The switch to helicopter is disturbing. 

One massive impediment is the sheer lack of access for observers. No access allowed at the temporary corrals. No real access to the facility the horses are being sent to. There not even clarity on where they are going. BLM sent out two contradictory press releases: one says they are shipping to Wheatland and one says to Rock Springs. Both Wyoming facilities are not open to the public.

Update: It seems that BLM did allow some access to temporary today. We will put up a full report tomorrow.

Below: Although observation was cancelled, it did not prohibit the public from traveling outside the closure zone. Scott Wilson is onsite and was spending tme with a band. The helicopter swooped in. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Yes, Congressman Joe Neguse and Governor Jared Polis called on the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to immediately halt wild horse helicopter roundups in Colorado. But the letter has been completely ignored.

We will update as we have more info. Our observer is out on the range today.

Jackson

Jackson Mountains (NV)

We are doing a long form report on Jackson. 

We have good news and bad.

The good news first. There will be no sterilization as part of the roundup beginning tomorrow. 

The trail of Jackson Mountains is a mess. It will take more than a couple of paragraphs to explain our legal action against the new management plan. We believe BLM is using the old gather plan to run this operation (but they have still not clarified).

As many of you are aware, at Jackson BLM has brought back sterilization.

They claim that sterilizing 30% of the herd is the “appropriately analyzed” goal. The goal of the “management plan” is low AML of 130, but does not explain how it is divided. 

Jackson is actually two VERY distinct herds, the north and south. BLM has not even recognized this basic fact in what they are calling a “foundational management plan.”

North

BLM put a roundup on schedule May 15 under the older gather plan. They only approved the new management plan on August 6th. 

On August 24, Wild Horse Education took the first step in legal action against BLM’s August 6 HMAP decision and sought a stay. BLM has filed its response. The federal land-use court has not yet ruled, but BLM is moving forward with the roundup before the court has decided whether the challenged HMAP can stand.

Wild Horse Education, through counsel, has also sent BLM a letter raising the ongoing issues. As expected, BLM is proceeding with the operation.

HOWEVER, BLM is doing a “removal only.” The sterilization component will not be a part of this operation.

BLM will reach near AML range with the planned removal of 500 wild horses. They will not reach low AML. 

That decision does not make the problems disappear.

It also does not make our legal action disappear.

We are taking additional action and will have more on that soon. 

Our team is really busy. We do not have a staff. We do not have paid public relations. 

Our funding is going into the fight. And we need your help to keep going. 

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. Sincere Gratitude. 

Limited Edition Shirt to help support our work. 

Click image or click here to order a two-sided shirt and support our work.

Help Defend Against The Broken Promise

Fifty-five years after Congress declared wild free-roaming horses and burros “fast disappearing from the American scene,” federal agencies are still driving their numbers down on the public lands meant to protect them.

Relentless removals are aimed at herd targets roughly one-third below the numbers found when Congress acted in 1971.

And the failures do not end there. After more than five decades, wild horses and burros still lack enforceable federal welfare standards that protect them through capture, confinement, transport, and disposition. Agencies continue to remove them without ensuring they are safeguarded from the slaughter pipeline.

This 55th-anniversary shirt honors the work of Velma Bronn Johnston—Wild Horse Annie—and refuses to let the cause she ignited be erased. We are carrying the fight forward for freedom, mercy, justice, and the right of wild horses and burros to remain wild and free on their public lands.

All proceeds fuel that fight.