Wild horses still wet from sweat during capture are loaded and taken from the trap.
Yesterday, November 7, a stallion suffered a broken neck at the Swasey roundup.
He died at the same trap used the day before—a trap where we have already warned about rigid panels and one that fails to address how a horse “sees the world.”
Below: WARNING slideshow shows some of the moment of contact and family moving over and around dying 2-year old stallion
An older mare in his group was very hesitant to enter. She lagged behind, and the helicopter stayed on her, pushing her toward the entrance. The horses appeared to have traveled a long way.
Inside, the stallion turned where he could see members of his band still being pushed in. He slammed into a panel reinforced with rebar to make it rigid. He suffered a broken neck and was dragged out the opposite side of the trap.
Hip branded mare hesitant to move toward trap at the same moment the stallion crashed into the panel
The older mare carried a hip brand and we know a lot of you will have questions
The hip brand on the older mare we watched being pushed toward the Swasey trap carries a history that needs to be accounted for.
In 2020, eight Swasey mares were fitted with flexible intrauterine devices, or IUDs, and released with numbered hip brands and radio collars.
During the roundup in 2024, BLM claimed all of these mares were captured.
At the January 2025 National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting, BLM’s Dr. Paul Griffin reported that those same mares were recaptured in 2024 and examined by a veterinarian using ultrasound. Four had foals at their sides; four still carried IUDs. He described device retention as “in line with expectations.” That was a statement about whether devices remained in place—not proof that every mare remained healthy nor was an actual data-based report pressented that included veterinary records that describe any exams.
In that same presentation, Griffin disclosed that an 11-year-old bay mare previously treated with a flexible IUD came into the 2024 Swasey roundup with an advanced uterine infection. She was euthanized. He told the Board that the examining veterinarian advised there was “no possibility of that mare recovering as a result of treatment before being returned to the range.” A serious reproductive-health problem had developed in an IUD-treated mare on the range, and by the time she was captured and examined, BLM determined she would not recover within that return-to-range framework. The presentation did not supply her individual veterinary findings or establish precisely how the infection developed and was not accompanied by any actual veterinary records.
The consequences of reproductive infection can extend to a developing foal. If infection involves the placenta—a condition called placentitis—it can compromise the supply of oxygen and nutrients, cause fetal growth restriction, and result in abortion, stillbirth, premature delivery, or death shortly after birth. Surviving foals may be weak, developmentally compromised, or septic. These are established consequences of equine reproductive infection; determining whether an IUD contributed to a particular case requires veterinary evidence, not simply a count of “mares seen with foals.”
That is the fundamental monitoring problem in a free-roaming population. A monthly sighting cannot reveal the condition of a mare’s uterine lining or reliably detect placental disease. Pregnancy loss can occur between observations, and a foal that dies before observers arrive may never enter the record. Even closely managed domestic pregnancies require deliberate surveillance because placentitis may produce no obvious external signs.
Without that level of investigation on the range, reproductive losses and their causes cannot be comprehensively documented. An absence of recorded complications is not evidence that none occurred.
This is simply not “ok” to do to our wild horses. A few notes on a report from Griffin does not make this “safe” to do again.
Now an older, hip-branded mare has been captured at Swasey again in 2026?
We want accountability for her individual history. If her brand identifies her as one of the original eight, and BLM recaptured those eight in 2024 as Griffin reported, when was she returned to the range? There is no update on the BLM gather page from 2024 that indicates any release. Was her IUD retained, removed, or replaced? Did she also receive GonaCon? What did her examination show, and what follow-up occurred afterward? If she was not recaptured in 2024, BLM needs to reconcile that with its account to the Board.
Above: Another mare appears to be exhausted or hesitating. That helicopter gets really close.
Above: A lot of pressure is used by the helicopter to get wild horses into the trap. These two were brought in separately after being pushed together with another horse through the valley.
Above: It is hard to tell but it looks like this little one is either injured or has blood from another horse on his damp coat
In hours of flying, BLM caught 14 (4 stallions, 7 mares, and 3 foals) wild horses on Day 5 from ranges they claim are critically “overpopulated.”
Our team member is back onsite today.
You can see running daily reporting HERE from Swasey.
If you would like to take action to help protect wild horses and burros you can take the following 2 actions today:
The Department of Interior is in the process of rewriting regulation to guide BLM management of wild horses and burros on public lands. We are asking for a public, transparent, Oversight hearing from Congress before any changes to regulations are finalized. Learn more and take action HERE.
A massive $30 million influx of funding is coming to BLM from the USDA (that oddly never has enough money to fund their own USFS wild horse program). There is not one single guardrail against how that funding is going to be used for “getting to AML and staying there.” Plans are already being finalized to sterilize wild horse herds, even where AML is below genetic viability. Learn more and take action HERE.
Our team is working hard.
We will update you as time allows.
We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team running in the field covering the roundup schedule.
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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