Vicki Tobin's Archive of Steve's Stories

Government Lawyers Mislead Federal Judge on Wild Horse Water

July 21, 2010

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – When Laura Leigh, an author, artist, journalist, and litigant chased the BLM into the desert to observe wild horse capture after a federal judge told her she could do so, she wasn’t allowed to see horses – but she did see water.

Judge Larry Hicks lifted his temporary injunction and permitted the federal Bureau of Land Management to capture horses in the fierce July desert heat of Nevada. As in previous death chases, the result was predictable. Horses dropped after being relentlessly stampeded by a roaring helicopter owned by BLM contractor, Cattoor Livestock Roundups out of Nephi, Utah. The federal agency had lied to the judge, telling him that death by thirst was imminent if they weren’t removed.

Thus far, 21 horses and foals have died after the latest high summer stampedes.

Hicks granted the plaintiff, Leigh, a first amendment stake in the chase. He told her it was unconstitutional for the BLM to ban her from observing the horses. In reply, the agency pulled off a cowboy hat trick of sorts in the desert. They moved the trap, the pen where the wild animals were to be driven, onto private land in a mountain canyon out of sight and then told the sheriff’s cops to arrest trespassers, including the litigant who had just won the right to see what BLM was doing in their “gather” first hand.

While Leigh didn’t get to see the objects of the BLM chase, North American Mustangs, she spotted something equally important and precious in the desert – water at the fenced off Desert Ranch Reservoir.

“While the reservoir is located on BLM public land, the water in the reservoir is privately owned (i.e., the private owner holds the water rights in accordance with State of Nevada water law),” said BLM’s Washington spokesman, Tom Gorey. “The reservoir is mostly fenced, but the fences are constructed in a manner that allows wild horses access to the privately owned water in at least three locations. As a result, wild horses are able to move freely to and from the water using the large gaps in the fencing. In short, access to the reservoir water by wild horses is not blocked.”

If access to the water hole was open in three places, Leigh had caught the BLM lying to a federal judge.

“Desert Ranch Reservoir on public land is less than 5 miles from the trap site,” Leigh told Horseback Magazine late Monday. “BLM has the authority to utilize resources on private property to deal with emergencies. (BLM Director Bob) Abbey declared this issue in Owyhee an emergency.”

Gorey acknowledged late Tuesday that there is water available to the horses that are being stampeded by the BLM contractor.

“In general, water within the Owyhee Herd Management Area (HMA) is provided primarily by unfenced public land reservoirs (water catchments),” he said. “There is also one spring, called Bookkeeper Spring, which is located on unfenced private land within the HMA. This spring is normally adequate to water a small number of wild horses, but because of drought conditions, there is very little water available for use this year.”

Claiming extreme drought conditions, the BLM has delivered more than 30,000 gallons of water to the horses in the Owyhee HMA since Monday.

By admitting that water on public land is privately owned, Gorey raised a significant issue. What was the federal government thinking when it privatized an asset as precious as desert water, selling it out of government control? Moreover, when was it sold, for how much, and to whom?

“My assumption is that the BLM has never held the right to this water,” Gorey said.

It the government doesn’t own the water on federal land, who owns it?

Gorey has promised to research the ownership issue of water BLM lawyers claimed was nonexistent, so scarce, the deaths of hundreds of otherwise healthy horses and foals was imminent.

“Why did the BLM choose to press a stressed population through the round up instead of stabilizing the situation and waiting?” Leigh asked. “The claims made in the report given to a federal judge outline a population so fragile that BLM projected would be dead in three days (if the agency was not allowed to round them up.)”

“In the event of an emergency (such as one declared by Bob Abbey in this case,

the BLM can utilize resources on private land (not just public) and reimburse

the landowner,” Leigh said. “If the horses were gong to die off at the rate of 75 percent they had the authority to open gates.”

Leigh has filed briefs charging the BLM with contempt of court.

Documents Filed by Laura Leigh

http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/07.19.10_Motion_for_Contempt-Relief.pdf

http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/07.19.10_Declaration_for_Motion.pdf

http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/07.19.10_Exhibit_A-DOI_letter.pdf

Tags: cattoor, death, helicopter, Judge Larry Hicks, laura leigh, lie, Stampede, water, wild horse

BLM Admits Helicopter Stampede Caused Wild Horse Deaths, Refuses Outside Observers in Nevada Census

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The federal Bureau of Land Management, under siege by press and public for it’s handling of offshore drilling, again has proven it is an agency with a tin ear when it comes to public relations.

With 150 horses and foals now dead in the wake of the most deadly “gather” in BLM history, the agency continues with an apparent government cover-up of the number of horses remaining in Nevada’s remote Calico Mountains.

The BLM refused to allow outside observers on an equine census of the area in late June, according to national spokesman Tom Gorey. It even covered up the fact that a census was being taken at all until after the fact, despite pleas from wild horse activists to be allowed to go along on census flights as independent observers.

Last week, in a detailed report of an independent fly-over of the Calico “gather” area acclaimed naturalist Craig Downer saw only sparse evidence of any remaining horses on hundreds of thousands of acres of BLM land. He also recorded thousands of cattle.

Downer’s report was first published by Horseback Online and still can be read at www.horsebackmagazine.com  in its entirety.

“The Calico Complex aerial census was completed Sunday and we expect to issue a news release on the results shortly (within the next day or so),” Gorey said. “No third parties/independent observers were allowed to ride in the aircraft conducting the survey.”

Gorey cited existing BLM policy for the agency refusal to allow outside observers on the observation flights.

“This is in accordance with existing BLM policy and is done for reasons of safety and liability. Additionally, observers must be trained. Accuracy of the counts strongly depends on the skill of the observer and is affected by the ruggedness of the terrain and the presence of vegetation cover.”

Downer has spent decades observing wild horse in their natural habitat, both from the air, and from the ground. BLM personnel have a long history of mathematical errors in their reports as cited in several Horseback stories last year.

Ironically, other government agencies routinely allow the press and other observers on flights, including in war zones where the media is often imbedded with soldiers, sailors, marines, and airborne troops in combat. The independent observers are acknowledged to deliver accurate reports, even in the stressful environment of war with little or no training before an engagement.

Gorey admitted a large number of deaths came from horses trying to escape a roaring helicopter chase by a Utah contractor hired by the BLM.

“Yes, the BLM acknowledges that at gathers some fatalities directly result from the horses being driven by the helicopter,” Gorey said. “The direct mortality rate resulting from helicopter-driven gathers is usually less than one percent.”

 The BLM declines to acknowledge what is a statistically acceptable death rate on its roundups of wild horses. The Calico roundup took place in the dead of winter in rocky mountainous terrain where horses were run over miles and miles of rugged wilderness.

Gorey detailed the carnage.

“Seven died or were euthanized at the gather site; 101 have died or were euthanized at the Fallon facility. The BLM does not keep a count of miscarriages, but we did note in the daily reports those miscarriages that we observed.”

Two foals died after their hooves were run off as they tried to escape the roaring helicopter.

“Two foals died as you described,” Gorey said, “No other horses died of hoof abscesses.”

In the Calico “gather,” something went dreadfully wrong.

“In 2009, the number of direct fatalities (out of more than 7,500 horses gathered) was 0.53 percent,” Gorey said. “Some indirect mortality also occurs, usually associated with older horses in poor to very poor condition when gathered. These already weakened horses, many of which would likely die on the range if not gathered, are examined by staff professionals and veterinarians and are euthanized if they are unlikely to improve or do not respond to treatment.”

The government spokesman painted a benign word portrait of humane euthanasia of geriatric horses. Yet the BLM reports published on the Internet records what amounts to wholesale slaughter of wild horses from Calico in which some were routinely put down by government vets, one of whom was unlicensed to practice in Nevada.

Former Government Lawyer Now on the Bench Rules in Favor Of the BLM in Calico Suit

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A federal judge who spent part of his career working as a government lawyer today found in favor of a controversial Obama Administration agency. Judge Paul L. Friedman dashed the hopes of lovers of wild horses when he dismissed a lawsuit challenging the legality of housing thousands of Mustangs in huge holding pens in the American West.

The suit had hoped to stop the helicopter stampede, capture, and holding as many as 2,500 animals in Nevada’s Calico Mountains. After the capture, almost 100 horses have died outright and 50 mares have miscarried.

The suit was filed by In Defense of Animals, naturalist Craig Downer, and author Terri Farley.

The capture and deaths in the wake of a stampede by a roaring chopper sparked protests from San Francisco to London as activists voiced outrage at the alleged cruelty of the government action. They claim the federal Bureau of Land Management has been in blatant violation of the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act

In a preliminary ruling Friedman wrote that holding the horses in the pens is probably illegal.

The suite was filed pro bono by the Washington law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney. Lead counsel William J. Spriggs said after Friedman’s ruling “The BLM’s practice of removing horses from the western range and warehousing them in Midwestern holding facilities is flat out illegal and the judge’s preliminary ruling was correct.”

Friedman, a former government lawyer dismissed the suit on standing and mootness of the lawsuit. It was brought against the BLM and the Department of Interior. He said the arguments presented by Spriggs were moot since the roundup had already taken place.

“We remain confident in the merits of our case and look forward to pursuing this legal issue in the near future,” Spriggs said.

In the wake of the stampede, two foals died after losing their hooves from being run for miles over rocky terrain to escape the roaring helicopter leased by the government from a Utah firm that has made millions from similar government contracts.

The roundup of 1,922 wild horses removed 80-90 percent of the Calico wild horse population. It ended February 4, 2010.

Activists blame cattle ranchers who control the BLM for removing the horses, animals many call a national treasure. In fact, the BLM has recently increased cattle grazing allotments in areas where wild horses are being removed.

Some cattle ranchers call wild horses a nuisance, calling them the “cockroaches of the west.”

More than half of America’s wild horses are now warehoused.

Ranchers lease BLM land at the rate of $1.35 per animal per month. Wild horse activists call that a national scandal.

Some geneticists claim there will be no wild horses left in the west in the wake the BLM roundups claiming the agency is leaving the herds genetically bankrupt.

Enough!

By Steven Long

HOUSTON – Arizona recently passed legislation signed by Gov. Jan Brewer making it unlawful to be an illegal alien within its borders. Huh?

From our point of view, it was already illegal to enter the United States and staying indefinitely without the proper paperwork. The State of Arizona is simply picking up a ball that the federal government long ago dropped. Its people are angry at subsidizing health care, fighting crime not of their making, and listening to a language most don’t understand and that their guests who came here unwelcome and unwanted refuse to learn.

For this, Arizonans are called racists. We would remind those who are quick to toss out such a charge that the overwhelming majority of Texas patriots who died at the Alamo had Latino surnames. These Tejano heroes are revered by all Americans. They fought to make Texas and the United States every bit as much as any Anglo of the Revolution did 50 years before. They paid for their citizenship with their blood, not a minute long wade across the Rio Grande.

The United States is just as much of a melting pot of nationalities as it ever was if we only count the folks from other countries who came here by following the rules and standing in line awaiting their turn. We welcome these new visitors who will hopefully become citizens someday.

Yet the hordes crashing our borders from Latino America don’t play by the rules. In fact, some even advocate taking back the lands that Santa Anna lost in 1836 in a bloodless coup by simply flooding the border states with their own and overwhelming the people who are indigenous to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, with the votes or their children who will be American citizens when they eventually are born here. All people, whether the children of citizens or aliens are instantly U.S. citizens the second they exit the womb. It’s been that way since 1898 when the Supreme Court decided the landmark case, United States vs Wong Kim Ark.

 So for those who would establish the mythical State of Aztlan, the border lands lost by Mexico in 1836, we say no.

We welcome Latinos who come from Buenos Aires to Nogales, from Rio to Havana, Montevideo to Bogota. But we only welcome them if they come here playing by the rules like us native born and naturalized Americans must do. Otherwise, we are building a nation of lawbreakers, and nobody wants that.

Instead of condemning Arizona, we applaud the courageous people and voters of that state who have set their foot down and taken a stand. We hope state after state will send a message to our federal government that enough is enough.

Both parties, Democratic and Republican, are guilty of taking the easy way out of immigration and looking the other ways as our borders, language, and culture, are corrupted. We shouldn’t stand idly by while America is turned into a nation the founders wouldn’t even recognize. Enough, and thank you Arizona.

BLM Spins as More Horses Die

Photo by Laura Leigh

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The federal Bureau of Land Management’s Washington spokesmen, Tom Gorey, is one of the best in the business. He’s able, articulate, savvy, and to use a term often bandied about in the nation’s capital, a master of the fine art of spin. On Thursday, he spun a web worthy of the fictional Charlotte herself.

For the better part of a week, Horseback Magazine has featured a series of articles on the missing credentials of two veterinarians attending the captured horses of Nevada’s Calico Mountains. Thus far, at least 115 have died, including miscarried foals. Horseback has repeatedly asked for the credentials of the vets who have set such a dubious record of death on their watch. Gorey finally complied, albeit in a round about way, dodging five questions drafted for the magazine by a physician and academic veterinarian and submitted to the agency.

The vets in the spotlight are Dr. Richard Sanford, the vet in charge of the BLM holding and processing facility at Fallon, and Dr. Albert Kane who is not licensed in the State of Nevada.

“Between them, Drs. Kane and Sanford have more than 40 years of experience
as equine veterinarians and over 30 years of that includes working with
wild horses,” Gorey wrote. “They each have all the qualifications, credentials, and
licenses that are appropriate or required by law. The BLM is fortunate to
have such experienced and dedicated professionals working in the agency's
Wild Horse and Burro Program.”

But you didn’t answer the questions, Tom. Medical and veterinary professionals have questioned the sudden dietary switch from sparse desert grasses to rich hay in captivity as a likely cause of the deaths. In fact, the BLM’s published reports frequently mention the gastrointestinal condition, colic.

“The diagnosis for most of the Calico mares that have died at the Indian
Lakes facility is hyperlipemia characteristic of metabolic failure
attributed to re-feeding syndrome, he continued. “This condition is a result of the very
thin body condition of some of the horses because of starvation conditions
on the range, in combination with the late-pregnancy status of some mares.”

Horses in hundreds, if not thousands of photos shot by activists show fat healthy horses, not animals on the brink of starvation as BLM continues to spin.

The pregnant mares Gorey mentioned were stampeded for miles in the dead of winter by a roaring helicopter hired from a government contractor. Two foals were put down after painfully shedding their hooves after the stampede, which Sanford earlier acknowledged was caused by the chase.

“What Tom is conveniently neglecting to recognize is how the actual stress of the helicopter roundups and subsequent confinement and change in diet, placement in truly overcrowded conditions, etc. pushed these wild horses over the edge,” said Craig Downer, a famed wild horse expert on assignment for Horseback Magazine.

“Diagnostic and other information on the horses has been posted to the BLM's
Website at www.blm.gov,” Gorey continued. “The BLM will continue to post updates on its Website under the Calico gather links as the horses continue to improve and
are readied for adoption.”

Death Toll for Calico Now 115 While BLM Has No Credentials for Vets on File

Photo by Elyse Gardner

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The record death toll for a federal Bureau of Land Management roundup has again risen with the demise of two more horses raising the count to 115. Specifically, 69 have died at the agency’s Fallon holding facility, 7 died at the site of the Caico roundup itself, and there have been 39 miscarried foals.

The animals are under the care of BLM veterinarian Dr. Richard Sanford. Horseback Magazine asked for his vitae under the U.S, Freedom of Information Act. In a certified letter to the magazine dated March 9, 2010, the agency responded.

“We have conducted a thorough search of our files and were unable to locate any records responsive to your request.”

Sanford is the second BLM veterinarian who appears to have no credentials on file with the bureau. Dr. Albert Kane, who has worked on the Calico “gather” is not licensed as a veterinarian in Nevada according to state records. Sanford holds a Nevada vet license.

According to a physician, veterinarian, and emergency medical technician contacted by Horseback Magazine, virtually all medical professionals have credentials on file where they are employed and carry them as well.

These same professionals have raised questions regarding moving wild horses from a sparse diet of desert grass to one of rich hay as soon as they were captured. They have raised questions that the Calico tragedies are the result of gastrointestinal problems such as colic.

Unlicensed Vet Working Nevada Gather Where 113 Horses Have Died or Have Been Miscarried

By Steven Long

Photo by Laura Leigh

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A government veterinarian working for the Bureau of Land Management in its Nevada office has treated horses there without a state license.

At least 113 captured horses have either died or been miscarried after a grueling chase by helicopter over rocky mountain land in the dead of winter.

Horseback Magazine confirmed late Monday in a check with the Nevada Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners that there is no record of a veterinary license for Dr. Albert Kane. Last month the magazine sought the vitae of the veterinarian but the BLM refused to supply it.

Kane is a Veterinary Medical Officer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Health Policy and Programs staff. In this position he serves as a staff veterinarian and advisor for the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program, according to spokeswoman JoLynn Worley.

“Dr. Kane doesn’t have a current bio or CV available at this time and has declined to prepare one specifically at your request,” Worley said at the time.

After the refusal to respond to the magazine’s request for Kane’s credentials, a request for that information under the Freedom of Information Act was filed. Thus far there has been no BLM compliance on the FOIA.

The 113 dead horses came from BLM’s Calico Wild Horse Management Area in Northern Nevada. The “gather” was a tightly controlled operation in which press and public was held in a viewing area far from the actual roundup and helicopter driven stampede.

Horses captured in the operation are now held in the BLM’s Fallon processing facility.

Horseback Magazine has now asked the BLM if Kane is licensed elsewhere other than in Nevada.

The Fallon facility is under tight control with press and public barred from observing horse processing in other than rare and brief media days and observation opportunities.

Opponents of the gathers have charged that the government agency is rendering America’s wild horse herds genetically bankrupt on its 260 million acres of mostly vacant land.

Last year, in a 68 page document titled “Alternative Management Options” the BLM discussed killing thousands of wild horses. It also addressed the issue of neutering horses in enormous numbers.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former rancher, has proposed that thousands of horses be sent to seven holding areas in the Midwest and East as tourist attractions. The proposal has been ridiculed by equine welfare activists as “Salazoos.”

Government Contractor Paid Almost $700 K - 113 Horses Dead and no Investigation of Calico Capture

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A Nephi, Utah, government contractor was paid $697,359 for a Nevada roundup of wild horses in the Calico Mountains. The roundup was held against the advice of federal judge Paul Friedman of Washington D.C. who wrote that holding wild horses in large privately owned facilities is likely against federal law.

At least 113 horses have died thus far, including two foals that shed their hooves after a helicopter stampede over rocky ground in the dead of winter. A BLM vet has acknowledged that the roundup was the likely cause for the foals to lose their hooves in an excruciatingly painful end of their lives.

Information on fees paid by the federal Bureau of Land Management to Cattoor Livestock Roundup, Inc. was released late Friday to Horseback Magazine by Deputy Division Chief Dean Bolsted of the agency’s Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The large number of deaths in the roundup is unusual.

In 2008, 45 percent of the roundups resulted in at least one fatality, and on one in Nevada, 27 horses died. The total number of deaths through injury or for other reasons totaled 126 animals that year.

Alternatives to the helicopter stampedes approbed by the agency include baiting and trapping, however, BLM directs the type of capture when a “gather” is scheduled.

According to Bolsted, government horse capture contractors are paid for the number of horses captured, feeding and watering for animals kept at the gather site overnight, and transport of animals from the capture site to designated short term holding facilities such as Fallon, a Nevada holding pen and processing site..

Private landowners in a capture area do not reimburse the government for removing wild horses from their property. The animals are often considered a nuisance to western ranchers and have been sometimes referred to as “the cockroaches of the west” by some.

The percentage of dead horses on BLM roundups in 2009 was slightly worse than the previous year at 46 percent resulting in at least one horse death. A mid-summer Wyoming gather proved fatal to 11 horses – tiny by comparison to this year’s Calico roundup.

As of late 2009, a total of 205 horses over a two year period died at the agency’s hands during roundups to thin the herds despite the vastness of the lands managed by BLM. The agency controls almost 260 million acres, much of it is vacant, and over a million cattle graze unmolested on the land, some of which was once reserved for wild horses. The numberof 205 dead horses does not reflect the number of foals lost due to miscarriages.

Asked by Horseback Magazine if BLM plans to launch an internal investigation, Bolsted said, “No internal investigation of deaths is planned.”

The roundups by BLM have drawn protests from coast to coast. The next is planned for Washington D.C. on March 25, when activists will set up shop across from the North Front of the White House in Lafayette Park.

The BLM response to the burgeoning scandal has been a proposal to set aside seven wild horse refuges, dubbed “Salazoos” by activists after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former Colorado rancher.

Sen. Mary Landrieu and others have called for a Congressional investigation of the Bureau’s Wild Horse and Burro Program which administers the animals under the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act, or “Wild Horse Annie Law,” named for the late Velma Johnston of Reno.

Horseback Magazine has repeatedly sought an interview with BLM director Bob Abbey, who has thus far turned a deaf ear to repeated requests.

The captured Calico horses are currently held at the BLM’s Fallon facility. Neither press nor public are allowed to observe the agency’s treatment of the animals, conduct a census, or to spend prolonged periods in their presence. The gates are opened to infrequent and tightly controlled viewing by small screened groups for one and one half hours. Only one reporter or photographer will be permitted from each media outlet during the next scheduled viewing.

Press and public were also not allowed unfettered access to observe the Cattoor roundups of horses in the wild. Horseback Magazine offered to have only experienced mounted journalists and wildlife experts in the field with company and BLM wranglers to observe the helicopter roundups.

Armed guards were on site to prevent observation of the "gather," as was the case in late 2009 at Montana's Pryor Mountain when the iconic wild horse, "Cloud" was captured. The horse was the star of three PBS specials by Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens.

Kathrens will speak at the Washington D.C. rally.

BLM Fails to Disclose Vet Credentials

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A veterinarian working for the federal Bureau of Land Management has refused to release his credentials after a request by Horseback Magazine.

“Veterinary support for the Calico Mountain Complex gather was provided by

Dr. Albert Kane,” said BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley.

“Dr. Kane is a Veterinary Medical Officer with the US Dept

of Agriculture's National Animal Health Policy and Programs staff. In this

position he serves as a Staff Veterinarian and Advisor for the BLM Wild

Horse and Burro Program,” she said.

Horseback Online had requested his bio resume.

“Dr. Kane doesn't have a current  bio or CV available at this time and has

declined to prepare one specifically at your request,” Worley said.

Medical and veterinary professionals say that maintaining vitae is standard procedure.

Kane worked on the BLM’s most recent “gather” at Calico Mountain in Nevada. In that roundup there have been as many as 49 deaths, including the euthanasia of two foals who lost their hooves after being stampeded over rocky terrain by a roaring helicopter. Horseback has obtained video of one of the foals whose later died struggling to keep up with its terrified mother before entering a government horse trap.

BLM Vet Admits “Gather” Likely Cause Of Foal Losing Its Hooves

Video of Relentless Chase Posted on You Tube

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The federal Bureau of Land Management has released a veterinary report to Horseback Magazine that was requested by several individuals and advocacy groups. The report provides sketchy details on the final days of a foal filmed by photo journalist and videographer Laura Leigh on assignment for Horseback during a Nevada “gather” of wild horses.

In the report, BLM veterinarian Richard Sanford wrote that “The gather most likely caused the hoof trauma in this case…” He went on to state that “poor body condition and weakness was most likely present before the gather.”

The vet report states in its entirety:

February 6, 2010
History and Report on Sloughed Hoof Colt
An eight month old colt arrived at the Indian Lakes Facility on about 1/20/2010 and was in very poor body condition and had sore feet. It was placed in the sick pen area where treatment could be administered. Over the next ten days, the colt was treated with phenylbutazone (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug), penicillin (an antibiotic) and foot bandages (one front foot and both hind feet) on three occasions before it was euthanized on 1/30/2010.
The colt alternately improved and regressed. The colt would be standing while eating and drinking one day and not on the next day. The colt never was able to actually gain weight, improve body condition or show increased energy. Lameness improved with treatment but eventually the colt became too weak to stand. Hoof wall separation occurred on the front foot and one hind foot. The colt was euthanized for humane reasons.
The gather most likely caused the hoof trauma in this case. However, the poor body condition and weakness was most likely present before the gather.

Richard Sanford, DVM
NV # 565

The roundup was held in the Calico Mountains. Wild horse advocates claim that horses were stampeded as much as 15 miles before being driven into pens. One horse, dubbed “Freedom” by advocates escaped and was photographed in dramatic still shots.

The treatment of horses by BLM has sparked protests from coast to coast. On Sunday, another planned roundup was abruptly postponed by the agency.

BLM Giving Free Wild Horse Removal To Ranchers Who Request It

By Steven Long

HOUSTON , (Horseback) – The federal Bureau of Land Management acknowledged today that it charges private ranchers nothing for wild horse removal from their property - horses that are removed by the thousands at taxpayer expense.

“If they stray on to private land, the landowner has the right to request BLM to come and remove the animals,” said spokeswoman JoLynn Worley of the agency’s Nevada office in response to a query by Horseback Magazine.

“The BLM does not charge the landowner to remove wild horses or burros from their private property,” Worley acknowledged.

Horseback Magazine has repeatedly sought an interview with director Bob Abbey to discuss such policies, rules and actions that have sparked growing protests from coast to coast as well as a petition drive that has reached the White House.

Many ranchers in the West consider wild horses a nuisance. They see the animals, living off the land as they have for centuries, as competition for scarce grazing land. The taxpayer owned property is leased at the rock bottom rate of $1.35 per animal unit per month.

Thousands of acres of private land abut the public land BLM administers, The agency plans to remove vast numbers of wild horses. Inevitably, those horses will stray onto the private property - and inevitably the BLM will be asked to remove the horses at no charge to the landowner.

More than a million head of cattle graze on BLM land, compared to about 30,000 or fewer wild horses.

"The BLM's business acumen is mind boggling,” said John Holland, a Virginia technology consultant and founder of the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance.

“They pay millions of dollars to sweep healthy horses off private and public land so they can pay more millions to warehouse them and then rent the cleared land to cattle raisers for a loss of 80 cents on the dollar in administrative costs.”

Tens of thousands of horses are held in giant pens across the West in pastures owned by private interests while the agency administers 260 million acres, most of it vacant.

Holland charges this government “privatization” or the warehousing of horses that once roamed and grazed their natural habitat at no cost to the taxpayer is welfare for the ranchers who receive lucrative government contracts.

"Ironically, the BLM is doing this with "stimulus" funds,” Holland continued.  “Apparently they are under the assumption they are supposed to be stimulating the national debt."

Landowner, Greg Foster, who owns property in the Calico Mountains of Northern Nevada is cooperating with BLM on its current "gather" there. The agency claims the wild horses it is stampeding with a low flying helicopter are in mountainous terrain.

Spokesmen say that the bureau is only setting up a holding pen and storing equipment on Foster’s property. Since press and public have been barred from witnessing the roundup except during tightly controlled “media days,” there is no way to independently determine if the BLM is herding wild horses found on the landowner’s property.

Horseback Magazine has learned that during a recent flyover of the Calico "gather" area where thousands of wild horses are alleged by the BLM to live, only nine were counted.

Activists claim the BLM is also using birth control drugs to make the remaining herds genetically bankrupt and unable to propogate. They claim there will be no wild horses roaming free unless the BLM roundups and activities are stopped.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) La., has called for a revamp of the agency from top to bottom.

Worley, the BLM spokeswoman, claims the government has taken no horses on Foster’s land, yet there have been no witnesses allowed to watch and confirm the veracity of the agency’s claims.

The agency claims the horses are driven from the Nevada highlands into the pen set up on Foster’s property.

The BLM has refused to release any more information about the landowner other than his name.

BLM Not Seeking Reimbursement for Removal of Wild Horses From Private Land

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The beleaguered Bureau of Land Management responded late Friday to a Freedom of Information Act Request about the status of horses removed by BLM from the property of a Nevada landowner cooperating with the agency in its “gather” of up to 2,500 horses.

The roundup of horses in Nevada’s Calico management area has sparked protests from coast to coast and abroad. Celebrities such as Willie Nelson, Cheryl Crow, Bill Mahr, and Ed Harris have called for President Obama to bring it to a halt.

Two horses have been killed thus far in a project activists call cruel because the animals are stampeded down a mountainside over rocky terrain by a roaring helicopter.

The magazine asked if the federal agency was receiving payment for taxpayer removal of unwanted horses from the land of owner Greg Foster.

“The landowner is definitely not paying BLM to remove horses from their property,” said BLM spokeswoman Heather Emmons.

It is unknown if any horses have been removed from the private land, however, Horseback Magazine has asked for further clarification.

Many ranchers view wild horses as a pest competing with cattle for valuable grazing land that BLM leases at the fire sale price of $1.35 per animal unit per month, which can include a cow and her calf.

Cornell Vet Raises Health Concerns for Captured BLM Mustangs

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A Cornel University academic veterinarian has raised concerns for the health of Mustangs captured by the Bureau of Land Management – concerns that go far beyond the current “gather” in the Calico Mountains of Northern Nevada.

Dr. Nena Winand, DVM/Ph,D, says many horses adopted from the BLM suffer a condition known as “metabolic syndrome.” Her comments were posted on the website of billionaire and wild horse activist Madeleine Pickens. Winand’s comments were harsh and unforgiving, charging the agency with callous treatment of the horses it takes from the wilderness and ignorance of medical conditions of some of those adopted by the hapless public later develop.

“Sorry, but are these BLM people on crack?” Winand asked. “How do they propose to manage all the Mustangs in their proposed Eastern and Midwestern refuges that will certainly develop metabolic syndrome?”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has proposed moving a very limited number of the animals from there arid natural habitat to seven holding facilities in the Midwest and East where they would serve as tourist attractions so the public can see the wild horses. Critics charge the agency is attempting to make the wild horse extinct through widespread birth control and removal from the land. They claim the agency is in league with ranchers who covet wild horse habitat for cheap grazing land.

Winand says the condition is “common in Mustangs (and other breeds) that are removed from their natural habitat and brought out here (the East). It can be very difficult to manage and can have devastating consequences.”

The "gathers," as BLM prefers to call the roundups, have sparked a perfect storm of protest from coast to coast and even abroad. Petitions are being signed to send to President Obama to stop the practice of stampeding horses with a low flying helicopter into pens the agency terms as "traps."

Winand speaks with first hand knowledge of the condition saying, “I should know, I have one and have to deal with this daily, and have managed many others, and watched many owner/adopters fail to manage still others with ghastly consequences.”

The Cornell vet says that many in the BLM at the ground level are ignorant of the dietary condition. Cornell is located in Ithaca, New York.

“Once I addressed this with the BLM wranglers that auction horses here every year or two,” she says. “I suggested that they mention this syndrome in their presentation to potential adopters, so that they would be better prepared to manage their horse’s needs. They looked at me like I was an alien - they had no clue.”

Winand charges higher ups at the agency have left their line personnel unprepared of dealing with, or even knowing what metabolic syndrome is.

”Obviously the BLM people lack adequate experience actually managing these horses to be aware that this will be a huge problem. It is time to demand that they enlist the expertise of qualified people (veterinarians, geneticists, etc) in developing their management plans and they should be stopped by Congress or whatever supervisory entity they answer to, until they put such an advisory structure in place.”

The vet says Mustangs are very good at making do in very limited circumstances. When wild horses come into the civilized world of modern horsekeeping, things change radically for them.

“Basically many Mustangs in captivity are the type of horse, along with many Morgans, Arabians, and Quarter Horses, that are extreme easy keepers that become obese and develop characteristic fat deposits, cresty necks in particular, if they are not very carefully fed and exercised or when they don't live like they do in nature - to a large extent they are adapted to slim pickings and big rough territories.”

“In many cases they become insulin resistant, and if the condition is not controlled, they can develop laminitis,” Winand said. “The outcome of laminitis depends on rapid intervention and treatment of the acute hoof problems, longer term farrier care, as well as life-long management of the underlying metabolic/endocrine problem. Uncontrolled laminitis leads to rotation of the coffin bone and a non ambulatory horse in excruciating pain-as happened to Barbaro (different mechanism but same outcome).”

“Wild Mustangs, which get a huge amount of exercise foraging for a pretty restricted caloric intake - they are fit, or even undesirably thin, but they are not fat. Now think of putting them on flat or rolling hills like we have out here with pretty good grass cover. Since I've dealt with a herd kept like that even on crap pasture, I can tell you they get limited exercise - Richard Simmons is not coaching them - and they eat like hogs. Food and reproduction are their lives,” she said.

Winand’s own Mustang leads an austere but well managed life.

“She must be fed separately so she does not eat other horse's food (their appetites are ravenous),” she said. “I need to exercise her like trotting and/or cantering five miles a day every day to keep her weight controlled - MINIMALLY. Also, my pasture that she is eating from is not well managed intentionally so it goes to very scant grass by August. Often these horses are kept on dry lots and fed only hay, but I'm trying to avoid that - poor life quality for a Mustang.”

Winand is critical of plans to move mustangs off the rangelands they have occupied for centuries.

“How does the BLM propose to manage upwards of 30,000 horses out East, and presumably rely on private individuals to supervise them?” she asks. “Not all Mustangs would be predisposed to develop this problem, but certainly some will if not managed with insight and oversight. Who pays for that?”

Winand says there are also genetic issues she has raised with other vets.

In short, she sums up her feelings regarding BLM’s veterinary treatment of wild horses in four words.

“It is an outrage,” she says.

Winand has high praise for Madeleine Pickens plan to house wild horses captured by the BLM on a million acre facility in the West. Thus far, the billionaire wife of philanthropist T. Boone Pickens has been rebuffed by the BLM.

Winand is an executive board member of Saving America’ Horses, and is a founding member of Veterinarians for Equine Welfare. She works at the Department of Molecular Medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

What’s In a Name? Maybe Plenty

01-01-10

By Steven Long

HOUSTON , (Horseback) – The federal Bureau of Land Management has released the name of a Nevada landowner who is cooperating with the agency in its roundup of more than 2,000 horses in the remote badlands of that arid state.

Horseback Magazine repeatedly asked for the name of the landowner, Greg Foster, who is cooperating with BLM on the gather. The agency claims the wild horses it is stampeding with a low flying helicopter are in mountainous terrain. Spokesmen say that the bureau is only setting up a holding pen and storing equipment on Foster’s property. Since press and public have been barred from witnessing the “gather” except in tightly controlled “media days,” there is no way to independently determine if the BLM is herding wild horses found on the landowner’s property.

The agency claims the horses are driven from the Nevada highlands into the pen set up on Foster’s property.

The BLM has refused to release any more information about the landowner other than his name. A search has produced numerous Nevadans named Greg Foster. An agency spokeswoman claimed the information is protected by the federal privacy act, however, details regarding federal contractors who are not engaged in national security work are generally readily available as public record. Horseback has asked for the information under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Horseback has also asked if Foster is reimbursing the federal government for removing horses from his property.

The roundup was ordered by Nevada BLM officials with the approval of Director Bob Abbey. It has sparked protests and demonstrations nationwide. It has also prompted celebrities such as Willie Nelson, the Barbie Twins, Cheryl Crow, and comedian Bill Maher to call on President Obama to call off the capture.

One horse has reportedly died in the roundup.

In 2008, 45 percent of the roundups resulted in at least one fatality, and on another roundup in Nevada, 27 horses died. The total number of deaths through injury or for other reasons totaled 126 animals last year.

The percentage of dead horses on BLM roundups this year is slightly worse at 46 percent resulting in at least one horse death. In July, a Wyoming gather proved fatal to 11 horses. Through September of this year, 79 horses have died as the agency rushes to clear wild horses from the West.

Over the last two years a total of 205 horses have died at the agency’s hands during its “gathers” to thin the herds despite the almost 260 million acres of vacant land managed by BLM.

Wild horse advocates claim the BLM roundups are genetically bankrupting the herds to the point of extinction.

The horse habitat set aside by the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act is coveted by ranchers for grazing land who sign leases at fire sale prices of $1.35 per cow per month.

The Calico Stonewall of BLM

By Steven Long

Interview 12-28-09

HOUSTON, (Horseback) - When the Bureau of Land Management began their “gather’ of Wild Horse on private land on Monday, Horseback Magazine asked to go along on horseback with a reporter and photographer. We promised to be unobtrusive. We were politely turned down and told the agency would allow no press to witness what has turned into a brewing scandal for the Obama administration. We interviewed BLM spokesperson Heather Emmons.

HORSEBACK: Federal Judge Friedman last week advised against this gather. Why is the agency doing this against his advice?

BLM: Uh, well the judge ruled in our favor that we could actually go ahead and gather.

HORSEBACK: But he advised against it.

BLM: Well, all I know is that we were given the okay to go forward so we started our gather this morning.

HORSEBACK: Whose decision was it to start the gather against the judge’s advice?

BLM: Well, once we got the ruling, you know, from the judge, that we could go ahead with the gather – we went ahead with the gather.

HORSEBACK: Was it Mr. Abbey’s decision? Whose decision was it? That’s what I’m asking.

BLM: Well, I can give you the name of someone to talk to with regards to that. I can’t really talk to that.

HORSEBACK: Can you find out for me? I don’t necessarily need to talk to them. I just want to know who made the decision to go against a federal judge’s advice.

BLM: I sure can.

HORSEBACK MAGAZINE: What is your plan for allowing the media access to the roundup?

HEATHER EMMONS, BLM: We are going to be on private land. We are planning specific dates where we can escort media it to the gather, and then out…

HORSEBACK: We don’t mind being escorted, but what we have in mind though is to have full access with our people on horseback. We don’t object to having one of your people on horseback next to us but we want to be able to see everything that is going on.

BLM: That’s what I’m trying to convey to you. We can’t let you have full access with this one.

HORSEBACK: What are you hiding?

BLM: We’re not hiding anything, sir.

HORSEBACK: It sounds like it.

BLM: The reason we have parts of it on private land is because it is the only way to have access to the horses for certain areas. They are really rough areas to get to. The private land is the only way we can get in there and get to them.

HORSEBACK: Isn’t it a fact that the BLM always prohibits the press from coming in and having full access?

BLM: We like to work with people and take them in with escorts only because it’s so remote out here.

HORSEBACK: In other words, you like to control the situation.

BLM: Well, we like to be able to explain what’s going on, make sure people are there for people with questions to help them out.

HORSEBACK: We’ve been covering this for months. Some people have been covering it literally for years. We, and they, are perfectly aware of what’s going on. We want to be able to photograph it. We want to see the horses if they are injured. We want to count the horses that are injured. We want to know the nature of the injury. We want to see how the injuries happen.

BLM: Okay, well we are going to have public days that are going to happen. There are parts of the gather that will be on public land and anybody can go on that. We’ll let people know when those parts of the gather will occur on our website.

HORSEBACK: How much of the gather will be on public land? How many days?

BLM: Oh, about half of it.

HORSEBACK: Will you keep people in an observation area, or will they be able to go anywhere they want?

BLM: Well, we’ll probably put them in an observation area depending on where it is and how we set it up. As you probably well know, horses spook very easily, so we can’t have people roaming around for the safety of the attendees because the horses spook if they see any movement whatsoever, they turn around and run the other way.

HORSEBACK: I run a horse magazine. I’m perfectly aware of horse behavior. What we have in mind specifically is not to do anything that would spook a horse – but have someone on horseback standing still within a hundred yards of where the gather is taking place – standing very still and not spooking.

BLM: They’ll see you, and we don’t know exactly where the helicopter is going to guide the horses.

HORSEBACK: Was anyone from the press and public out there today?

BLM: I don’t believe they were out there today, no. Again, we talked to the land owner and the land owner did not want to have the public out there today at all.

HORSEBACK: Who is the landowner by the way?

BLM: You know, in this case, I’m not sure of the names of them but I know our Horse and Burro people have spoken with them.

HORSEBACK: Could you research that for us please and get us contact information?

BLM: I sure can. We are doing a media day on Wednesday of this week.

HORSEBACK: What is going to take place at the media day?

BLM: We’re going to have everyone meet at BLM in Winnemucca at 6 AM on Wednesday morning and do a briefing to explain to people what they are going to see, what we intend to do, how it works. Then we are gong to caravan out to the site and watch horses be gathered for a few rounds.

HORSEBACK: How long will the media be out there?

BLM: We’re anticipating maybe five hours.

HORSEBACK: And how many media days are you planning?

BLM: We don’t know at this point. We’re just going to kind of gage the interest.

Judge Rules for BLM, But Says Holding Mustangs Probably Illegal

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A Washington D.C. federal judge has ruled that the capture of 2,500 of wild Nevada horses can go forward on the Calico range, a range once the stomping grounds of Mark Twain and the silver barons of the Comstock Load.

The federal Bureau of Land Management said it will go ahead with the “gather” as planned beginning four days before the New Year begins.

Wild horse advocates have charged the BLM roundups are leaving the herds genetically bankrupt. The lawsuit claimed the agency’s practice of stampeding the horses with a roaring helicopter often leave animals lame and dead. Last year 250 horses died in BLM roundups according to records release to Horseback Magazine

In the wake of the judge’s ruling the next step, William Spriggs, the plaintiff’s lawyer, said President Barack Obama should block the roundup.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled against a request for in injunction originally filed by California based In Defense of Animals and wild horse advocate Craig Downer. The judge is a former assistant solicitor general. Early in his career, Friedman could have been required to defend the BLM.

Surprisingly, the judge left the door for more filings in the case, saying the BLM is in all likelihood violating federal law by holding tens of thousands of Mustangs and burros in giant long term holding facilities in the Midwest. However, Friedman also said in his 25 page ruling that Congress may eventually need to get involved.

Spriggs says Obama needs to intervene pending clarification of Friedman’s ruling regarding the legality of BLM holding facilities.

The halls of Congress are the likely next arena for wild horse activists who have brought a perfect storm of negative publicity to the BLM which is often allied with animal agriculture. Farmers and Ranchers believe that if the wild horse captures are stopped the next step will be the prohibition of animal agriculture itself.

The Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance has frequently countered that claim saying “There will always be a McDonald’s.”

Increasingly, supporters of wild horses have used sophisticated organizational skills and professional media relations to bring attention to their cause, a cause apparently increasingly supported by the public.

The BLM has yet to adequately explain why the horses need to be captured at all considering it controls more than 260 million acres of mostly empty land.

The agency claims the land will not sustain the herds which they say must be managed in order to prevent starvation. Millions of cattle graze the land at the fire sale rate of $1.35 per animal per month. Activists claim the wild horse range is wanted for grazing and that the BLM is controlled by, and run for ranchers.

The agency falls under the federal umbrella of the U.S. Department of Interior. Secretary Ken Salazar is a former Colorado lawyer and rancher. He proposes removing the wild horses and placing them in seven large holding facilities in the Midwest and East.

Billionaire Madeleine Pickens has offered to pay for a million acre range to keep the animals in the wild but thus far has been thwarted by Salazar and the BLM.

Currently, tens of thousands of horses are held in private holding facilities with no public access, independent scrutiny, or organized census of their numbers.

BLM officials say the herds must be thinned claiming predators and natural selection are inadequate for maintaining manageable herd levels.

America’s wild horses are managed under the strict guidelines of the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act. Wild horse advocates claim the BLM routinely violates the act and lies about the number of wild horses sill on the range.

A Cloud on Pryor Mountain

The Librarian's Sticky Fingers

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The year 2010 will mark an enormous turning point in the history of America’s wild horses and burros as their caretaker, the federal Bureau of Land Management, launches an aggressive campaign to remove them from their wilderness homes.

The agency claims the horses are breeding at an alarming degree, destroying the land, and starving.

Animal welfare organizations such as the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance and the Cloud Foundation of Colorado Springs disagree and have launched a global petition drive to force a president who was elected on a platform of change to halt business as usual at the BLM and halt the capture of America's wild horses.

If the roundups proceed, critics charge the herds may well be genetically bankrupt – unable to propagate in the wild. Horseback Magazine put the BLM on the record. The following is the response we got from national spokesman Tom Gorey.

HORSEBACK MAGAZINE: How many wild horses will be left on BLM land after the 2010 gathers?

GORY: The on-the-range population will be approximately 34,000 after the 2010gather season.  This figure reflects the fact that herd populations grow at an average rate of 20 percent.

HORSEBACK: How many of the remaining mares in the wild will have been treated with fertility drugs?

GOREY:  We are planning on treating approximately 3,000 mares for FY 2010.

HORSEBACK: Will any of the horse management areas set upin 1971 that currently serve as habitat to wild horse and burros be left bare of equines after the roundups?

GOREY:  No HMAs that are currently maintaining horses will be bare of equines after the FY 2010 gather season.

HORSEBACK: What specifically is the relationship between the BLM and the Humane Society of the United States in terms of the use and supply of thefertility drug  PZP on wild horses?

GOREY:  The BLM has an agreement with HSUS signed on 10/23/06.  The agreement states that the BLM agrees to:

      1. Continue a cooperative relationship with the HSUS concerning thefurther development of contraceptive vaccines for use in controlling wildhorse populations.

      2. Develop policies that promote and facilitate the use of contraception within the constraints of existing laws and regulations.  The goals of these policies are to:

      a. reduce the growth rate of wild horse populations;

      b. reduce the frequency of removal actions on wild horse herds;

      c. reduce the number of animals that must be removed from the public rangelands; and

      d. reduce the overall costs of wild horse management.

      3. Monitor the effects and effectiveness of the use of fertility  control vaccine on wild horse populations, and keep the HSUS informed ofthe results of that monitoring.

HSUS agrees to:

   1.   Ensure a reliable supply of contraceptive vaccine, including adjuvants and other components.

   2.   Improve preparation and delivery methods for safe and effective application of the vaccine.

   3.   Work towards increasing the effectiveness of the drug while ensuring its safety to humans and animals.

BLM and HSUS agree to:

   1.   Educate and inform the public on the role that contraception can play in the management and control of wild horse populations on publiclands.

   2.   Work toward meeting the EPA and/or the FDA requirements fornon-investigational use of the contraceptive vaccine.

   3.   Meet annually at a minimum to review progress of provisions agreed to in this Memorandum Of Understanding. Consistent with that agreement, the BLM has a cooperative research project involving two HMAs that is funded by an Annanberg Foundation grant to look at:

      1. What are the effects of the 22-month PZP vaccine on the population's foaling and growth rates?

      2. What are the effects of a PZP booster administered remotely in year 3 on the fertility of individual treated mares and on the population's foaling and growth rates?

      3.  What are the effects of PZP treatments on the health and social dynamics of treated bands?

Reports Reveal More Deaths and Sloppy Record Keeping by BLM as Groups Call for Investigation

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) - In the sometimes bewildering world of the federal Bureau of Land management, things get confusing – even confounded annoying.

Such was the case when Horseback Magazine began to investigate the deaths of 11 horses we found on a comprehensive report released by the Washington office on fatalities during the agency’s wild horse “gathers” since the beginning of last year.

The report stated the horses died in July, 2009, at a place called Conant Creek, Wyoming when 349 animals were captured by the agency. In fact, officials in charge of the area say that yes, they did have a gather but statistics for what BLM terms the North Lander Complex, which includes Conant Creek, are vastly different from what Washington released..

According to North Lander records released Wednesday, 17 horses died, not the 11 Washington reported. Of the 17 dead equines, seven were foals. A helicopter was used in the roundup.

Besides the dead at Conant Creek, Washington reported that two horses died at Muskrat Basin, and one died at Rock Creek Mountain, while none died at Dishpan Butte. The North Lander report didn’t reveal locations. However, the Washington report only totals 14 horses when those locations are included.

As disturbing as the deaths are, an equally distressing statistic released in the North Lander records was revealed.

Herds captured from July 6, to July 21, at Conant Creek, Dishpan Butte, Rock Creek Mountain, and Muskrat Basis were all but wiped out. According to the records, the pre-capture herd size was 1,175 horses. After BLM wranglers did their work, only 365 horses were left to roam the vast area. The remainder was trucked to BLM holding facilities.

Critics have charged that the BLM captures of wild horses are so all consuming they are leaving the herds genetically bankrupt. Moreover, the agency administers anti-fertility drugs to many of the remaining horses after a capture leaving mares unable to breed for years after, if ever.

And rumors are persistent the BLM is making a concentrated attempt to wipe out wild horses to provide grazing land for western ranchers, a claim the BLM denies.

To add to the confusion sowed by BLM, reports have now surfaced that 11 horses did die in a July gather in Idaho.

In a detailed letter to Horseback Magazine David Rosenkrance, field manager of the Challis, Idaho, office spelled out how the horses ended their lives in a helicopter assisted roundup there. Yet the report released by Washington acknowledged only 1 death this year at Challis when 366 wild horses were captured, a direct conflict with the 11 admitted to in Rosenkrance’ letter.

Activist groups including the Animal Law Coalition, The Cloud Foundation, and the Equine Welfare Alliance have all called for an immediate moratorium on further roundups by the BLM pending Congressional hearings.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former Colorado rancher, has thrown his full support behind the roundups and proposed seven holding facilities for wild horses in the Midwest and East which would serve as tourist attractions spotlighting this remnant of the old west – the wild horse.

Increasingly, according to a report in the Wednesday USA Today, the public is saying no.

Wild Horse Debate Gallops On - USA Today

ALC Calls for Investigation

The Deadly Gathers of BLM

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The Bureau of Land Management’s concerted effort to thin the herds of wild horses on land it manages has proven deadly, so deadly in fact, that for each of the last two years (and this year’s not over yet) there have been fatalities on almost half of the “gathers” the agency has conducted.

And last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the roundups will continue as herds across the West will be reduced as horses are moved from their natural habitat to artificial refuges in the Midwest and East – this despite the 256 million acres potentially available to the animals on BLM lands.

In 2008, 45 percent of the roundups resulted in at least one fatality, and on one in Nevada, 27 horses died. The total number of deaths through injury or for other reasons totaled 126 animals last year.

BLM released fatality statistics on its roundups for the last two years to Horseback Magazine late Thursday

The percentage of dead horses on BLM roundups this year is slightly worse at 46 percent resulting in at least one horse death. In July, a Wyoming gather proved fatal to 11 horses. To date this year, 79 horses have died as the agency rushes to clear wild horses from the West.

Over the last two years a total of 205 horses have died at the agency’s hands during its gathers to thin the herds despite the vastness of the lands managed by BLM..

In BLM roundups, horses are often driven down miles of rocky slops by a roaring helicopter. Such was the case in Wyoming this year when 11 horses died at Coconut Creek when 349 horses were caught.

Equine geneticists have told Horseback Magazine that the massive roundups are leaving the western wild horse herds genetically bankrupt. And chemical sterilization is taking its toll as well, they say.

Although helicopter induced stampedes often result in fatalities, the agency is reluctant to classify a limping horse as injured.

The bureau classifies equine deaths two ways, according to national spokesman Tom Gorey of the agency’s Washington office.

It classifies horse deaths directly related to a gather as “the number of animals that died or were euthanized because of acute injuries or medical conditions brought about by the gather and removal process, including those that occurred during capture, sorting, and herding at the gather site. This category includes all animals euthanized for reasons related to gather activities.”

All other deaths are lumped together in one group for “reasons related to chronic or pre-existing conditions such as body condition, lameness, and serious physical defects. This category includes all animals euthanized for reasons not related to gather activities.”

Gory classifies as myth reports that the agency views a 1 percent death rate as acceptable.

“There is no fatality rate that is considered acceptable to the BLMJ,” he said. “Our goal is zero percent fatalities in connection with gathers.”

Gory said a non-gather percentage of deaths in 2008 was unusually high because they were “primarily related to Nevada horses that suffered serious health issues resulting from shortage of water and poor forage conditions because of drought and wildfire”

He said these horse deaths occurred at the Nevada Wild Horse Range, Roberts Mountain, New Pass/Ravenswood, and Augusta Herd Management Areas.

In fact, the agency reported that of the 126 deaths attributed to gathers last year, 106 of them fall into the latter category.

Spinning out of Control

10/08/09

By Steven Long

Horseback Magazine

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – It was as if a message came down from on high for the boys at Interior and the Bureau of Land Management to do something to make those damned phones stop ringing. So Sec. Ken Salazar and the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Bob Abbey, put on their tap dancing shoes and began to spin.

The big spin came late in the hastily called press conference announced at the last minute to settle America’s angst about those 69,000 wild horses the BLM reluctantly owns - the result of a 1971 law it never wanted because the land was more valuable as rangeland for cattle, leased for minerals, or set aside for big game hunters

“Cattle grazing’s been steadily reduced on BLM lands since 1940,” Abbey said.

And there’s the spin.

BLM land leased to ranchers by the bureau may have been reduced overall since the year before America entered World War Two. Yet just the opposite has happened to the millions of acres set aside with passage of the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act.

The law called for BLM to set up protected area for wild horses where they were found at the time the new law went into effect. Since then, that acreage has steadily decreased as the agency leased 13 million acres thereby dramatically impacting and reducing wild horse habitat.

Now the BLM claims it has no place to put the 32,000 wild horses it has in captivity costing the taxpayers daily.

Currently, according to Salazar, there are 69,000 wild horses, total. The BLM has an aggressive program to capture 10,000 more horses from their wild habitat next year, according to the officials.

Fewer horses on BLM lands open up valuable acres for potential livestock leases. Currently, the BLM’s going rate is $1.35 per animal per month.

“Too often people try to make this a wild horse vs. livestock issue,” Salazar, a Colorado lawyer and rancher told reporters.

In late September, Sen. Mary Landrieu passed a bill calling for the BLM to come up with a new plan for dealing with wild horses within a year. Salazar and Abbey wasted no time. The new plan announced Wednesday will establish “Wild Horse Preserves” in the Midwest and East on “productive land.”

No mention was made by either official of the millions of acres of BLM land which lies vacant in the American west, land it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a cent to set aside for wild horses.

Moreover, no mention was made during the press conference of BLM not renewing grazing leases as their term expires.

The new plan would “showcase” current herds and highlight them as monuments.

In the press conference, Salazar referred to the Pryor Mountain horses made famous by Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens in her “Nature” series on PBS as one such herd. However, Salazar neglected to mention that equine geneticists have charged a BLM “gather” over Labor Day week possibly reduced that herd’s numbers beyond genetic viability. Some of the animals were injured as well in a stampede down a 5,000 foot rocky slope for up to ten miles, driven by a roaring helicopter (click on the Horseback cover at the top of this page to read the story of the hunt).

BLM has announced plans soon to hold more roundups that will reduce a herd at McCollough Peaks, WY, by 90 percent. The gathers have drawn fire from wild horse lovers, angered by what they call BLM’s callous treatment of the animals.

Salazar said his new plan would develop a “strategy to keep horses at a sustainable level.”

Herds on western lands would be severely reduced because of neutering.

He also suggested BLM would open management of the proposed seven new wild horse ranges to private non profit organizations and would consider a proposal from billionaire Madaleine Pickens to set up a vast preserve for the Mustangs.

“Our proposal doesn’t in any way knock out her proposal,” Salazar said. “Her proposal will be considered with all of the other proposals.”

Previously, BLM has repeatedly said no to the Pickens proposal.

The BLM would retain management of two of the new preserves. The new protected areas would hold about 25,000 horses each.

Salazar said the acquisition cost for new lands in the Midwest and East to house the horses is estimated at $92 million, a modest sum for tens of thousands of acres in today’s real estate market.

Yet late Wednesday night the proposal was greeted with howls of protest from horse advocates who have long fought for wild horses and against the contentious practice of equine slaughter.

Part of Salazar's new strategy would reduce requirements for adoption of a wild horse or burro. Critics say BLM’s current adoption requirements are already lax and enable “killer buyers” purchasing the horses for the slaughter market to slip through without serious scrutiny.

“They think we are the dumb ones,” said Barbara Warner of Kentucky. “They are proposing to move the horses, use even more birth control, and lessen adoption regulations. In other words wipe them out completely.”

“Flood the White House with post cards demanding that Salazar be fired on the spot for mismanagement of the wild horses,” said West Virginia’s Bonny Oliver. “Thousands of cards should get somebody’s attention.” 

In a final spin, BLM spokesman Tom Gorey danced a final pirouette telling the Associated Press, "We think there is real potential for ecotourism," he said. "Everybody loves horses."

ROAM Would Expand BLM Horse Board to Include Activists, Term Limits

By Steven Long

Photo Courtesy Bureau of Land Management

The Restore our American Mustang Act, (ROAM), if it passes, will bring radical change to the way the current Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board of the Bureau of Land Management does business.

In particular, the new legislation would give animal welfare advocates a seat at the table of a board that heretofore was dominated by ranchers, mineral, and hunting interests.

The proposed legislation changes the makeup of the board saying it “shall include three representatives of the livestock industry; three representatives of the environmental community; three representatives of the animal protection community; and three scientists with expertise in wildlife management, animal husbandry, or natural resource management.”

It also opens up appointment to the board stating ” Nomination of members of the board shall be conducted by public notice and comment…and shall be for a term of four years. No individual shall serve more than two consecutive terms.”

Some members have served on the current board for decades. Appointment to the board has largely ignored wild horse advocates.

The act has passed the House by a large margin. It is now in the senate and appears to enjoy strong support.

At a meeting of the current board held in Alexandria, VA, last week, members largely ignored advocates, some of whom had traveled hundreds of miles to express their concerns. One board member walked out.

A "gather" of wild horses in Montana's Pryor Mountain wilderness of a herd of Mustangs made famous on the PBS series "Nature," by documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens has provoked a tsunami of outrage at the bureau and its current wild horse board prompting thousands of calls and letters to Congress and the White House.

Louisiana's Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), has introduced legislation which would force the BLM to completely revise its wild horse and burro policy.

A Horse That Limps Isn’t Lame?

The English language is elegant, nuanced, but most importantly clearly understood and spoken.

The Bureau of Land Management is an agency which has terminology all its own. The jargon is a juxtaposition of what the outside world calls things – what things actually are. It is a nomenclature all its own, a language directly opposite the words everyday American speak and understand.

In BLM speak a wild horse isn’t wildlife.

In BLM speak a clearly injured horse that limps aren’t lame.

In BLM speak a helicopter provoked stampede is nothing more than a gentle run down a 5,000 foot slope over a rocky ten mile trek. Never mind the rocks, never mind the hooves. Never mind four spindly fetlocks carrying a 1,000 pound load.

In BLM speak there isn’t enough land to feed about 60,000 wild horses in the 261 million acres BLM manages, and more than 34 million acres dedicated to the Mustang.

The agency is a part of the U.S. Department of Interior. It may be more appropriate to move it to the U.S. Department of Education, if for no other reason than for its employees to learn the English they forgot from school.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) Louisiana passed a bill in late September that could revolutionize a part of the federal government that has a literal death grip on America’s herds of wild horses. If the bill passes the House and is signed by President Obama, the BLM will have to reinvent itself. And well it should. No unit of American government so needs reform.

For weeks we have immersed ourselves into the issue of the care and management of our wild herds. We approached the issue with an open mind – in fact a bias in favor of the BLM. After all it has been a consistent advertiser and supporter of our magazine in promoting its wonderful auctions of Mustangs. And wonderful they are

Another event, Extreme Mustang Makeover brings knowledge of wild horses to thousands in arena competitions across the nation

Yet what we found in the wake of our investigation of the ill conceived “gather” of a historic herd of wild horses in Montana raised concern. Allegations are that the BLM’s goal will eliminate Mustangs and burros from the wilderness. The BLM has made no compelling argument to counter the charge.

Herd after herd is being decimated by BLM roundups. The BLM currently holds 33,000 wild horses in pens across the American West.

So many horses were removed from the Pryor Mountain herd that equine geneticists tell us that the animals taken over Labor Day week leaves it no longer genetically viable.

And the list goes on, and on, and on, and on and the public deserves a fair hearing in which all sides are presented. We believe BLM has much to answer for, much will be disturbing..

The House passed the Restore our American Mustangs Act, or ROAM, by a large majority. It is now in the Senate. The law would reinstate the protection of wild horses removed in the dead of night in 2005 from the 1971 Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act

ROAM must pass.

Louisiana’s Landrieu has said she would consider moving the BLM’s stewardship for wild horses to another agency. Perhaps that proposal deserves serious consideration. It’s clear that not enough people working for the Bureau of Land Management understand enough English to clearly read their mandate under the law.

BLM Confirms Cloud Injury, Releases Pryor Gather Vet Report

By Steven Long

9-30-09

The Bureau of Land Management confirmed today that Cloud, a wild horse beloved by millions of fans of the PBS series “Nature” is injured.

Horseback Magazine asked Billings, Montana Field Manager Jim Sparks if the agency sent someone up Pryor Mountain to determine the number of horses still injured after a roundup held over Labor Day week.

“He did videotape Cloud and several of the foals that were sore footed,” he said “including the one in the you-tube video.  All appear to be normal.  None appear to be limping or lame.  Cloud does have what appears to be a cut above the hoof on one of his feet.”

Cloud was observed licking his right leg late last week by Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens . She had shot video of the horse limping immediately after his release more than two weeks before..  

The observations of Kathrens and the video shot by her in in conflict with a veterinary report filed by BLM Veterinarian Brent Thomson between September 3, and September 9. The report was release to Horseback Magazine after a Freedom of Information Act Request was filed. The veterinary report follows:

Sept. 3, 2009

Britton Springs , Wyo N44.99495 W108.34940 Elevation 4178’

Weather- warm clear with temps into the 90’s

9 am briefing: Jim Sparks

Objectives: capture horse till 70 “removable” horses are caught

fertility control to be given to some of the released horses

collect genetic materials (hair samples)

The day’s gather consisted of the capture of several small groups of horses. All groups of horses were examined within minutes of capture for signs of heat stress or excessive exertion from being captured in the heat. No sign of heat stress or exertion were observed. The horses went into pens with water upon arrival at the capture facility.

Fourteen head were captured over the course of the day. These animals were all off of the

southern tip of the range which is located in Wyoming. All animals were prepped in a quiet, humane and orderly manner, which included hair collection, fertility control as warranted and marking with paint for those animals to be returned to the

range. I took the opportunity to look at each horse closely and found them generally to be in good flesh and with the overall appearance of good health. The animals then went to pens with food and water for the evening. The hay was grass hay that was clean of weeds, mold free and fed in adequate amounts. The pens were not overcrowded and the animals had settled in within minutes and were eating the hay. A three year old mare that is quite thin and her foal will be kept in and fed for several weeks to build her up for winter.

September 4, 2009 Britton Springs

Sunny and clear, temps into the 90’s

The horses held overnight looked good this morning and had eaten much of the hay put out for them. Today’s horses will come from The Dryhead and Mustang Flats to the east of Britton Springs. Many fewer people (private citizens) were here today. Several local forest fires are burning but the air quality remains good and shouldn’t be a factor in today’s gather By mid morning about 20 horses were captured, once again all looked good and no signs of heat related stress. About 10 head were left to capture but the helicopter could not find them after penning the first bunch. Because the day was warming up those horses were not pursued. The 20 head were prepped quietly and quickly and other than the horses slated for adoption the remainder were trailered back to The Dryhead area. Almost all of the horses were in good shape (BCS 4+/5) and had no gather related injuries. None of the mares injected with PZP had any visible injection site blemishes. Again all of the animals in the corral were well fed and watered.

Tomorrow’s gather will be Commissary Ridge with the plan to remove all of the horses there as they are outside the PMWHR and on Forest Service land.

September 5, 2009 Commissary Ridge N45.16792 W108.42366 Elevation 7270’

Sunny with light haze, temps into the 80’s on the mountain

Panels and jute fence wings were set up on Commissary Ridge and horses were gathered by helicopter quickly into the trap with minimal stress. I estimate 24 horses were gathered over three hours and trailered down to Britton Springs. On the way down one of the trailers hauling horses had one set of wheels slide off of the road. The trailer was stuck for about 30 minutes. When the trailer was freed and arrived at Britton Springs I watched the horses unload and carefully checked for injury. I saw none. The first group of adoption horses were then prepped which entails a blood draw for Coggins, vaccination against the common horse diseases and freeze branding. Dr. Lyle Bischoff from Lovell, WY did the EIA testing. 35 horses were processed by 6 pm. During the processing two horses jumped out of the side of the chute but neither incurred any injuries or escaped. The preparation crew worked quietly and efficiently

with minimal stress on the horses. All of the horses were well fed and watered in pens of proper size. None of the previously injected mares had any visible injection site lumps.

September 6, 2009 Commissary Ridge and Britton Springs

Sunshine and temps in the 80’s on the mountain, 90’s at Britton Springs The five more horses on Commissary Ridge were gathered by 8:30 am and hauled to Britton Springs. The portable trap was dismantled and the crew moved down to Britton Springs. The

helicopter started gathering the west side of Pryor Mtn. and brought in 2 groups totaling about 31 head. By 2 pm the temperature was sufficiently warm that gathering operations for the day were ceased. The animals were sorted and the release horses were sampled for genetic testing and administered fertility control as needed. No adoption horse prepping was done. Once again the BLM crew worked efficiently and had no horse escapes or untoward incidents of any kind. The animals were handled humanely and showed no undue stress upon release from the chute. The fertility control mares remain free of visible injection site reactions. All of the animals had adequate pen space and ample food and water. The thin three year old mare and her foal that were sorted off on day 1 are doing well. The mare now has a visible udder and the foal seems to be getting more milk.

September 7, 2009 Britton Springs Cooler with clouds, temps into the low 80’

It was too windy to fly until late morning. Approximately thirty six head captured today,

including “Cloud” and his harem. We prepped 12 head for adoption, released 11 head from the pens and PZP injected several mares. Everything in the trap looked good and well fed. About 5:30 pm one of the mares (Brumby) from the last group in began to show symptoms reminiscent of tying up. She was treated with Banamine and began to show improvement within 15 minutes. Within two hours she was nearly normal. Just after I left for the evening, one of Cloud’s mares started getting colicky. It about 6:30 pm when they crew called me on the cell phone. I turned around and returned to Britton Springs. Due to her wild nature, I could only do a cursory examination. She was definitely colicky and she was treated with Banamine and Torbugesic and returned to her pen. She was standing quietly when I left. I will be back at Britton Springs at 7 am to check on our patients and get ready for the days work.

September 8, 2009 Britton Springs Temps in the low to mid 80’s Only 15 head in two bunches were captured today. The last bunch came in with several sore footed animals. Because of this and many other factors Jared Bybee ended the capture portion of this operation. The total capture was up to around 146 head which was considered close enough to the target to make this the last capture day. We worked the animals through the chutes collecting hair samples and marking them for release. Two foals were quite sore footed. They were out of young mares that did not appear to be milking well and also had some degree of stress from the trip in and going through the chute. I had concerns about potential stress and hydration issues and I made the decision to postpone treatment till morning when they had recovered some. I walked through all the pens and with the exception of the foals everything looked good. No injection site blemishes were present and the colic horse and the possible tying up horse both looked good. All of the pens had adequate feed and water without any overcrowding.

September 9, 2009 Britton Springs

Clear and warm temps into the upper 80’s I treated the two foals with sore feet with Banamine about 8 am. We caught them in the pen to minimize stress. By 9 am they were much improved and I visited with Dr. Lyle Bischoff about further treatment. We prepped the remaining horses for adoption and I once again walked through the pens to look at the horses that still remained as many were turned out over the course of the day. No injection site reactions were noted and all of the horses had plenty of food and

water. This was my first gather and I was very impressed with the quality of the work of all of the BLM staff and capture crew around me. They performed safely and efficiently the task of capturing and handling these horses without experiencing a single horse death or serious injury. The people were knowledgeable and answered all of my questions and responded to any concerns I had. I was pleased to see the outstanding effort to handle all of the horses humanely which I am certain is standard operating procedure. Again, as this was my first gather, I did not know what to expect as far as the use of the helicopter. What I saw was the animals moving slowly at either a walk or a trot guided by the

helicopter till the last several hundred yards and the pace was increased to a gallop till the

animals passed through the outer gate into the capture pens. I always looked over the animals within minutes of their capture and even with temperatures in the 90’s I never saw what I considered sweated up, tired horses that had been run a long ways. The most common scenario was the animals mildly sweated along their necks and many went to eating and drinking within minutes of their arrival at Britton Springs. The last groups captured had traveled the farthest and had recovery time of about 20-30 minutes.

I was a bit surprised at all the people that were allowed into the horse working chute area. To me it seemed to interfere with the flow of things. I suppose the extra people made extra noise and their presence agitated the horses further, made it more difficult for the prep crew to concentrate on their jobs and we always had to stop to wait for people in the alley ways to clear out so we could move horses. One morning we prepped a group of horses at 7 am, before so many people had arrived and it was the smoothest and least stressful of all of times I saw horses prepped. I know when we are working bison we don’t allow people even in the area till after we are done. The crew is better able to focus on their jobs, we aren’t stumbling over people and the safety issues aren’t magnified by extra numbers of people. There are the occasional media days but the media are escorted everywhere in small groups and not allowed to interfere with operations by close up filming or asking questions of the crew while working.

Cloud and Others Remain Lame After More Than a Fortnight

By Steven Long

HOUSTON – Tonight a yellow Mustang with the unlikely name of Cloud limps in a meadow on top of Montana’s Pryor Mountain, 18 days after he was released injured from a hasty Bureau of Land Management “gather.”

Fifty-seven friends and relatives of the stallion were sold Saturday, never to return to the only home they have ever known, including the 19-year-old stallion, Conquistador. The Pryor Mountain Horses, recognized as a separate breed by the authoritative Horse Breeds Standard Guide, were taken by the BLM over Labor Day week. Most were stampeded 5,000 feet down the mountain from their meadow home to holding pens where some of the mares were made infertile before returning to the mountain.

Many of the horses remain injured 20 days after the stampede down the rocky mountainside, according to documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens. She returned to the mountain to observe their condition immediately after the auction. What she found was disturbing.

“We don’t know what happened to Cloud,” she said. “We really looked closely at his fetlock on the right front leg. He seemed to be licking that from time to time, but we obviously couldn’t get close enough, but through binoculars we could see that it was either clotted, or there was mud there, or maybe he had been cut, we really don’t know but he’s off on his right front still.”

“Cloud was run down on Labor Day the seventh, as were other Mountain Horses and they did that on Tuesday the eighth when the were really hurting them - that's when we saw the limping foals, the horse that colicked, and the "tied up" horse (they ran us out before we could see her), they also left a foal and it's mother, alone, without the herd because they could not keep up,” said author R.T. Fitch, an eyewitness who spent six days on the mountain during the gather.

“He’s lame,” Kathrens said of Cloud. “It’s not so pronounced you can see it at the walk, but when he walks briskly he is definitely off on his right side.

Other horses are showing signs of lameness as well, Kathrens said. If the horses were in private hands 20 days after an injury, they would likely have already been under the care of a veterinarian. However, the agency that captured them doesn’t consider sore feet an injury.

“The black mare, Pococeno, from Cloud’s band who is the mother of Boulder, has got what looks like a stifle injury,” she said. “It’s really stiff on her back right, and then Cloud’s four year old daughter is really lame in her left hip. That could be from the shot, I don’t remember her being lame right away.”

“Jasmine, Cloud’s youngest daughter is still lame,” she said.

Kathrens challenges the BLM definition of lameness in horses.

“When you walk with a limp, you’re lame regardless if whether that is a pulled muscle or feet that or sore, lameness is lameness,” she said. “Not calling it an injury is humorous. “I guess it also wasn’t an injury when Cloud’s daughter Rain colicked and Grumpy, another mare, tied up, or when the smallest baby couldn’t walk, I guess that’s not an injury, huh?”

Conquistador was sold for $2,500, bought by The Cloud Foundation which was determined to return the aging horse to the wild. But activists were stunned to find themselves in a bidding war for the horse, Kathrens said.

“It was a person from Colorado from a rescue, would you believe,” said the Emmy Award winning documentarian. “He said he wanted a ‘notable’ stallion for his sanctuary.”

But Conquistador will remain in Montana in the Pryor Mountain area. The stallion was one of 57 horses sold at the auction. He was captured on U.S. Forest Service land and trailered down the mountain and was not part of the stampedes.

“He’s much happier as we speak,” she said. “He’s back with Cavalita, his black mare.”

Members of Conquistador’s family won’t return to the wild with him.

“His’s three offspring were auctioned off,” Kathrens said. “But he and his mare are back in the foothills of the Pryor Mountains together. “He’s in the neighborhood, and boy it’s a beautiful neighborhood.”

Currently the horse and his mares are in large paddocks on the property and will be released on the 3,000 acre wilderness pasture after an acclimation period in about two to three weeks.

“We were also able to adopt the four-year-old blue roan bachelor stallion Floyd who had been badly abused in the corrals.

Kathrens had high praise for residents of Billings who came to the auction to help out. “It was a pretty stressful day because we were really working hard with the help of these wonderful people, mainly Laura Pibonka, Mike Temple who is former deputy director of the BLM nationally, and Trish Kirby who’s been watching this herd ofer 20 years. With their help we were able to negotiate for a property that was fabulously beautiful.”

Kathrens challenges news reports that have claimed that Texas billionaires Boone and Madelaine Pickens adopted a Mustang at the sale.

Kathrens said that by keeping many of the horses in the Pryor Mountain area with luck advocates will be able to protect the genetic viability of the world famous wild herd despite BLM’s reduction of its size below the level of viability.

The Conquest of Conquistador

Aging PBS Star Still Held And At Risk Of Death

By Steven Long , Horseback Magazine

9-20-09

HOUSTON, (Horseback) - Conquistador, a 19-year-old Pryor Mountain Mustang captured during a “gather” by the Bureau of Land Management over the Labor Day Weekend could soon face euthanasia for the crime of being an older horse.

The agency has 33,000 wild horses in captivity, and despite the fact they manage 256 million acres, it has no place to release them where they can run free. What’s more, BLM has so depleted its budget, spending $27 million holding the horses in captivity, the agency last year seriously contemplated euthanizing tens of thousands of Mustangs and burros.

Despite having a leading role in the PBS “Nature” series starring the famed wild palomino Mustang named Cloud, the aging horse known to television fans across the globe as Conquistador is at risk.

Last year documents came to light under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) query by a Phoenix group regarding an equicide plan to destroy healthy horses gathered on public lands and placed in holding pens by the thousands

Ironically, the plan was dubbed “The Conquistador Program.”

The BLM deems natural resources on Pryor Mountain as not being able to sustain the number of horses living off the land there.

Agency policy considers horses such as Conquistador as too old and thus, expendable. Under a 2004 law, the BLM is required to sell horses that are either more than 10 years of age, or which have been passed over for adoption three times “without limitation.”

The law’s mandate to sell without limitation is subject to interpretation, and while BLM vigorously denies that it sells to slaughter plants or to “killer buyers,” scant scrutiny is given to potential purchaser after the sale. Numerous reports have come to Horseback Magazine by observers who allege they saw the distinctive BLM brand on the necks of horses destined for abattoirs across the Mexican and Canadian borders as they were confined to holding pens with a telltale slaughter tag attached to them.

Minutes of BLM discussions of the Conquistador Plan reveal the agency at one point became so desperate to rid itself of the horses it now holds that it considered euthanizing horses more than 10 years old after only one attempt at adoption, not three.

Beginning in July, 2008, managers compiled a 68 page document dubbed Alternative Management Solutions. It detailed methods of dealing death such as barbiturates, gunshots, or the often cruel captive bolt.

The report revealed that it would call upon the agency’s public relations arm to shield those doing the killing from the scrutiny by the public, media, or even members of Congress.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), Louisiana, has said she would consider removing management of wild horses and burros from the BLM..

The plan even contemplated psychiatric counseling for BLM employees or contractors who would do the actual killing of thousands of horses.

While Cloud and members of his herd were released back into the wild, albeit fatigued and depleted of much needed fat fat after as much as a 10 mile stampede by helicopter, Conquistador remains in BLM custody along with two other horses that will be seen in the next installment of the Cloud “Nature” series on PBS. The program by Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Ginger Kathrens is scheduled to air in October.

The gather, completed September 8, captured 146 horse including 15 foals.

A meeting of the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board is scheduled for September 28, in Arlington Virginia.

The agency’s National Adoption Day is scheduled for September 26. The 57 horses, including Conquistador, that were not returned to freedom on Pryor Mountain will be offered for adoption that day at the Britton Springs camp at the base. Pryor Mountain is located in Montana near Billings.

The BLM left 125 horses on Pryor Mountain. The agency claims no horses were injured in the gather despite video of Cloud limping after his release.

A BLM spokesman said sore feet don’t constitute an injury.

Repeated requests for an interview with BLM Director Bob Abbey have been refused.

The High Cost of Lameness on the Mountain, Oops, He’s Not Lame

By Steven Long, Horseback Magazine

9-18-09

HOUSTON, (Horseback) - Employees of the Bureau of Land Management’s Billings, Montana, office hit a windfall as the summer months on Pryor Mountain came to an end. They had to work on the Labor Day holiday, September 7, and by federal regulation received double their regular pay, piling more costs onto an already expensive outing for the agency.

Jim Sparks, field manager of the office, says that the cost of the “gather” which penned the iconic Mustang, Cloud, for a time may run as high as $150,000.

Members of the famed Cloud band of Prior Mountain Mustangs, recognized as a distinct breed in The Official Horse Breeds Standards Guide, will join 33,000 wild horses awaiting adoption in BLM pens or facing euthanasia. The agency lacks the funds to maintain them and last year threatened to kill tens of thousands because of a budget shortfall. After talk of equicide leaked to the general public, a perfect storm of outrage befell the agency as angry horse lovers howled in protest.

Many blame gathers such as the one over the Labor Day weekend that netted Cloud, and the cost of feeding horses that would have otherwise cost the government nothing had they remained in the wild, for decimating the agency’s budget.

“Under normal circumstances, without lawsuits, protests, threats, etc., a gather of this sort will cost $60,000,” Sparks said, blaming a handful of wild horse advocates for the overblown expense of an event that many say should never have happened at all.

Cloud, a yellow Palomino, has been the feature horse in a PBS “Nature” series by Emmy award winning documentarian Ginger Kathrens. A fourth installment is scheduled for October. Two of the horses in that episode did not return to freedom on the mountain with Cloud. They will be put up for adoption, or possibly be euthanized.

Cloud has also been featured twice in the Breyer horse collection of sculptured plastic models. Another installment in the series is scheduled to be released by the company just in time for Christmas.

The high cost of the gather did not prevent Cloud, and others, from being injured in a stampede covering as much as 10 miles down the 5,000 foot Pryor Mountain over rocky terrain. Yet the BLM claims the horse didn’t suffer an injury.

“Sore feet do not constitute an injury,” said BLM spokesman Tom Gorey.

Any damage to a horse’s hoof is courting catastrophe. After hoof injuries horses sometimes suffer from painful abscesses, founder, or even colic.

Critics of the BLM, such as animal welfare advocate John Holland shake their heads in wonder at what they call the callus attitude of the agency. A Mustang owner himself, he quoted the old adage “no hoof, no horse.”

Video shot by Kathrens soon after the release show Cloud limping.

“There’s not a veterinarian in this country, except those employed by the government, that would not consider lameness an injury,” said Jerry Finch, founder of Habitat for Horses, the largest horse rescue in the nation.

The BLM counters with its own definition of what constitutes an injury that seems to serve the purpose of capturing horse by stampeding them over rocky mountain terrain with a helicopter.

Gorey said, “Regulations at CFR 4700.05 define a lame wild horse or burro as meaning a wild horse or burro with one or more malfunctioning limbs that permanently impair its freedom of movement. In accordance with this definition, we definitely do not have any lame horses as a result of the gather.”

Sue Cattoor and her family contract with BLM to catch wild horses at the rate of $100 to $400 per animal per gather. She says the use of her company’s helicopter is a humane way of catching them.

“The only time the helicopter puts pressure on the animals except many to turn them is just as they enter the trap. That is so they will follow the Judas horse,” she told Horseback.

A Judas horse is an animal that has been trained to run for the trap. It is let go just as the horses are reaching the confinement area.

She says the helicopter stays a good distance from the animals as it drove them down the mountain.

“When the helicopter is bringing the animals he stays fairly high and way back

from them. He lets them travel at their own speed. He follows and keeps

the band together. This would not happen if he chased or stampeded the

animals. This Pryor Mountain is not a tremendously rough mountain when it

comes to mountains in other places,” Cattoor said.

Repeated requests for an interview by Horseback Magazine with BLM Director Bob Abbey have gone unheeded.

Cloud Capture Draws Capitol Attention

By Steven Long, Horseback Magazine

9-14-09

U.S. Senator Eyes Removing Agency’s Mustang Oversight

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The hasty labor day “gather” of the iconic equine star of the PBS “Nature” series, Cloud, has sparked interest and consternation from coast to coast as wild horse lovers rally to put a halt to Bureau of Land Management “gathers” on the nation’s public lands.

Several horses, including Cloud, were released lame after being chased down a 5,000 foot mountain by a low flying helicopter. The famed Mustang’s popular image has been celebrated in two best selling reproductions by Breyer. A third set of the collectables will be released in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Only 120 members of the herd will be allowed by the BLM to remain in this area of Pryor Mountain wilderness encompassing nearly 40,000 acres. The BLM currently claims to hold 33,000 horses captured in gathers in holding pens. No outside agency has been allowed to do a census.

Protests are planned for a meeting of the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board in Washington September 28-29.

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landieu, a horsewoman, said that if the BLM doesn’t change its ways and stop the gathers and helicopter stampedes she is considering supporting legislation to remove management of wild horses from the agency.

“She’s really fed up with the BLM right now and she’s thought about maybe possibly moving the (wild horse) program from them to another agency,” the Landrieu aide told Horseback Magazine. “That goes to show her frustration with how this program is mismanaged

“The GAO put out a report last year citing the utter mismanagement of this program,” she said. “They spend three fourths of the BLM budget on this program, and as you know, they run a whole slew of other programs.”

Landrieu serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with provides oversight for America’s public lands.

Key senators besides Landrieu who will influence the nation’s wild horse policy are New Mexico’s Jeff Bingeman, California’s Diane Feinstein, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Navada, the aide said.

Reid, an enabler of the hated Burns Amendment which removed protection from wild horses has expressed concerned regarding the Restoring our American Mustangs Act, or ROAM. In the past the senator, who polls indicate is highly unpopular in his home state, has been no friend of wild horses. He is in a tight race for re-election.

In minutes of meetings of BLM managers secreted out of the agency earlier in the year, discussions of the euthanasia of thousands of horses captured in gathers were held. The talks were prompted by an agency running out of funds to operate its wild horse program. In the discussions, the prospect of psychiatric counseling of veterinarians who would perform the killing of innocent horses was discussed. The disposal of thousands of horse carcasses was also studied by the agency.

When news of the planned equicide leaked it provoked a tidal wave of anger at the agency among horse lovers and the general public prompting the agency to put the killing on hold.

Critics say wild horses have lived off the land just like moose, elk, antelope, big horn sheep, and deer without serious depletion of the herds for hundreds of years because of natural selection. Yet despite their wild status in fact and American lore, the agency doesn’t classify the equines as wildlife which would enjoy protection.

The aide, who declined to be identified, said the likely agency the senator would target for new management responsibilities for wild horses should Landrieu move in that direction would be the National Park Service because of an excellent record handling a limited number of wild horses that agency already oversees.

The BLM, along with the U.S. Forest Service, is currently required by law to manage wild horses on public land.

Video Shows Cloud Limping, Foals Possibly Vulnerable to Lion Attack

By Steven Long, Horseback Magazine

9 -12-09

Despite repeated denials by the federal Bureau of Land Management, horses, including the iconic mustang Cloud were injured in a hasty Labor Day weekend round-up.

Video evidence shot by Emmy award winning PBS filmmaker Ginger Katherens show graphic images of horses limping, including Cloud, immediately after their release.

Members of the Cloud herd were not allowed to leave BLM pens to return to Pryer Mountain and will be sold on September 26.

Repeated queries by Horseback Magazine have all received the same answer from the agency which manages the nation’s wild horses on public lands.

“There were no injuries or deaths resulting from the gather, to the best of my knowledge,” said Washington spokesman Tom Gorey late Friday when he disputed Katherens veracity saying, “The Cloud Foundation is not a credible source for information.”

Jim Sparks, the BLM field manager of the Millings, Montana office also told Horseback Magazine that no horses were injured in a ten mile chase by helicopter down a mountainside and into a trap where they were then herded into pens.

Katherens has spent much of the last decade chronicling the wild horses of Montana’s mountains, a line of animals that is believed to be genetically pure dating back to the 15 th century.

The next installment of the “Nature” series featuring Cloud and the horses of Montana’s Pryer range will be shown on PBS, October 25, 2009. The special is titled “Cloud Challenges the Stallion.”

Two horses featured in the film are now held in the BLM adoption pen.

Makendra Silverman, assistant to Katherens who remains in the field, said some of the horses are now vulnerable to predators because of their inability to move rapidly to escape attack.

“When you have foals run for 10 to 15 miles, they’re extremely foot sore and muscular sore,” she said. “They are much more prone to mountain lion attack.”

Silverman said it is doubtful older horses such as Cloud, bachelor stallions, and mares would fall victim to cougar attacks but very young horses are at risk.

How Great Stories Come to Happen

By Steven Long

I sat at the horseshoe shaped bar of Galveston’s late lamented Café Torrefie, a hotbed of what passed for the island’s hot spot for literati from the late ‘70s until the early ‘90s. It wasn’t exactly on the level with Paris’ Left Bank in the 1920s, but it passed for it if the Bud was cold enough and you drank enough of it.

I had more than enough of it night after night playing basketball with bar napkins and swilling beer as I lamented another failed marriage. Thankfully an indulgent bartender put up with me for meager tips at the end of an evening. Surely a Sinatra saloon song echoed through is brain as he watched me toss paper aimlessly.

The Café sat on Galveston’s most fashionable five block stretch. The Strand is a nineteenth century historical district of national significance. Nineteen blocks away sat one of the busiest operating rooms in the nation serving the University of Texas Medical Branch’s John Sealy Hospital. Attached to the hospital the Lone Star State cared for prisoners in a huge new hospital giving them the very best a teaching hospital could offer, including the free service of young doctors eager to tote hours as they went through a grueling residency.

Sometimes that best of everything approach was too much for Texas taxpayers. Such was the case when an operating room nurse walked into the Café, sat down next to me, and began to pour out complaints, one of which was that she didn’t believe taxpayers should be paying for felon’s facelifts.

I put down my beer in disbelief.

As she continued I learned of the extent Texas medical residents were being used by the oldest medical school west of the Mississippi to practice on pimps, burglars, drug kingpins, rapists and murderers.

The Johns Sealy O.R. operated then on a 24/7 basis. One moment the most pius Baptist church lady would lay on an operating table, and the minute her surgery was completed, the room would be prepped and the next patient moved in as a tattooed criminal took the place of honor as surgeons scrubbed up.

My journalistic instincts are hard wired for a story and always turned on. I knew instantly this was a big one if I could just pierce the circle the wagons secrecy of the university that had thwarted so many great stories before. Nowhere in the almost 40 years I have done journalism was there a more impenetrable bureaucracy than UTMB.

“Does the operating room keep logs?” I asked the nurse.

“Yes,” she said.

“Are they filed away there or are the thrown away at the end of the day?” I pressed.

“How would I know? I’m a nurse,” she said as I sat on the barstool frustrated, yet exhilarated.

At the time I was making the 50 mile commute each way from Galveston to the Houston Chronicle downtown in the Bayou City. I had plenty of time to think about the story and I knew that if I could get my hands on those logs the lid would be blown off a major scandal with statwide implications. A week went by, then another. Each night, I returned to the Café Torrefie and waited, vainly hoping the nurse would return, logs in hand. Finally it happened.

A few nights later, I sat on a bar stool next to a pioneering heart surgeon who was a regular and on faculty at the medical school. I pulled the logs out of my brief case and put them in front of him. He almost dropped his Cutty.

“That’s our O.R. log,” he exclaimed. “How did you get that?”

That was enough confirmation for me, I knew I had the real thing and for the next two hours we went over the logs and marked every inmate who had surgery that day. As I recall, four of them were on the table for plastic surgary. One, a female inmate had a breast reduction. Another, a tummy tuck. Yet another, a 55-year-old Dallas pimp doing 35 years was under the knife at taxpayer expense for a brow lift to remove the menace of his hooded criminal eyes.

I quickly requested a prison interview with the man and assigned a photographer to accompany me for a photo to record the skill of his medical resident surgeon. The two of us traveled to the prison in Huntsville, Texas to see firsthand what my tax money had paid for.

Two days later, we were escorted through the gates of the state’s Wynn Unit to see an astonished pimp who was curious why a reporter from the state’s largest newspaper wanted to see him.

“You must be one sorry pimp,” I said as he came into the interview cell. “You must have really pissed somebody off to get 35 years for running whores,” I said.

We hit it off instantly.

I looked at the man. I had seen the scowling prison photo of his “old” face. Before me was a handsome man in his mid-50s.

A week later, another handsome man stood before me, curious why I had asked to see him. The head doc of UTMB’s otolaryngology service wondered why a reporter requested an interview with him. He was surely expecting a puff piece on his beautiful work in plastic surgery.

“Why is the state doing cosmetic surgery on prison inmates,” I asked, getting straight to the point.

“We aren’t,” he answered incredulously, angrily.

I opened my briefcase and pulled out the now well thumbed logs of the John Sealy Hospital operating suite as his face went ashen.

The doctor recovered sufficiently to stammer that his residents were performing a public service by giving the felons they operated on renewed self esteem. I replied that they were giving them face lifts, tummy tucks, breast reductions and brow lifts. The interview was brief.

I then called the chairman of the board of Texas Department of Corrections with the same question. He also denied the state was doing cosmetic surgery until I said I had the logs.

And I could almost smell the pile as he dropped a load when I reminded him that the state legislature had prohibited the practice of cosmetic surgery on prison inmates in state teaching hospitals two years before.

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