BLM Stops Contested Million $$ Horse Roundup

Almost 2000 Mustangs Captured & Confined at Calico with 39 Dead ● Eagle Roundup Next

By Robert WINKLER
The Desert Independent

February 7, 2010

RENO, Nevada – The Bureau of Land Management has pulled the plug on the massive roundup of wild horses in the Calico Complex, 600 short of their 2,500 goal, and leaving only a reported 600 in the wild. This remote and starkly beautiful area in northwestern Nevada was home to one of the largest wild, free-roaming herds of wild horses in the United States. In light of the shocking number of roundup-related deaths and injuries the Cloud Foundation continues the call for an immediate moratorium on all roundups. 39 horses are reported dead as a result of the Calico ‘gather’. This does not include the 25-30 mares that have aborted their late term foals in the feedlot style facility outside Fallon, Nevada.

The death toll is expected to rise as BLM begins processing the horses in a few days (freeze-branding, gelding of stallions, etc.). However, the public may not know what happens from here on out, as BLM has decided not to provide veterinary reports on the cause of death in the new Fallon facility, according to BLM manager, John Neill.

“Thousands of Americans protested this dead of winter assault on the last wild horse stronghold remaining in the United States,” stated Ginger Kathrens, Emmy winning producer and director of the Cloud Foundation. “I hope this is an eye-opener for Congress and that the huge outcry against these cruel and unnecessary roundups will be a wake-up call for the President. BLM continues to make a fiscal train wreck of the Wild Horse and Burro Program. While millions of privately-owned welfare cattle occupy public lands, a few thousand horses are targeted for removal, using the tired and ridiculous reason that the native horses do the damage, not the exotic cattle.’’

Despite a public statement by Don Glenn (December 7 at the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Meeting in Reno) in which he said that the public is welcome to view the roundups all the time (hence no need for a humane observer), the public was allowed only limited access to watch the Calico roundup. Viewing was limited to Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays by appointment only. Only a total of 10 observers were allowed per day. Even on the days the public was allowed to attend, viewers were required to leave between 1 and 2 in the afternoon, even though the Cattoor contract crew and helicopters continued to round up wild horses seven days a week as winter storms allowed. Close access was denied for the last two weeks of the operation. Injuries could not be detected or documented. BLM has referred to the visitors as “anti-gather advocates”. The contractors admitted that 30 wild horses captured on January 31 were left overnight in a crowded capture corral without water due to muddy conditions which prevented trucks from accessing the capture sight.

Now BLM sights are set on the wild horses of the Eagle Complex in the mountains of eastern Nevada. The area is larger than the state of Rhode Island, yet the number of mustangs allowable according to BLM is 100. At the same time, the number of privately-owned welfare cattle allowed is over 2,700.

The Cloud Foundation, noted celebrities, over 160 organizations and Americans from coast-to-coast continue to protest and demand a moratorium on the roundups before the wild horse is just an image in one of Kathrens’ Cloud documentaries.