Unedited, less headlines, BLM Press Release
Release Date: 01/18/13
Contacts:Dorothy Harvey, 775-635-4040, d50harve@blm.gov
Yet Another Assault on Native Wild Horses and U.S. Taxpayer’s Wallets to Commence
BLM at Antelope Complex 2011 ~ photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation
Battle Mountain, Nev. – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will begin the Diamond Complex Wild Horse Gather on Friday, Jan. 18, 2013. The BLM will gather and remove about 603 excess wild horses from the Complex. Additionally, 160 wild horses will be released back into the herd management areas (HMAs), including 52 mares treated with PZP, a fertility control vaccine. Sex ratios will be adjusted to 60/40 to favor stallions in the post-gather population.
The gather is necessary to help prevent further deterioration of the range, as well as achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance and healthy, viable wild horse populations. Due to severe drought conditions in 2012, forage and water is very limited for the existing overpopulation of wild horses. The gather is also needed to prevent widespread decline of wild horse body condition and potential death due to starvation this winter.
The Diamond Complex is located north of Eureka, Nev., within Eureka, Elko and White Pine counties. Therefore, the gather will be conducted across three different districts: the gather will begin in the Ely District, then will move to the Elko District and finish in the Battle Mountain District. The Complex consists of the Diamond, Diamond Hills North and Diamond Hills South HMAs.
“These three HMAs are managed as a complex because of their geographical location with known movement of wild horses between and within the HMAs,” said BLM Battle Mountain District Manager Doug Furtado. “This gather is the first step in a phased-in management strategy to eventually reach and maintain the appropriate management level (AML) of between 123 and 210 wild horses.”
The phased approach includes conducting three to four gathers over a 10-year period to reach AML and the increased use of fertility control and adjustment of sex ratios. The long-term goal is to slow population growth rates which will result in the removal of fewer wild horses in follow-up gathers.
The BLM will utilize the services of gather contractor Cattoor Livestock Roundup, Inc., which uses a helicopter to locate and herd wild horses toward a set of corrals to be gathered. The use of helicopters, which is authorized by the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, has proven to be a safe, effective and practical means by which to gather excess wild horses with minimal anxiety or hardship on the animals.
Wild horses removed from the range will be transported to Palomino Valley Center north of Reno, Nev., or the Gunnison Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah, to be prepared for the BLM wild horse adoption program.
“Animals removed from the Diamond Complex will be available for adoption through the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Program,” said Furtado. “Those that are not adopted will be cared for in long-term pastures, where they retain their “wild” status and protection under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.”
A special on-site adoption will be held February 2. Time and place have not been determined at this time. The Diamond Complex web site below will include updates for this event. For more information call Shawna Richardson at (775) 635-4181.
A Wild Horse Gather Information Line has been established at (775) 861-6700. A recorded message will provide information on daily gather activities and schedules. The BLM will also post daily gather information on its website at: bit.ly/BLMDiamonds.
Public lands within the HMAs will be open to the public during gather operations, subject to necessary safety restrictions, and the BLM will make every effort to allow for public viewing opportunities. Every day will be an observation day with every Saturday being a Public Outreach and Education day. On Saturdays, a member of the District Leadership Team will accompany members of the public and, when possible and within safety constraints, members of the public will be permitted closer access to wild horses at temporary holding. Visitors are encouraged to sign up prior to arriving by calling the Gather Information Line and leaving a message.
The Diamond Complex Wild Horse Gather and its impacts are described and analyzed in the final Environmental Assessment (EA), which is available online at: bit.ly/BLMDiamonds under Documents and Maps.
For more information, contact Dorothy Harvey, Battle Mountain District Public Affairs Specialist, at (775) 635-4040 or d50harve@blm.gov.
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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
FYI regarding Palomino Valley and Gunnison facilities.
Per FOIA data for the Triple B capture about a year and a half ago, ALL (except about ten – likely very young nursing age) stallions and colts were sent directly to Gunnison Prison to be gelded.
Managing for Extinction.
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Right you are, Grandmagregg. The BLM is destroying what is left of the already very low gene pool. The public should have the option of adopting a stallion if wanted. Also old stallions should not be gelded. No tellings how many die when gelded.
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YIPES!!! Does it ever stop!!!! I will make the phone call.
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Why would anyone gather in January or February, when mares are heavy in foal or have very young foals? Is it really THAT hard for BLM to hire someone who knows a horse’s tail from its head?
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We really need to take better care of our wild horses. Does anyone in power care? Someday they will be gone and we will cry but who in power cared? I know many here care. Thankfully the horses have us to fight for them
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Maureen they will be gone this year at the speed the blm harvesting machine is going.
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They are doing it at speed-neck paces so to end the horses on BLM all together.
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It has started and one is dead due to a “non-gather” related injury that had become infected. I have posed the question asking for more details.
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Reply from Shawna at the BLM about the euthanized horse…
They said (and the APHIS vet was on the call) that it was a bad laceration that had happened a long time ago given the degree of infection and granulation tissue (proud flesh) developed around the wound. It was on the fetlock joint. The mare was only 4 years of age, but a body score 2. The vet concluded from the animals condition and the extreme infection she could visually see (and smell) that the infection likely had become internal as well, leading to the ill health of the mare. They said she was very unhealthy and lethargic compared to the others she was gathered with. That day, they said that the maximum amount of distance the horses had traveled had been 4 miles.
The injury was pre-existing — and didn’t happen during the gather. She may have cut herself on rock, shrub, wire or any number of things. From the description I heard, it had been several months since she hurt herself.
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Thanks for the update, Steve!
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I have made a request that all life threatening injuries be photographed in detail with verbiage from the vet on call. This pics should be posted along with the normal roundup photos. If they are going to be ‘transparent’ then make them be completely transparent.
I have also run into a lot of deaf ears with a request to offer live streaming video, not only of the roundups but the short term holding and feed lots as well. The technology is really cheap.
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But they stampeded her anyway. The contractor got PAID to get her in the trap pen and that expenditure was OK but it was not ok to have her treated, it was easier just to shoot her.
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There were only 28 horses at Ely and they took them all…….They must have been just destroying all that land!!!! 28!!!! Really?????? “And then there were none”
…….
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Apparently, we know for certain that the 1971 Act is so much used toilet paper and this has gone psycho by virtue of the DOI, USDA, Congress and White House behavior.
THERE ARE NOT ANY WILD EQUINES LEFT…ANYWHERE. What is left are ghost herd survivors…vestiges of the 1971 herds and the vapors of roaming ancestors in droves of over 1 million at the turn of the century (1900).
This is just sick, sick, sick.
Obama has got a “legacy” 501 (c) 4 thing going…I will look into it.
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Is there anyone close enough to these areas to drive around out there to get a close up look at the grazing and water?
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Barbara the welfare cow get the water & forage. It has been raining & snowing in this region since this was scheduled last summer during drought. Those horses have been there for millenia and survived just fine until blm came along.
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Look at the horses. They are fit. At first the BLM said it was because the horses weren’t getting enough pasture due to drought. Now it is deterioration of the land. Liar, liar pants on fire BLM!
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This assault on our horses will be not be forgotten. We know they are planning to put a water pipeline through Nevada so Las Vegas can get the water they need. Drain the wetlands and eco systems dry across Nevada. Sick and unreasonable. Stop the madness. They have sooooo many horses in pens there is more to these roundups than the BLM cares to tell us. We know there are secrets being hidden from the public.
We will demand answers, we must. Our horses are going to slaughter and to the horror slaughter pipeline. They are not being treated kindly but inhumanely. We must demand answers now. Stop the blasted BLM round ups now. This is so full of crock and bull headed secrets. They must speak up in a court of law, Lawyers take the govt on. Shut this BLM down somehow. Cattlemen Associations have so much money they need to speak up and tell us the hidden truths about our horses. We know where they are going. We are not stupid horse advocates. We must stop the madness. Our horses are disappearing at an alarming rate. We must do this now, not wait to hear about more horses killed and being sent away to they slaughter coffins and bloody horror. Our horses are crying desperately for our help. Please save us, please stop the BLM from destroying us.
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A report came out with your answers…out the back for to slaughter, freeze brands ignored or replaced with ranch brands and off they go into the kill chutes in Canada and Mexico….
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Why oh why doesn’t anyone in Washington or even the local judges or county governments care about this????
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THis is a never ending killing. Please attorneys, help us stop this killing rage. We need to do this for future generations to see these horses’ beauties. There are no animal that is more beautiful to watch as they run with their manes and tail in the wind. This is an atocity that must be stopped. Our wild horses, and our domestic horses, are crying for our help that they will live to see another day. The cattlemen and the croonies of Salazar’s BLM must come to a stop. This agency must be closed down never to start again. There is a better way. LEAVE OUR WILD HORSES ALONE AND GIVE THEM BACK THEIR LANDS AND FAMILIES.
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What can one say? Is this never ending? Really, we all know why they do this. As they perpratrate
their ill deads, they probably can kill more horses in the process. These people are a bunch of morans! Horse people, really? Lets kill and injury more babies so there are less to transport to their friends holding ranches…What kind of veterinarians do they have there anyway? I wonder what they do when they are not involved in these roundups? I dont believe that they care a bit for the Wild Horses & Burros. Greedy,greedy, I suppose its easy money becaue they don’t do a thing..but watch the horses be mistreated..When will this all end? We need a massive protest in DC in the
Spring!
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The ones that don’t get adopted will be cared for in holding? Who do they think they are fooling? THERE ARE NO EXCESS HORSES, THIS IS THEFT OF PUBLIC PROPERTY USING YOUR TAX DOLLARS TO STEAL FROM YOU. KLEPTOCRACY.
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Observers on the ground reporting temps -5 and 7 degrees. Class action lawsuit against CONTRACTOR anyone???????????????????
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Dorothy Harvey is only a PR person and has no authority. I just tried to call her and am being passed on to somebody at the roundup when they call back. Chasing horses in such cold weather will cause pneumonia.
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To stop further deterioration of the rangeland…..BULL SH** !
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