by George Knapp as printed in Las Vegas City Life
George Knapp ~ The Voice for Nevada's Wild Horses
It would not be much of a surprise if the Bureau of Land Management decides to hold its next wild-horse roundup out at the super-secret Area 51 military facility, maybe down in the underground bunkers where they keep the corpses of extraterrestrials. The way it looks, BLM has decided to turn the mustangs into a black program, a classified, off-limits, shadowy mystery, something no one in the government can talk about and no one in the civilian world can access.
An exaggeration? Not by much. In previous years, horse roundups could be viewed by just about anyone so long as the observers didn’t interfere. After all, the mustangs belong to the American public, the ranges where they live are public property, and the millions of dollars spent each year to capture and corral the animals are all taxpayer dollars. So why wouldn’t the public have a right to see what’s going on?
Because BLM doesn’t want you to, that’s why.
Over the past few years, BLM has tightened the screws on its roundups, making it more difficult for both the press and the general public to keep an eye on what unfolds during these inherently violent operations. Apparently, the feds are tired of being eviscerated for their actions. Every time one of their hired wranglers is shown kicking a young colt, and every time a band of horses nearly collapses after being driven in terror by roaring helicopter blades over miles of rough terrain, BLM gets pummeled by an angry, horse-loving public. Who needs that?
BLM tried out its new strategy during the disastrous Calico Hills roundup last winter. The bureau went ahead with the operation even though horse experts warned it was a bad idea to drive horses for miles and miles over snow-covered volcanic rocks and in the coldest time of the year. BLM went forward anyway, and to keep prying eyes to a minimum, it found the only private land inside a half-million acre ocean of public range. That’s the spot that became Roundup HQ. By putting most of the central operations on private property, BLM had total control of who was allowed to enter, and when. It made a point of inviting lots of cattle-friendly, pro-hunter emissaries to join the festivities, along with a small assortment of mainstream journalists and a few horse advocates. But still, BLM called the shots and put limits on which days would be available for observers.
The fact that the Calico roundup turned into the bloodiest in memory is not lost on BLM. Most of the 100-plus horses that died didn’t keel over at the gather site. Rather, they died slower deaths at a holding facility BLM had authorized near Fallon. And, wouldn’t you know it, that facility was also constructed on private land, which means BLM (through the land owner/contractor) can control access to the horses 24/7, which is exactly what it has done. Before they were barred, horse advocates subsequently found dozens of mustangs with horrible wounds, inadequate food and water, and hooves that fell off from being run too hard. After a smattering of those stories hit the media, BLM decided it had enough. The Fallon corral is now completely off limits to everyone except BLM.
The privatization of the wild horse program has reached its zenith with the roundup now underway in Northern Nevada. BLM announced at the beginning that it planned to close off public access to the public lands where the horses live. This was done “for the good of the horses,” of course, and has nothing to do with BLM wanting to limit the bad press it gets every time one of its roundups results in the agonizing deaths of beautiful mustangs.
BLM can perhaps teach its fellow three-letter agency, the CIA, a thing or two about subterfuge. The current roundup in Northern Nevada is sort of a natural evolution of BLM’s spycraft tendencies. The bureau announced a few weeks ago that public lands in the vicinity of the Owyhee range would be off limits while the roundup was underway. BLM even declared air space over Owyhee would be closed to all traffic. Whether or not the bureau even has the authority to pull something like this is a question that needs to be answered in court one of these days, but shutting out the public from public lands with only the vaguest justification is pretty serious stuff. The last time I checked, BLM employees work for the taxpayers. The contractor who will be paid roughly a million dollars for the roundup is also working for the American taxpayer, but we’re not supposed to be able to see what they do? What the heck is the big secret out there in the high desert?
My own suspicion is that BLM doesn’t want to see video of any dead horses on the evening news. See, there were no dead horses on the Owyhee range, not until BLM started driving them like a bat out of hell across the desert. Once the horses started dying, BLM went to court and declared that the routine roundup, which had been in the planning stages for more than a year, is now an emergency rescue. Without BLM’s quick action, 75 percent of the horses would die horrible deaths, the agency claimed. But whatever emergency exists is there because of BLM’s own incompetence. Plus, it seems to spend more of its time trying to outwit horse advocates than taking care of the land.
The final move is a doozie. After horse advocates went back to federal court last week and got a judge to order BLM to allow for outside observers, BLM pulled yet another fast one. The entire Owyhee gather operation was again put onto private land, and BLM then lifted the ban on visitors to the public range. How magnanimous. Except the horse people who tried to find the private ranch were not only given the runaround but were repeatedly warned that if they crossed onto the private property, they would be arrested. Sheriff’s deputies followed them wherever they roamed. This is heavy-handed, totally unnecessary bullshit, exactly what BLM has been doing over the past several years.
The public pays for those roundups, it pays BLM salaries, and it pays for the management of the public ranges. We have every right to be out there to watch what BLM is doing with our money and with the horses. Whether you care about wild horses or not, those are your dollars being spent.
Of the 600-plus horses captured this week, BLM admits 21 have died so far. Of course, we don’t know what the real numbers are. We’ll just have to take BLM’s word for it.
George Knapp is a Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter for KLAS-TV Channel 8. You can reach him at gknapp@klastv.com.
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Categories: Horse News, The Force of the Horse, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Thank you George for laying the whole bag of evil, clandestine deeds out there for the public to read. If I didn’t already know about this and read this article I would be aghast. Come to think of it I DO already know about this and I still am aghast. Not only that this is done but that Congress knows this is going on and does nothing to stop it. We as Americans have to use the courts to do the work that Congress should be doing. We should send the court bills to Congress. Thank you RT for putting this article on your blog.
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The BLM has killed so many wild horses over their 40? year history they can’t or won’t stop now.
That’s why they are in such a rush because they know if the public sees what they do they would be shut down forever.
By now after 40 years of killing horses, they must be piussed off they can’t run them off cliffs or shoot them all in the park lands like “The good old days”
Is that it BLM and helicopter horse killers? ya pissed off at the public getting in the way of your horse killing?
BLM and Roundup inc should have a million felony animal cruelty charges and all be locked up in federal jail the rest of their lives!
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Yes, our government should be responsible for the repayment for the costs to fight for our Nation’s horses and our public lands which they are using our tax dollars to illegally destroy.
I never would have believed that I would see the day when both our rights and the integrity of an administration promising hope and transparency have been non-existent.
Wishing my entire life for the recognition and respect for a people who have had to fight for civil and human rights for as long as they were first brought as slaves to this country. Finally, witnessing that right being finally acknowledged and fulfilled, then having to fight for the humane treatment of our wildlife and fight for their rights of lawful protection and fight for our rights as citizens and witness the destructiveness of allowed corruption is….. (I do not know what the word is).
It is beyond upsetting, beyond infuriating, beyond extreme sadness, beyond hopelessness, beyond betrayal…
Although these continuous, unrelenting, evil, inhumane and offensively cruel assaults, being planned and senselessly executed and performed by an agency run by paid officials, nominated by the President and being entrusted by us, that good judgement be taken to protect what is precious and what is left of our lands and indigenous life.
This is an assault on us as human beings!
It is not only an assault on the lives and freedom of our wild horses and our beautiful natural landscape, it is a direct assault on us as citizens! We as human beings of whom the rights and the protection of our rights and the freedom and respect of our love and appreciation of what is protected by the law, along the right to successfully oppose the destruction of the world we live in, have shamelessly been taken from us by the BLM/Department of the Interior/President of the United States, Barack Obama.
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It’s rare that I have the opportunity to jump in and join the conversation but Jill, I couldn’t have said it any better, AMEN.
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Sorry, I forgot to register for follow-ups and was thinking and then typing this P.S.
TY, RT.
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AND, the Corporations whose influence and money put them in office and bought our trust!
Hillary is still trying to pay back her campaign debt which no doubt she would have been doing if she had been elected… she must not have had the big guys behind her.
Wonder how Oprah feels about the cattle and her investment?!
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I tried and tried to get this on Ophah’s show–in the beginning. I couldn’t get past call screeners on radio shows. Got no reply from major news networks—BUT GEORGE—-
George has been in there, fighting, right from the beginning. He has been the VOICE for all of the silent victims and the courageous people who have been drug over hot coals, trying to protect these animals–and ALL OF OUR RIGHTS.
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I don’t think Oprah will be touching the wild horses v. cattle with a 10 foot pole. Last time she spoke up about beef and madcow disease they sued her.
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That would be questioning the administration that she helped and contributed greatly to get into office.
She loves animals, but at what cost!?
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The employees the helicopter group hires to do the grunt work like set-up the pipe panel corrals, trailer drivers- are they legal american workers? who are those people the roundup inc hires to do the actual physical work?
Last time I saw their paperwork, I remember only 5 listed as ’employees’ Thats the family.
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Excellent article.
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Seems the BLM is going way out of their way to hold these round ups on private property, especially in Owyhee. Not so easy denying the American people their first amendment rights, but they are getting pretty savvy at it.
Owyhee HMA 336,262 acres public 2,025 private total 338,287 acres
Rock Creek HMA 102,638 acres public 24,115 private total 126,753 acres
Little Humboldt HMA 15,734 acres public 1,417 private total 17,151 acres
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Thank you again George. You are truly a horse warrior of the best kind.
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I do have some questions though…about Owhyee. How many horses did the BLM say were out there? How many are they supposedly allowing with this HMA? And if its found that there are no excess horses–will the BLM return the horses to their rightful land eventho some have “maybe somewhat” bonded with their human at Gunnison. What about the ones that might have been gelded by now? What is their fate?????
Did they leave any horses behind at all?????
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I doubt they have bonded with their human inmates yet at Gunnison. They are probably still in a complete state of shock. It is fitting metaphor–BLM is sending all our wild horses to prison.
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yeah, the sic humor of that situation was not lost on me
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According to the BLM…there were about 100 left ungathered, by declaring this an emergency gather it allows them to clear all horses off the land…I was out there while the gather was going on documenting conditions I saw..the land is incredibly diverse, once those horses get into the canyons mountains and hills..they would be difficult to gather, and most would probably die from the distances heat and terrain during a gather and I think they just didn’t bother with those areas..I did not see 1 wild horse when i was out there..but cattle all around me..those horses that were gathered and died were down on the flatter lowlands of the Owyhee, what would have been their winter and spring grazing..they should have been moving upland to the lush green and water filled area I was in..my question all along has been why had they not started their migration..i believe there was human interference..this is a pattern these horses would have done for 200 years..exactly like the wildlife does.
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I hope to go back in there before winter after the horses have had time to settle down and see how many I can find, don’t think I will be sharing that online.
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George, it was great to read your column, and to know that some news media is fighting for out National Heritage the Mustangs. It is soul searing to read of their suffering.
I think we should look up of local news outlets in the phonebooks or on line, find their e-mails and send this column.
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We, the American people , should not have to fight a government agency ! We should not have to distrust our government and file a lawsuit against them. ( BRAVO LAURA!) The government and its agents work for us. Where is President Obama in all of this? This is as important to us as the Gulf disaster! If he can take the time to drink a beer with a cop and a professor, why can’t he hear our protests? Remember all this at election time (any elections–Nov. 2010)– find out how every candidate for office feels about BLM and the American mustang crisis– and what they will do to help us and the horses. Call the White House–tell them that you will influence everyone you can to vote for some one who is on the side of REAL truth/transparency/change! Where is this country going? Thank you RT, George, Ginger,Elyse,Craig…….
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How many horses are left in Owyhee? It seems to me they are incredibly heavyhanded with these round ups removing 80-90-95% of all horses. Are there any left there at all?
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Thank you George from the bottom of my heart! We all MUST vote in November. People of Nevada get Harry Reid out of there! Let the power be ‘re-balanced’ in Washington. One party should NOT be running our entire government. We are all witnesses to how THAT is working.
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Will Angle (is that her name?) be on the side of the horses or will she be on the side of Conrad Burns?
Or is there someone else running aginst Reid?
I would say we still have that same party in power – they have and will just continue to block everything – including ROAM or any other simblance – they will continue to support the large corporations no matter what.
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George, You are something else. Much appreciated. mar
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Words don’t exist for me. My heart aches such depths, I cannot describe.
Also I could not help but think of Marilyn Monroe’s movie “The Misfits” filmed in Nevada and includes unadulterated horse roundup footage. She begs the men to not do it.
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I saw “The Misfits” years before I was aware of the mistreatment of the mustangs. I don’t remember any other movie I saw during that time period. I have never been able to shake that movie from my mind. I remember at the end feeling depressed for days and was not surprised that this would have been Marilyn’s last film before her suicide (if indeed that’s how she died). I think we all know how you feel and know that there are no words that describe this feeling. If it helps know we are all feeling the same.
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Laura, we are all with you.
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On TMP blog discussion Sandra Longely has indicated that these very horses should have already conducted their normal annual migration to higher wetter ground (which Sandra has been visting the last week and has documented that forage and water is abundant) – and asks the question why are they still in the desert floor this time of year? Could it be from human intervention? Mar Wargo has posed this same possible scenario – that the horses had been moved prior to the roundup to get them closer tothe trap – were they moved to already or soon to be dried up water sources?
We may never know.
Just more to consider….
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Roxy, since then I found in Katies filed testimony before the court..she had noted the gate to that HMA was CLOSED, and that was prior to the gather activities..I believe it was as I first suspected when I saw the May inventory map of herds and areas they were in-the same amount of horses as noted pregather by catoor..those horses had been shut in and not allowed to migrate to allow for the convience to the gather site. over 505 of the horses in that HMA were in that pastue.the individuals who did that..whether Blm or Catoors, failed to account for the dwindling water sources, and the BLM had postponed the gather by a month-I don’t think this is a case of”we will never know” any longer
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I just posted this to a nay sayer and plan to use this on other newspaper posts wherever I can:
“Why this particular summer the horses did not migrate as they normally do to higher ground that is currently abundant with vegetation and water? Why this particular summer the wells were turned off due to resting the range from cattle grazing? Why this particular summer the gates to water sources, gates that are purposely there to allow horses and other wildlife access to water are all closed? Why a roundup in this particular summer with all these other particular events? Why dead horses beside water holes? Why horses dead from dehydration all in excellent 4 and 5 condition yet who also have no food in their system when there is adequate forage all around them even in this low area? Coincidence? I think not.”
Should I change that first line to “why are normal migration path gates closed this particular summer barring horses from their normal summer feeding and watering grounds?”
Postponed by a month? Why would they do a gather a month earlier right in foaling season? Am I missunderstanding you? I thought we wanted them to wait at least until mid August – six weeks after foaling season. They proably postpone dit due to foaling seasons? Should not have been planned that soon ever, and should still not be occuring this early in the summer.
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Roxy, I believe it was you that wanted to know where the info on the horse skeletons is.
It is on page 13 of the File Case 3:10-cv-00417-LRH-VPC Document 24-6 of Kate F.’s link.
“BLM claims the HMA was reduced due to observations of the areas used by the horses-but this could be a result of limited seasonal observations. In fact, I specifically recall seeing wild horses in the early 2000s in the same area now cut off from the HMA, as well as skeletons of several horses on a small bench on a road above flowing water–My impression at the time was that those horses had met a human caused demise.”
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It was someone else that I was replying to – I’ll try to find them. Thanks for the direction.
There is so much news about lack of news, about partial repeorts from BLM and then “misinformatin” out in the world, my poor old brain can’t keep up sometimes.
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