SOURCE: wildhoofbeats.com
by Carol Walker, Director of Field Documentation, Wild Horse Freedom Federation
Editor’s Note: “We were first made aware of this awful story during Carol Walker’s visit to Wild Horse and Burro Radio last Wednesday night; it hit me so hard I performed unprofessionally as a co-host and just went silent with rage…and it was noticeable. Carol has taken the time to begin documenting the events both in photographs and her written words but this is, once again, a clear cut case of BLM mismanagement that ultimately results in the loss of life of our wild horses and burros and in this case, babies.
Rock Springs is understaffed and the cost is not in dollars and cents but instead the loss of any sort of quality of life for the captured horses and the death of foals. The BLM can spend countless thousands of dollars transporting PR officials across the U.S. to spout propaganda to the public at roundups yet they can’t manage their own organizational capability issues by sending more personnel to Rock Springs to help out during this emergency that THEY created by ripping wild horse families from their rightful lands? Incompetency runs rampant in the BLM. Stay with us at Carol’s WildHoofBeats and here at SFTHH for additional updates.” ~ R.T.
I arrived in Rock Springs on Sunday so that I could go on Monday to the first day that the public would be allowed to enter the BLM Short Term Holding Facility to view the wild horses that were rounded up in September and October of 2014 from the Great Divide Basin, Salt Wells Creek and Adobe Town Herd Management Areas. I was on a mission – get the tag number of the third mare in Bronze Warrior’s family, Sabrina, and look for another appy stallion and his mares in hopes of taking them as well to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. We were hoping that we could take the horses on Wednesday or Thursday to beat an incoming storm, which would not be good for travel with a horse trailer, but were told that the facility and the horses would not be ready to go until Friday. I was concerned because not only did we need good weather and roads to go from Rock Springs, WY to Hot Springs, SD, our wonderful hauler Merle Blankenship also had to be able to get here with his trailer from southern Colorado. I watched the weather reports anxiously.
I was able to get the last mare’s tag number quickly since she never left the other two mares, whose markings were very distinct, and had been a real boon in identifying Bronze Warrior’s family members. I noticed that all the mares in the corrals were very skittish and moved away when people were near the pens. The pens in front with the geldings were much bigger and less crowded than the pens containing the mares, and in all the mare pens it was hard to get a good view of all of them. I was told two babies had been born overnight, which slowed feeding all the horses down since the staff had to be careful to work around the babies. They said they were planning to move the mares with the newborn foals over to a separate mare-foal pen with lots of room and more shelter but they had to be careful doing it.
I was able to spot one of the new foals right up against the fence, and was concerned about all the other mares right around it. I saw the other foal as I was leaving through a maze of mare’s legs, and I hoped they would be able to move the mothers and their new foals soon. Luckily there were only a few visitors this morning to the corrals.
I took photographs of as many horses as I could so that I could post the photographs online and get the word out about the upcoming adoption in hopes that as many of the horses here as possible could find good homes and leave the corrals forever.
The geldings had only been castrated a few weeks before, so some of them were still rather fiesty and I found so many of them to be just incredibly beautiful. The mares were lovely as well, and I was alarmed to see how many of them appeared to be extremely pregnant, and ready to give birth. This was not good for a couple of reasons – first, the conditions were so crowded that the foals could be easily hurt. Second, once the mare foals, a potential adopter could not take the pair for at least 4 months when the foal could be freeze branded, or in 6 months if they just want the mare or just want the foal, since the potential adopters would have to wait until the foal was weaned.
It was unfortunate for the horses that it had taken the Rock Springs Corrals so long to prepare the horses in its care for viewing and adoption. I was told that they were extremely understaffed and had lost some employees, and so while Canon City had gotten their almost 500 horses that had come in from the roundup ready to be viewed and adopted by early November, Rock Springs had taken until the very end of February, the beginning of foaling season. Even during the week of the adoption event, the people responsible for working with the public on the adoptions were having to spend 3 hours each day feeding the horses.
The weanlings were a challenge to photograph because the bottle fed filly the BLM named Cover Girl kept trying to get in front and get petted. The boys were easier to photograph as they were curious but not as demanding of attention. It is always the weanlings and yearlings that have the best chance to be adopted, as it is usually much easier to gentle and train them than the older horses.
I looked for the beautiful varnish appaloosa gelding that I had seen in the wild with his mare and yearling colt in the fall, but could not find him or the mare and colt. I had not seen him in Canon City either, so I became cautiously hopeful that he is among the very few who evaded capture at the roundup.
I was also looking for Snowfall and Diamond Girl’s weanling who had a very distinctive marking on his face, but he was not here. I wondered if he had been one of the 100 youngsters sen to the Axtell, Utah Burro facility since at the end of the roundup Rock Springs and Canon City were bursting at the seams. I also figured that Bronze Warrior’s yearling filly that I could not find was also there. I had been told by the BLM that these youngsters would be sent to adoptions all over the country.
I came back the next day and photographed the horses again. They had only been able to take one of the mares and foals out of the crowded mare pen, one mare and foal pair was still in there, and so they were preventing people from coming close to the mare pens. So I did not get as many photographs of the mares. Then later that day I spent time putting together the photographs and posting them online so that people could see them. Here is the information and the links – most of these horses are still there and still available:
On Thursday I heard from Manda Kalimian who adopted the horses and placed them at the Sanctuary that Kathi Fine had called her and told her that one of our mares had foaled, and they found the foal at the mare’s side this morning. I rushed over to the corrals to see if I might get a glimpse of them, and also find out which mare had foaled – I was thinking it was probably Gwendolyn, the tall and beautiful mare with the distinctive white half circle around the top of her tail. She had looked big since I had seen her in the fall.
When I arrived, Kathi took me out briefly so that I could get some photographs of the new mother and foal. It was indeed Gwendolyn, and a proud, careful and protective mother she was. She kept the other mares away by pinning her ears and moving the foal away, and Kathi told me she had been nursing.
Her older daughter Flurry stayed near them, but only as close as Gwendolyn allowed. She also ran her muzzle gently along the foal’s neck and back. The foal was bright eyed and seemed healthy, and as far as I could tell, she was a filly, and no one who worked at the corral had checked, so I named her Xena the warrior princess – a fitting name for Bronze Warrior’s foal. We did not stay long because the mares were moving around and neither of us wanted to see the foal hurt. She told me they would move the two of them to the mare and foal pen later that day. I was not concerned about Gwendolyn taking care of her foal – she was 16 years old, this was not her first foal, and she looked like she was doing her best to protect her.
While it is always wonderful to see a new foal, the timing was not the best. If Gwendolyn had just been able to wait a few days, she could have had her new foal at the sanctuary. But of course she did not know that, and the babies have their own timing. As it was, we were going to leave her and the foal at the corrals until the foal would be able to make the trip safely. Manda made sure to let Kathi know that we wanted both mare and foal, and would be reuniting them later with the other mares and Bronze Warrior at the Black Hills Sanctuary.
When I arrived the next morning, Friday, the day we were scheduled to take the horses, I immediately looked for our horses. I had been told they were going to be putting them together in a pen to get them ready to go and sure enough I saw the 4 other mares, and they were in the process of bringing the gelding up to join them. I looked into the mare and foal pen, and immediately saw that something was wrong. There was Gwendolyn, with the two other mares and their foals but she was alone and looked very distressed. She was sweaty and the other mares kept kicking her and keeping her away from their foals. She was running around and I could not see little Xena anywhere. I asked what had happened to the foal. I was told that the mare had rejected her, and so they took her to the vet to be bottle fed, and would end up fostering her. I was very confused because given what I had seen the day before it made no sense that Gwendolyn would have rejected Xena.
But I decided that we needed to get Gwendolyn out of there and with her family members and take her to the sanctuary as well. Kathi called Manda to make sure this was ok, and then got all the necessary paperwork from the vet and brand inspector so we could take her as well. I knew she would feel better if she could be with her daughter Flurry and the other mare. Then I was told by one of the staff at the corral what had really happened. Apparently they had not been able to get Gwendolyn and her baby over to the mare and foal pen yet and one of the other mares in the corral grabbed Xena. After that Gwendolyn would no longer nurse the foal, even after they moved both of them to the new pen. The baby must have been injured, and Gwendolyn knew it would not make it. That was why they took it to the vet.
Finally they moved Gwendolyn into the pen with the other horses we were taking, and they moved up and down nervously, not knowing what was going to happen. Merle moved his trailer around to the entrance of the chute that led to their pen and got the doors secured so that the horses would go smoothly into the trailer.
Finally I saw heads moving toward the trailer, and after a couple of tries finally they moved into the trailer, and as the doors were secured, the horses moved around a lot, making a huge racket, we knew they would settle down once we were moving, because they would have to work on finding their balance, so we drove away immediately.
Sadly, two days ago Manda and I learned that Xena had died, and Manda was told it was because the baby had not gotten enough Colostrum.
I will writing about the arrival of the horses at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in my next post.
Related Posts in this Story:
Part 1:
http://www.wildhoofbeats.com/blog/wild-horses-a-new-beginning-for-older-wild-horses-from-adobe-town
Part 2:
Manda Kalimian’s Cana Project:
The Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, where you can visit the 10 Adobe Appys:
Click (HERE) to visit WildHoofBeats
Categories: Horse Health, Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Reblogged this on hocuspocus13 and commented:
jinxx ♥ xoxo
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So sad about Xena but glad some were rescued. Thank you.
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Those liars! It’s their fault that that baby died. Again, they put all kinds of restrictions on good people that want to give these horses good homes and they pay that Catoor helicopter group to run the hell out of the horses and yet they can’t pay people top properly care for the horses that they tore from their lands and families. The truth….off be willing to net that the foal was never taken to a damned vet. They probably killed it themselves…. We know they lie about everything, wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them in the ass. I hate the BLM and still feel that they should be disbanded and charged with the murder of the countless horses that they are responsible for killing. And the Catoor cattle company should be fined and jailed and never allowed to get near a horse again… I could go on and on but it would only get worse. Let the cattle puerile deal with their cows and keep them far away from any equine on this earth..
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I couldn’t agree with you more Terri. There is no way I believe they would take the foal to the vet… I am sure it died with little care given.
I’ve said this so many times the “BLM” does not want these horses to thrive.
“LIARS”..
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Oh my God. Life means nothing to BLM, the employees as long as they tolerate this are part of the destruction. We will never see these beautiful beings as free on our land and we have lost new life, the hope of another generation. There is no excuse. There are months that should have been busy getting the pregnant mares into large pens. There is NO excuse! And as for the babies being shipped everywere, two months ago a friend sent me a photo of a trailer loaded with youngsters – he driver bragging they were wild horses and he was taking thew direct to MX. I’ve never hated my country – but I do hate the beast that has come into the hearts of so many people.
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Shared with: BLM Holocaust Victims
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And the Foals are NOT counted
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Like many, I find it impossible to believe this foal was taken to a vet, can someone please FOIA the records? It seems more likely there was an issue with another mare and they wanted to get the adopted mare out of there the next day without problems, so pulled the foal out overnight. It is also alarming and distressing to see this one mare has FOUR brands on her now… all bespeaking roundups and the hand of man “man-aging” our supposedly free-roaming wild horses. The price she has paid we can only guess, and now the final insult, the loss of her last foal due to paid human error. It seems likely the next mares to drop foals under such conditions will face similar fates.
I recall the words of one many admire, something to the effect that whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me. We cannot call ourselves a Christian nation and support these government-mandated disgraces to those whose lives are in our hands through no choice of theirs.
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Two more thoughts: this pattern is a close match to what our government did with our native peoples not so long ago, did we not learn we can choose a better path as “civilized” people?
Second, I read recently the value of a single Bison being viewed by visitors at Yellowstone was calculated to be in the vicinity of $20,000 by a credible researcher. What then is the value of the foal that is probably in a dumpster today in Rock Springs? What about the next ones surely kicking today for their new lives? Why is nobody accountable to the public for these fatal consequences? Understaffing etc. is no excuse when they could have legally (and less expensively) left these animals in the wild.
Can we make some T-shirts that say I AM XENA, or perhaps I CAN’T BREATHE and take this story international? Can we crowdsource funds to make shirts we can give away for free? Carol, can we maybe use your photo of Xena and her mom?
C;mon folks, killing baby foals with a shrug is retrograde behavior and more are coming. This is intolerable and I am more than unhappy to be paying for this foals’s blood staining my hands… and yours.
Call me pissed off.
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Was a necropsy done on this foal, and can we see it since we are paying for it? A foal who has received any colostrum at all, and who is on IV Fluids, powdered colostrum and plasma does not typically just die overnight. Which vet took in this foal? Where are the records? Can’t be too many vets in Rock Springs, and one surely has the BLM contract as a public record. If there’s nothing to hide these should be forthcoming, if not all it does is raise more suspicions. What really happened here and how can we prevent it happening again as more foals arrive in coming weeks?
[I’m finding it very hard to give up blogging with this much obfuscation going on]
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The scientifically credentialed individual(s) who dreamed up the scientifically false label of the horse as an exotic species are not Christians. In fact, the one who has authored the papers in which horses are explicitly included and implicitly implied finds both Christianity and private property rights to be obstacles to their control. Back in the 1990’s BLM Director Jim Bacca tried to reform the BLM, and DOI Secretary Bruce Babbitt fired him because he was poking around into most important goal the Clinton administration. Senator Robert C. Byrd, (D) WV was a thorn in the Clinton administration’s side and eventually sponsored the ROAM Act that was introduced in the Senate in 2009. He had found and documented the discrepancies in the amount of land the BLM was allotting to wild horses and burros (37 million acres) and the amount the BLM was provided through the 1971 law (53 million). He carefully stated that the BLM needed the authority to manage wild horses according to the law which implies that he recognized the decision was no longer in the hands of the BLM.
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BLM and the Rock Springs livestock association have blood on their hands – blood of the innocent. Most are of the mind-set that animals are worthless if no money can be made from them. Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse or animal neglect, is the human infliction of suffering or harm upon non-human animals, for purposes other than self-defense or survival.
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This is where donations to Wild Horse Freedom Federation Investigations goes..to Investigations such as this…and many more.
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Our Tax Dollars at work:
Wild Horse Herd Roundup: Psychopathic Behavior and Abuse of Horses Out of Control
https://prophoto7journal.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/wild-horse-herd-roundup-psychopathic-behvior-and-abuse-of-horses-out-of-control/
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WE ALL KNOW THE BLM ARE LYING BASTARDS. THEY PROBABLY KILLED THE FOAL.
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There was enough taxpayer money to capture and remove them from the
Public’s Land
http://usaspending.gov/search?form_fields=%7B%22search_term%22%3A%22cattoor%22%7D&sort_by=dollars&per_page=25&page=4
Transaction # 28 (Delivery Order)
IDVPIID/PIID/MOD: INL10PC00593 / INL14PD00691 / 0
Recipient: CATTOOR LIVESTOCK ROUNDUP INC
475 S 200 W, NEPHI, Utah
Program Source: 14-1109
Department/Agency: Department of the Interior: Bureau of Land Management
Product/Service: F016: NATURAL RESOURCES/CONSERVATION- WILDHORSE/BURRO CONTROL
Description: CHECKERBOARD HORSE GATHER IGF::OT::IGF
Signed Date:
07-14-2014
Obligation Amount:
$396,776
Transaction # 105 (Delivery Order)
IDVPIID/PIID/MOD: INL10PC00593 / INL14PD00691 / 1
Recipient: CATTOOR LIVESTOCK ROUNDUP INC
475 S 200 W, NEPHI, Utah
Reason for Modification: CHANGE ORDER
Program Source: 14-1109
Department/Agency: Department of the Interior: Bureau of Land Management
Product/Service: F016: NATURAL RESOURCES/CONSERVATION- WILDHORSE/BURRO CONTROL
Description: CHECKERBOARD HORSE GATHER IGF::OT::IGF
Signed Date:
07-28-2014
Obligation Amount:
$111,538
Transaction # 202 (Delivery Order)
IDVPIID/PIID/MOD: INL10PC00593 / INL14PD00691 / 2
Recipient: CATTOOR LIVESTOCK ROUNDUP INC
475 S 200 W, NEPHI, Utah
Reason for Modification: CLOSE OUT
Program Source: 14-1109
Department/Agency: Department of the Interior: Bureau of Land Management
Product/Service: F016: NATURAL RESOURCES/CONSERVATION- WILDHORSE/BURRO CONTROL
Description: CHECKERBOARD HORSE GATHER IGF::OT::IGF
Signed Date:
11-03-2014
Obligation Amount:
$27,227
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There should be a law about this, if they see/find highly pregnant mares, to keep them apart from the others, maybe still next to the rest of the herd, but safe if any foals get born.
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Agree, but there already is a law for their protection that is not being followed, “wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death” and entitled to roam free on public lands where they were living at the time the Act was passed in 1971. That is the law.
In addition, a few years ago an HSUS equine specialist told me that they could not do anything about the BLM’s capture contractors’ documented animal abuse because it would be different in each state and the state law took precedence. Whether we believe that or not is a different subject but in the meantime, here is the animal cruelty law for Wyoming where the Rock Springs facility is located. Sounds like there was animal cruelty per the Wyoming law?
(b) A person commits cruelty to animals if he has the charge and custody of
any animal and unnecessarily fails to provide it with the proper food, drink or
protection from the weather, or cruelly abandons the animal, or in the case of
immediate, obvious, serious illness or injury, fails to provide the animal with
appropriate care.
http://asci.uvm.edu/equine/law/cruelty/wy_cruel.htm
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They SHOULD be released back into the Wild WHERE THEY BELONG.
A biologist’s response to the BLM’s wild horse “problem”
http://www.habitatforhorses.org/a-biologists-response-to-the-blms-wild-horse-problem/
The rangelands, however, can easily sustain not only the wild horses and burros existing out there now, but also every one of those in holding facilities, which now number well over 40,000. The truth is that every one of those wild horses and burros in holding facilities, if released back to the areas from which they were taken, along with those in the wild, would help bring the balance back to the rangelands, a balance that is so very vital!!
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I wonder if this could affect our horses and reporting in the future? https://www.thedodo.com/wyoming-ag-gag-whistleblower-1027679475.html
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This is horrible, Geri. I reposted on my FB page. I’m glad I don’t live in WY with a governor like that. Very sad.
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The Vet Hospitals in Rocks Springs:
Desert View Animal Hospital
940 Elk, Street
Rock Springs, WY 82901
Sweet Water Veterinarian Services
2710 Commercial Way
Rock Springs, WY 82901
Mountainaire Animal Clinic
1801 Yellowstone Road
Rock Springs, WY 82901
Aspen General Veterinarian Hospital
1250 Foothill Blvd.
Rocks Springs, WY 82901
Sweetwater Veterinarian Service
688 Antelope Drive
Rock Springs, WY 82901
Does Carol Walker or someone else have Gwendolyn’s ID #s to add to a FOIA request? Xena was still only a day or so old & didn’t have an ID # yet, correct?
Much appreciated.
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MT, I did a brief search and could not determine which have any BLM contracts. I suppose the best way to know is to search their dumpsters, ughhhhhhhly.
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I agree, IcySpots! :o(
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MTHorseLover, contact Carol Walker for the information that you need.
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Thank you, Louie C.
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Yes I do have her tag number and am pretty sure which vet the foal was sent to, and no the foals are not branded until 4 months. You can contact me at cwlivingimages@gmail.com
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How many more foals will die? Roundups should not occur at all but especially when mares are in foal . Unbelievable cruelty.
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COLORADO HORSE COUNCIL SILENT AUCTION ON NOW, INCLUDING SOME OF CAROL WALKER’S PHOTOS OF WILD HORSES
https://www.blacktie-colorado.com/auctions/index.cfm?fuseaction=Auctions.Category&cid=25940
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