Photo courtesy of Grandma Gregg
Many of us have tried and tried for years to prevent the capture of our wild horses and burros on their congressionally designated legal lands. What happens to them after being captured? A recent FOIA document tells us this information about the Twin Peaks wild horses and wild burros captured the summer of 2010 from their legal 798,000 acres where by law they are to be PROTECTED.
1734 Total captured
23 Mules, 161 were wild burros and 1550 were wild horses
20 Released (11 of those were mules and one burro)
71 Adopted
503 Listed as titled (title is given after one year if animal is alive and well)
115 Currently eligible for adoption
553 Currently eligible for sale
141 Sold (at least 88 wild horses and wild burros were sold to Tom Davis)
331 Listed as dead (60 Euthanized and the rest “died”)
Details of those dead:
139 Died within one year of the capture
5 Died at the capture site
22 Died at site of adopter/private care
157 Died at long-term holding facility
3 Listed as died at “other”
144 Died at short-term holding facility
Causes of death:
147 Undiagnosed/Unknown: Found dead on pasture (and these were NOT all old)
35 Undiagnosed/Unknown
29 Respiratory (strangles or pneumonia)
16 Fractured leg or pelvis
16 “Other”
16 Colic
13 Foaling complications
11 Fracture/Brain Injury: Head Acute/Sudden
9 Fracture/Spinal Cord: Neck or Back
9 Body Condition: Unable to Maintain or Improve
6 Old age
6 Lameness
3 Gelding complications
3 Heart Disease/Failure
Other Deaths: Blindness, Anesthetic Death, Cancer/Tumors, Defect: Congenital, Defect: Serious Physical, Injury: Soft tissue (at trap site), Liver Disease or Failure, Neurologic, No teeth (this was a 3 yr old)
Using BLM’s own published maximum “240 acres per horse” per year (half of this usage per burro) statement the wild horses’ legally designated Twin Peaks land could today accommodate at least 3325 wild horses and burros. In addition, most ranchers factor only 125 acres per ~1000-pound bovine per year in a high desert environment. If we thereby use the 125 acres of high desert ecosystem per ~1000-pound animal on the Twin Peaks herd area, the actual number of wild horses that could be supported would be well over 6384 wild horses and burros. This is figured using simple mathematics and common sense. Instead of that, our beautiful wild ones are subject to abuse and premature death and being sold to slaughter at the hands of the BLM’s ghastly, illegal, biased, brutal, cruel and atrocious “management”.
Twin Peaks HMA from the air:
Categories: Horse News, The Force of the Horse, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
This is so disgusting, I could throw up!Our tax dollars misused and not used for their care is inexcusable! May God help us! Sold to Davis the same man who bought 1200 at $10 a horse and sent them to slaughter! This department needs to go with the current people running it! I’d like to know how many cattle or livestock died of some of the same conditions? I wouldn’t believe a thing the BLM has to say or reports! Liars at best! They are laughing as they continue to perpratrate the damage on these poor animals! They need to rot in hell where they belong! It’s just out if control!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cattle, being raised on the publc lands for slaughter, suffer many of the same sorts of injuries and killing. This is one result of the commodification of life, thwarting it to serve only human purposes while ignoring all forms of sentience. If you haven’t yet, go attend an auction and wait til the end when the poorest animals are generally driven into the ring. I’ve seen many healhty animals but also the detritus of human error showing up at the sale barn to glean a few bucks off anything still breathing. Even if some of these practices are illegal, there is little or no monitoring and animals do suffer. One example (personal) was I attended a mixed sale of cattle and horses, and in the deep muck of a back alley found a very young calf (perhaps newborn) with a broken hind leg, completely mired and unable to rise. These are “downers” for whatever reason, and if a vet is on site should be treated or euthanized on the spot. So I reported this calf to the event organizers, who said all the right things but the calf was still laying there in freezing, twelve-inch plus deep muck as evening rolled around. It was gone the next day (probably in a dumpster) but the point is the prolonged suffering with full consent of those in charge. That calf still haunts me though I know it isn’t an unusual happenstance. I have darker stories but won’t share them here, my main point is that all animals under human care are vulnerable to human ignorance and outright malice.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And that sort of abuse is considered normal to many livestock breeders and auction houses because it’s all about their pocket books and that calf meant nothing to them if they couldn’t make a dollar on it.
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.
LikeLiked by 1 person
GG, I don’t disagree but a sadder truth is many just drop off their animals before the sale begins and go home to wait for their check (even wealthy people do this). They don’t see and don’t want to know what happens in between. Event organizers are hustling around trying to get everything done by evening and are typically understaffed, owners are usually missing in action, and the staff that makes sure feed and water is available (if any) are usually day labor and young, with zero clout and sometimes even less concern.
It’s another example of a broken system that we can and should improve. People should be able to buy and sell products but animals who are trapped in their webs should also have humane care from beginning to end. Period.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Read about what happens to “downer” cattle years ago – stopped buying & eating beef. How few years dairy cows are considered worth keeping? Yeah, there are so many dark stories I cant forget either. The CAFOs? And thanks to the BLM, far too many horses – wild and domestic, are being abused & killed. Not to mention ALL the other animals we humans are brutalizing.
Sorry, so easy to go down the deep dark slide. Hope & pray we all are making some kind of difference.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Agree, what takes place at ‘public auctions’ regarding any animal is unconscionable! Until we demand that ALL auctions (laws that apply) are revamped & enforced. IMO they shouldn’t be allowed to operate without rules/reg followed, CCTV, animal control/spca officers in attendance – along with a Vet.
Until then, if you attend…take photos, videos & document everything …then get it immediately to authorities, perhaps even media and be sure to following thru.
Animals’ Angels has done much exposing, we need to do more!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Does ANYONE (BLM or other) ever find out exactly where the 503 horses that were titled actually are NOW? Its only been 9 years since the roundup & assuming most adopted horses werent over 5 or 6 – they certainly should still be around, right? They dont make any effort to check, do they? Once titled, not wild – out of sight – out of mind. Just like the ones “eligible for sale” – in other words the ones probably ending up in kill pens.
The whole idea that a wild horse weighing 600-700 lbs consumes twice the amount of forage as a 1,000 lb cow PLUS her calf, is laughable (if only it wasnt an end game for the horses & burros) unfortunately the people who are being convinced of this have no clue and havent made any effort to educate themselves. Wonder if a picture of the actual animals would make it any clearer? Maybe a poster of a wild horse & a cow & calf together?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Please note that the misery inflicted on the Twin Peaks wild horses and burros resulted from fraud — namely, falsified population-growth figures that BLM used as an excuse to conduct that massive roundup in 2010.
Among the various causes of fatalities, 36 involved traumatic injuries. There were 16 leg-or-pelvic fractures, 11 acute head injuries, and 9 spinal-cord or neck fractures. No doubt, those horses were so frightened by the violence of the roundup that, in their desperation to escape, they injured themselves catastrophically. Those beautiful horses spent their last moments in confusion and agony before losing their life.
The Twin Peaks HMA is supposed to be a habitat of peace and protection for wild horses and burros. BLM turned it into a hellhole of danger and death for them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Also have to add in that the “other” causes include in many cases the simple fact of having blue eyes or being a perlino or cremello in color (all being described untruthfully as “albino” and thus unworthy of life). These are natural color genes being systematically eliminated from the gene pool, and over time reduce the color expressions possible withn our wild herds.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And if anyone thinks that our wild horses and burros are safe once they are sent to BLM’s long-term holding facilities, where BLM says they will live out their lives in idyllic splendor in the rich grass fields, you need to know that (per FOIA) in the summer of 2011 at least 224 of our wild horses were sold to Tom Davis directly from BLM’s Teeterville facility in Kansas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Comments needed
SF GATE
Wild-horse roundups kick up questions about handling herds
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Wild-horse-roundups-kick-up-questions-about-14295617.php
LikeLiked by 2 people
Many thanks for all the info about our Twin Peaks wild horses, Grandma Gregg . And ,Marybeth, when will anybody do anything about the fraud BLM is committing I wonder ? Now even the ESA is being done away with. Things just keep getting worse and now the USA is close to a trillion dollar deficient .
LikeLiked by 2 people
And this is what happened to some of the Twin Peaks captives
From THE HUMANE OBSERVER (many photos included)
UPDATED: TWIN PEAKS HORSES STRANDED AND STARVING IN MICHIGAN: WHILE MICHIGAN AUTHORITIES SIT ON THEIR HANDS, HORSES FACE SHIPMENT TO FLORIDA
Medicine Hat Mustang from Twin Peaks Trapped in Michigan Needs to Come Home
PHOTO TAKEN 8-16-10, JUST A DAY AFTER ROUNDUP BY HELICOPTER
June 29, 2011
These horses have been in the news because they deteriorated so badly that by the time Wendi Bierling asked for help, body scores of 1 and 2 were seen among a number of formerly stunning horses Ms. Bierling saw on my and others’ blogs.
TWO MARES HAVE DIED
One mare escaped from where she was housed and was shot by a police officer as she was running along a freeway, her mustang legs having carried her brilliantly through the roundup only to lay slain on a Michigan road.
Before anyone criticizes the officer, I have to say that at that point, that was probably the kindest thing the officer could have done. The point is: Things should never have come to that.
The other mare, who had recently foaled, was cast in her stall. In an incompetent attempt to help her, this mare’s neck was broken when people used a rope around her neck and tried to pull her out enough to get her legs underneath her. She was then apparently shot to euthanize her. (“Cast” means while laying down, either from rolling or resting, an animal is unable to get her legs back underneath herself to rise because one or more of her legs are either under a fence or too close to a wall so she can’t flip over.) This mare left an orphan foal behind. I do not know if this mare was being fostered or in Ms. Bierling’s care.
http://humaneobserver.blogspot.com/2011/06/twin-peaks-horses-stranded-and-starving_29.html
LikeLiked by 1 person