Behind the closed doors of the BLM’s Indian Lakes Road holding facility near Fallon, Nevada, pneumonia is suddenly claiming an alarming number of wild horses. During the week ending February 4th, 12 horses perished in the short-term holding pens known as “Broken Arrow”; eight of them were yearling victims of “secondary pneumonia.” Upper respiratory disease has been rampant among the young horses confined at Broken Arrow since last June, and now it’s attacking the latest arrivals, whose immune systems are at their most vulnerable.
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A citizen journalist working for The Examiner.com has been sued by the government’s largest BLM “gather” contractor. The suit filed in a rural Juab County, Utah district court charges Maureen Harmonay routinely misrepresented the facts in a series of stories on wild horse roundups in several western states.
By Maureen Harmonay ~ Equine Advocacy Examiner BLM Helicopter Stampede Casualties Continue to Mount An independent observer who recently returned from scouting the Herd Area in north Elko County, Nevada where the Owyhee portion of the Tuscarora Gather took place has photographic evidence that one of the wild […]
An on-the-ground investigation by Last Chance for Animals’ Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of the wild horses held in BLM custody at two facilities in Nevada reveals graphic evidence of the horses’ suffering from broken bodies and broken spirits as a result of their violent capture.
For the last 11 days, the BLM has been trying to make it seem that there is nothing we need to know about the captive wild horses form the Calico Mountains who are currently being held in a closed door feedlot in Fallon, Nevada.
Day after day since the beginning of the “gather” of the wild horses who once freely roamed Nevada’s Calico Mountains, the BLM has reported the deaths of the horses who were forced into its clutches. Though the Gather Daily Updates report that the total of equine lives lost as a direct result of this roundup is 79, a truer mortality tally is more than 90, in addition to the dozens of in utero foals who perished through miscarriages or as a consequence of the demise of the dams.
At the conclusion of the bloody helicopter stampede that was called the Calico Round-up we reported that the BLM’s math was highly suspect when it came to accounting for the number of wild horses that were actually on the range. On the day the disastrous round-up ended, February 5th 2010, I wrote the article, “BLM’s Wild Horse Numbers Just Don’t Add Up” highlighting the fact that the number of horses in the Calico complex reported by the BLM pre-roundup didn’t match with what they reported post-roundup.
The BLM today released two reports from Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association (HSVMA) Veterinarian Dr. Eric Davis, based on his February 13th and March 6th visits to the Indian Lakes Road feedlot where the Calico Mountain mustangs are quartered.
Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what the BLM is hoping will happen to the captive wild horses from the Calico Mountains. The agency has used the Easter holiday as a rationale for cancelling the usual Sunday public visiting hours, so we’re literally in the dark about what’s happening behind the closed doors of the 320-are feedlot near Fallon, Nevada.
During yet another weekend of captivity at the BLM’s leased Indian Lakes Road feedlot near Fallon, Nevada, the wild horses from the Calico Mountain Complex continued to lose revered herd elders. With the euthanasia of a 25-year-old mare and a 25-year-old stallion who “were unable to maintain body condition,” and a 10-year-old stallion who was put down because he was suffering from hyperlipemia and metabolic failure, at least 71 of these precious horses have been lost. Only about 1850 remain.
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
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