Honoring the Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 candlelight vigils are planned across the country. For more information go here.

Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December. Slaughter opponents opted for a measure cutting off the funding in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years.

However, despite the lifting of the ban, the Bureau of Land Management has no plans to change its policy that forbids using captured wild horses for meat.

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said that if a buyer is known to sell horses for slaughter, the BLM can refuse to sell to them. Or if a buyer tries to sell a wild horse for meat, the BLM can refuse to sell to them in the future.

Wild horses have a particular type of brand, and slaughterhouses are instructed to call the BLM before killing them, Worley said.

Horses considered estray and not wild are handled by the Nevada Department of Agriculture. No one from the department was available for comment Wednesday on its status now that the slaughter ban has been lifted.

Anne Novak of the California-based Protect Mustangs wild horse advocacy group said she worried that wild horses could be stolen off the range before the BLM brands them to be sold for meat.

“There just not enough manpower in the BLM to make sure these horses are not stolen and trucked off,” Novak said.

Novak said residential horse thefts dropped by a third after the meat processing plants were closed in 2006.

Douglas County wildlife ecologist Craig Downer said allowing the slaughter of horses gives horse breeders incentive to overbreed racehorses and sell the slower ones.

“If a person has a horse, they should take care of it for life,” Downer said. “They shouldn’t be able to take them down and have them slaughtered.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Old Gold notice pelvis, neck, knee, legs. (Photo © Cat Kindsfather, all rights reserved.)

First death at Calico roundup must be accounted for

Brought in from home on the range—mustang is killed for being old

RENO (November 26, 2011)—Wild horse advocate and photographer, Cat Kindsfather, attended the first day of the Calico roundup near Gerlach, Nevada on November 19. She witnessed an exhausted older palomino mare, she named Old Gold, come into the trap after being chased by the helicopter for more than one hour. She took pictures of the terrified horses in the trap pen fleeing from the whips with plastic tied on them and documented the incident in which the wild horse was slammed into the trap corral and must have been injured. This week, Protect Mustangs learned the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) euthanized the mare on November 21st and claim it was a “non-gather related” death. The advocacy group believes it is a roundup-related death and needs to be counted as such. Protect mustangs wants America’s indigenous wild horses to remain wild and free on their legally designated ranges. They believe wild horses and burros must be treated humanely—not chased for miles in freezing temperatures putting them at risk of getting pneumonia and not terrorizing them using whips with plastic ends to move them around in crammed trap pens resulting in trauma.

“So many wild horses die because of roundups yet the BLM does not count the deaths accurately,” explains Anne Novak, Executive Director of the California-based Protect Mustangs. “Congress hears that there is only a 1% death rate at ‘gathers’. We want transparency and accountability for all the deaths at roundups. If a horse is chased by a helicopter for miles and miles, then while in a trap pen terrified with plastic tied on to whips, slammed into a metal panel, next shoved into a trailer and transported to another holding facility and is put down a day or two afterwards—it is related to the roundup. If Old Gold had not been rounded up, I bet she would be alive today.”

Kindsfather’s photos document the last moments of freedom for Old Gold. She also captured the horses’ terror in the trap pen and the mare’s agony against the fence.

“She made it all the way in after being chased by the helicopter but was exhausted,’ states Kindsfather. “In the trap pen, the group of horses were scared by the wrangler using a whip with a plastic bag tied on to it. The horses panicked, ran into the mare and piled up against her—smashing her into the fence. In an already terrifying situation, he continued to use the whip to get the mare up on her feet.”

“The mare could have tied up (had severe muscle spasms) after being chased for miles in the freezing weather and then forced into a crammed pen where she was not walking around enough for her muscles to cool down properly,” says Kerry Becklund, wild horse advocate with Protect Mustangs. “Advocates need to see the mustangs’ when they are brought in but we are kept away. It’s clear from looking at the photos that the mare was in distress and the whips aggravated her fear. She did not deserve to be put down after surviving this ordeal—she deserved to live.”

Protect Mustangs firmly believes that BLM should not have the right to stampede in an older horse and then kill her because she is old—with an old horse’s body condition and worn teeth. The wild horse was surviving on the range as a wild animal does and was holding the wisdom of the herd.

“Once the BLM brings in a wild horse it is their responsibility to care for the horse,” states Novak. “We want to know how much the contractor is paid to bring in an older horse who would be put down because it was old. When does the contractor get paid for the horse—once the horse is in the trap pen or later when she is in temporary holding? Old Gold was put down in temporary holding.”

Protect Mustangs is circulating a petition to stop the roundup. The advocacy group wants to end fiscal irresponsibility seen in roundups without accurate head-counts and without proving the horses thwart the thriving natural ecological balance. Nothing is science-based yet Congress gave more than 75 million dollars to the Wild Horse and Burro Program mostly for roundups and warehousing. Today 40,000 captured American wild horses are warehoused at huge taxpayer expense.

“I’m sure some kindhearted person would have adopted the mare to give her a good life despite any lack of body condition,” shares Kindsfather. “It’s too soon to be doing another Calico roundup. The wild horses should remain free—our living gems in a treasured landscape.”

Protect Mustangs is a California-based non-profit whose mission is to inform the public about the mustang crisis, protect America’s wild horses on the range and help those who lost their freedom.

# # #

Media Contacts:

Anne Novak, 415-531-8454 Anne@ProtectMustangs.org

Kerry Becklund, 510-502-1913, Kerry@ProtectMustangs.org

Photos, video and interviews available upon request.

Links of interest:

BLM Death Report: http://on.doi.gov/vttLwA

Protect Mustangs’ Petition to Stop Calico Roundup: http://chn.ge/rBoej7

CBS: Stampede to Oblivion: http://bit.ly/tAopv7

Protect Mustangs on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/uDF5JP

Protect Mustangs on Web: www.ProtectMustangs.org