by Laura Allen of Animal Law Coalition
Update July 16, 2010: Nevada U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks has lifted the injunction prohibiting BLM from proceeding with the Tuscarora roundup.
The judge has also denied plaintiff Laura Leigh’s motion to delay the roundup until August, after the foaling season, particularly as to the Owyhee Herd though she can seek “further relief” as to the planned round ups in the Rock Creek and Little Humboldt herd management areas.
But the judge also ruled, “As to Leigh’s First Amendment challenge to the closure of public lands during the gather, the court shall grant Leigh’s temporary restraining order. Leigh argues that a blanket closure of 27,000 acres of public land on which the Tuscarora Gather is going to take place is a prior restraint on her First Amendment rights because she will be unable to observe and report on the health of the horses and the BLM’s management of the gather. The court agrees [and]… finds that the blanket closure … is unconstitutional“. The BLM can, however, draft a “more reasonable closure“.
“The court’s order in no way [a]ffects the BLM’s closure of the airspace above the 27,000 acres of public land. The court finds the closure of airspace to be constitutional and necessary”. (A copy of the Order is attached below for downloading.)
In deciding to allow the roundup to proceed now instead of later, Judge Hicks was persuaded by BLM’s last minute “review” filed yesterday by a BLM team that claims the horses dying or suffering from dehydration or water intoxication were in that condition prior to the roundup. The “review” states that a BLM contractor found Tuscarora wild horses without water and said “the next 24-78 hours is critical”. BLM recommended rounding up as many horses as possible and warned of a “potentially high mortality” rate. Horses showing signs of dehydration on the range would be left to die.
Leigh pointed out, however, that there was no mention by BLM of a drought or dehydrated horses in the Tuscarora HMAs until after her lawsuit was filed. She disputed the “hastily assembled” “review” by BLM:
The Defendants’ admit they do not grasp the issue causing the high mortality rate of the horses they run into catch pens. We discover they had not calculated a drought by mid-July or that horses would run out of available water by mid-July although they had studied the probable effects of their intended Gather the several months preceding the Gather, beginning in January 2010. No other BLM document discusses or addresses “drought” for range management in the year 2010 in the Owynee, Rock Creek or Little Humboldt areas. It was in fact, only after suit was filed did these emergency conditions become newly revealed.
Leigh offered to visit the herds and attempt to verify BLM’s claim a roundup must proceed immediately because of drought.
At least Leigh and other members of the media and public will be allowed to monitor BLM’s roundup.
For more on this case and the Tuscarora roundup, read Animal Law Coalition’s report below.
Update July 15, 2010: Nevada federal District Court Judge Larry Hicks has issued an injunction prohibiting BLM from proceeding with the Tuscarora roundup.
The BLM had temporarily suspended its Tuscarora roundup of wild horses initiated in the intense summer heat just days ago on July 10, 2010.
BLM halted the roundup after public outcry over the deaths of horses now said to number 12 including 3 foals.
Based on BLM’s representation the roundup would not begin again until Sunday, July 19, 2010, the judge set a hearing on July 14 on a motion for restraining order filed by plaintiff Laura Leigh to delay the roundup until August and compel BLM to allow access to the roundup by the media and the public.
The judge explained that he was then informed despite BLM’s representation to the court, BLM Director Bob Abbey had issued an order for an “emergency” roundup of the horses prior to the hearing.
Judge Hicks ordered, “Based on this change in the BLM’s position, the court finds it necessary to grant an immediate injunction preventing the Tuscarora gathering of wild horses until further order by the court.”
Go here for more on the planned Tuscarora roundup of 1,438 wild horses in the 482,191 acres of the Owyhee, Rock Creek, Little Humboldt Herd Management Areas. In proceeding with the roundup on July 10, BLM basically ignored thousands of citizens who submitted letters and emails in protest during a period of public comment on the planned roundup.
An appeal of BLM’s decision to round up wild horses in the Tuscarora HMAs has been filed with the Interior Board of Land Appeals by In Defense of Animals and Craig Downer, a wildlife ecologist. BLM, however, can resume the roundup while the appeal is pending.
The dehydration, the deaths, the cruelty
Once again, BLM hired Dave Cattoors to round up wild horses. Cattoors has a federal conviction for aiding and abetting the theft and sale of wild horses for slaughter and also for using the helicopter as part of this conspiracy. But he has made millions as a BLM contractor rounding up wild horses and burros – with a helicopter.
As summer temperatures soared on the first day of the roundup, Cattoors ran down approximately 228 horses in a matter of a few hours with a helicopter. Most of the horses were forced to run for miles. Many of the mares had just given birth or were about to do so. It was a tragedy in the making, and 7 horses died during the first day of the roundup while another was euthanized in the holding pen after breaking a leg.
Michael Lindinger, PhD, MSc, an animal and exercise physiologist at the University of Guelph, explains: “It only takes 17 minutes of moderate intensity exercise in hot, humid weather to raise a horse’s temperature to dangerous levels. That’s three to 10 times faster than in humans. Horses feel the heat much worse than we do.”
If a horse’s body temperature shoots up from the normal 37 to 38°C to 41°C (98.6 – 105.8°F), temperatures within working muscles may be as high as 43°C (109.4°F), a temperature at which proteins in muscle begin to denature (cook). Horses suffering excessive heat stress may experience hypotension, colic, and renal failure.
BLM acknowledged the deaths were the result of dehydration or water intoxication, meaning horses were consuming large amounts of water because of dehydration. According to The Cloud Foundation, other horses were “exhibiting signs of colic and brain swelling” from dehydration or water intoxication.
Dehydration obviously results from forcing horses to run for miles in summer heat. Add to that extreme stress and fear. Common sense would tell anyone that this would be particularly dangerous for mares that have just given birth or are about to do so and also for foals. In fact, The Cloud Foundation reports, “[BLM] 2009 … Roundup planning documents stated: ‘…Not only are young foals in summer months more prone to dehydration and complications from heat stress, the handling, sorting and transport is a stress to the young animals and increases the chance for them to be rejected by their mothers.'”
BLM’s Rationale for the Roundup
The BLM continues to insist publicly there were too many horses in these herd areas and thus the roundup was “necessary”. There were 464 acres per horse, however, and the animals were healthy, according to the agency’s own spokesperson, Heather Emmons. At least they were healthy until BLM began its brutal roundup. Go here for analysis of the BLM’s decision to round up these horses.
Recently, BLM has said the horses must be removed because of damage to livestock fences. Hardly a reason to remove animals protected by a law which tasks BLM with protecting them from “harassment”, “capture” and “death” and which is supposed to manage them at the “minimal feasible level”as “free-roaming” “components” of the public lands and treat these animals humanely. Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act, 16 U.S.C. §1331 et seq.
Buried in its Environmental Assessment, BLM says that to “leave …. wild horses on the range, could lead to negative impacts on livestock grazing management”. Agri-business does not want wild horses and burros on public lands it uses for livestock grazing. And neither does BLM.
A BLM ecologist Cameron Bryce has said, “Wild horses do not belong in western ecosystems….the 1971 Horse and Burro Act was based on emotions, not science.”
Long time rancher, now Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has said wild horses do not belong on public lands. BLM is an agency within the DOI.
Follow the money: Fees charged for cattle or sheep grazing are $1.35 per animal under 18,000 grazing permits and leases on 258 million acres. Grazing livestock on public lands is a “$132 million loss to the American taxpayer each year and independent economists have estimated the true cost at between $500 million and $1 billion dollars a year.” For more including a look at the astonishing cost to taxpayers to implement BLM’s policy of rounding up and removing wild horses and burros…..
Investigative reporter George Knapp has also revealed plans to build the Ruby oil and natural gas pipeline likely facilitated the mass removals of wild horses. The pipeline will extend across northern Nevada. It is no surprise to find BP involved. BP and another DOI agency, Minerals Management Service, have operated as one and the same under DOI Secretary Ken Salazar.
Go here for a discussion about this with George Knapp on CNN Headline News, Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell.
Leigh Lawsuit
Laura Leigh, a journalist, author, publisher, artist and wild horse advocate, filed her lawsuit in Nevada federal District Court to delay the Tuscarora roundup until after foaling season and a period of rest for birthing mares. Leigh also seeks an order requiring BLM to allow public and particularly media access to the horses during the roundup and after they are placed in a holding facility.
Leigh asks BLM to delay roundup until after foaling season
Leigh says BLM violated its own policy that prohibits helicopter roundups until at least six weeks after peak foaling season ends on or about June 30. According to her Complaint and affidavits she has submitted, observers confirm a number of mares have given birth in recent days or are about to do so.
Leigh says the roundup during the summer virtually during foaling season violates the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act’s requirements for humane treatment of the horses.
BLM’s illegal closure of public lands and access to the roundup
Leigh’s other claims is that BLM’s closure of 27,000 acres of public lands in the area of the roundup constitutes a violation of the First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of the press. Leigh says the BLM is effectively “censoring” information and denies the media the ability to observe and report on a government action.
The BLM actuallly began the round up on private land, many say as the excuse to keep the public away. The agency gave no excuse, however, for closing access to public lands even temporarily during the roundup.
R.T. Fitch, author, Straight from the Horse’s Heart, recalls, “Don Glenn [of the BLM] stood up in front of God and country (also a video camera) and promised that the BLM would be transparent and equine advocates (taxpayers, the one paying his cushy government salary) would be ‘allowed’ to witness all round ups and at the same time he was speaking an undercover round up that was never publicized was taking place. I mean it was going on while the words were falling out of his mouth and splatting on the floor before him.”
Also, following Glenn’s comments, BLM shut down public access to horses after a brutal, deadly helicopter round up by Cattoors in the Calico Mountain Complex during the bitter cold of winter over icy, treacherous terrain. 153 of those horses have died including 2 foals whose hooves were literally torn off as they were chased for miles by Cattoors’ helicopter.
The closure of the Tuscarora roundup to the public comes on the heels of promises made at the June, 2010 meeting of the WH&B Advisory Board by BLM Director Bob Abbey of a “dialogue” to engage the public and that the agency would seek “in depth” public input in managing wild horses and burros.
Then there is the law. Federal regulations strictly limit when public lands can be closed to the public even temporarily.
The refusal to allow even the media to watch a wild horse roundup is consistent, however, with BLM’s Bush era discussions during which the agency considered ways to keep the public away from round ups and devised a plan to brand protests as “eco-terrorism”.
BLM manager Gene Seidlitz recently cavalierly announced, “We are not the bureau of horses”.
Yes, there is no doubt about that.
WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW
Join Equine Welfare Alliance, The Cloud Foundation, Animal Law Coalition and thousands of organizations and citizens and call on Pres. Obama to order a moratorium on wild horse roundups. Here’s his number:
202.456.1111
Related articles by Zemanta
- Judge Hicks Strikes Victory for First Amendment (thecloudfoundation.wordpress.com)
- Mustangs Fenced Out of Water- NV Roundup Death Toll Rises to 12 (ppjg.wordpress.com)
Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
so the judge bought what the “review team was selling.” I wonder if it was just words, or was there other documentation provided. I am glad that Laura amd others are there, but I’m not happy that it is going on in thisw heat.
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R.T., thanks so much for keeping us up to date on this and so many other issues impacting our American equids.
And thanks to everyone, everywhere, for staying the course. JFK said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” May the rising tide of efforts to protect our wild ones lift them up and carry them safely to shore.
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Laura Leigh had every right to witness, film and document the BLM roundup as a plaintiff in the Federal lawsuit as well as her expert witnesses. The Governments self investigation of its actions must be met with documented proof that the round ups are not warranted and detrimental to the well being of the horses. It always takes catastrophes to enact change unfortunately and some poor Wild Mustangs fate must be documented and exploited to cause public opinion to move Congress and the Court to act in their behalf. Every one of us, every horse rescue, welfare advocate, and friend must take the explicit documentation and post it everywhere on the face of the planet we can. We might compile all the comments and signatures we get into one forceful document. I personally have hundreds of signatures and comments from France, Germany, England, Italy calling for an end to this madness. Is anyone willing to be a clearing house so the fragmented will of millions of us can be a force?
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I’m trying to understand this. The judge has denied Laura Leigh’s motion to delay the roundup until August, after the foaling season, particularly as to the Owyhee Herd though she can seek “further relief” as to the planned round ups in the Rock Creek and Little Humboldt herd management areas. THIS means the hated BLM can just continue running and killing horses? Where are the foals who were too tiny to make it in the heat and running that fast on rocks?
As to Leigh’s First Amendment challenge to the closure of public lands during the gather, the court shall grant Leigh’s temporary restraining order. THIS means they cannot block the public from view the torture of the horses? Or what does it mean?
I see the Judge is just either spineless, lacking in intelligence, or has been influenced by the administration in allowing the BLM to continue to destroy the wild horses and to run them off their legal habitat. He also believes that asinine assertion by BLM that the horses are out of water on their lands, instead of realizing that it was the RUNNING of the HORSES in extreme heat while they were traumatized by the helicopter, affected by the extreme heat, and it was the treatment by BLM that caused deaths. Pray tell, in all these years that the horses have lived happily, and in good health, on land that as I understand is by LAW assigned to them, suddenly there is no water there and BLM takes on the fake facade that they are helping the horses, haha. Sorry, but that won’t fly with intelligent people, . Oh, and by the way, the assertion about water isn’t bothering the cattle that ranchers like Salazar have confiscated land for, nor the pipeline that is set to run through the horses’ land, is it? We seek justice, but our system and the Judicial system are both flawed, and this Administration looks the other way from the deaths, torture and suffering of all animals who are under the auspices of Kenneth Salazar.
WAKE UP AMERICA AND SAVE OUR HORSES?
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Our government appears to be ran by all the people whose agenda it is to somehow make money ( the cattle industry is at the back of all this and that asshole Salazar) off the deal. The oil industry, and pharmaceutical companies are currently telling the president what to do. He’s just as bad as they are. I’ve read that cattle herds are owned by corporations. The BLM is just another pawn in the game of money making. I personally hate the BLM.
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Frank, I think we are smack dab in the middle of a BIG HOUSECLEANING.
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Its very far from perfect and at least does allow time to look at the other 2 areas. We can only pray for the Owyhee horses. We got knocked on the Calico herd for not introducing subjects into our complaint. Why is the BLM suddenly able to ammend their position and add information that was not in their original papers???? How does that work??
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Our mountain tops severed, our oceans polluted, our air foul, 90% of sea life depleted. A handful of wild horses here, a handful there and they to only to be remembered in memory. We have lost this place. The home of the brave and the land of the free. Swept away by one more ruling in the name of enterprise. I’m neither brave no free here. My bravery taken by the governments might and my freedom taken by its helicopters. Why do we stand and salute something which is a lie?
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Well, Frank, it’s really been that way from the beginning of this country. Most of us who post here didn’t have the right to vote back then, if married, we were our husband’s chattel; if you were a white, male property owner, you were “equal”, but the rest of us, nope. Back in 1865, black MALES got the right to vote, the rest of the population didn’t until 1920, and only got it then because enough women stood up, protested, were willing to go to jail and fought for it.
When the powers that be want the land, for whatever reason, they move what’s on there off and take it(see the Trail of Tears, as one example). they want the west for whatever, and the horses have to go, Manifest Destiny isn’t over just because the Native Americans and the Bison are gone. we are destroying our world and not too many people seem to get it. once it’s all gone, WE will be gone too.
Whatever is out in Nevada that the greedy guys want is way more important than the horses’ lives and freedom, that’s for sure.
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Ya, but once the brave fought back, , women fought to vote, a woman got the Mustangs a law, another sat in the front of a bus. Why is it we now are so puny in the face of the robber barons?
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people ARE fighting back, but sometimes even the good fight doesn’t end in victory( the Sioux and the Black Hills for one) also, most of the fights you mention, took years before there was even a small victory.
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latest update from BLM:
Gather operations began at 6:30 a.m. By 8:30 a.m., 107 animals were gathered and temperatures were at 79 degrees F. Auditors from the Office of the Inspector General are at the gather today. One foal was euthanized due to complications related to water starvation/dehydration.
75 studs were shipped to Gunnison Prison Wild Horse Training Facility at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah. The Utah State Veterinarian will be at the facility to check the animals on arrival.
Gathered: 107 (by 8:30 a.m.) Deaths: 1, Total deaths 14
Total shipped: 112 (37 mares and foals to PVC; 75 studs to Gunnison
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Jan, right on. This battle has been going on since the dawn of time. It’s always been a matter of which side you choose. There might be more on the Earth than at any time in recent history, and technology is such that everything moves at the speed of light. Some wise person said that the journey is a spiral road, going upward and forward so slowly that it is hard to tell that you are making progress.
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just a comment: I may be wrong; however the Tuscarora Toll may be up to 15 here is how: The original 12; plus a mare who was transported to PCV from Tuscarora perished; that makes 13; then another foal; that makes 14; then this foal up above makes 15 Mustangs: I COUNT FOALS ! “Remember the Tuscarora Fifteen !
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yeah; I think I am correct; The BLM report says: Toll is 14; however this does not include the Mare transported to PCV; “who didn’t make the journey; unfortunately…thanks to the BLM Clowns !
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And then more died when brought in today. 17 now… and how many can handle the trip to Utah?? Or to PVC? If you live close enough to PVC go and take a look and tell us how these horses are doing, please. mar
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