The past few weeks a massive roundup of reservations horses and ferals on BLM land has taken place with the goal of removing 10,000 horses all together. My understanding is this is a government operation to reduce the numbers. I have learned that the foals, no matter the age, were taken from the mothers and all adults have been shipped to slaughter. The weanlings, many as young as 3 weeks have been pouring in to the kill buyers pens. I purchased one of them among a group effort of saving 100 babies from shipping to slaughter. I never got to meet him because he had a hoof that was so severely injured the coffin bone was detached and his hoof was sloughing off. Euthanasia was his only option. Through his tragedy I have learned these tiny babies virtually never make it during the roundup because they are trampled to death. Many are crushed and injured then stand for weeks in crowded pens, awaiting shipping. My question is “Has anyone on the forum seen how these roundups are done?” I just hope next year we can figure out a way to prevent the trauma these tiny babies go through. So far of the 97 saved, with our group effort, 6 have died or had to be put to sleep and many many more are just hanging on due to malnutrition, respiratory infections, cellulitis and serious leg and crushing injuries. This is so unnecessarily cruel and my heart is breaking for them. You can see the babies that we saved on Kaufman 100 on FaceBook. Any ideas how we can make sure this doesnt happen next time, and there will be a next time.
I think you need to slow down and find out the truth before becoming overreactive
The BLM can not ship directly to slaughter, they do ship to their long term holdings and currently have 56,399 head in off-range pens and pastures
https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-and-burro/about-the-program/program-data
When I see “Kaufman” used these days it is generally being used as hot point to raise an emotional reaction
Hmmm. Two catastrophic posts in a row. You are having a bad week.
I’m not sure where you are coming from but the weanlings have arrived and been sold for the past 2 months. Here is a link that might bring you up to speed: https://wildlife.org/blm-removing-wild-horses-across-west/
You should remove your post about Kaufman pens. he is just the middleman, one of many.
This is not a valid source, it would be better to get your information straight from the Bureau or .gov sites in this case.
Straight from blm.gov:
“It has been and remains the policy of the BLM not to sell or send wild horses or burros to slaughter…. The bill of sale, among other things, states that the buyer agrees not to process any of the sold horses or burros into commercial products, or to knowingly sell or transfer ownership to any person or organization whose intent is to commercially process the animals.”
That said, any gathering of feral horses on non-BLM managed land would be out of the Bureau’s control.
In Canada we have semi feral horses running on indigenous lands, and they are band property to dispose of as they like.
@LeatherLover please remove BLM from the title. These are not BLM horses, but they are horses off the reservation. My Facebook feed has blown up about this as well. I came here to start a post asking for more information about this and found yours.
The post I looked at on Facebook just mentioned their foals came from a kill pen. It did not say if the mares were wild or domestic stock. My concern is that people (breeders) are dumping horses cheap. Last week there were a bunch of Arabian foals going through the killpens. Perhaps this is the newest way the killpens have found to raise money. Sell the foals and ship the mares. If it’s a riding mare they probably are selling them as riding stock. If it is a feral reservation horse, it ships.
The roundups are brutal. I used to get emails about the BLM mustang ones but had to stop as they were running horses into barb wire with their helicopter and killing foals. It was too gruesome. Especially getting pictures…
Reservation horses don’t have the protection the BLM horses do and my understanding is they can go to any buyer, including kill pens. But it’s not just reservation mares being run through kill pens.
What auction are you seeing these foals at? I’m going to see if our local rescue group can take some, but it’s a long way to ship, to get them here. We might need to start networking rescue groups and have one group hold the foals until they are stable enough to ship east. Especially if there is a great deal that need rescue.
I think OP is confusing BLM mustang gathers and reservations thinning their herds, which are two separate things.
If these are reservation horses, the methods used to round them up, sort, and sell is on the reservation/owners of the herd, it has nothing to do with the BLM. It sounds like this group of foals came from a reservation in Wyoming?
I have a 3 year old who was caught up off a reservation in WA and sold at auction as a young weanling (likely 2-3mo). He’s a neat little guy. But he’s not a BLM mustang.
Digging into this some more, I found some articles from last year that pertain to the Wind River Reservation horses being gathered:
From the second article, “Tribal entities are not subject to the provisions of the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, Hnilicka said, so they are “not restricted in how they manage their horses” like the BLM and U.S. Forest Service are.”
and
“Feral horses – which are “not descendants of the wild mustangs” – have caused “severe overgrazing in upland range and riparian habitats, altering plant composition, degrading water quality and severely outcompeting native wildlife like bighorn sheep, mule deer, antelope, elk, and moose,” the governor’s memo states.”
So, OP is sort of correct that “government” is or was involved, at least in providing some assistance with reducing the massive tribal horse population, but it wasn’t a BLM activity and they aren’t BLM mustangs. There is also turmoil over massive BLM gatherings in WY herd management areas, but that is a different issue and unrelated to these feral babies.
Without more information, there is no way to know if the tribe actually shipped them to auction or if someone bought a truckload of horses from them to take to auction for a quick buck. The ones in the PNW are bought up by traders, “halter broke” in the most basic sense, barely able to lead, and people will pay $800-1000 at auction for a flashy colored weanling, $300-600 for a more plain one. Easily doubles their money or more. They fib and advertise them as “range bred QH, raised on a big ranch” and buyers flock to them. Unfortunately, many of these babies end up with well-intentioned people who have no idea how to raise them and it doesn’t go well.
As for how to make sure the babies survive next time, I don’t think there is much you can do. Tribal herd numbers are out of control and need to be reduced - before they starve to death, and it sounds like resources are very limited. Perhaps gathering them at a later time of year would help, but I imagine the weather in WY makes that nearly impossible. I’m sorry OP’s baby had to be euthanized.
