The Bureau of Land Management’s roundup of the “Red Desert Complex” in Wyoming is an annihilation of five wild horse herds.
The amazing wild horses (and burros) who have lived freely on over 705,000 acres of taxpayer funded public lands in the Red Desert area in southern Wyoming are now running in fear, fighting for their very lives.
Five herds made up of more than 2,400 wild horses are being brutally chased down, separated, traumatized during a round up during the largest wild horse helicopter roundup in the program’s history.
The BLM’s goal is to remove approximately 2,400 wild horses from the Antelope Hills, Crooks Mountain, Green Mountain, Lost Creek, and Stewart Creek Herd Management Areas (HMAs). It is clear the BLM is in lockstep with the livestock industry as the decimation of these herds is in opposition to the will of the American people.
Further proof of the BLM’s “manage to extinction” policy is evident as they are permitting 20,995 privately-owned sheep and 9,753 cows to graze in this same public lands habitat while gutting the wild horse population which has lived for centuries in this area.
The BLM plan is to reduce the wild horse population to an “Appropriate” Management Level” of just 480-724 within the complex. This basically amounts to having just 1 horse per every 1,500+ acres. Three of the HMAs will have just 65 or fewer horses remaining when the roundup is over leaving herds with little to no genetic viability.
Now more than ever, we must demand an immediate moratorium on roundups along with a Congressional investigation into the BLM’s blatant and widespread animal welfare violations plus their failure to comply with Congressional directives to use fertility control as a humane alternative to brutal roundups.
Contact your elected officials in Congress through www.senate.gov and www.house.gov to reinstate full protections for wild horse and burro herds as designated in the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burros Act.