Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Wild horse advocates sue BLM over sterilization

Wild horse advocates have asked a federal judge to order the Bureau of Land Management to allow them to observe sterilization of wild mares, calling the planned procedures, experimental, invasive, inhumane, outdated and dangerous. The Cloud Foundation and the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign sued Neil Kornze, BLM director, and other agency officials Monday in U.S. District Court in Oregon, where the BLM plans to perform the sterilization in conjunction with Oregon State University. “A court order declaring the BLM’s restrictions on public access unconstitutional and requiring the BLM to provide access to observe and record the BLM’s wild horse sterilization experiments at the Hines Corrals would protect the First Amendment rights of the advocates” and allow them to provide the public with information about the horses treatment, the suit says. Wild horse and burro herds double in size about every four years, according to the fact sheet, and the BLM keeps many of the animals in holding facilities. As of June, the agency held more than 45,000 of the wild horses and burros in holding facilities. The BLM awarded a research grant to Oregon State to conduct three “sterilization experiments on wild mares at the agency’s corral facilities in Hines, Ore.,” the suit says. The sterilization methods include removal of both ovaries, using a “highly invasive surgical technique disfavored by veterinary experts because of the high risk of death and injury to both mare and its foal if the mare is pregnant, which is usually the case with respect to wild horses removed from the range,” the suit says...more

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Something needs to be done pronto to help solve this problem. Locally we have 30-40 head of horses roaming w/ no feed and little water. Some number of them are killed in collisions w/ motor vehicles each year. There must be a better way.

drjohn said...

spaying a mare is invasive surgery cost 150 to 250 or more hour of surgery with possible peritonitis resulting. castration 10 minutes 50.00, very little chance of infection. it is the stallions stupid