Also alarming is the three strike rule the BLM has. Under that ruling, horses that are offered up for adoption three times and fail to find a home can be destroyed. While in BLM possession, the horses are often kept in poor holding facilities and have suffered brutally at the round ups.
Oklahoma's branch of the BLM is the one of few, if not the only, holding facility that even remotely mirrors that of the open pasture land these horses are used to.
According to the BLM there are approximately 38,000 horses on the range but just this year alone, there are plans to gather very close to, if not more than 10,000 horses on the BLM website.
This means that efforts to protect these horses and find them permanent homes, or better yet, large amounts of sanctuary acreage, are more essential than ever.
Last weekend, I met two young women who had a slew of mustangs they had rescued. At least two of the horses were pulled back from the brink of slaughter by the girls. They were passionate about spreading the word and rallying people to fight for the rights and preservation of these horses.
The horses themselves showed extraordinary promise in their training. Already, the newly adopted ones were standing calmly and had been hauled in a trailer to an arena where I met them. Only one brand new colt was unruly. Then, he was no more so than some young horses I've seen that have been domesticated their whole lives.
These girls were proof that people are standing up for these animals just like the Lifesavers Horse Rescue that saved 169 horses from being killed in Nevada in July, 2010 and 101 more in September. There needs to be more people like this because the fate of the horses sent to slaughter gets worse than just death.
According to the rescue website, these horses are sent in crowded dangerous trailers and are often injured in transit. Once they arrive at slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico, they are stunned by a stun gun to the head, often with the shooter missing the correct spot on several attempts. Then their throats are cut and they die a slow death. These beautiful animals become meat, considered a delicacy for many other countries.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
And if you live in Wyoming, don't forget to vote for Sue Wallace!
Dave
2 - Valerie James-Patton
Thank you for the wonderful article!
To Dave:
Hopefully, anyone who cares enough about horses to read this article, would never vote for Sue Wallis, aka: Slaughterhouse Sue. She has a lunatic obsession to open a horse slaughter plant in Wyoming for the slaughter of both domestic and wild horses, and feed horse meat to prisoners.
Campaigning for Wallis certainly doesn't fit in with this article.
3 - LindsayWhelchel
Thank you so much Valerie and thank you also for bringing attention to the issue with Sue Wallis. I had no idea about her. Many people just continue to shock me with their heartlessness when it comes to those in need, animal or human...
4 - Barbara Warner
Many thanks for this article favoring our American wild horses. They are a native, re-introduced species.This has been proven by DNA and paleontological studies done on the remains of Equus caballus that date back millions of years. Wild horses are a national treasure and were supposed to have been ptotected and preserved, but the Bureau of Land Management under Secretary of Interior Salazar is breaking the 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act. Roundups are so extensive along with birth control to mares and gelding of stallions and even 1 year old colts that these magnificent horses will soon be extinct. Please call D.C. lawmakers at 202-224-3121 and President Obama at 202-456-1111 and demand that all roundups be stopped now.
5 - MJ Wilson
BLM's a rouge agency committed to the genocide of our wild horses. Salazar and his henchmen such as Cattoor are making a good life for themselves from our wild horses blood.
Slaughterhouse Sue is running an illegal non-profit, is an irresponsible over-breeder of horses, at the expense of the Am. taxpayer. She's being exposed for what she is, a money grubbing horse killer.
6 - Susan Emory
Thank you SO much for this excellent article, Lindsay! Our Wild Horses are in very real danger of planned extinction.
America's Wild Mustangs are being captured at an alarming rate. Once we have lost their precious heritage DNA, it can never be brought back.
Please don't let this happen: share this!
7 - Carol VanHoesen
If only they will see.
8 - Suzanne Moore
I hope that comment about voting for Sue Wallis was intended as a joke. Even so, it's out of place here.
Excellent article, Lindsay! Awareness is desperately needed if we are to save our American Mustangs from the government agency determined to eradicate them from their native ranges.
Thank you!
9 - michelle
I had the priviladge back in 1980 of seeing a herd a wild mustangs just out of Reno... I will never forget... it has to be one of the most awesome things I have ever seen... I get chills when I remember seeing them running wild